Kinetic, missiles or lasers? Also is there any strategy to this

Spam corvettes, all Paradox games have combat that is just

>Outnumber the enemy 2 to 1 and you win

>>380591838

kill yourself because you're still playing that shell of a fucking game

paradox fucking dun goofd with this shit

>>380591957
No, they're usually
>Have that one tech that makes one of your units 10x more powerful than the enemy and win
In HOI for example most ships are completely worthless while a single carrier can sink entire fleets.

>>380591972
>reddit spacing
I don't think you're in a position to tell people to off themselves.

>>380591972
I'm enjoying it, why are you angry?

Kinetics are superior as starting weapons, plasma is generally speaking best. Corvettes without upgrades are the most cost-effective ships, although cruisers can also be worth it. Destroyers aren't good even against corvettes they're supposed to counter.

I like mods, I dunno if they make corvette spam ineffective but I like all the ships

Avoid missiles like the plague. They die easily to point defense and do significantly lower dmg output due to overkill.

Lasers are fine, albeit a bit specialized at taking down armor while kinetics are where its at because of kinetic artillery.

>>380592183
fag

last time i played(megastructure and bosses expansion) it was utter shit
is it better now?

>>380592881
Someone tested it recently and 20% flak setup was marginally better than 0% missile defence (while being well inferior against anything else but missiles) and any more flak than that actually causes your fleets to take more damage than no missile defence because you kill enemy ships slower. No difference between flak and point defence.

In other words, missiles are shit because of overkill. Point defence/flak doesn't really do much because it's mostly just shooting missiles that were going to overkill anyway. It's completely unintuitive, just like not upgrading your weapons is, but you probably don't want to build point defence even against fleets with missiles.

Most people on /v/ at least seem to prefer Endless Space 2.

>>380594693
I'll never understand why. The first game was so fucking bland and the second one is just more of the same, but also buggy and unfinished.

Also you can't really compare them.
Stellaris has plenty of sim elements, while ES2 is just a 4x.

>>380594693
It boggles my mind why people like that horrible paper-rock-scissors combat

>>380591838

Combat in the game is fundamentally broken right now, spamming un-upgraded corvettes is the most cost effective strategy and beats almost anything.

Having armour be a % damage reduction was a terrible idea.

>>380595169
Doesn't seem such a bad deal to me because it benefits heavier ships, the fact that you get more offensive and defensive power per upkeep (and even more so per construction cost) from T1 weapons and no shields seems more damning to me. The balance is AWFUL

>>380595776
>it benefits heavier ships

No it doesn't it does the exact opposite. Flat damage reduction on armour would benefit larger with more amour and make smaller ships less effective.

>>380596234
The way armour works, its useless on smaller ships and you should only put it on Battleships that can get 90% damage reduction

Hence why everybody recommends shields on everything until atleast cruisers

>>380591838
Battleships with giga cannons and kinetic artillery
Just sit there and laugh as you annihilate all your enemies without them even getting in range to fire a single shot at you
Great times

>>380596387

There's no point in even building anything bigger than corvettes because % DR means lots of small ships are equally as effective as one big ship. And because corvettes are 5x more cost effective they win every time.

>>380596725

Huh where do you getting this from?

A BB costs 16 capacity, and it costs less than building 16 corvettes, and they WILL kill more than 16 corvettes

You are just being retarded if you only build corvettes

>>380597098
>capacity

The only thing that matters is minerals/energy efficiency. For the same cost of a BB you could build enough corvettes to take out 2.

The penalty to going over capacity is so minor it barely factors in.

>>380591838
>Also is there any strategy to this or should I just spam corvettes and the odd destroyer?

There are some strategies to it but in most cases, just bring a larger fleet than your opponent.
And don't wait too long or they just form space NATO and become unattackable because you'd declare war on half the galaxy at once

>>380591838
kinetic all the way, screw optimization.

>>380597098
>A BB costs 16 capacity, and it costs less than building 16 corvettes

Only if you upgrade them like an idiot. The way the numbers currently work out is you're better off leaving them un-upgraded. Naked corvettes will general wipe the fleet with any other fleet of the same cost. Unless that other fleet is build specifically to counter it

so you just send naked corvettes? what weapon do you stick on them, just some base level kinetics?

>>380598105
well you need A LOT OF them for that to work out

>>380598105

Basic level lasers work the best statistically

>>380593637
flak does have a use though: it's a hardcounter against prethoryn ships

honestly naked corvettes is such a stupid tactic it deserves to be arbitrarily hardcountered

start with an exponential cost increase for going over the limit and then add a weapon with say, 100% accuracy, 100% tracking -99% damage against armor and shields but stupidly high base damage otherwise so a single destroyer can go one shot one kill on naked corvettes

>>380598217
mining lasers + syphons work pretty good too
>>380598478
well they nerfed tachyon lances - they'll nerf this somehow. just bring some AoE damage and naked corvettes are done

>>380591972
>being angry because anon enjoys a game that isn't fucking garbage for once
god forbid

>>380598606
this is even dumber than tachyon battleships because that tactic at the least rewarded and encouraged teching up

>>380598606

Still doesn't fix the issue that there is almost no incentive to research and equip better tech from a pure const/benefit perspective.

What are you supposed to do about Cruisers going first into battle?

I keep having fights where I don't lose any corvettes/destroyers/battleships but lose 75% of my cruisers because they go first.

>>380598478

Arbitrarily hard countering it would be dumb because it's just the symptom of broken system.

They need to fix teching up being detrimental half the time and change the % DR on armour to flat.

>>380598980
this is paradox we're talking about though, structural fixes take 3 years and 5 DLC's
I'll be happy with a quick arbitrary counter

>>380591838
Reminder that the corvettes you get at game start are the most powerful unit in the game and you should never upgrade them.

I think the most annoying shit is that planets have no real chance of fighting back against a fleet at all.

Means that it just becomes whack a mole if you declare war on any alliance

>>380599109
The upkeep cost being dependent on hulls only would be a good starting point (and you probably could make the cost of upgrades logarithmic, or alternatively buff the higher-tier weapons without increasing their cost). Destroyers also need a buff such that they can actually function as counter to corvettes.

>>380599457
worst part is the era right before you get jump drives

alliances and empires get large enough they span a quarter of the galaxy, but you're still stuck with the shit tier ftl options so it takes ages to go anywhere but fleets are strong enough static defenses are shredded instantly

so if one of your planets gets conquered by some tiny vassal from god knows where and now you can either spend 3 ingame years going back there and retake the planet or you're just going to have to ignore the tiny fleet going around occasionally sieging a planet

it's bloody stupid

I like the game mostly because of the fluff, really. Mechanically it's pretty dumb.
Maybe they'll manage to make a decent game out of it in a couple of years. But then again, I gate this Early Access policy they have. "Here's a new game for like half a normal retail price". And then they gradually make more and more DLCs each costing almost as much as the base game.

If Cities: Skylines is any indication, they are not going to address basic issues with the game, though, and just make more shitty downloadable content, because that's what sells.

>>380591838
Kinetics, but it doesn't really matter that much.