Hey everyone, I have some question about ship building. Ive played a few games and I am having some trouble getting the hang of ship building. I get my butt handed to me all the time in battles. I have resorted to pretty much just using the 'Auto Upgrade' button which doesnt help much more honestly



My questions are, having more then 1 of each weapon type does what? Does that mean my ship will fire more missiles per long range phase if i have more then 1 missile? Im having a hard time with balancing defense with offense as well. Its not all that common that i get the resources to use the increase tonnage tech's (forgot what its called atm). Does anyone have any tips on ship building as well and how to balance the offense / defense modules?

your ships fires as many weapons as it has, so if there are many of one type it fires them all... AT ONE TARGET per phase.



Your best bet is to field weapons your opponent does not not have defenses for or does not defend against. That or just overwhelm what defenses he does muster.



The first post /#/endless-space/forum/33-strategy-guides/thread/14009-how-combat-works-a-guide-to-combat-for-arguements-and-gameplay. in that thread discusses the phases of combat.

Well first off try just offensive weapons on destroyers. Destroyers get a reduction in size of all offensive weapons so they are a good weapons platform. You weapons fire at all ranges its just the accuracy that changes. Guns are best first off as they first quite a few times compared to missiles which only fire once and usually require three phases to reload.



You can include a scout in each fleet as an enemy finder, or send it on ahead if you dont mind it getting destroyed often. Hopefully they will change scouts to be more stealthy so they dont keep getting destroyed.



Use a hero for defence of the fleet - he can give defensive bonuses.



Once you start getting bigger ships you can diversify and start using the power unit thing that gives you harder hitting weapons (cant remember the name) but that is only useful for a great number of weapons because it reduces the health of the ship and takes up weapons slots. So you have to look at how many weapons you will lose if you add it and is it worth it to supercharge the weapons you have.



Look at all the hulls and note what weight bonuses they give to equipment because that will generally tell you what each ship is good for.



Choose your combat cards carefully, try out different strategies - for example long range defensive, middle range repair and short range offensive - if you have short range guns. If you have missiles your tactics will need to change to make max use of the missiles at long range.

In harder difficulties where the enemy (and pirates) rush weapons tech alot, I usually research defensive tech and equip my scouts with a boatload (so they can survey in peace, both for recon and for potential trade routes in the early game).



Mid-late game is when you can start to afford at the very least, investing in all three types of defenses. The second choice you have to make is to judge whether on not you build all three weapon types in the hopes that your enemy skimps out on one or two of those defense types, or focus on one single weapon type (lasers are fun) and hammer away at their defenses (and at least you always know which offense battle cards to play).