Anyone has any real idea or know of a guide on how space combat works ?

I know its not finished but I find it a bit frustrating not have a good idea on what is going on.

Thanks    

I will try to explain the combat as I understand it from my observations and knowledge of Endless Space 1.

Its probabble that I am wrong if so please correct as needed.

- Ships

Health - Damage it can take if at zero explodes

Offensive Military Power - Indication of how good the ship is damaging other ships (it is not used in combat)

Deffensive Military Power - Indication of how good the ship is surviving damage (it is not used in combat)

Command Points - How much a ship costs to be in a fleet you cannot have more Command Points spent on a fleet than your max (heros count as zero max 1 per fleet and Vodyani Ark ships can form a fleet alone even if execiding the maximum race Command Points)

Movement and Manpower are not used in space combat.

- Weapons

DPS - Damage per second the weapon inflicts

Critical Chance - Chance to cause extra damage or even damage modules (very much in the blind here,  % Per shot that hits ?  % Per second ? What does it do ?)

Type -  Energy and Projectile (looking at ES1 there are missiles that were projectiles that could be shot down, and it does seem to happen in ES2 how I dont know)

Range Bands - Long, Medium and Short Range effectiveness some weapons cannot fire at certain ranges.

- Defenses

Plating - Adds Health and projectile defense (in the blind here it seem that as in ES1 projectiles sometimes richochet)

Shield - Adds Health, Shield Bonus and energy defense (it seems to me that shields absorb some/all attacks until depleted I am thinking that  energy defense is a reduction to energy weapons damage)

- Battle Plan

Advanced - you can choose one of three ranges : Long, Medium or  Short, each of this ranges gives the fleet a bonus and is compared with the opponents choice possibly giving advantage  to one side (I dont know what that advantage is). Short range advantage over medium range, medium range over long and long after short. After this choice the player has no more control on the battle.

- Resolution

There are 3 combat phases Long, Medium and Short in which weapons that can fire at that range do so. Ships continue to fight until destroyed without any penalty due to low health it seems. How they decide which enemy targets to shoot at is unknow to me.

- Things that are not in the game at this time

Effects - it seems that enviroment will somehow affect the battle

Hull Bonuses - the hulls will have specific bonus that could affect battle

Squadrons - organizing your ships into groups for using their capabilities better

- Final thoughts 

The player has only one decision to make once battle is joined I think is not enough to make combat intresting

Retreat should do damage on a random base most of the time it is useless  because you will automaticlly loose the ships and so its better to try to damage the enemy.

As I said before this are my impressions please correct as needed, I know the combat system is not complete but understanding it can provide with better knowledge and better sugestions for changes.

From the sounds of it you have three classes of weapon.

Short ranged weapons counter medium ranged weapons, Medium counter long and long counter short.

So a fleet of snipers is best countered by medium ranged fighters and they are in turn countered by short ranged brawlers.

So a good mix of two or three of these weapon ranges should be the best but there are some exceptions If I recall.

Kinetics can counter enemy missiles and should fire the most often, making them great at killing many smaller ships. They don't do much damage however.

Energy weapons do a medium amount of damage but can be mitigated by shields. Best of both worlds, master of none.

Missiles are easily countered by enemy kinetic weapons and are slow to fire. They do immense damage however, making them great against large enemy ships.

If in any case you missed this... https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space-2/forum/66-game-design/thread/21403-early-access-space-battle (some infos, especially about range restrictions are outdated)

The range phases aren't as rigid as they used to be, btw; Currently each weapon has an actual physical range when determining to shoot, making fleet movement important: