Endless Space Strategy

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[I2ay]

That shoot and run away tactic only works if you don't adapt by getting flak. As long as you get roughly 2/3 of his missle rating in flak, you can use the camouflage card to completely negate ALL the damage he would otherwise do.

[Smokaz]

What we need to get going is a game of Pax Imperia.

[lionel23]

Problems with that plan Smokaz on the missiles is that if the enemy attacked you, you couldn't 'retreat' because an invasion can still happen, so while you're not killing his ships if he has sufficient flak, he's taking your worlds.

Also on the 'tech' trade, science races are at an advantage because they can research the techs faster and get a better industry going through planetary improvements and they DON'T have to trade with everyone else, thereby 'standardizing' a tech unless they get something out of it.  Industry is easily augmented via tech and I would prefer tech over raw initial industry anyday, especially when you add in terraforming to optimize systems and things like Planetary Institutes and such.

[AmPM]

It also depends on the game length.

In short games speed of spread and industry are more important, especially since we don't seem to play it out over weeks and games never really finish.

I think that if we played out a game for a longer period you would see other abilities be stronger.

[Sachaztan]

It also depends on the game length.

In short games speed of spread and industry are more important, especially since we don't seem to play it out over weeks and games never really finish.

I think that if we played out a game for a longer period you would see other abilities be stronger.

Typically true for multiplayer games. Humans are just so much more dangerous than bots that lasting peace isn't really possible unless you make specific houserules to prolong the game. And then there's the time constraints on multi games that doesn't exist in single...

[brn4meplz]

The problem that our games have is that getting together a massive number of players together is a problem. But even then the games are not true FFA's with temporary alliances. It's The top half of the scoreboard vs the Bottom half in most of our games.

I wouldn't feel the need to snuf out every player near me or every smaller empire if I had even the slightest inkling that they wouldn't just be a separate research pool for other players who will take advantage of them.


As it is right now. Keeping a weaker player in the game presents me 2 options. I protect him and farm him and he doesn't turn on me(or he does at some point when he's less manageable-Like if he makes new friends and resents me being his overlord all game)

Or I let him stay in the game and someone else farms him(and trades with him also) This gets my enemies stronger and him stronger. I'd rather just expend 10-15 turns killing the player and consolidating his systems.

[brn4meplz]

Gotten a bug twice today where I hit Manual combat and it went into Auto. Both times I have a superior(MP) fleet against races that were not combat races. I had cards that would have aided me immensely(Solar Mining laser cards) and I wasn't able to actually pick my cards because of this annoying bug.

[aeroblade56]

dont let I2ay play. simple

[Mysthalin]

Fun bit of stats:

(Just redid the whole thing on excel to make sure no rounding errors):

Point of total HP at which Reactive Hulls (+32 HP, +2%, 7W) becomes better than other armour per tonne:

Predictive plating (+25 HP, 6W) = -173 (always better to use reactive).

Reflective armour (+42 HP, 8W) = 205.5 (Pretty much should never use Reflective, unless really hurting on industry).

Ablative Shielding (+58 HP, 10W) = 398 (Literally put on two ablative shields on a corvette/destroyer and switch, assuming non UE. If UE - just ignore Ablative).

Magnetic Pulsion (+78 HP, 12W) = 643 (do not use Magnetics on anything below Cruiser/BShip. Only one Magnetic allowed even if such)

Plasma Shield (+112 HP, 15W) = 981.333 (go for two or three on your Cruisers/BShips depending if you're UE.)

Densified Plating (+155 HP, 18W) = 1381.889 (Might be smart to put one on a dreadnought, or stack them up quite a bit on a cruiser/BShip if you don't have anything better yet).

Graviton Shielding (+225HP, 22W) = 1947.545 (If you're making your Dreadnoughts big - this is where you should start)

Defensive Lensing (+304 HP, 25W) = 2624 (Yep, stack up on the lenses before you go for the reactive hull. You shouldn't really need more than 4 before you "get there" though.

Calculations are done following the formula - W1/WR*32+(W1/WR*32)*(W1/WR*0.02)+W1/WR*0.02x=H1 where W1, H1 - weight and health added by the armour Reactive Hull is being compared to, WR is the weight of the Reactive Armour (7).

The formula derives the turning point at which RH becomes better than any of the other listed armours to be put on additionally - pound for pound.

[nikomas]

Stack up the hp and then use the dust barrier card... lol

[brn4meplz]

Glass cannon destroyers are and will be the best expenditure on tonnage until they make some changes.

High health ships can see some daylight in the early game but anything into the later stages just melts before the easily to produce destroyer. Especially with how the combat functions

[Mysthalin]

I don't really see the issue people have with Missile destroyers. I mean, all you really need against them is plasma-equipped cruisers/BS/DNs so that you have 1 ship for each 3 of the enemy ship - and just barely enough firepower to take out each destroyer in one salvo (so that by the time you fire off your third salvo and get hit by the missiles you've already taken out the destroyers).

Then it's a case of deciding whether you're trying to actually keep your fleet trucking (get some anti-missile measures/health modules) or whether you're just trying to out-attrition (literally only stock up as many plasma guns as you absolutely need to kill the, by then, industry-expensive destroyers.

If you're fighting plasma destroyers, I'm guessing it's a bit more of an issue - but I'm sure I can find the minimum required shielding amount before you can literally out-heal the incoming damage if I just do some calcs.

As for kinetics - I mean, seriously. Lulz.

[brn4meplz]

Missiles have the lowest damage potential in the game.

Beam weapons are 2nd(but better)

and Kinetics are 1st.


Beam weapons are great at mid range combat and decent at short and long. so they are the preferable weapon.


The high end techs put out so much damage compared to health and defense it's absurd

[Mysthalin]

Yeah yeah I read the wiki too. And the wiki's stupid as shit. The second-from-last missile has the same expected damage output per phase as the top-tier Beam - except without it's counter-measure being a sure-fire thing against the missile. I have no idea where they got the numbers they did.

[brn4meplz]

Yeah but Missiles are a Counter/No counter weapon. You either stop all damage or stop no damage. With the way ship combat works missiles can have massive overkill.

To meet the interception evasion of the top tier missile you only need to go half way up the tree.

At least with the way Shields and Lasers function (and the % based damage increases) the amount of damage the end tier lasers and kinetics do is absurd. They've designed the game at every stage so that weapons are the superior platform. Missiles got nerfed in the alpha



Thier weapon mechanics are all so weird. If you want to use missiles play Hisso. The highest vanilla Missile damage is 620(or something) the Hissho have a Missile tech halfway up the tree that does 1000 max.(modified by +36% Min/max racial trait, modified by +5% min/max (x3) stacking affinity, modified by offensive leader)

[Mysthalin]

Yeah, I agree they can have massive overkill - but if what you're aiming at is heavy-ship destruction with destroyers, they're probably the best you can do for yourself.

And, to be fair - no faction has it as good for missiles than Cravers. Since interception works on one missile at a time - the fact you can get 30% more missiles than anyone means you can guarantee a lot more damage. Even with a lower per-missile damage you're simply dishing out MORE missiles than the enemy can hope to counter.

[Eldanesh]

My theory for top score:

Crowded Planets
Be nice to players
Proxy Wars
Have the longest Turns

[Nug]

battles should be turn based like old moo

[brn4meplz]

I can certainly agree with Nug on that(... I agreed with Nug on something?)

The developer wanted it to be unique though. The card system isn't bad. but it isn't great. It certainly seems like the lazy approach though.


At least with MOO2 you could have different subsystems on your ships. Utility upgrades that did more then straight damage or defence. That and I loved the Boarding combat.

[AmPM]

Imagine Eldanesh doing turn based combat like that on top of his normal turn times....the card system is smooth and actually pretty elegant. And prevents the time per turn from getting super retarded bar people toying with their tax rates too much....