Hello,

I understood how ES combat mechanics worked with the cards.  Depending on what card you picked not only affected your stats directly (attack, defence, repair), but depending on what the enemy picked, those stats could again be modified further (enhanced or downgraded).

I have yet to understand if any of the tactics the enemy picks in ES2 combat can change anything like they did in ES. eg. do some tactics "block" others like they did in ES?

I understand that in combat, the game can group the fleet ships in to up to three "formations" if there are enough ships to fill the default middle formation.  Each tactic card has a "global" effect like "+75% shield absorption on all ships, -10% damage on weapons modules".  They then also have a "range" specified for each of the three formations.

I understand that the combat has three phases (long, me and short range) and weapons have different strengths at different ranges like they did in ES, but I have yet to understand the significance of picking a tactic that places the different ship formations at long, med or short range.  Won't the ships always just fire at each of the three ranges once every combat anyway?

I don't have an exceptional grasp of the combat yet, but I think it goes something like this.

ES2 doesn't have the three forced phases anymore. Instead, your ships will stay at whatever range you tell them to; short, medium, or long, as decided (seemingly) by your chosen card and flotilla formations.  You can examine the overall effectiveness of these formations (and, indeed, resort them) by pressing the "advanced" button (the + sign) when initiating a combat. This is also where you can find more detailed information on yours opponents' ideal weapon ranges etc.

The cards do have basic effects in this game too, just like ES1, like the +55% hull resilience one. That being said, I don't yet understand how your opponent's choice of range factors into your performance, if at all. Maybe someone else can shed some light on that.

testy wrote:

I could imagine maybe the range of each of the three phases of combat (1st/2nd/3rd) to maybe occur like this depending on the ranges selected in the tactics by each side:

                    LONG            MED              SHORT

LONG           L/L/L                      

MED            L/M/M          M/M/M

SHORT         L/M/S           M/M/S         S/S/S

But till, it doesn't make sense that if both players selected short range that no medium or long range combat would occur.  Units closing in on each other to get to short range MUST pass through long and medium range to get to short range. Maybe each of the three phases are broken up in to three micro-phases/rounds so that at least one round of long range combat can occur if both sides pick short range (eg. both sides picking short range would require both sides to immediately charge towards each other.  Maybe in this case the first  of the three micro-rounds of the first phase of combat occurs at long, the second at medium and third (final one of the first phase) occurs at short).

Remember, one side phases in at the start of battle. They're not phasing in 10km away then closing to 3km. They're just phasing in at 3km if they want to start at short range.

Bump

Still not understood.  Surely someone can explain.

The range at which you fight depends on the range that you choose and the range chosen by your opponent.

If you both chose short then you have 3 phases of short range (in the table previously posted marked as S/S/S).

So in that situation missiles are not fired at all (but if you have missiles why would you choose short range?)

Things get more complicated when you have multiple flotillas. 

Don't have any table for that but I think this is long range most of the time.

Hi,

You can find some explanations about combat and especially ranges / trajectories in my post here: 

https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space-2/blog/497-horatio-update-focus-on-the-space-battle#post-927

The last dev blog about space battles could also interest you:

https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space-2/blog/515-riftborn-update-focus-on-changes-around-the-battle

We talked about the advanced report and the overview camera which both give you info about the ranges!