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[TaLaR]

Paragons (well equipped ones, which for this case means 4x tach lances, Tac lasers in small, HVD in universals, Optics hullmod each) would probably win quite easily if you just auto-pilot. In fact, Onslaughts will get outranged and will have serious issues even approaching

What game version are you playing in? Onslaughts are, by far, the fastest capital ships. And Paragons are, by far, the slowest and least maneuverable.  So while the Paragon does outrange the onslaught, being the only high tech ship that does it will not do so for long, and will barely even have time to maneuver before being beset upon by superior firepower and flux stats.

As for the frigates no, the list is there because it doesn’t matter a hot minute how good the ship is in a 1v1 fight it matters what the ship does in a fleet. And Monitors allow your fleet to get closer safer to the others and slaughter them with concentrated fire.

(As an example an afflictor will be volleyed by a properly set up Onslaught as soon as it unphases behind t)

Onslaughts are fast at closing distance with ship system, but you can't Burn Drive at 4x Tach Lances because it drops shield - you'll be half-dead on arrival. Other than effectively countered Burn drive, Onslaught has lower base speed (25) than Paragon (30). So a Paragon going for maximum humilation can even kite an Onslaught to some extent.

Monitor is the best bullet sponge, which means you list mostly for AI usage. Still, Tempest should be second then. Combination of being fast itself + distraction by drone make it quite survivable too.

Afflictor is a player ship, which means operating under assumption that player commits no obvious mistakes. Onslaught does not have that many rear-facing weapons and no variant used by AI just bunches up HE guns there (PD is 1st priority, Kinetics is good at keeping frigates away, HE is distant third). Afflictor is fast enough to just dodge most shots (and there won't be many in first place, due to disabling ship system + Reaper salvo).

[intrinsic_parity]

What game version are you playing in? Onslaughts are, by far, the fastest capital ships. And Paragons are, by far, the slowest and least maneuverable.  So while the Paragon does outrange the onslaught, being the only high tech ship that does it will not do so for long, and will barely even have time to maneuver before being beset upon by superior firepower and flux stats.

What version of the game are you playing? The paragon has vastly superior flux stats, 8k more flux capacity and more than double the flux dissipation (1250 vs. 600). Plus fortress shield which makes it more or less invulnerable. Onslaught will flux lock itself long before paragon gets anywhere near max flux.

[Megas]

I tend to use a cruiser and/or carrier heavy fleet.

For frigates, I tend to use Lasher and Wolf (or whatever I can find) early, then Afflictor, Tempest, and Hyperion late in the game.  Tempest for enabling pursuit or AI use in small fights, Afflictor or Hyperion as playership.

For destroyers, Medusa or Hammerhead early in the game, maybe Condor too.  Late in the game, Drover or bust.

Cruisers are my primary fleet ships, and I use Falcons as grunts, Eagle and Dominator as tanks, and several Heron and/or Mora.  As a flagship, I tend to gravitate toward Heron or Eagle with Converted Hangar.

Capitals, either Legion for general-purpose brawling or chaff sweeping, or Paragon if I want to kill just about everyone.  If I need a third capital, I possibly bring Astral.  (I will bring Astral along if I find it before I find Paragon.)  I usually only deploy one and I pilot it.

Generally, high-tech is hit-and-miss.  Some hulls are very powerful while others are mediocre by demonstrating energy weapon weakness all too well.  Also, high-tech is a royal pain to outfit because none of their energy weapons are on the Open Market (mining laser does not count - too rare and too weak), and Black Markets only have the basics (PD lasers and pulse lasers).

Many of my fleet's ships are low-tech or midline, with few high-tech exceptions.

[zaimoni]

What game version are you playing in? Onslaughts are, by far, the fastest capital ships. And Paragons are, by far, the slowest and least maneuverable.  So while the Paragon does outrange the onslaught, being the only high tech ship that does it will not do so for long, and will barely even have time to maneuver before being beset upon by superior firepower and flux stats.

What version of the game are you playing? The paragon has vastly superior flux stats, 8k more flux capacity and more than double the flux dissipation (1250 vs. 600). Plus fortress shield which makes it more or less invulnerable. Onslaught will flux lock itself long before paragon gets anywhere near max flux.

Usual AI vs AI experience here is Paragon dead, Onslaught 20%-25% hull with an optimized L20 pilot.  Seriously considering reconfiguring the game to increase fleet limit beyond 30 on my next playthrough, if I can find an appropriate JSON adjustment.

[intrinsic_parity]

Usual AI vs AI experience here is Paragon dead, Onslaught 20%-25% hull with an optimized L20 pilot. 

Are you saying the onslaught has a level 20 officer and the paragon doesn't?

[Goumindong]

What game version are you playing in? Onslaughts are, by far, the fastest capital ships. And Paragons are, by far, the slowest and least maneuverable.  So while the Paragon does outrange the onslaught, being the only high tech ship that does it will not do so for long, and will barely even have time to maneuver before being beset upon by superior firepower and flux stats.

What version of the game are you playing? The paragon has vastly superior flux stats, 8k more flux capacity and more than double the flux dissipation (1250 vs. 600). Plus fortress shield which makes it more or less invulnerable. Onslaught will flux lock itself long before paragon gets anywhere near max flux.

The Onslaught will armor tank while the paragon doesn’t so while the Onslaught has a lower cap it will still flux lock slower than the paragon. It also has more Flux efficient weapons.  If the paragon fortress shields it’s not shooting. If it’s not shooting it doesn’t matter.

And consider that you have more onslaughts than you have paragons....

[zaimoni]

Usual AI vs AI experience here is Paragon dead, Onslaught 20%-25% hull with an optimized L20 pilot. 

Are you saying the onslaught has a level 20 officer and the paragon doesn't?

The paragon is Threat; it has an L20 pilot, typically with garbage skills.

The Onslaught is mine; as stated its officer has optimized skills.  The Paragon will win if the Onslaught's officer only has good but not optimized skills.

[TaLaR]

What game version are you playing in? Onslaughts are, by far, the fastest capital ships. And Paragons are, by far, the slowest and least maneuverable.  So while the Paragon does outrange the onslaught, being the only high tech ship that does it will not do so for long, and will barely even have time to maneuver before being beset upon by superior firepower and flux stats.

What version of the game are you playing? The paragon has vastly superior flux stats, 8k more flux capacity and more than double the flux dissipation (1250 vs. 600). Plus fortress shield which makes it more or less invulnerable. Onslaught will flux lock itself long before paragon gets anywhere near max flux.

The Onslaught will armor tank while the paragon doesn’t so while the Onslaught has a lower cap it will still flux lock slower than the paragon. It also has more Flux efficient weapons.  If the paragon fortress shields it’s not shooting. If it’s not shooting it doesn’t matter.

And consider that you have more onslaughts than you have paragons....

Paragon has 1500 armor vs Onslaught's 1750. There is not much difference here. Onslaught has more efficient weapons, but Paragon counters a lot of that by having more efficient shield. And then Fortress shield on top of that.

On skill-less character, player piloted Onslaught can win against not particularly well equipped sim Paragon, but it requires some tactics and won't happen on auto. Against optimized build of Paragon even player piloting won't help, under same no skills assumption (you can put custom variants into sim by relatively simple file manipulations).
In reverse situation Paragon easily auto stomps sim Onslaught. You have to make an intentionally trash variant for it to lose.

Also what's the point of comparing trash/no officer Paragon to optimized L20 Onslaught? By same logic L20 Dominator could probably defeat officer-less Onslaught - does that make it a superior ship?

[intrinsic_parity]

You can't armor tank 4x tach lance , that will punch straight through and disable a bunch of weapons in the process. 4x tl does 6000 total damage in one burst. Plus the capacity is not very important, dissipation is the important stat, and paragon has (I think) the best in the game. Onslaught will flux cap into fortress shield and then paragon unloads massive damage into armor/hull while disabling many weapons in the process. Paragon can also armor tank reasonably well with 1500 armor.

[Goumindong]

Sure 6,000 total damage in one burst before armor. Doesn't really matter. You can armor tank it. With Heavy Armor, Resistant Flux Conduits, and Armored Weapon Mounts you're pretty much immune to EMP damage and you have 2325 armor before skills. Plus the Tacyon damage doesn't produce hard flux so its not hard to shield tank the Paragons or shield pop them while their tachyon lances are up.   After skills that number can be as high as 3637 for the purposes of mitigation. Which is pretty hilariously strong given that the paragons have essentially zero High Explosive Damage... which is what you need in order to punch through heavy armor.

I mean. AI vs AI the Onslaught wins... and there are more Onslaughts than there are Paragons due to deployment costs.

The Onslaught is a really hilariously good ship.

[zaimoni]

Also what's the point of comparing trash/no officer Paragon to optimized L20 Onslaught?

That's how 30+ battles in Nexerillin+Dynasector played out (no extra factions, just a Sindrian Diktat commission start).  AI fleets almost always have trash L20 officer Paragons.

If the Onslaught starting the battle has the non-optimized L20 officer, Paragon owns the Onslaught.  If the Onslaught starting the battle has an optimized L20 officer, Paragon dies (along with the rest of the fleet!)

[intrinsic_parity]

I mean. AI vs AI the Onslaught wins...

This is not my experience at all. I routinely let an officer pilot my paragon and I have never lost a paragon while the AI was piloting, even when fighting multiple onslaughts. I have, however, lost multiple onslaughts when they have been piloted by the AI. They simply don't have the flux dissipation to sustain fire with all of their weapon mounts and routinely get into risky situations with their burn drives. Many people in this forum have also noted that their experience in the simulator with paragon v onslaught is that the if the two ships are equally well optimized, the paragon wins almost every time. Obviously if you have a L20 officer with an optimized set of skills piloting your onslaught, it will win vs and unskilled or unoptimized paragon, but a well optimized paragon will win.

In terms of armor effectiveness, I am vary aware of the how the armor mechanic works. In the case of beams however, the standard formula does not apply since beams do damage over time rather than 'per shot'. As far as I know, beams have 50% penetration coefficient for armor meaning they do a flat 50% damage to armor. I also discovered that beams do a little additional damage during charge-up and charge-down so a full (single ) tach lance burst does something like 2200 damage. This means that 4xTL will do ~4400 damage in a burst to armor, more than enough to strip the armor off anything in the game. That's based on the math in this thread: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12268.msg208193#msg208193
The bit about beams is not in the original post, its a few comments down.

[TaLaR]

Also what's the point of comparing trash/no officer Paragon to optimized L20 Onslaught?

That's how 30+ battles in Nexerillin+Dynasector played out (no extra factions, just a Sindrian Diktat commission start).  AI fleets almost always have trash L20 officer Paragons.

If the Onslaught starting the battle has the non-optimized L20 officer, Paragon owns the Onslaught.  If the Onslaught starting the battle has an optimized L20 officer, Paragon dies (along with the rest of the fleet!)

Which is exactly why ships should be compared on even ground - either no officers or L20 optimized for both.

[Sooner535]

Yes TLs can eat onslaught armor from the front too, and if the poor guy kept that shield up their not shooting back. Most low tech ships have crazily inefficient shields to the point that I want to use shield bypass, however if a non shield ship meets just 1 ship with even good armor stripping they lose, while most shielded ships can handle a ship designed to kill them (by careful use of when to have the generator on or off, which I occasionally see the AI do). I got in a bought with the hegemony just yesterday and they had 3 onslaughts, all officered, I have a tempest, beatitude, and 3 destroyers from ORA (idk why I’m blanking on the name). I proceeded to kill their 4-7 random frigate/destroyer escorts then just EMP locked them one at a time from behind with the tempest while the beatitude beat some sense into them. Their engines are so slow they cannot help each other or disengage fast enough, once caught out they just sit there and die. With high tech ships, your speed, shields, and light use of armor can offer you a second chance, while most low tech ships don’t get that chance at all. Now I’m not saying a onslaught should be able to tank the world, just would be nice if they could tank just a bit more than now, and that goes for all low tech ships.

[Goumindong]

I mean. AI vs AI the Onslaught wins...

This is not my experience at all. I routinely let an officer pilot my paragon and I have never lost a paragon while the AI was piloting, even when fighting multiple onslaughts. I have, however, lost multiple onslaughts when they have been piloted by the AI. They simply don't have the flux dissipation to sustain fire with all of their weapon mounts and routinely get into risky situations with their burn drives. Many people in this forum have also noted that their experience in the simulator with paragon v onslaught is that the if the two ships are equally well optimized, the paragon wins almost every time. Obviously if you have a L20 officer with an optimized set of skills piloting your onslaught, it will win vs and unskilled or unoptimized paragon, but a well optimized paragon will win.

In terms of armor effectiveness, I am vary aware of the how the armor mechanic works. In the case of beams however, the standard formula does not apply since beams do damage over time rather than 'per shot'. As far as I know, beams have 50% penetration coefficient for armor meaning they do a flat 50% damage to armor. I also discovered that beams do a little additional damage during charge-up and charge-down so a full (single ) tach lance burst does something like 2200 damage. This means that 4xTL will do ~4400 damage in a burst to armor, more than enough to strip the armor off anything in the game. That's based on the math in this thread: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12268.msg208193#msg208193
The bit about beams is not in the original post, its a few comments down.

Beams do not do “flat 50% damage to armor” they do damage to armor as if their damage was 50% of what it was.

So a HIL does 500 damage. Against 2000  armor it will do 1000 raw dmg because it’s HE and have a total initial DPS of 1000 * 500/2500= 200 dps

A tachyon beam does about 2200 damage over 2 seconds. So it’s total damage is 2200 * 550/2550= 474. Good but not enough to strip a heavy armor onslaught let alone one with skills.