So... although I just started I can't fully comprehend the mechanics of combat and unit building here. For example - those module of same name and rank stack? How should I give cards while in battle? Is there even a sense for not auto-battling here? And while I'm at it - how fast should I build millitary?

Combat is complicated because there's a lot that's not immediately apparent. As far as I can tell, the AI always attacks either the first 1 or 3 of your fleet formation (on Disharmony, anyway). Meanwhile, the best weapon seems to be long-range kinetics due to the way retreat works in this game. Kinetics hit the same round they are fired, I *think* beam hits the turn after it's fired, and missiles always hit in the third round. This means that if you're equipped with missiles and the enemy fleet retreats, you won't deal any damage to them (the enemy fleet will get away without taking any damage). For this reason, I think the best fleet composition is three ships with stacked defense/HP to put in the front ranks (use fleet formations to ensure they are always at the top of the list) and the rest filled with glass cannon ships loaded with long range kinetics and minimal armor. This lets you effectively engage AI fleets that try to escape.



Using this strategy, some of the better cards to use are: Sabotage (LR efficiency), Overclock (kinetic efficiency), Chameleon (with Corvette-class defender ships and the Pilot hero's -enemy accuracy skill, makes your defense ships into effective dodge tanks). Don't concentrate too much on countering the opposing fleet actions, just use actions that are the best for your fleet composition.



As far as I know, offense modules stack as much as you want, but defense modules have diminishing returns on stacking. I can't remember what the exact falloff is, but the general idea is that you only need 3-5 of each defense for smaller class defense ships and the rest should be invested in +HP modules. Another helpful mod is to add engine modules to your colonizing ships, which will help them reach the next planet faster.



Manual battle is not a big deal. Use it if you want to see the animation, otherwise auto is fine.



How fast to build: Depends on the map and difficulty setting. On Endless with a close neighbor, you will need at least a defensive fleet when you create your first outpost (AI is pretty aggressive about attacking forward outposts in cold war). If you are on a lower difficulty and separated from the AI by a warp-link chokepoint, like you often see on the "spiral galaxy" map setting, you can often delay your military. Like in other TBS games, it's best to create a "timing push" and go offensive once you discover key offensive techs.

So basically stack kinetic weapons on ship? If I'm not mistaken, the targeting and 'weapon choosing" in the battle is done by AI, regardless, right?

Bethezer wrote:
So basically stack kinetic weapons on ship? If I'm not mistaken, the targeting and 'weapon choosing" in the battle is done by AI, regardless, right?

The short answer is yes, long range kinetics are by far the most effective weapon to use, at least versus AI, due to the way the combat mechanics work combined with the fact that the AI will never take advantage of those mechanics.





As for targeting, in combat a ship will be assigned another ship as a target and they will then fire all their weapons at that ship alone until it is destroyed, at which point they will be assigned another ship from those that remain. However, there are limited options you can choose from that allow you to change the way your fleet as a whole is assigned targets.



When combat is first initiated the battle window pops up with a comparison of the fleets, between your fleet window and your cards windows are two options for targeting and formation that you can select. By default they are set to spread fire for targeting and default for formation. If you click on these you can change to a different type.



There are three targeting options, spread fire, guillotine and nosebreaker. Spread fire will mean that the AI takes your ships in the order of your formation and assigns them one ship each in the order of the opponent's formation (ie. your first ship will target their first, your second their second, etc.), if you have more ships than the enemy then the extra ships will go back to the start of the line. So for example you have 13 ships to their 10, their first three ships will have two of your ships assigned each, while the remainder will have one each. This option is best when the opponent has a few large, high defence ships in front protecting weaker ships at the back, and when you outnumber them. Your fire will be spread out evenly and hopefully destroy their weak ships first.



With guillotine a third of your fleet will target the first three ships in the enemy fleet, while the rest follow the spread fire targeting. This is best when facing an evenly matched fleet with similar strength ships as the focus fire will take out enemy ships faster than spread fire which means less firepower for the opponent, increasing your advantage.



Nosebreaker causes your entire fleet to target the first ship in their formation. This is best used when you are outnumbered and likely to lose but want to try and take as many enemy ships as possible.



If you select manual combat then you can change targeting options at each phase, for example if you used guillotine and now have the ship advantage you can switch to spread fire to finish the rest off all at once, on the other hand if the fight isn't going your way you can switch to nosebreaker to enure your remaining ships take out a few more of theirs before you are wiped out.



Formation on the other hand allows you to decide which of your ships gets targeted first. Default puts your highest defense ships at the front of the formation, and as such is the best choice nine times out of ten as they will take the most fire in almost all cases. There are various other choices, like highest HP first, highest attack power first, weakest ships first, etc. but these tend to require a more specific scenario to be useful. Also, unlike targeting you can't change the formation once battle begins.





Hardsix was pretty spot on when it came to your other questions, although with a couple of exceptions.



Each phase (long, medium, short) has four rounds in total. Kinetics fire all four rounds and they hit instantly. Lasers fire on the first round then take one round to reload, plus their projectile takes a round to travel, so they fire on rounds 1 and 3 and hit on rounds 2 and 4. Missiles fire on the first round and then take three rounds to reload, with their projectile taking three rounds to travel, this means they fire only on round 1 and don't hit until round 4. Retreating fleets escape after round three, this means at best they take three salvos of kinetics and one of lasers, avoiding the second laser salvo and missiles completely.



Also while it may appear there are diminishing returns on stacking defensive modules this is not actually the case.



Lets say with 100 defence you reduce enemy damage by 50%, if you have 200 it will be reduced by 75%, 300 will be 87.5% and so on. It seems you are getting less reduction each time (50>25>12.5) but if you apply the percentages to the damage you can see it exactly doubles the amount of shots required to kill you. For instance if the enemy did 100 damage a shot with no defence, a 50% reduction would mean they now do 50 damage a shot and therefore need to take two shots to do the same damage. A 75% reduction would take their damage to 25, meaning four shots are needed. 87.5% would be 12.5 damage, meaning eight shots. Each time it doubles is basically doubling your ship's health.



A good balance between defence modules and armour (+HP) modules is recommended though, as while armour modules are more expensive tonnage wise, they protect against all damage types and also increase the effectiveness of your defensive modules since they increase your base HP.

I see... now that I'm free again I will definetly test it out. Big thanks to both of you.