I know I'm late seeing this but very well done!! I played ES2 a couple of years ago and am starting to get back into it now and many of the points you brought up about ship ststistics and bonuses I had never realized. Thanks so much for the video.
The colonizer can be used as a support ship for a small fleet of exploration ships. This can be effective for taking down pirate fleets and other enemies in the beginning of the game when you don't have any battle ships yet. This can be especially effective if you add a hero to the fleet. Even in late game, colonizers can be cheap cannon fodder with the modules that increase it as a target, so that the first volley or two of enemy fire goes after them and leaves your battleships alone.
Colonizers have many valuable builds depending on your faction. Due to their low cost and, in some cases high degree of flexibility they can be made to fit many roles. My ultimate colonizer build has to be what I dubed the road runner. It was a design I originally tested using the hissso faction, but later adapted it to all my play throughs. The basic concept is to build 2nor 3 colonizers ships with no modules except fully fitted with engines. Then set them to auto explore and rush the tech that allows them to travel between systems without star lanes. What this does is passively uncovers the entire map at a sometimes staggering rate, and the AI and pirates do not spawn aggressive fleets till mid game at default settings. Some factions benefit more from this due to higher number of support slots or faster starting engines, but ever since the probe hack was nerfed it is my go to for map exploration.
Proper use of disposable scouts and stealth mechanics can get you close enough to their fleets to generally get some information on their weapon systems and power levels.
@@thenoseplays2488 thanks! One more question, what weapons are best for early game? Any video you could direct me to? :p I've been getting rocket missiles on all ships as that works well against pirates and haa great damage numbers, but it seems like a really bad strategy in the long run.
Torpedo class weapons are indeed often a bad strategy. The numbers you are given make them seem like an intuitive choice for the best weapon in the early stages of the game but they are a trap. I have a number of videos that explain this in my ES2 library of content. The short answer is Torpedoes are very bad unless they are good. Let me explain. The weapon systems in this game work sort of like a rock paper scissors game. Rockets when used at long range will decimate any fleet that is only using laser weapons. This is why sometimes they roll over pirates like champ. Pirates tend to start with lasers about 50% of the time. However, if you use them with an improper battle tactic they will be terrible even if you match up with your counter. They are only effective at long range against laser and beam class weapons. Laser and beams lose to rockets but they will almost always out perform flack cannons when used at long range. This is due to flack having terrible accuracy at long range. At med and close range they are a wash or lose respectively. So again long range is mandatory in most engagements with beams and lasers, but they will beat straight flack cannons if you use them this way.... though not as handily as rockets beat beams and lasers. There will be some attrition. Finally, flack cannons are absolutely hard counters to torpedo class weapons. They provide flack defense which will cause the majority of the missiles to be shot down before doing any damage at all. A single flak cannon can completely counter all but the most numerous of missile batteries. You can overwhelm the defenses with enough numbers but it is difficult to do for most factions. Riftborn being an exception due to their massive number of weapon slots. Because flack cannons completely negate the damage from torpedos you can lose an entire fleet and deal no attrition to the enemy. This is why they are often a trap weapon. As soon as your enemy builds the counter to your missile barrage you lose everything. Flack weapons must always take a short range tactic to be successful. They deal massive damage if the fight lasts long enough to close to short range. This makes them very good for use on the more defensive tanky ship classes who can sometimes last long enough to then decimate at close range. There are a bunch of other factors to consider but keep these things in mind. Most guns = win Bigger guns = win Torpedos > >energy Energy > flack Flack >>> torpedos Long Range for most fights unless you only have flak or are facing torpedos.
Thanks for this instructive video. You didn't talk about support modules that has group effects. Like group speed. Forces have the max speed of the slowest ship in it so when you put a group speed module for example on a hero ship, you get a nice bonus for the group but in the end the force speed is low because that hero ship is now to show because the group speed bonus doesn't affect itself. Do they have any use in this case ? Thank you
The module in question is really only worth it if every ship has the same movement speed in the fleet. Then with one module on a hero you can make the whole fleet a little faster. Otherwise the effect is largely wasted in most cases where speeds of ships differ and only the slowest ship gets a boost but still slows every one else down. This is magnified if the slowest ship is the hero itself...who would be better off just putting a faster engine in than a group fleet modifier.
Hi , thanks for that video wich is a gold mine .to me . The part about bombers from 3rd flotilla led me to reconsider basic battles . Are you loosing efficiency when you fight 2 lotillas against one ? Is it obviously better to put every ships in one to fight one flotilla against one ? thus , is there any circumstance when it s beter to have more flotillas than the ennemy ? Not sure ill get an answer cause im coming back to that awesome game a bit late but anyway thanks again for that video .
The short answer is...it's complicated. The vanilla game has a very opaque system that seems almost random at times. They are not, but without perfect knowledge, you can't really make decisions well. Some mods have tried to correct this, but I haven't used them much to know how well they do. Here are some "facts" that I believe are still true. 1. There is a small damage buff for having more flotillas than your opponent. 2. With the exception of bombers, there are limits to flotillas being able to engage. You can generally only attack a flotilla 1 lane away...and only if you have weapons facing them. Forward mounted weapons seem to have something like a 90 arc to front, and broadside weapons have a 90 arc to side. Ranges are theoretically always considered long-range for damage and accuracy, but there has been visual evidence to the contrary when observing the battles, so it's hard to say for sure. 3. It is impossible to predict the movement or facing of your ships, making engagements really feel weird from time to time. This is because the game decides that based not just on your tactic but also your opponents tactic, which you do not know in advance of the battle and can not change once it's locked in. This can lead to a ship full of broadside weapons that never turn them to fave the enemy. It's infuriating when it happens, but it does. Enemy ai is very predictable over time and you can scout their most used tactics in the advanced battle set up screen. This can allow you with diligence to learn bad matches and avoid using certain tactics against certain opponents.
Well, there are a few gross errors in this video) The first is not to use bombers on carriers. Or don't put armor modules instead of attack modules on the Zelevas class. Five armor modules on an UI carrier with a duck module make it super useful in battles. He the one of fattest tank among carriers without upgrades.(will two coordinators be better - exercise) Other - the duck module does not affect the chance as a percentage, but rather the chance in conventional units I spent over 300 hours in online sessions playing only against real people. I know what I'm talking about
I know I'm late seeing this but very well done!! I played ES2 a couple of years ago and am starting to get back into it now and many of the points you brought up about ship ststistics and bonuses I had never realized. Thanks so much for the video.
Amazing video. Really opened my eyes! Thank you for the effort!
Thank you. Very clear. I am new to this type of game and enjoy it.
The colonizer can be used as a support ship for a small fleet of exploration ships. This can be effective for taking down pirate fleets and other enemies in the beginning of the game when you don't have any battle ships yet. This can be especially effective if you add a hero to the fleet. Even in late game, colonizers can be cheap cannon fodder with the modules that increase it as a target, so that the first volley or two of enemy fire goes after them and leaves your battleships alone.
Colonizers have many valuable builds depending on your faction. Due to their low cost and, in some cases high degree of flexibility they can be made to fit many roles.
My ultimate colonizer build has to be what I dubed the road runner. It was a design I originally tested using the hissso faction, but later adapted it to all my play throughs.
The basic concept is to build 2nor 3 colonizers ships with no modules except fully fitted with engines. Then set them to auto explore and rush the tech that allows them to travel between systems without star lanes.
What this does is passively uncovers the entire map at a sometimes staggering rate, and the AI and pirates do not spawn aggressive fleets till mid game at default settings.
Some factions benefit more from this due to higher number of support slots or faster starting engines, but ever since the probe hack was nerfed it is my go to for map exploration.
Really great guide! :)
useful man thx a lot ! keep going~~
Awesome, thanks! Helps a lot! Now, how do I know what weapons my friends have spec'd into.. lol
Proper use of disposable scouts and stealth mechanics can get you close enough to their fleets to generally get some information on their weapon systems and power levels.
@@thenoseplays2488 thanks! One more question, what weapons are best for early game? Any video you could direct me to? :p
I've been getting rocket missiles on all ships as that works well against pirates and haa great damage numbers, but it seems like a really bad strategy in the long run.
Torpedo class weapons are indeed often a bad strategy. The numbers you are given make them seem like an intuitive choice for the best weapon in the early stages of the game but they are a trap.
I have a number of videos that explain this in my ES2 library of content. The short answer is Torpedoes are very bad unless they are good.
Let me explain. The weapon systems in this game work sort of like a rock paper scissors game. Rockets when used at long range will decimate any fleet that is only using laser weapons. This is why sometimes they roll over pirates like champ. Pirates tend to start with lasers about 50% of the time.
However, if you use them with an improper battle tactic they will be terrible even if you match up with your counter. They are only effective at long range against laser and beam class weapons.
Laser and beams lose to rockets but they will almost always out perform flack cannons when used at long range. This is due to flack having terrible accuracy at long range. At med and close range they are a wash or lose respectively. So again long range is mandatory in most engagements with beams and lasers, but they will beat straight flack cannons if you use them this way.... though not as handily as rockets beat beams and lasers. There will be some attrition.
Finally, flack cannons are absolutely hard counters to torpedo class weapons. They provide flack defense which will cause the majority of the missiles to be shot down before doing any damage at all. A single flak cannon can completely counter all but the most numerous of missile batteries. You can overwhelm the defenses with enough numbers but it is difficult to do for most factions. Riftborn being an exception due to their massive number of weapon slots.
Because flack cannons completely negate the damage from torpedos you can lose an entire fleet and deal no attrition to the enemy. This is why they are often a trap weapon. As soon as your enemy builds the counter to your missile barrage you lose everything.
Flack weapons must always take a short range tactic to be successful. They deal massive damage if the fight lasts long enough to close to short range. This makes them very good for use on the more defensive tanky ship classes who can sometimes last long enough to then decimate at close range.
There are a bunch of other factors to consider but keep these things in mind.
Most guns = win
Bigger guns = win
Torpedos > >energy
Energy > flack
Flack >>> torpedos
Long Range for most fights unless you only have flak or are facing torpedos.
@@thenoseplays2488 awesome, thanks for such an easy to understand explanation. Gonna go find your content as you suggested :)
Thanks for this instructive video. You didn't talk about support modules that has group effects. Like group speed. Forces have the max speed of the slowest ship in it so when you put a group speed module for example on a hero ship, you get a nice bonus for the group but in the end the force speed is low because that hero ship is now to show because the group speed bonus doesn't affect itself. Do they have any use in this case ? Thank you
The module in question is really only worth it if every ship has the same movement speed in the fleet. Then with one module on a hero you can make the whole fleet a little faster. Otherwise the effect is largely wasted in most cases where speeds of ships differ and only the slowest ship gets a boost but still slows every one else down.
This is magnified if the slowest ship is the hero itself...who would be better off just putting a faster engine in than a group fleet modifier.
Hi , thanks for that video wich is a gold mine .to me . The part about bombers from 3rd flotilla led me to reconsider basic battles . Are you loosing efficiency when you fight 2 lotillas against one ?
Is it obviously better to put every ships in one to fight one flotilla against one ? thus , is there any circumstance when it s beter to have more flotillas than the ennemy ?
Not sure ill get an answer cause im coming back to that awesome game a bit late but anyway thanks again for that video .
The short answer is...it's complicated. The vanilla game has a very opaque system that seems almost random at times. They are not, but without perfect knowledge, you can't really make decisions well. Some mods have tried to correct this, but I haven't used them much to know how well they do.
Here are some "facts" that I believe are still true.
1. There is a small damage buff for having more flotillas than your opponent.
2. With the exception of bombers, there are limits to flotillas being able to engage. You can generally only attack a flotilla 1 lane away...and only if you have weapons facing them. Forward mounted weapons seem to have something like a 90 arc to front, and broadside weapons have a 90 arc to side. Ranges are theoretically always considered long-range for damage and accuracy, but there has been visual evidence to the contrary when observing the battles, so it's hard to say for sure.
3. It is impossible to predict the movement or facing of your ships, making engagements really feel weird from time to time. This is because the game decides that based not just on your tactic but also your opponents tactic, which you do not know in advance of the battle and can not change once it's locked in.
This can lead to a ship full of broadside weapons that never turn them to fave the enemy. It's infuriating when it happens, but it does.
Enemy ai is very predictable over time and you can scout their most used tactics in the advanced battle set up screen. This can allow you with diligence to learn bad matches and avoid using certain tactics against certain opponents.
@@thenoseplays2488 Thanks a lot .
Well, there are a few gross errors in this video)
The first is not to use bombers on carriers.
Or don't put armor modules instead of attack modules on the Zelevas class. Five armor modules on an UI carrier with a duck module make it super useful in battles. He the one of fattest tank among carriers without upgrades.(will two coordinators be better - exercise)
Other - the duck module does not affect the chance as a percentage, but rather the chance in conventional units
I spent over 300 hours in online sessions playing only against real people.
I know what I'm talking about
Where's your guide?
720p? Bro...
I was probably testing new setings to try and improve upload times. Or I was live streaming. All my live streams are at 720p