Before I begin, since this is my first time posting here, I feel obligated to express my gratitude to everyone at Amplitude studios for making these awesome 4x games.  I have played a lot of strategy games in my time and the design of ES1 was some of the most compelling I have seen (the sowers still have to be my favorite faction in a 4x game of all time).  In this post, I am aiming to give some feedback on my experience with the combat system in ES2 so far and the biggest issues that I experienced with ES1's combat system.  

Speaking of ES1, the one single issue that prevented me from spending more time with it than I did was the combat but the issue I had was not with how the combat worked; it was with how much of it there was.  Nothing killed my desire to finish a game more than the seemingly infinite hordes of spacecraft the AI would throw at you on endless difficulty.  After the 10th auto-calc on a single turn the combat starts to lose any feel of actual importance but after the 30th auto-calc it becomes a tedious and frustrating chore.  If there is one thing before I release I would implore, it is that fleet battles feel meaningful towards the late-game.  Larger fleet sizes might achieve this along with the resource restrictions for modules that already seem like a significant step in the right direction.  I'm not going to act like I have the perfect fix for this (and it already may be addressed well enough) I just had to bring this issue up as it is my single greatest fear going into ES2.

Now, on to ES2's combat system.  While the removal of tonnage stripped away one aspect of weapon identity (tonnage efficiency was interesting) I think the weapon classes have been handled really well in its abscence and with the right numbers should all see use.  I especially like the pairing of weapon overlap that has a lot of potential to see dual weapon pairings on most fleets e.g. opal lasers and torpedoes allowing significant efficiency in both long and medium ranges and against different types of defense or the short range beams and the high-I slugs working in a similar way (a bit more all-in on short though).  What I don't like about the combat system currently are the three different phase selections.  Currently, the system seems more focused on picking a response to your opponent’s choice than one in which your weapons do well.  However, this isn't the main reason I dislike it, even if it was more about picking the most compatible phase for your weapons it still wouldn't be very good, imo.  My biggest issue with the system is that it seems like a pure rehashing of the weapon range system in another screen.  I already made the decision about what range my weapons would be most effective in, why am I making it again before every battle (or simply playing rock because I know my opponent will play scissors).  

I don't want to pretend I have any perfect solutions but I don't want to just complain either, so here are some of my thoughts for pre-battle choices.

Formations—I would love to see formation choices be about the composition of your fleet compared to your opponents (the number of ships you both have and their roles).  Three basic formation ideas that immediately come to mind are Envelopment (aggressive), Line (standard), Wedge (defensive).  The different variables these formations could modify would be the duration of different combat phases, the accuracy of weapons in each phase, and how exposed your different classes of ship are to enemy fire.  

Line—The baseline formation with no significant advantages or disadvantages.  Does not modify the duration of any phases, grants full accuracy in every phase, and does not focus on protecting any specific class of ship (does not necessarily expose them either, weakest in the back of the line perhaps).

Envelopment (or Arc)—A formation that attempts to close quickly and utilize superior numbers to gain an advantage in close quarters combat.  I think of this as the quintessential craver formation.  Reduces the duration of the long and medium range phases (perhaps the long is cut more than the medium phase).  Receives significant penalties to accuracy in the long phase and perhaps minor ones in the medium phase (the fleet is more focused on maneuvering than firing) during the short phase receives a significant bonus to accuracy.  Support ships are completely exposed in the center of the formation while the main battle ships make up the flanks.     

Wedge—A defensive formation where the fleet is more concerned about protecting its more vulnerable ships and maintaining its formation than it is about advancing on the enemy.  Significantly increases the duration of the long and medium phases but also inflicts a penalty to accuracy in both phases.  Support class ships are well protected by the more stalwart ships.     

Generally, Line>Wedge>Envelopment>Line (I think it has potential to be a little more than R/P/S though) 

These are just some initial ideas, I think the system could be greatly expanded on by granting different degrees of accuracy penalties and bonus in certain formation match-ups.  For example, the line formation could receive an additional penalty to accuracy against the envelopment formation during the short phase (which seems logical but also perhaps balanced).

When I was mulling it over, it seemed that a system in this vein would encourage the same fleet to respond to different compositions in different ways.  A fleet focused on long range weapons may still take wedge (even with its accuracy penalty) against a fleet they fear might envelope them simply to draw the phases out longer before they have to fight in close range.  

Bringing back targeting commands (forget their exact name but free fire, nosebreaker, etc) from ES1 might contribute a lot to this formation system by punishing envelopment for leaving its support vulnerable or allowing a line formation to focus fire the leading ships in a wedge formation.  

Anyhow, that’s my 2 cents on combat so far.  I know it probably isn’t terribly useful but I felt obligated to give what constructive feedback I could.  Cannot wait to see what future updates bring, my hopes are sky-high for this game.