Personally, I like to focus on one weapon per ship design and mix my fleet up with them. My main concern is combat and the ship building.

So if anyone could help me get a better grasp on this game I would appreciate it. I am new to the 4x genre and have only been playing this, pandora, and the last federation for about a month or so. Most of the other posts everyone is using abbreviations and not specifying what range they are setting their weapons systems to, so while I read some of these other threads, sometimes I was lost. My research seemed to be ahead of most other empires, maybe this is why I was winning? For instance mid game with Sherydyn 1 dreadnaught, 1 cruiser, 1 battleship, 1 destroyer and 6 or more corvettes all with balanced setups, my fleets rarely took any damage and destroyed other fleets. I have been playing single player against AI's and doing moderately well but I was using kin, beam, missiles on every ship, along with def, shield and flak, my defense was 95% effective while my off was only 9% effective using all ships but the colony ship. I am new to endless space, so correct me if I am wrong but the first phase is long range weapons only, second phase med range and finally melee in the last phase?

When some of you are talking about one weapon per ship design are you choosing all long range or med? Or are you choosing the most effective range for that weapon type? Most battles in my experience, especially late game are resolved in the first or second phase. So I have read through several threads and the discussions therein.

Endless sky fleet commands