I started playing Horatio and got into a fight with the Vodyani. We had a similar number of ships and seemingly superior tech so I used auto-resolve expecting a close battle. Instead, I got wiped out. I then looked at the ships' stats to see why.

The opposition:

The heroes:

 vs.

I tried using different cards and changing flotilla ship allocation, but the battle is impossible to win. The Vodyani ships have too much hull health (72%-78% more) at equivalent ranks (veteran). Even my Veteran III ships are inferior to their Veteran I's. This is despite the AI thinking the battles were 2/3 in my favor. While Vodyani ships do have the best scaling, even UE ships are better if I remembered correctly (a Veteran I battleship has around 4168 health). Is this intentional design? Or am I doing something very wrong? Has anyone else encountered something similar?

Their scout ship doesn't even start with a weapon.

Now granted, before anyone sees the images below, the Cravers I faced had a couple of big ships and fully upgraded fleet. I knew I should have upgraded my fleet before I set out from my empire, but Horatio ships take so long to create, I already felt like I was lagging behind in the space race. But yeah, five semi-large ships against three semi-large ships and six small ones should have been a little closer, me thinks. Or maybe that's just the difference between an upgraded fleet and non-upgraded one, still learning endless space :). So yeah, I agree that the Horatio could use a little more balancing, and I hope they get it cause I really like them more then I thought I would :). 

Are you using titanium/hyperium weapons and modules ? because if you do... well dont use the normal ones they are fully upgraded according to the era you get and better than anything made of titanium/hyperium only bested by antimatter the enemy uses those i changed my ships to those and won against a lumeris fleet my ships had less health sure but i have far more damage. 

solrac137 wrote:

Are you using titanium/hyperium weapons and modules ?

The weapons were all Tier 4 generics, and probably better than the AI's (at least according to the higher attack stat). I tried juggling around modules in the ship designer but there's no way I can match those Vodyani health numbers despite loading up on +hp modules (reached 3960hp & 1100 attack score with a normal Imposer hull, but the ship was Vet 3 and had too many plating modules - shields would be more useful against AI laser spam).

Here's a bigger battle with the same ships:

In the battle, the AI shreds my leading ships despite having inferior firepower on paper.

Meanwhile, their leading 4.2k-5k capital ships tank the damage completely. The battle ends in a complete loss. Perhaps it might have been a good idea to build tanky Coordinator cruisers to draw fire? The numbers  are still bad though, and I don't remember having such problems playing as UE or Lumeris. At least the AI doesn't actually dare to attack me because it thinks my paper strength is greater. The war was eventually won by sending small invasion fleets to snipe Arks. Fighting frontally just wasn't feasible. 

Maybe you should try mixing them with tanky coordinator ships as you said you have no defense. 

Playing Vodyani now, I can tell you those AI ships have some serious tank fits - your hulls don't easily reach that kind of bulk. 

Another thing to consider is your complete lack of protector or coordinator ships. I never build a fleet without at least some protectors, as they do a fantastic job at soaking up fire due to being targeted earlier along with innate defensive bonuses.

I did further testing with 3 coordinators and 2 protectors thrown in:

This means having one more coordinator than the enemy fleet. The tool was loaded with flotilla shield modules too. Held back on using carriers and upgraded battleships to make this "fair".

In a 34CP vs 26CP battle and with the average ship outranking the opposition (mostly Vet 3 vs Vet 1), the battle still resulted in a loss when "Power to Shields" was used (one of the better long range cards). Losses were disproportionate (24CP lost compared to 16 of theirs).

Now the AI sometimes uses bad cards, like using a short range one. This results in a win with "Hard Target". 

Lowering my CP to 26 (but still using more capital ships than the AI) and using Hard Target ends in a Draw (but with greater capital ship losses at 3 to 1). This was also despite the average ship being 2 rank levels above the AI's.

I'm just not convinced that throwing in more coordinators and protectors solves the problem. Even from just looking at the AI's Gourge and Brand ships (hunter ships without much defence modules), you can see that they vastly outclass the equivalent Horatio ship. Contrast this with the Veteran 1 UE battleship having 4168 health (while not sacrificing guns at all). All of this is while Horatio ships cost 25% more, and having the Hissho trait +20% to all weapons.

Horatio likes beautiful ships, not utility, oriented ones. Maybe that is the negative side of the faction. Very happy approval but very bad combat ships. 

Seems Horatio likes to zerg with beautifulness.

1) What's your defensive modules composition? Are there any fleet modifiers?

2) What armor or shields you're using?

3) Where's your hero in these battles?

vahouth wrote:

1) What's your defensive modules composition? Are there any fleet modifiers?

2) What armor or shields you're using?

3) Where's your hero in these battles?

1) On small hunters: all lasers on slots that can take weapons, titanium engine, 1 each of shield and plating, one +25% damage special module.

    Big ships: mix of missiles and lasers on all slots that can take weapons, titanium engine, 1:1 of shields and plating (but priority to shields if extra slots), one +25% damage special module.

    Fleet modifiers: total 12x +75 flotilla shield modules from Tool ships, +25% fleet costs, +20% fleet damage

2) All were tier 4 generics. Should be the same equipment available to the AI at the time, except for superior numbers and ranks.

3) Never have used fleet heroes in ES2, and neither has the AI. They level too slowly and become completely useless for a long time if they lose a battle. If the point was about winning that particular battle, I could throw more and bigger ships into the fight with a leading hero. But the point is that ship balance seems to be tipped against Horatio players. Having super citizens that cost so much food that systems stop growing doesn't offset the disadvantage. 

Here's the save if you want to try: imminent victory.zip