If you don't use mods or change weapon parameters, then yes - long range kinetics are better. If you don't use mods or change weapon parameters, then yes - long range kinetics are better. but the AI does adapt to your weapon configuration. you'll have to re-design and change tactics. Missiles? they are quite powerful and in DLC Disharmony you can use them at medium/close range as well. A large fleet of cheap missile boats could be a problem.

As a new player, I have to say it's really hard to know what the heck is going on, combat wise. The stats are very complicated but I'm trying my best to figure them out. Different phases, multiple rounds per phase, differing rounds per weapon, accuracy, efficiency, rounds reflected, critical hits, bonuses from strategic resources, etc.
Still, I'm doing my best to try and figure it all out...
I guess it would be nice if there was a way to compare a given ship design against known enemy designs, something that laid out the actual effective ability of my fleets and breaks down the stats a little.
I find myself enjoying the race for planet development more than combat (which is how I tend to respond to most 4x games) and wish I could simplify things a bit more in my head.

Welcome to state-of-the-art 2012 gaming tech
Amplitude doesn't provide side-by-side comparisons of any ship designs.
(Actually, I cannot think of a single unit-designing game, by any dev, that does.)

Anyways, ES1 is largely crowdsolved by now.
LR Kinetics indeed suffice. I build nothing else: Cravers, reply #7

More deeply, you actually design 1 entire fleet at a time, up to your CP limit.
Optimal is 3 tanks + (CP - 3) glass cannons, where the glass uses LR Kinetics.

Then you eventually appreciate factions' various traits by their +/- CP wrinkles.

• Default midgame (squabbling over the Core) is 12 CP, and CP2 ships.
  That's 3 CP2 tanks + 6 CP1 glass dealing all of the damage.
  
• Automatons gets -2 CP = 10, hence only 4 CP1 glass.
  Compared to 6 CP1 glass, their fleet hits for only 2/3 total damage.
  Then they get fewer alpha-wipe wins, and take more riposte damage.
  
• Cravers gets +3 CP = 15 early, which means 9 CP1 glass.
  Then they deal (3/2)x damage, and win even bigger.

The full combat stack includes an Admiral hero, who rakes in all of the XP.
Use fleet-rotation click-grind to let him fight N times per turn.
Then he helps win every fight, and turbo-levels to L25.

Nowadays, I actually recommend that you never build any siege ships.
Go straight for Assault Trooper, and build a 1-CP Repair/Trooper.
You need roughly as many as a target system's Max Pop.
Click to insta-capture, damaged ones stay until they repair themselves,
pristine ones keep going.

Invade 2-3 spiral arms simultaneously, click click click, etc.
It's faster than waiting 8 turns for a siege, plus you can skip siege math.

Wow! Fantastic response. Thank you!
Yeah, it's an older game but glad I finally gave it a fair shot as it was sitting in my backlog forever.

I come from Sword of the Stars as my all time favorite 4x.
I enjoy Endless Space for its empire management (I get a rush out of min/maxing my system production) but the combat just became a repetitive click fest. The card system seems to slow it all down since there's no way to set default selection and stances on a fleet so I can just auto skip the combat.

Any idea if Endless Space 2 makes things either more interesting or least easier to just click auto resolve?

Thanks again for the awesome post!

Originally posted by William D.:

Any idea if Endless Space 2 makes things either more interesting or least easier to just click auto resolve?

Clicks a little more. slightly different combat system. Not direct action, more focus on equipping your units.

Interestingly i always eff up kinetics at first try.
Later on it works, but even so i prefer to get a diverse aircraft:P So i always have some missiles beams on them. And autocannons. A few fighters or bombers also never hurt:)

Early game i usually just go for missile boats. Those till around turn 40 can really eff up enemies. Thereafter though they adapt and you need to figure out somethign else, but usually you will have a general idea;)
You can also have a look at what the enemy ship has. And prepare for them/counter them.