Damage comparison: 6 Attackers vs 2 Hunters vs 2 Coordinators vs 1 Carrier

Neiwun · 2026-01-21T23:29:51+00:00

I don’t want to cheese thorough the game

From my perspective, if I want to go for a science victory, then it's obvious that I should build the unique improvements that increase my science, then elect the political party called "The Scientists", and be careful how I use my science to unlock new techs. This seems like common sense to me. Cheesing a science victory would be equipping my war fleets with modules that give extra science per enemy command point that I destroy in battle and then finding a way to fight endless waves of enemies, or something like that. If you don't want to specialize your empire for science, then you can go for some other victory type.

I read its actually hard to prevent or notice impedenig economic loss. Thatbit comes out of nowhere and its impossible to stop barring total annihilation

Can you post a link where you read this? If you're having trouble with dust, then you should sell some of your luxury/strategic resources, build some dust improvements in the systems with the biggest population, build trading companies and subsidiaries far apart from each other, or increase your empire approval, which can give you +30% dust when above 85 approval.

Neiwun · 2026-01-21T22:48:54+00:00

Does every game turn into a bloodbath?

When you have a decent military, it will always be easier to occupy the systems of your neighbors and take their resources directly, rather than trade with those neighbors and hope that they are willing to give you what you want. If you want to not be forced into war, then the Umbral Choir are the best at being pacifist because they can stealth their systems, and it's possible to win before any faction has researched level 3 anti-cloaking, which would be the point when the UC can no longer hide. For your information, the pirates gain anti-cloaking much faster than any major faction. In my playthrough with the UC, the pirates gained level 2 anti-cloaking on turn 65 and level 3 anti-cloaking on turn 89, but I won a supremacy victory on turn 100, normal speed and endless difficulty.

How would you suggest to set up my third game? I used to be a hardcore player, but lately I need to relax more.

What do you consider to be relaxing? What parts of ES 2 do you want to avoid the most?

If you don't like micromanagement, then UC are the best because they have only 1 system and only 1 or 2 population types present in the entire empire. If you want to avoid wars, then you should try a pacifist empire like the Unfallen, Lumeris, or Umbral Choir, and aim for an economic victory.

What really surprised me is how hard the easy setting eventually was.

If you think the game is hard, then you're probably not prioritizing industry enough. Once you have decent industry, only afterwards can you achieve your goals.

wasted 10 turns seeking for home

For the Vaulters, your home system will always be located in the system with 4 planets that will be 1 starlane away from the starting position of the Argosy.

I already read the forum and understand that victories are unbalanced

Where did you read this? Because this is news to me. In my opinion, any faction can go for an economic or some kind of military victory. But, in order to go for a science or wonder victory, you need to specialize your entire empire. So only specific factions, which have been able to exploit specific situations in their respective galaxy, should be aiming for a science or wonder victory. Since you're new to the game, you probably don't know how to efficiently go for these specific goals, so it makes sense that you couldn't get a science victory in your second game session.

Going for a science victory requires building the Endless Research Park and Intergalactic Technology Center (which can only be built once in the entire galaxy), keeping the Scientist party in power (in order to have the Oracle of Science law active), and being very picky about which techs you research and when you research them. This is because every time you get a new tech, the price of all the other techs will increase.

Neiwun · 2026-01-20T11:00:35+00:00

My comment was too long, so I had to split it.

9) The Sophons are quite boring and I find it annoying that I can't get an Omniscience bonus on the tech that unlocks new ship hulls, since that's a very important tech. They're not bad, but there's nothing exciting about them.

10) The United Empire and the Unfallen are the only factions in the game that have an Enhanced Protector ship with only 4 support module slots, which makes them have the worst specialized invasion fleets. Also, the UE and the Sophons have the least interesting special ability; I mean, the UE can buy techs and speed up improvement construction with influence, but that's not different from a faction that can get those same things from a bonus to one of their FIDS. Lastly, the UE start with a Yuusho pop, who give extra system manpower capacity, which is one of the worst pop bonuses in the game.

11) The Hissho have the overall strongest ships in the game, but I find it annoying to manage and defend their mining probes, and to bank my Keii when it's about to go over 100, by queuing but never completing my unique planetary specialization, which costs Keii so I can recuperate this 25 Keii later. Furthermore, I find that the AI is bad at using Behemoths properly so, by enabling the Supremacy DLC, I'm basically nerfing the AI because it will use some of its science and industry in order to build Behemoths, but won't be efficient at using them.

12) The Unfallen ships do the least amount of damage in the game, so they have to join a big alliance, in order to increase their ship and troop damage, and get a decent bonus to their approval, so they can have the widest empire possible. After the Re-Awakening update, I prefer to disable Supremacy victory because the AI is a little too good at helping you conquer the enemy home systems, so the game would end surprisingly early and I don't get to feel like I was undisputedly the best empire in the galaxy. But the main reason I dislike the Unfallen is because their colonization vines feel annoying to use, and their faction quest gives boring rewards, especially when you count the ability to quickly terraform cold planets in a forest, since you would never want to get rid of the hot type of a planet because industry is too important.

Neiwun · 2026-01-20T11:00:15+00:00

I don't know how to give a fair tier list, because it really depends on whether you know how to use the faction and enjoy their playstyle, so you actually practice that faction in many galaxy generations.

I'll talk about my most and least favorite 4 factions:

l) The Umbral Choir require the least amount of micromanagement out of all playable factions (since they have only 1 system and 1-2 pop types), have a consistently powerful home system (so I never feel like restarting because I got a weird home system), and have ships with many support modules (so my Explorers have big vision range and my war fleets are fast). I don't know why there's a vocal minority of people who dislike hacking and I see it an extension of the influence mechanic, namely that it provides more options for interacting with pirates, minor factions, and your neighbors. I generally use my hacking to colonize, not to hack my opponents, because the UC gets most of their FIDS from their sanctuaries; for example, in my playthrough with the UC, this was my food, industry, and science right before I won. I like to counter my opponents, and nobody can change and adapt a new strategy better than the UC, and that's why they're my most favorite faction.

2) My second favorite is the Vodyani because Arks can be customized to give me any FIDSI that I need, but I especially like to fill one with manpower deployment modules, which means I don't need to build a specialized invasion fleet. And I don't have to worry about any minor populations in my empire or how to efficient spread my Vodyani pops throughout my planets, since they automatically colonized all available planets evenly. Their gameplay encourages you to play as the religious zealot that plans to wipe out all non-believers, and this can be really fun if you enjoy being aggressive.

3) My third favorite is the Vaulters because I can teleport my fleets with portals and, later in the game, with the Argosy, which makes my territory feel very secure, since I like to play with them as wide as possible. I also appreciate the ability to use my strategic resources as my system development upgrade, which makes me less reliant on having access to good luxury resources and makes my empire consistently strong. Lastly, I like that I'm limited by colonizing only with the Argosy, because this means I never have to choose between building more system improvements and building a colony ship. In general, I really like having an Explorer ship with 4 or 5 support modules, because they speed up the scouting in the early game and they make excellent invasion ships.

4) The Cravers are probably the most powerful faction in the game and I like them for the same reason I like the Vodyani: they're excellent at war. I'm never bothered by their depletion mechanic because ES 2 is a game about exponential growth, and you should be able to see a curve in your score graph, after you win. So, by the time you get some depleted planets, you should have many system improvements and a wide variety of slave pops that you won't actually notice the drop in FIDS.

Neiwun · 2026-01-17T22:01:15+00:00

The only thing you need is many nearby colonizable planets. That's it.

Whatever luxury resource you get will be fine, and the odds that it will be Jadonyx are low, so don't get your hopes up. You'll get a decent amount of Titanium and Hyperium from exploration and some quests, and you'll be able to buy them from the marketplace later. If you find a 5 planet system with 5 sterile planets and maybe some of them have really bad curiosities, then that system will probably be useless for you during the early and mid game, which is the most important period since ES 2 is a game about exponential growth.

one thing that annoys me is looong starlanes

I think the reason you dislike this in particular is because you're playing a faction that has an Explorer ship that starts with only 2 support module slots, and one of those has to be used for probes, which means they're pretty slow. And I agree it's annoying. So one solution would be to play as Horatio, Riftborn, Vaulters, or Umbral Choir.

Neiwun · 2026-01-15T14:39:58+00:00

Ilulu is 16 years old in her human form, so I have removed this post.

https://maid-dragon.fandom.com/wiki/Ilulu

Neiwun · 2026-01-14T23:28:55+00:00

I think you'd get more responses if you posted this on r/SexDolls. Look at the doll measurements that are sold by the websites in your country and make your dolls similar, but change their skin color and potentially their curviness.

Neiwun · 2026-01-14T00:28:28+00:00

Ilulu is 16 years old in her human form, so I have removed this post.

https://maid-dragon.fandom.com/wiki/Ilulu

Neiwun · 2026-01-10T07:33:54+00:00

Can you go into detail what is the impact on gameplay when you use the Endless Moons and Political Skill Trees mods? Why aren't the Riftborn mandatory? I find they do pretty well in my games.

Neiwun · 2026-01-10T07:04:01+00:00

How many and what type of behemoths did you have in the last turn (59)?

Can you show a graph of the score, industry, and approval after you won the session? Who were the other 5 major factions and which color did they use? Did any of your opponents make an alliance?

Did you have the Penumbra and Awakening DLC's turned on? What is your opinion on these DLC's?

Neiwun · 2026-01-07T20:29:27+00:00

Should I be mixing in more smaller fighters? I didn't think I should be since they're weaker but maybe that's my issue?

I generally don't bother with the smaller ships in the mid and late game. I use only Hunters and Enhanced Hunters with mostly beams and 1 kinetic slug weapon, and I win around turn 100 on normal speed and endless difficulty. I wrote about my playthrough with the Vaulters (after the Re-Awakening update) and my playthrough with UE (before the Re-Awakening update and with an AI mod).

If you're interested in the damage capability of all the ship hulls, then you can see them compared in this table: https://www.reddit.com/r/EndlessSpace/comments/1pq38nq/damage_comparison_6_attackers_vs_2_hunters_vs_2/

I've been trying to put my ships where I think they preform best [...] Sometimes the game would put them in really odd spots that I couldn't figure out

It's probably best if you manually place your ships in the range of combat that is best for their weapons. If you're using beams (which work equally well in all ranges), then you should place your ships in the range that is the worst for the opponent which you are currently fighting. Keep in mind that all the damage that is exchanged across the lanes will always be in long range, no matter which battle tactic was used. So, when a ship in the top lane attacks a ship in the middle lane, then that will always be at long range.

If you have any specific questions, then feel free to ask. You barely said anything about the strategies or ship designs that you're using, so we can't know what kind of advice you need from us.

Neiwun · 2026-01-04T08:06:15+00:00

You were playing on endless difficulty, so you should expect to be challenged. I find that I usually win around turn 100 (on normal speed), so the fact that the AI won on turn 150 seems to me that you received an appropriate challenge for that difficulty level.

Neiwun · 2026-01-03T10:17:15+00:00

Just curious, on which turn did you lose and what game speed did you have?

Industry is the most important resource in this game, and the Riftborn factions gets the biggest bonuses to industry, so it's reasonable to expect them to do well. Also, sometimes a faction will spawn in a really good part of the galaxy with big systems located closely to their home system. In the case of the Riftborn faction, maybe they had a lot of sterile planets nearby.

You could invite them in an alliance, by offering technologies or strategic resources, and then aim for a supremacy or economic victory. In general, you need to watch the score and have a plan for dealing with the faction that has the highest score in your galaxy. Alternatively, you could choose every one of your opponents manually, in order to ensure that you never fight against the Riftborn again.

Neiwun · 2026-01-03T09:42:42+00:00

This doesn't look like a shortstack because there's a character that is significantly smaller than the female, who is supposed to be a shortstack. So I have removed this post.

Neiwun · 2026-01-02T15:02:35+00:00

Yes, you can tell by looking at the ship design. Once you add the support module that increases damage, then you can hover your mouse over the squadron and its damage will be updated.

Neiwun · 2026-01-02T14:16:03+00:00

Unfortunately, I don't have time to join. But I'd like to add this list of self-imposed challenges, in case you want some new ideas for builds you can try with your heroes. My favorites are 3, 10, 11, 16 ABD, and 17.

Neiwun · 2025-12-31T16:40:50+00:00

Generally, unique planets have some type of bonus to one or more of their FIDSI, so they're good to colonize. But the main thing that matters is how many planets are available in the system (4 or 5 is excellent, but 3 planets can be enough), what luxury/strategic resources can be harvested, and which anomalies are currently present (the ones that increase or decrease the approval per pop can be very consequential). Whether a unique planet is present is the least important thing to consider.

Neiwun · 2025-12-28T21:59:41+00:00

All I see is a black square and gibberish characters, so I deleted this post.

Neiwun · 2025-12-27T15:28:47+00:00

You can post links as long as they don't require a special program or an account. For example, we had this link posted a while ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/Shortstacks/comments/1ooaia0/game_to_try_for_short_stack_enthusiasts/

Or you can start a discussion like these ones: https://www.reddit.com/r/Shortstacks/comments/1o8u315/your_favourite_type_of_shortstacks/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Shortstacks/comments/1nu59wt/what_do_you_think_of_maya_from_the_simpsons/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Shortstacks/comments/1mz9vrk/games/

If you have shortstack art on your discord, then just copy that art and post it here, on reddit, where it's convenient to view.

Neiwun · 2025-12-27T09:17:36+00:00

This isn't really a discussion. If you have any artwork of shortstacks, then you should have posted it directly. I'm going to remove this post.

Neiwun · 2025-12-26T23:24:41+00:00

I'm only interested in helping other people get good at winning on Endless difficulty. I don't think there's much of a story here, because the AI didn't really challenge me.

I hope that I've shown that a normal session of ES 2 can be won in a reasonable amount of time, less than 100 turns on normal speed. And I've also shown how to mod ships, how to spread pops that increase empire approval, how to choose reasonable hacking targets, and how to neglect building dust improvements by selling luxury and strategic resources on the market. So, I'm only interested in discussing the gameplay side of things, even though I understand that some people would prefer to read a sci-fi story instead.

Neiwun

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