last night i had a game with the Vodyani on impossible difficulty. i was right next to the Horatio, and they declare war on me on turn 29, because I stole one of their settlement. anyway, i was able to repel the early aggression with my ark, since the Horatio was only sending 2 to 3 ships at a time. and once the AI realized he could not kill my ark, the Horatio asked for truce which i accept. 

i kept teching up, and unlock hyperium weapons later, and increased my fleet size to 10, and i already had 7 ark ships at around turn 60, and I think i was doing well. but just 2 turns later, the Horatio declared war on me again, and his CP was at 19. he had a much bigger fleet, made of small ships, and also only had the destroyer hull, however, my ships were much better teched. i already have hyperium beams installed on my destroyers, and ark ships, and my attack arks were fully armed, with every single weapon slot filled with hyperium beams. 

the game showed that my fleet had an attack power at around 7000, which mainly come from my attack ark, which had an attack power at around 6000, fully equiped with hyperium beam weapons, and energy weapon enhancer modules. the rest of my destroyers are also fully loaded with hyperium weapons, and they have two platings and 1 shield, each one of my destroyer had an attack power of 337. i had a total number of 1 attack ark which needs 4 cps, and 6 destroyers that each needs 1 cp, which is a total of 7 ships. 

the Horatio had an attack power at around 3800, they had 20 ships including 1 hero, because their fleet was only made up with corvettes and destroyers (only occupies 1 cp each), the highest dmg the Horatio had on a single ship was 226 and i thought, i would easily steam roll the Horatio, since i knew their ships do not have Hyperion weapons, and I had almost double the attack power. the Horatio ships were equip with two different weapons, slugs and tier 1 lasers. and some of their ships had only shields, and some of their ships had only plating, and rest are a mix between shield and plating. 

at the end of the battle, the Horatio wiped the floor clean, they did not lose a single ship, where as my entire fleet was destroyed. i could not believe this result, because the Horatio ships did not in any way counter my ships, since my ships were also a mix between shield and plating. so, i reload the save, and watch the battle, and i realized my ark was not firing for most of the time inside the battle, and when my ark was firing, only 1 weapon slot was firing, despite the fact that there are clearly three weapon slots on my ark. 

i'm very confused, does total attack power even mean anything in this game? i understand that in the late game, small ships will have no use since cruisers and battleships are tankier, and they have a lot of hp, which will take the small ships lots of attack to finish them off, while the cruisers and battleships have lots of gun, that can almost istantly melt the small ships. but in the early game when a player only have access to small ships, is it pointless to equip them with high tech weapons, instead the player should go for sheer numbers? 

thanks for reading

I go with bigger and add the other ships in for utility and for the focus. I am more interested in how the hell you got the AI to actually send ships at you. I play on endless and most of the time the AI is so passive and when they do attack they are so easy to repel as they don't build bigger ships.

On the ships I normally go hero + 1 protector + 3 attack then as I tech up go for 3 medium protectors and add others in as I get resources. Then late I normally add 2 carriers and that normally caps me. 

Do you turn pirates off? 

wraithghost wrote:

Do you turn pirates off? 

no i do not turn pirates off, the pirates are set on normal difficulty, game speed is fast, and minor civ difficulty at normal as well. and AI factions are set on impossible. maybe AI attacks have sth to do with game speed, who knows. 

Lemonwizard wrote:

Arks are uniquely vulnerable to swarming as a tactic. They're big huge ships with lots of hp, but they only have three weapon modules, and thus can only track three targets at a time. Your ark blazes through those three targets it is hitting with remarkable efficiency, but while it's doing so the other 16 ships are all focusing fire back on the ark. This adds up quickly. The ark will kill a few ships as it goes down, but they really cannot defend themselves against the swarm technique unless they're protected by a fleet of similar size to soak up some of the fire. If you've got an ark and only a handful of other ships against a fleet that just has a huge numbers advantage, you're likely to lose even if the power matchup favors you. Arks are just really bad at handling large swarms of small enemy ships.

great point, i watched the battle vids a couple of times, and it was indeed because of the number advantage that the Horatio had. if i also had 19 destroyers with Hyperium weapons, I would be the one that wipe the floor clean. 

This ark thing is also worth keeping in mind when the Vodyani are your enemy. A solo ark that's not upgraded can be taken down by a 7 cp fleet, even one which is half exploration ships, despite the battle matchup showing strength tilted pretty heavily toward the ark. That number you see for offensive power gets focus fired into super overkill on a few ships while the rest take the ark down. Additionally, arks are much stronger offensively than defensively. Their weapons are the deadliest thing around in the early game, but their hp is not nearly so strong. 

The power numbers on space battles can sometimes be misleading, and arks are in my view the #1 situation where this is the case.

Rule number one. The attack powet gauge can be overcome with tactics, also remember that this gauge is not based on actual strength.

Ark attack power has been greatly overrated since the start of endless space two.

Also white weapons are not very weak at all. The resource weapons are NOT much stronger, if horatio is at twenty cc he is likely using white weapons that are a tier above your fleets.  

so two things, cc is more important in most cases, and ark attack power has always been exageratted for some reason. I would quickly tech to 16 command points and then destroy the perfect man.

I have a feeling Ark is strong as indicated by the power gauge, but that's the dispersion of fire which cause a loose versus plenty minor ship. Need a confirmation about this, but when i watched a rapport of spatial fight with my Ark versus many ship (a loose battle) I've noticed that all ships where damaged a little, but few (only one) were destroyed.

You just have to play tactic card "barage fire". It should help.

i have seen a lot of comments on Steam, saying that there is currently a bug with the Vodyani Ark, which two of the three weapon slots will not fire, i think this also contributed to my defeat with the Horatios. 

https://steamcommunity.com/app/392110/discussions/0/1489992080512649040/

This ?

Inimicus wrote:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/392110/discussions/0/1489992080512649040/

This ?

Yes this is the thread i saw.