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It might still be so that some weapons will need to be balanced before we have a clear picture of them all.
But all in all I seem to think that all weapons have a reason for being researched and used depending on the situation. I also think that it is wise not to overuse one type of weapon in favour of an other because that may be fatal once an enemy learn of that specialisation and counter it and suddenly rendering your weapons almost useless. In real war the most important weapon is intelligence and information not what weapons is used.
In SotS2 there will be a feature of spy operation, if you use this correctly you will know where to put your research. All in all I see Ballistics as a very useful technology but I would never use it exclusively.
In one recent game I played the Tarka and I had quickly researched HEAP cannons... my cruisers were murderously devastating in combat and I obliterated Zuul ships left and right without any problem. Until I got attacked by Spectres and my hole fleet was wiped out in an instant.
In SotS2 it is by far much easier to keep the distance and fire your long range weapons. You just need to manoeuvre them correctly and there are several way to manage this in my experience. You can use battle-riders to force the enemy to manoeuvre unfavourably to intercept them while your long range ships blast away. You can divide your fleet and try an circle the enemy, thereby if they move one way you retreat and the others fire. Don't charge in your brawler on the middle of an enemy formation, that is just plain stupid. Always try and go for the flanks. If you somehow end up caught between enemy ships just fire up those engines and fly straight out while you provide cover fire with the rest of your ships. As long as you can keep the enemy in between your ships you will have the edge both at long and short range. Even if the enemy might be able to use more guns due to being able to fire in all direction you will be moving your ships more and so should be hit much less.
My advice is a mixture of weapon types so you don't expose any direct weaknesses while you try and focus in one area based on what intelligence you have about enemy ship configuration.
But all in all I seem to think that all weapons have a reason for being researched and used depending on the situation. I also think that it is wise not to overuse one type of weapon in favour of an other because that may be fatal once an enemy learn of that specialisation and counter it and suddenly rendering your weapons almost useless. In real war the most important weapon is intelligence and information not what weapons is used.
In SotS2 there will be a feature of spy operation, if you use this correctly you will know where to put your research. All in all I see Ballistics as a very useful technology but I would never use it exclusively.
In one recent game I played the Tarka and I had quickly researched HEAP cannons... my cruisers were murderously devastating in combat and I obliterated Zuul ships left and right without any problem. Until I got attacked by Spectres and my hole fleet was wiped out in an instant.
In SotS2 it is by far much easier to keep the distance and fire your long range weapons. You just need to manoeuvre them correctly and there are several way to manage this in my experience. You can use battle-riders to force the enemy to manoeuvre unfavourably to intercept them while your long range ships blast away. You can divide your fleet and try an circle the enemy, thereby if they move one way you retreat and the others fire. Don't charge in your brawler on the middle of an enemy formation, that is just plain stupid. Always try and go for the flanks. If you somehow end up caught between enemy ships just fire up those engines and fly straight out while you provide cover fire with the rest of your ships. As long as you can keep the enemy in between your ships you will have the edge both at long and short range. Even if the enemy might be able to use more guns due to being able to fire in all direction you will be moving your ships more and so should be hit much less.
My advice is a mixture of weapon types so you don't expose any direct weaknesses while you try and focus in one area based on what intelligence you have about enemy ship configuration.
first, tracking weapons; I play Liir. my roommate plays Hivers, and loves to just fire his engines up directly away from me with missile boats. It's annoying as all get out and there's not a lot you can do about it if you have a brawler fleet, hahah. use the smallest, swiftest ships you can, even if that mean pursuit destroyers, and just keep firin' those missiles backwards.
second, long range weaponry on its own isn't the be-all-and-end-all; you need a combination of long range weaponry and the ability to control the range. Sometimes that's shooting at, say, a gate ship, which can't move closer to you, but for the most part i use torpedoes, railguns and suchlike as support weapons; use a brawling group (sometimes sacrificial) to tie up enemies while your longer-range ships, ideally under Jammer cover, line up; your brawling group holds them in place while the long range weaponry deals with them, or if they persist in driving for your long range ships, your brawling group follows up behind them and helps to finish them off; i never build a long range weapons platform without a few close-range surprises; love the assault and barrage sections, with their cheeky beams.
i don't have too much problem with this, possibly because i usually have a tech advantage; playing Liir, i field shields, superior weaponry, that kind of thing. if someone's really capable of smashing a brawler group (i usually have two or three cruisers providing fire support and the rest of a Cruiser CnC's worth in brawling range) because of superior weaponry, this tactic is not as useful. there's others; if you really need to kill a fleet, a biowar ship or an assault shuttle carrier decloaking nearer the planet is generally enough to get your enemy's close range fleet to turn round, or you can bring a couple of boarding pod cruisers to sway the odds in your favour, or consider one in every four torpedo mounts being an EMP, or getting thumpers... this can be replaced in SOTS 2 with things like battlerider distractionary strikes or splitting one's fleet to hit two targets.
probably the most important thing, though, is not firing your long range ships straight away. you have to maximise the first shots because they're the only ones you can count on, which means it's okay to spend a minute moving them to a safe distance or hiding them in asteroids sensor shadows. sometimes i'll use two long range groups; one goes one way, the other the other, and whichever my enemy moves to engage, the other gets to set up and pound him.
of course, if the opponent can't be distracted or can't be hurt by your brawler groups, you're gonna lose a lot of those, but if they're useless anyway, who cares?
i also note that as an inertial race, you could turn your ships once they're up to speed and fire back at pursuers with torps or similar.
lastly: if nothing else works, build a dreadnought with tractor beams, disruptors and emp torpedoes, and use that to hold pesky brawlers in place.
@anaris;
I assume you don't subscribe to the traditional 'I have dreads, now everything is a dread' philosophy in SotS.
I assume you don't subscribe to the traditional 'I have dreads, now everything is a dread' philosophy in SotS.
Two games running, my Tarks ended up with a 1% chance of researching AP (just bad luck, I hope)... appeares that even a full Research station does not add a percentage chance to complete the research, just how fast you research it...
But its really irritating when the main upgrade for your Racial Weapon type, is unavailable... especialy when you've already gone up the C3 track to get AI Modules...
But its really irritating when the main upgrade for your Racial Weapon type, is unavailable... especialy when you've already gone up the C3 track to get AI Modules...
Tarka's tend to favour cannons and heavy lasers as much as mass drivers. The only race you could really say tended towards the MD's as a racial trait would be Hivers I think.
...ugh, no!
as Liir, my basic fleet strategy is usually to hit the antimatter age by turn 100, then use dread CnC and antimatter shield mark four destroyers as my basic combat unit, sometimes supported by specialist cruisers (since torpedoes and beams are at their highest slot-per-CP ratio on Liir cruisers, not DNs).
i also use deep scan and jammers relatively frequently, and the EWar dread section is an incredibly wasteful way to achieve that.
the main issue with the idea that dreadnought age means nothing but dreadnoughts is that DNs are optimised for killing DNs; they all favour frontal firepower, emphasise large weaponry, deliver powerful punches. they all suffer versus DE swarms, not least because you can get like a million DEs for the cost of a DN, hahah.
Depends on race though. Morrigi Drone carrier Dreads are just nasty. Or Tarka Battlerider carriers 
And I do have a sneaky love of finding DE swarms when you have a Dread with ample bursters and thumpers. It's like snooker. In space.
And I do have a sneaky love of finding DE swarms when you have a Dread with ample bursters and thumpers. It's like snooker. In space.
Depends on race though. Morrigi Drone carrier Dreads are just nasty. Or Tarka Battlerider carriers
I like the Tarkas. I like the Tarka ship design, I like the ballistic-and-energy-cannon focus, i like their armour, i like their Living Metal, i like their slashing runs tactics.
but i have to be honest.
i have never played a Tarka game that wasn't ENTIRELY about getting Hunters.
these fleet compositions do vary; as the Morrigi, i tend to emphasise speed in late-game warfare, so it's serried ranks of DNs for the flock effect. though I have never once tried to use drones after PD is common, so I can't speak to that specifically.
loooooove those thumpers.
for anyone who hasn't tried it, i can heartily recommend thumpers (or other high impact weapons like KKs) coupled with engine-disabling torpedoes.
Hmmm... when the Write up for the Race says they prefer Projectile weps... and if you look at the percentage chances for research over on the Wiki... and seeing as how they have the 'underwhelming' Disruptor for a Torpedo? Guns better be working for the Tarks or they are going to get Out Teck'd in a hurry.
Disrupters may rock once Shields work, if they have a chance to take them down... but for now they are pretty wimpy.... So unless you want to go the missle route, where they also seem to have a lower % on research... Tarks are kind of hapmpered if you can't get those AP, which lead to HEAP, and seperatly Sniper cannons...
disruptors are awesome, i use them all the time in SOTS 1, against unshielded opponents.
also, Tarka have perfectly good odds at the energy cannon tree, which is what he meant by cannons.
the ENTIRE POINT of this game's tech tree is that sometimes you will miss techs and have to adapt. complaining about that is gonna be futile, i'm afraid.
also, Tarka have perfectly good odds at the energy cannon tree, which is what he meant by cannons.
the ENTIRE POINT of this game's tech tree is that sometimes you will miss techs and have to adapt. complaining about that is gonna be futile, i'm afraid.
Bummer that my fusion torpedo's got a failed research .. However I did notice you can keep researching even if they say you fail so I wonder if you keep researching a technology will it eventually succeed?
I tried, and it eventualy said my scientists would never complete it... even went back a few turns later after building more Research into that subject, and go the same messege after a couple of turns... but only went to about 350% research, so jury is till out.
No. I quote Mecron:
Source: http://www.kerberos-productions.com...sid=924f9f38f19271c2d6113255b2482542&start=30
Yup. Heavy AM cannons or AM Projectors backed by a support line of railguns and maybe a siege driver. Pops pretty much anything apart from dronespam.
yeah, Tarka and their sucky PD coverage. going from Liir to them the first time was a real shock, i was like "woah, missiles do damage?"
I feel the same towards the SotS1 battles in neutral systems, with fleets spawning way too close to each other, especially with the larger ships. Personally, I like to use long-range weapons mainly for defending or attacking colonies (always in combination with a deep scan vessel). They can beat up an incoming fleet pretty badly and you can pull them out just before the enemy gets too close. When attacking, they force the defending fleet to engage and meet your ships outside of most of a satellite ring's fire power.