It seems a major issue is that Fighters and Bombers don't scale well within the tech system, so why not disconnect their upgrades from it?

We have a perfectly functional UI foundation from the Manpower upgrade and organization screen we can use to make sure people upgrade their fighters and bombers in a slow, granular, fair way that doesn't just skip from Normal Fighters to Super Fighters in one step, and doesn't chew up even more Research screen real estate.

As for issues with Shields, they could just stop being Defensive modules. Make them into Support modules, forcing players to choose between Utility and Tankiness on their Coordinator and Defender ships, and Durability vs Offense on Attacker and Hunter ship. Currently there is no real tradeoff between Shields and Hull because they do the same thing, but Shields do it worse; I fear that even if they're fixed they won't make for an interesting choice, because they're Rock-Paper-Scissors but with only two elements at play, Energy and Kinetic. If the other guy takes the Red defense you need the Blue attack, and vice versa, so it becomes like tic-tac-toe, where the winner either went first or brought in an unrelated third advantage, like sheer DPS from better tech or more ships.

My suggestion would flip a lot of Tactics and Skills and necessitate an overhaul, but I might as well make the suggestion if nobody else is.

Bombers and Fighters are equivalent to tier 2 weapons. Advanced versions are tier 3 weapons. The problem is not with adv. bombers being on 5th ring but adv. fighters being on 4th. Why are you putting tier 3 weapon on ring 4 when all other tier 3s are in ring 5? Why are you putting two modules of the same type in adjacent rings when all other module lines have 1 ring of separation between upgrades of the same module? Putting advanced versions of them in ring 4 just after normal ones will just make everybody skip the normal ones because advanced ones are right behind.

Regarding fighters dealing high damage to ships a flat damage reduction vs ships would be in order yes. 10% is overkill though. You mentioned that you wanted to avoid making a dedicated aniti-bomber flak weapon because players don't like wasting slots on countermeasures that might or might not be useful. But by reducing the fighter damage to such low numbers vs ships they are essentially turned into a glorified flak turret whose only purpose is to kill bombers. On the other hand if you don't nerf their damge they are basically superior to slug weapons because they deal much more damage to bombers AND ships. 

Overall the biggest problem with combat right now is extremely weak shields

https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space-2/forums/66-game-design/threads/26245-projectile-vs-energy-weapons-unbalance?page=1

For now I would just make fighters not attack ships at all and actually increase their damage vs bombers to make them that flak turret. Quick and dirty bandaid solution but good enough for now. Trying to balance weapons and strikecraft (and all other weapons) will be futile until the defense unbalance is fixed since everything depends on it. It doesn't really matter what you do to fighters and bombers now since they're gonna be much worse than energy weapons in almost every situation anyway just because of how the defenses work right now.

Yes I know but they are still harder to land than missiles, that can also shoot from a flottilla to another flotilla. Same as FBs that are able to change their target without considering flotillas but tactical card choice.

So, another update, another month of progress towards a better ES2. Now that we have received a highly anticipated update, specifically due to strike craft, we are getting to a point where the game is getting entertaining for longer than the first initial days. I understand that overtime this game will grow, it will be like a Civ5 or another disharmony, where the initial releases are plagued with annoyances, only to evolve into a rather worthy game.  This update supports that understanding. Understand that nothing I say here, even if it seems passive aggressive, or outright aggressive, is intended in that way. I am here to provide critical feedback and help shape the game in my little way, as I have with the modding scene concerning other games.

Its brutal honesty time.

Let’s start with some positives. 

• There are a number of really nice UI updates, and quality of life enhancements. For instance you can distinguish destroyed planets from whole planets, or of course the changes to the market UI. I also love the new menu ships. There is not only new races being represented, but also more ships on one screen. Very nice.
  
  
• The Vodyani have a way to stay competitive with passive essence generation. Admittedly the essence gen is through a change in religious law, making a completely non-religious Vodyani an obvious handicap, but still a good change in the right direction.
  
  
• For some reason, although I can’t put my finger on why, the Unfallen feel like they are different. It’s different in a positive way, I can’t really explain it.
  
  
• Free move is obviously a key addition that couldn’t have come soon enough.
  
  
• Pirate fleets now form large groups from smaller groups, indicating the merge mechanic is working. Again, couldn't have come soon enough.
  
  
• Riftborn population changes are exceptional.
  
  
• Beams are useful now, the addition of medium range makes them essential on fleets for that extra punch.
  
  
• The AI is noticeably smoother and upgrades its fleets at better intervals.
  
  
• There were some great quest line updates, such as the human + celestial vines interaction when being gifted Tratiors Reach.
  
  
• No save data corruption when using older saves.
  
  
• Strike craft, couldn't have come soon enough.

But now, let’s get to the negatives.

• I am several games in, past 100 turns, I have yet to see any AI use strike craft, yet several are at carriers.
  
  
• Small hulls, even for specific races, can never, by design, equip strike craft.
  
  
• For some reason, Lumeris have visible, animated models, of strike craft exiting their small attack corvette hull, and they have visiable hanger bays. One could effectively argue that the Lumeris corvette is actually a mini-carrier by design. But yet is has been made clear that no strike craft will exist on small hulls in the official release. Question, why imply that Lumeris ships can get strike craft on their small hulls from beta 0, and then not go through with it, but also leave the animations in? Come on, Devs Plz!
  
  
• No dedicated module locations for strike craft exist, as one would expect given hanger bays clearly exist on ships, visibly. One should not have to sacrifice guns for strike craft on carriers, at the very least.
  
  
• Strike craft operate just like guns do, where they seem to be limited by angle of attack. My craft only seem to attack with half their potential wings when placed in locations that side mounted guns exist. Possible bug, or possible bad code because it could be adopting the gun logic.
  
  
• No resource upgraded versions of strike craft exist. There are however supporting modules that take up valuable space. YAY!
  
  
• Strike craft seem to be horrendously balanced. Presumably, they can only be effectively countered by other strike craft. Bombers annihilate unprotected fleets without any fucks given.
  
  
• The nerf to kinetics in response to its new anti-strike craft function, has reduced the overall effectiveness of the weapon where it is now shit tier in comparison to beams.
  
  
• No dedicated modules exist to defend against strike craft, beyond other strike craft. It was criticized to high hell that making kinetics triple in its usage would be a bad move. Well, here we are.
  
  
• Strike craft are limited to kinetic damage type.
  
  
• Strike craft visuals are static and unnatural to great displeasure. Not only do they fly as a box like groups, but they do not undock from the parent ship as one would expect. They jump in as one unit. Its just uncomfortable and implies the parent ship is unnecessary.
  
  
• When a Vodyani ark is destroyed, the victor gains the system as if the system were not Vodyani controlled. This is illogical. The Vodyani live or die on the ark. You don’t conquer them into your empire.
  
  
• Hero experience gain between system and fleet is still massively off. The decision to nerf the system gain was good, but the relative lack of attention to fleet heroes seems bizarre. There are plenty of ways to balance this. 

That should summarize my experience with the patch thus far. Now, please devs, I would really like you to take what I say here on advisement. Think of the future. I would like to just set out a list of “MUST HAVES”, that if given the chance to implement, I would. I have been strongly considering learning how to mod this game, for the express purpose of implementing these ideas, likely calling it “graysmod”. Anyway, please, I would LOVE to see any of this implemented in the official game

Empire, factions and gameplay related changes.

• In ES2, beyond Harrow and The Academy, unique planets are just a minor bonus to a randomly generated system. The fact is, ES2 is currently void of “wonder” planets. Like seriously, don’t argue, this is not in the game and you know it. ALL unique planets need a purpose. They need a unique empire wide bonus to accompany them. Currently, unique planets are smoldering dumpster fires wrapped in sadness in comparison to what they were in Disharmony. Be creative, if you give players something worthwhile to fight over that only one person, and through them an alliance (hint hint) can have, you give this game a much needed element of strategy. It would mean that certain areas are worth having, and certain players might be worth allying with beyond who is a better friend in real life. Planets could give advantages that scale. Such as, per troops on system, empire wide bonus increases. Or per system level a bonus increases. Consider something new, something that was not in ES1, such as allowing the user to access ‘hidden’ wormhole networks that only they can see and use once the planet is theirs.
  
  
• All resources, luxury or strategic, become discoverable through probing at turn one. However, their yields are static and unknown to the player, but their exploitability is based on probe strength. As such, something that has been discovered at probe strength 1, will yield a base load of 1 regardless. But let’s say that planet has a deposit of 4 on it, and the player now has a strength of 2. In this case the player can exploit 2 of that resource. As the probe strength increases, a player much reprobe until they have accessed the full deposit. Due to this, a player has many more cards of the table when it comes to their opening moves. A player will understand their RNGesus hand with greater clarity, and be able to make informed decisions on what to dedicate towards.
  
  
• Given that all resources would be discoverable at turn one, modules of any sort that have resource alternatives, would only scale in tier strength based on their non-resource defaults. As such, if you have a lvl 1 beam weapon, but you have Quadrinx, you can only achieve lvl 1 Quadrinix empowered guns. Once lvl 2 defaults are unlocked, the previous become obsolete. Notice I said all modules, think about it.
  
  
• A player can choose to research any specific resource on either guns, defensive modules, support modules, or strikecraft, three times per game and category. These would be provided separately at various intervals of technological advancement on one of the four trees. As such. All resource based modules would be given a separate unlock section. It would be as if we gained a “research this to unlock hyperion support modules” option, and would operate much like the hyperion beams or pulse unlock.
  
  
• The only modules discoverable through probing would be modules that are entirely unique. They would either be hybrid resource modules, or modules that are simply, new. The modules would have lvl 1/2/3 variants, which would be probable at various strengths. The most advanced module would be the primary module, of course. Hybrids would not be a boring “best of both worlds” design. They would be an entirely new effect. Example, Hyperion/antimatter engines = if ship is killed, a portion of its health is dealt in damage to the adjacent enemy fleet. Or Adamantium/quadrinix repair module = repairs 2% HP per enemy CP killed, repairs each turn out of combat.
  
  
• Hybrid modules would only require the knowledge of one resource to be equipped, but would still require the respective resources In full.
  
  
• Hybrid modules should be expanded further in future updates to obtain three or more combinations.
  
  
• Modules gained through quest lines, such as sophon/vodyani engines, or craver/empire guns, would replace their default gun, becoming the base for resource modifications.
  
  
• The Era, or tier system of research is scraped specifically with the science inflation mechanic. A complete overhaul back to the original system for ES1 would take place.
  
  
• Faction specific, alternate modules and system improvements would make a return. Once again, these would be highlighted as yellow-orange in colour, and would give greater bonuses than the default versions.
  
  
• UI updates would bring back the colour coding system from ES1. Colour tabs would appear over the UI if the research focuses science = blue, combat = red, dust = yellow, food = green, happiness = pink, and influence = purple

Combat related changes

• We need better control over our fleets during combat planning. The current system is designed entirely around auto-resolve, which brings a massive amount of very restrictive problems to the table. I can imagine why the decision was made, mostly for simplicity I presume. I would plan to scrap the entire system and rebuild something new. Something which allows me greater control over my fleet in planning phase. The on rails mechanic is just boring unless I can have better control over the rails. Our current card system and the accompany card mechanic is not at all informative as to how it manipulates the movement of your fleet. Realistically, given the work required for a scrap and rebuild, I would plan it for an entire expansion, much like Civ5 did.
  
  
• We need at least 4 damage types, with their accompanying long, med, short range variants. We also require respective defensive modules, and more module slots on ships to accommodate the new possibilities.
  
  
• A new Dreadnaught hull, designed to carry guns, not strike craft. Like, lots of guns. This hull would have the advantage of being able to forgo large guns, carry a planet killer, while also maintain its small turrets.
  
  
• For the Vodyani, their dreadnaught becomes their Ark. The Ark would gain a completely seperate research tree.  
  
  
• Carrier hulls would be redesigned for the purposes of carrying strike craft. Dedicated module slots for strike craft would be implemented. When the hull upgrades, it would gain at most, a new large turret. The rest would be support modules and additional strike craft hangers.
  
  
• Large gun variants should have additional effects rather than be 2x small guns. The current mechanic, while attractive on the eyes, is just boring. For instance, large missiles will apply a splash effect, no matter what. Large kinetics will fire solid slugs like a battleship should, which would do bonus damage to unshielded targets. Large pulse lasers would not suffer a range penalty. And large beam lasers would ignore shields and be able to hit 25% long range.
  
  
• Ideally, when large guns are given a resource modification their additional effect would not be boring, as an enhanced small gun effect, it would be different an empowered version of the large gun effect plus a new effect on top of that.   

Thats about it. I know its ranty, but everytime i play ES2, i just wish i knew how to implement my own changes.


Thanks people, much love.
Gray.

I would put them as  a package deal.  Advanced fighters and bombers either BOTH in tech 5 or both in tech 4.  You just picked one of the most important research targets in the entire military tree to slap advanced fighters onto. 

Bombers are simply not useful for a different reason.  Your not going to like it, but its the truth. 

1) armor is too strong and shields are too weak. 

To increase there usefulness would require a defensive rework on the ships, or add penetration power to bombers.  Also I would highly recommend putting advanced fighters and bombers in the tech 4 military tree, just don't have EITHER accompanied by 16CC fleet's. 

I would focus on fixing the defenses of the ships then the fighters and bombers will come around naturally. 

Because I imagine generally we want the same thing.  Bombers to be a "OGM THAT FLEET HAS BOMBERS DFDSFJSHDKFHDS WE CAN"T ATTACK UNLESS WE HAVE FIGHTERs" kinda thing.  I don't think a nerf is in order for the fighters for the ship damage they do (its in a good position in-line with other things at the stage of the game) I would look strongly into a defensive rework to help balance the weapons.  Balance the weapons from the other side of the equation, beams too strong now, were too weak, ect.  Maybe looking at it from the armor/shield side might help a bit?

So to make bombers more useful, I would make them more scary to a fleet without fighters.  How you do that, is your job, my suggestion invovled balancing the equation from the otherside.  The easy way out is to give bombers penetration of some type.  (not sure if its possible)  

Also suggestion number 2, put advanced fighters and bombers in different techs in tier 4.   Neither tied to a CC boost.  That way a player can chose there focus.  

Second suggestion, give us fighters and bombers  (THe first set) on one tech, you have them split on the same tree in the beginning.  Now I would give them both on the Improved fleet management as a intro to fighters and bombers.  This tech was relatively unimportant.  Now it is.  Great news. (for MP)  And yes OP-Ex gear is important. Or keep them split. one on the bomber on the CC fighter on the opex gear.  But it makes more sense to give them both on a tech without CC (ie Improved fleet management) then you can chose your focus as you play.

BTW The second suggestion, is NOT AS IMPORTANT as the first, btw.  And a bombers usefullness is equated to "Can I ignore it? just blow the ship up" or my kinetics/armor will eventually take care of it I don't need to worry.  

Bombers should be scary for those big cap ships, your very much on the right track by increasing damage with bombers on the different ship sizes (IE small 50% damage, 100% med, 200% large)  The problem is not in the way they are set up now, the problem is in a  ships armor.  T

he most importan issues I guess I have, get advanced bombers on the same tier as advanced fighters, and get them both OFF of a tech that is tied to CC.  Pick any tech, just not that one.

Thanks for listening, btw who peaked in my steam profile to see how many hours I've logged... embarassed :-D  

Cheers, Plutar