The different rang weapons are usually good when used together in the attempt to breach enemy defences.



Where an enemy who have good flak, you could use LR beams to achieve the same effect in a hit and run scenario.



I find that a combo of 2 type of M weapon and 1 MR or LR weapon works the best for my fleets, but you might find that using 3 types of MR weapon works better.



I have found that my enemy Craver AI loves missiles, and that his switch from LR missiles to MR missiles in conjunction with MR beams provided enough dakka in the middle combat phase to kick my ASS, so Id say give it a try even if the math is a bit sketchy. You might find that the ability to try and brake through 2 or 3 types of enemy defences at once is just as effective if not more effective then going with a single weapon type.



And even then, T2 missiles and LR do 600 damage a hit (compared to like...150 at T1, hell of a jump), so you could stack them on smaller ships to hunt down enemy cruisers.





However I am having difficulty finding the appropriate amount of defences to use in comparison to just adding armor mods.



How effective is 1, 2 and 3 defence mods for each type? How quickly does it become ineffective to just stack more of them?

Well as far as experiments go, I did some combat trial/error, and the results aren't very encouraging



All tests were done with 5 destroyers on each side, equipped with various mods, all t1



Kinetic:



5x Kinetic mods vs no defense

damage %eff tonnage

M 1725 14 7

MR 2415 11 11

LR 1837 28 9



5x Kinetic vs 3 deflect

M 431 14

MR 603 11

LR 448 27



5x Kinetic mods vs 5 deflect

damage %eff

M 287 14

MR 400 11

LR 300 27



431 / 1725 = 25% damage taken (melee range) So 3 deflect mods prevent 75% of the damage. 5 deflect mods prevent 83% of damage]



So, medium range kinetics do more damage per module, but take more tonnage. melee kinetics do more damage per tonnage.

Also, the % eff statistic is just worthless, probably bugged.





**********************************************

Beam:

5x Beam mods vs no defense

damage %eff tonnage

M 2631 53 9

MR 2068 24 7

LR 2295 68 11



5x Beam vs 3 shield

M 495 54

MR 392 24

LR 417 68



5x Beam mods vs 5 shield

damage %eff

M 320 54

MR 253 24

LR 270 68



3 shield mods prevent 81% damage. 5 shield mods prevent 88% damage



Again...melee beams do more damage per mod, but take more tonnage. medium beams do more damage per tonnage





**********************************************

Missle:

5x Missle mods vs no defense

damage %eff tonnage

M 3410 43 11

MR 1897 11 9

LR 3037 54 7



5x Missle vs 3 flak

M 875 44

MR 474 11

LR 807 55



5x Missle mods vs 5 flak

damage %eff

M 596 44

MR 330 11

LR 531 55



3 flak mods prevent 74% damage. 5 flak mods prevent 82%



Medium range missiles are just bad, why would you ever build them? less damage, more tonnage, and they do their damage after long range. melee missles are pretty awful too, they do slightly more damage, but take 36% more tonnage, AND do their damage last. I can't imagine a single scenario where M or MR missiles would outperform LR missiles (per tonnage, of course)



Along the same lines, why would you ever build melee ranged beams? they do almost identical damage per tonnage as MR beams.



kinetics at least makes some sense...LR kinetics do less damage per tonnage, but get to do their damage first. MR and M kinetics do their damage later, but do more of it.



Conclusions:

So what valuable information can we gleen from this? Well personally I think the whole different ranges for weapons was completely unneeded in an already cluttered expansion. It really feels like they changed too much.



However, I am starting to see why they made some modules %tonnage based. think about a dreadnaught with 5 of each defense mod, for a total of 11*5*3 = 165 tonnage. It would take less than 20% damage of anything thrown at it. Couple that with a repair mod, and that's a tough cookie to kill. The 165 tonnage required to do this is only possible on a dreadnaught tho. So maybe that's good, maybe it's bad.





EDIT: sorry for formatting.......this forum doesn't seem to like tab >.>

flounder wrote:
Yes but how can the users make a manual when they don't know the game mechanics themselves? I suppose we could all run experiments on the game and test out the various mechanics, but it's not like this is some dead, long forgotten game that no one remembers. They just released it. Surely the people who programmed it actually know what the buttons in the game do. It would be common sense for them to simply share that info with us.

I agree! This is a lot of trial and error. One the other hand, at its release Civ 5 had unexplained and undocumented diplomacy options as well (Pact of Secrecy) and it was released by a major publisher! I guess that's what we have to live with nowadays.

I would like an explanation of the various invasion & defence techs

Yes but how can the users make a manual when they don't know the game mechanics themselves? I suppose we could all run experiments on the game and test out the various mechanics, but it's not like this is some dead, long forgotten game that no one remembers. They just released it. Surely the people who programmed it actually know what the buttons in the game do. It would be common sense for them to simply share that info with us.

Droom wrote:
Here you can have some info

But the information is not full. I'd also be grateful if there would be something like User's Manual for new expansion. In many games(like Heroes) there are manuals created by fans. Maybe someone is going to create such for Endless Space?

I second that!

Here you can have some info

But the information is not full. I'd also be grateful if there would be something like User's Manual for new expansion. In many games(like Heroes) there are manuals created by fans. Maybe someone is going to create such for Endless Space?

Yeah, the worse thing you can do to a Turn based strategy game is have no information.