Due to the nature of Endless Space's combat system (you can't choose what targets what), it seems like there is no reason to field multiple ship types in a single fleet, but rather stick to a single optimal type of ship to combat what your opponent has with maybe one support ship with passive buffs to your other ships. Is this true? That the best decision is to have a fleet of one support ship and the rest of the ships be the same optimal ship-type? It's a little disappointing that there isn't an incentive to have fleets with a more varied range of ships... I know that the devs have already ruled out overhauling or modifying the combat system, but even a simple change that allows you to have your ships prioritize certain targets would be nice. Otherwise I've found that I should just have 5 of 'x' ship and 1 of 'y' ship in my fleets which makes for a rather boring battle vs 2 of 'a' ship, 2 of 'b' ship, one of 'c' ship, one of 'd' ship, etc.



But the reason I'm posting this is not to complain, but rather because I feel like I may simply be wrong in my approach to designing fleets. Is there a reason to field a more diverse range of ships in any single fleet? It seems like currently any effort to diversify is simply a coin-flip.

Anyone know if chaff/flak anti missile stuff spreads out and covers other ships? If so then there's possibly a role for "AEGIS" type of ships, small ships bristling with support.

Flak only applies to the owning ship. You may find a lot of good information about the way combat works in the strategy guide subforum under this.

If you read in the manual you will see that during the 3 phases of combat your weapons and defense have bonuses. As an example, during the first phase Missle weapons excel from ranged approach. I guess its just opinion whether you want to outfit all ships with varied weaponry or have one or two ships loaded for each phase to max damage or defense. I have actually used a version of ships with repairs and other support mods and was able to win some seemingly hopeless battles. It all depends on your research levels as well. The combat is much more in depth than what I read people posting.