#DisappointedMeme
Just kidding
But I do respectfully disagree on several points :3
I'm working on a big spreadsheet thing to properly describe many stats regarding balance and effectiveness, but it's not finished so for now I'll just bring up a couple general issues, with one exception.
First, the exception that called forth Kevin Sorbo:
The Odyssey. The ever misunderstood ship, and the one I'll always mispell with 2 d's because it is a rather 'Odd'ysey. The turret array is odd, the mount size and types array is odd, the combination of flux stats including shields, the capitol ship speed, the flight decks on a hightech ship, and of course the ship itself just looks odd.
Honestly, I suppose I'm not too surprised about the ranking. It just looks like a wonky POS. But after taking a look the meta of stats on all [vanilla] ships and weapons for so long, I'm finally able to see where it shines.
General issue #1: Flux and Shields
These stats are highly deceptive. Most people will look at and evaluate them on an individual basis, but IMO they're linked to such a significant degree that they can dictate the very role a ship plays. First thing to pay attention to is flux vs shields. Shield efficiency by itself is only half of the equation. To power that shield you need flux, and that can dictate the overall strength of it. For example, who has a stronger shield? An Omen or an Onslaught? An Omen may have a 0.6 efficiency factor, but when comparing EHP regen/capacity, the Onslaught wins heavily with a 600/17,000 shield vs the Omens 333/4,167. Yes it's an extreme example, but it's also a clear case study of the overall weight shield efficiency has on the situation.
Now, while shield and flux stats do play a role with shields, shield effiency does not play a role when it comes to firing weapons. Not directly, anyway. First, to be clear, one can fire weapons while the shields are down. But certain situations require shields to be up. Long range damage support? Shields down. Blindspot flanking? Shields down. Going into medium or close range? Shields up, weapons online! When shields are up, you now have to consider your overall flux venting. It isn't simply vents minus weapon flux. It's Vents - ShieldUpkeep - WeaponFlux. Why this is significant both in and of itself as well as in combination with your other shield-related stats is it determines how fast you'll be overloaded. And for a hit-and-run ship, hard flux usually plays a lesser role in being overloaded.
A ship like the Odyssey has a high high base flux dissipation of 1,000, and a low low shield upkeep factor of only 0.25. The next best capitol only has an upkeep factor of 0.4 (a near double increase), and the capitol ship with the second best shield efficiency factor, the Astral, has an upkeep factor of 0.7! And if we compare EHP regen (including upkeep) and cap, the Odyssey has 750/15,000 vs the Astral's 300/20,000. If we take into account adding addition vents and flux, the Astral will benefit more, but that's still a pretty significant deficit to make up for. Again, this is an extreme case, but again, it clearly demonstrates a case study. What this means is that certain ships do very well with staying in firing range with shields up while returning fire, while others benefit more from using shields more like large buffer before having to duck out of combat to reset it.
Devils advocate: lowtech is clearly built to march into battle with the flux bar perpetually full, but there are additional problems with that that I'll get into later. For now lets just conclude that defense wise, lowtech has utter *** shields and will only sparsely have shields up.
General Issue #2: Flux Dissipation(FD) and Weapons
Okay this one is a bit more complicated. First off, we've got two FD numbers to contend with; shields up, and shields down. Second, we have two dynamic situations to consider; firing while flux is building up, and firing while flux is near maxed. Shields up vs down is easy, and you can clearly see how hightech is balance vs lowtech in regards to flux and shields and weapons. Hightech is built for fighting with shields up, essentially eliminating some of that higher base FD available for firing. Lowtech is built for fighting with shields down and flickering situational, giving them plenty of their base FD for firing. To tackle flux build up vs fighting near max flux, I'll have to bring up a third general issue.
General Issue #3: Tech level and Weapon Flux Demands
First off, to simplify things, rather than counting weapon mounts and sizes, let's first use Ordinance Points(OP) as a rough the basis for the FD demands that a ship will due to its weapons. We can assume this because every ship is given a base OP depending on the ship size, and additional base OP for each weapon mount based on its mount size. I think it's 4/10/20 for mounts. Not all weapons are of equal efficiency in employing flux to deal damage, but lets leave that for later.
If you take a look at lowtech OP, you'll notice that they generally have the most OP (unless they have flight decks, in which case I posit that flight decks count as reserved and hidden OP). This means that lowtech will tend to have a higher base FD weapon demand, making them reach near max flux even faster in addition to their poor shields + flux stats. Their max flux doesn't suffer though, so you could say that they have very high burst. It's just their sustain that is terrible. This translates to the increased armor and hull stats, too. Shields are the more sustainable defense, they just have a lower overall 'burst' capacity.
Now, why do I hate low FD and the near-max flux situation so much? Because it means you don't have the flux reserves available to take advantage of opportunities, and most of all, it inhibits weapons with large flux/shot demands from firing in favor of smaller ones. And that's terrible because sometimes blowing up the enemy ship faster is better than having your PD or less effective weapons eating up all the flux. How many times have we seen the AI waste a ships potential by doing that?
This is the reason why I hate the Onslaught. It has way way way way way more guns than it can possibly power, and as soon as it hits near-max its dps drops off severely and can barely fire its bigger guns, if at all. Combine that with its crippling speed and accelerations and you've got a ship that has a hard time hitting anything with even moderate speed. It's so bad that the AI has been programmed NOT to flank it. The only way I can find to make proper use of it is turn it full tank, with Aux Thrusters, 2xHellbores for armor penetration when it isn't tanking, Railguns, and to load it with nothing but Flak and Thumpers in medium and large slots to maximize its tank potential, and just use it as a battering ram and bullet magnet. IMO it's uselessly expensive as a standalone vessel compared to what it can accomplish in anything but a tanking role. Railguns are to run up hardflux (small ballistic pd is useless IMO) so as to prevent future damage and not need a high flux/shot like needler. Frag weapons are mostly for efficient PD but also because their dmg against sields and hull aren't bad and are fast moving and damaging enough to wreck smaller craft. Only 2x Hellbore because Onslaught can't support anything else. Heph is pointless because 4x Anni Pods. Deva's high flux/shot makes it useless when it needs it most. lol at inefficient Gauss sniper on a close combat tank. etc etc..
Honestly, as a throwaway tank the Dominator is far more efficient. The only thing the Onslaught has over it is # of potential slots for medium PD. Otherwise, I'd rather just throw Dominators at the enemy, recover them after battle, and not give a swarmer about Dmods.
General Issue #4: Deceptive efficiencies
Raw dps and fps stats in tooltip are heavily unfavorable for many energy weapons, especially considering the weaknesses of beams, but I feel like most people vastly underestimate the difference that shot damage makes, and totally ignore effectiveness vs hull (including the inherent 5% armor of hull). I made some spreadsheet magic to calculate the numbers, and energy weapons are actually highly competitive. In fact, against overall armor and hull, Energy weapons like Blasters and the Plasma Cannon are distinctly superior to even HE. Why? Two things. Remember that even though HE gets a 2x bonus vs armor, energy tends to have distinctly higher base dps and shot damage, and HE weapons are usually either high dps and low shot dmg, or low dps and high shot dmg. Plasma Cannon and blasters, though? High dps and high shot damage. That means they can chew through both high armor and hull efficiently at higher dps. In fact, if you include shields, those energy weapon's efficiency is on par with HE.
Kinetic and Frag actually tends to be more efficient overall, but the time it takes to get through armor is just absurd. You MUST have an armor penetrator. Blaster energy weapons can perform all roles the best overall. No need for additional mounts or other damage types.
When my spreadsheet is ready, I'll publish it for all to peruse and see evidence of what I'm talking about.
Why the Odyssey? Because its shields are decent, it's speed is great for hit and runs for ships of its size, it's flux stats are near-OP with shields either up or down, it can easily aim TWO Plasmas at a target WITH HEF, it can festoon itself with Burst PD that is great vs missiles, fighters and even armor and hull, it has 3 medium slots to guarantee you land a Salamander which is great for targets faster than it, and it has 2 flight decks you can load with Claws and Gladius to also help chase down faster foes, soak some damage for the Odyssey, as well as generate hardflux at no flux cost to the Odyssey, which is perfect since although Plasma is perfect vs hull and armor, it's much less efficient vs shields, and you really don't need any other damage dealing weapon when you have Plasma Cannons. You can even give it Unstable Injectors without issue since range isn't too important for it. Minor bonus: Best cargo and burn speed of all capitols.
As far as piloting, I put 2x Plasma on the two left facing mounts, and Guardian PD on the right one. I keep the right side angled towards danger until I want to unload Plasma with HEF. Putting damage dealing missiles in the missile slots is pointless when you can just completely disable enemy ships with gratuitous amounts of Salamanders and a flight of Claw Fighters and then just enjoy your superior flux stats.
Simple as that.