Hi



I played a simgle player game with Sheradyn normal difficulty and 8 races



What I liked:



- Diffrent hulls for each race

- More race specific techs

- The chance of deciding effective range on weapons

- The Speical mods on the ships

- The Harmony faction (won the game science victory)

- The new Faction traits



What I didnt like:



- The computer builds too many ground only ships (and sends them unescorted against my fleets)

- There are a lot less space weapons to develop

- Too many gound combat tehcs (because ground combat is completly tasteless, in space you do choose a card, or not..)

- Fighters/Bombers even after the updade are weak

- The inability of using older tech on ships



About the last point (not able to use older techs) I read a post stating that it was game balance because ppl would build a lot of LCS (little crappy ships) and that would bog down the game as each fleet can only fight once per turn, and I admit that it might be a problem, but if weapon wise that might not be so bad with the other systems is terrible not to mention that you might find yourself without a certain resource and be unable to build...

I thought of a couple of points that could balance the problem of the LCS:

- Destroyer/Corvette huls tend to have good space combat bónus which makes them more effective than larger hulls in space combat if it was the other way arround I think it would be better

- Morale losses by loosing battles/ships

- Expotential costs for maintance on number of ships

- Maintnance costs for number of fleets

And I bet other people has more (and better) ideas.



Thanks



Krakenheim

There needs to be some way of making larger ships more attractive, to give some incentive to build them. Every time I put a dreadnought in a fleet, the AI chooses nosebreaker so it's the first ship to die. I feel forced to use destroyer spam to cut down my losses.

Use a formation that puts smaller ships ahead of your dreadnoughts.

Or make a dread thats pure defense and a pack of destroyers with it that are pure offense.

All weapon a and armour tech weighs the same and it is a STRAIGHT increase in effectiveness going form alower tier to anhigher tier. There is no reaosn to ever use lower tier tech (aside from not having a resource).



One day people will take the time to actually read the tech and realize there's nothing to be gained from downgrading your ship modules. You can't fit more, you do less damage, you have less defense.

Igncom1 wrote:
Use a formation that puts smaller ships ahead of your dreadnoughts.

I like this idea, but it still does not make dreadnoughts preferable to 4 destroyers.

Scrangos wrote:
Or make a dread thats pure defense and a pack of destroyers with it that are pure offense.

This doesn't make sense to me. Why put in the extra build time and CP cost when I can build 4 destroyers cheaper and faster and get the advantages of the additional fire power? Several people on this forum have pointed out that "overkill" tanking with destroyers is more efficient and losses can be replaced in less time. If they gave dreads a discount on fighter/bomber tonnage and made fighter/bombers more useful in combat, then I could see a reason to build them.

As weapon and defensive tonnage doest have a % cost, really dreads should still be preferable as huge war ships.

fatmanlittleboy wrote:


This doesn't make sense to me. Why put in the extra build time and CP cost when I can build 4 destroyers cheaper and faster and get the advantages of the additional fire power? Several people on this forum have pointed out that "overkill" tanking with destroyers is more efficient and losses can be replaced in less time. If they gave dreads a discount on fighter/bomber tonnage and made fighter/bombers more useful in combat, then I could see a reason to build them.

I have the same conclusion from my experience.



The only reason I build large ships is that the AIs deal with them poorly(even Endless difficulty).



The AIs with advanced technologies could take out one or two of your large ships in every battle, which is annoying because you have to move or build ships to fill in the vacancy.



But the AIs always pay too much attention to large ships, which makes your offensive ships safe to unleash lethal firepower without any single casualty.



Not to mention those with poor technologies, you can wipe out their fleets with zero losses.



Sometimes, the AIs' fleets notice offensive ships(zero defense) in the back, choose spread fire and cause serious damages.



But most of time they focus on big ships obsessively, which makes them vulnerable and easily manipulated.



The right formation is one or two large ships in the front (depend on the size of your fleet), others pure offensive.



Large ships with defense and other modules like repair, weaken the firepower of the fleet, so carefully select what you really need.



I would say defense => tonnage => repair, according to how fast you can build and your overall economy.



And any battle actions to boost the defense are helpful: Dust barrier, Ultimate Defense, Illusion, etc.

Igncom1 wrote:
Use a formation that puts smaller ships ahead of your dreadnoughts.

Please explain me how I can choose a specific formation. Is there some officially information out on that topic?

There is a button that says "formation" right in the combat interface. It is really hard to miss, given it's right above your card choices.

Autocthon wrote:
There is a button that says "formation" right in the combat interface. It is really hard to miss, given it's right above your card choices.

Thanks a lot, I never recognized that before. Guess I need to go to war now to learn how it works.

I feel that making a lot of modules %-based takes away the advantage a big hull gives you. Yes I can see the logic that a big hull would need a much bigger engline for example but right now I can pack in maybe double the weaponry of the next-smaller ship hull. Thats not a real advantage especially when you consider tech that affects fleets putting large ships at a disadvantage.



Big ships with pure defense dont work too well for me as well as the AI throws massive fleets of 1 CP ships at me simply overwhelming my defense by mass.



I think Dreadnaughts need some things to make em more attractive. Maybe (much) more health or some sort of "natural" armor. No hard data from me but I feel that large ships lost of a lot of value compared to classic Endless Space.

MTB-Fritz wrote:
I feel that making a lot of modules %-based takes away the advantage a big hull gives you. Yes I can see the logic that a big hull would need a much bigger engline for example but right now I can pack in maybe double the weaponry of the next-smaller ship hull. Thats not a real advantage especially when you consider tech that affects fleets putting large ships at a disadvantage.



Big ships with pure defense dont work too well for me as well as the AI throws massive fleets of 1 CP ships at me simply overwhelming my defense by mass.



I think Dreadnaughts need some things to make em more attractive. Maybe (much) more health or some sort of "natural" armor. No hard data from me but I feel that large ships lost of a lot of value compared to classic Endless Space.

Overall I have a similar feeling, there's many many plus for smaller ships:

- They screw up the percentage formula for many modules based on tonnage percentage and it's at advantage of small ships, check it's worst rates for big ships. Modules: Repair and Health Increase.

- Modules giving fleet bonus, the more ships the better. Modules: Repair, Engine, "Scout", Power

- For same CP value, small ships can carry more special modules and lower tonnage sum. Modules: Troops, Fighters, Bombers.

- For same CP value big ships cost a lot more.



Big ships don't bring any value for

- Tonnage per CP point.

- Speed

- Scout,

- More.



Big ships bring:

- Base health per CP better but this is a detail when they have a huge penality for modules increasing Health.

- Better theoretical survival because they group a larger amount of health. But that's a bit theoretical because of all the negative points.



So overall big ships seem pointless. But I haven't analyze enough to be sure that all options are weak and honestly I continue use some. The point is to know if 3 big ships in front could work well. Otherwise it's pointless.

Nook wrote:
Overall I have a similar feeling, there's many many plus for smaller ships...

It seems that no one mentioned that medium and large ships have high HP, and they won't get destroyed so easily.



Therefore, they can survive and enjoy the benefit from level up. (Of course I know all kinds of XP improvements, but I mean before they are made and with them)



High level ships and hero can make an elite fleet that is invincible because Endless Space has strict fleet size limitations.



Every ship counts so high level ones should have a better chance to win.



But all of these are just theoretical.



I have tried it on Endless difficulty. Because the AIs are too weak, a few large and medium ships are just enough as a decoy or tank.



The benefit is so little that I can't tell whether there is any difference when I have large or medium ships in my fleets.



You don't need such an elite fleet like what I mentioned above to beat the AIs



So I guess if the devs fulfill what they haven't done for Disharmony, all of these could make sense.



Because the formation and various ways to attack seem to mean something.



And they must be a part of the tactical scheme the devs try to accomplish.



But it doesn't work now.



If the devs finish the refurbishing job, I think it will be very interesting and tactically challenging.

Sorry the hero argument loses a lot of value because heroes make everything elite and powerfull. I often run a starter fleet with a hero composed of balanced T2 hulls (2 CPs) and the % of weapons to defense modules stays the same, I just upgrade them as my research goes along. If I got a hero with them they are almost invincible. Bigger ships dont really have an advantage here.



The dreadnaught comes with 3000 health. Thats nothing when confronted with 4 ships (same CP value). Especially given the fact that 4 ships can overwhelm your defenses directly going into your health. Yes if you combine a lots of stuff like improvements, system specials, empire events etc your big hulls can end up with impressive health-pools but is it really worth the effort?

cgboy2003 wrote:
It seems that no one mentioned that medium and large ships have high HP...

You read a bit quick, I also listed the plus:

Big ships bring:

- Base health per CP better but this is a detail when they have a huge penality for modules increasing Health.

- Better theoretical survival because they group a larger amount of health. But that's a bit theoretical because of all the negative points.



And that doesn't match the long list of negative points.



Forgot one point, it's more cool to manage less ship even inside one fleet, hahem, that's really the only very positive points of big ships plus it's cool put one or two in a fleet, that's probably why I continue use them. :-)



Ok the only point would be to play around putting 3 big ships in front in a fleet, it's a point I haven't explored much yet.