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[Cyan Leader]

If you want to be the best, you play support like bard/cleric, and this is not fun.  Yes, player can play lame characters if he wants.  I tried all personal skills.  It is not much better than unskilled, and I need to give up fleetwide and campaign stuff to have a beast that can punch one or two classes above it weight instead of soloing entire fleets.  Meanwhile, I can play cheerleader, and have six more AI ships that can punch like a beast.

I prefer to utterly crush enemies in the most unfair way possible.  So far, the best way is to play... cheerleader.  Buff my fleet while officers hog all of the combat glory.  It stinks.  Much prefer superstar play of 0.6 and 0.7 because at least I can pilot the ace, not my officers only.

I have a hard time wrapping my head around this argument. You complain that cheerleader has problems yet taking any other road is "lame"? You can crush any enemy by running a fleet with four or so Paragons or a bunch of carriers, it's not hard to do and it has been a viable "crushing" option for many versions now. So why avoid playing the "superstar" now when overwhelming the enemy has been an option for so long?

Aurora is fast enough to catch Medusa (after it runs out of skimmer charges, so it takes a while), so it may be fast enough to catch few frigates.  But at its price, I much rather deploy a cheaper ship, like Drover or Heron, and kill them with fighters, or deploy a capital that can kill everything.  Plus, energy weapons are obnoxiously rare (short of Tri-Tachyon commission, or pulse lasers and PD lasers at Black Markets).  High-tech clunkers are rare, unless you fight Tri-Tachyon or Lion's Guard regularly.

It does not take a while, Medusas are extremely easy to catch up to, and so are frigates. Here is an example battle, while the fleet isn't high tech you can see how easy it is to engage with any ship size. (this isn't 100% vanilla but I limited my ship and character to vanilla standards except unlimited AM, enemy officers are up to lvl28).

https://my.mixtape.moe/pebnez.webm

Moreover, Herons and Drovers while very effective they cannot kill multiple cruisers in a short span of time by themselves and also take out frigates, especially if outnumbered. The Aurora can. It's a multipurpose ship which is why it shines on the hand of the player, allowing us to take the lead role of the fleet. The only type support that I do is when I do a full deploy I fly around making sure no single ship of my fleet is in a bad position, because ships like the Medusa, Aurora and the Falcon are fast and strong enough to allow for this. However, I never feel like I'm a "cheerleader" since I'm actually engaging in combat and also constantly flanking the enemy. It's fun and it feels like I'm actually leading my fleet.

[Thaago]

Re: Phase Lance
I only use these (occasionally) after I get Advanced Optics.  Without the range boost, Pulse Laser seems superior in every way if the ship can support Pulse Laser.

This is wrong. The alpha/burst of phase lances is completely different from a Pulse Laser. It has 5 times the armor penetration (which has a nonlinear effect on breakthrough time), can force overloads or shield dropping, and does much more damage to hull against heavily armored targets. The burst nature lets it overwhelm and instantly destroyer frigates. Its high accuracy means its actually also an excellent anti-fighter weapon; with skills it will destroy multiple fighters per shot.

Also, the personal skills do make ships punch an entire class above their weight. In addition they allow for greater concentration of force, which is really important.

[Megas]

I avoid superstar because making my flagship punch a little above its normal power takes the most points, but the benefits I get back are relatively puny compared to other options.  If I want the most powerful character, I do not take lame options.

If I spend everything into personal skills (and Loadout Design 3 and Electronic Warfare 1), my flagship can punch one or two classes above an unskilled ship.  The rest of my fleet does not have the passive boosts like more CR (from Fleet Logistics 3) or better fighters (from Fighter Doctrine), and I have no campaign or QoL skills (no Navigation, no Surveying, no Salvaging).  If I spend everything on my flagship only and give up fleetwide or campaign abilities, I better be able to solo everything like during 0.6.x or 0.7.x.  But that is not possible.  In 0.7, a battleship (especially Onslaught) could solo everything in the simulator (or even combined skilled fleets over 100+ ships in campaign) with peak performance to spare.  Today, Paragon, the most powerful ship in the 0.8 game, with all of the best combat/personal skills, is unable to solo the simulator (which has 80-something ships) before running out of CR.  Frigates with all of the combat skills have trouble soloing big ships, and destroyers might not be able to solo Paragon.  This assumes the enemy is unskilled.  If they have skills too, I probably simply breaking even with my flagship, while the rest of my fleet may be at a disadvantage (because I did not grab some of the fleetwide skills).

Also, another problem with personal skills that are highly specialized (like Carrier Command) is I may be married to a ship.  If I want to be the best carrier pilot, I would be stuck with Astral.  If I want to change ships, I have useless skills.  I cannot respec.

Leadership has few skills that duplicate personal skills (in Combat and Leadership) except they apply to the whole fleet.

You can crush any enemy by running a fleet with four or so Paragons or a bunch of carriers, it's not hard to do and it has been a viable "crushing" option for many versions now. So why avoid playing the "superstar" now when overwhelming the enemy has been an option for so long?

With that much ship power, I do not need skills to kill the enemy.  In 0.8, making my flagship only better at the cost of everything else does not make a significant difference strategically (i.e., skilled flagship performance alone is not significantly better than unskilled performance).  Before 0.8, I could grab max combat skills and solo fleets that an unskilled ship cannot do.

Moreover, Herons and Drovers while very effective they cannot kill multiple cruisers in a short span of time by themselves and also take out frigates, especially if outnumbered. The Aurora can. It's a multipurpose ship which is why it shines on the hand of the player, allowing us to take the lead role of the fleet. The only type support that I do is when I do a full deploy I fly around making sure no single ship of my fleet is in a bad position, because ships like the Medusa, Aurora and the Falcon are fast and strong enough to allow for this. However, I never feel like I'm a "cheerleader" since I'm actually engaging in combat and also constantly flanking the enemy. It's fun and it feels like I'm actually leading my fleet.

I clicked your link, but I need to download it then view it in some app.  No thanks.

I tried Aurora, and I have trouble killing multiple cruisers without either 1) Sabot spam (which is risky) or 2) getting Hardened Subsystems and outlasting them.  Multiple cruisers simply ball up and make it hard to kill.  Well, enemy Aurora is fairly easy to separate, but the rest simply blob up into a deathball and trying to kill them with terrible shot range (and terrible flux effienency) is very hard unless Aurora outlasts them in peak performance.  At least Aurora can kite and stall.  Others, except Heron, would probably get surrounded and killed.

Aurora is sufficiently expensive enough that I prefer to grab a capital (except Odyssey without any Tachyon Lances) to kill cruisers as well as capitals.  I do not trust AI to pilot the Aurora either, especially when it is the easiest enemy cruiser to kill due to its relative recklessness.  (Aurora tends to be less cowardly than the average ship.)

But the point of Heron and Drover is to counter fast enemies, so that I do not need to bring frigates (or Medusa).  Against cruisers, I bring my Legion or Paragon.  Cruisers are not fast enough to disengage from them.  If I lack a capital, I use various cruiser-sized clunkers among Falcon, Eagle, Dominator, Heron, and Mora which are readily available, as well as the weapons they can use.

[intrinsic_parity]

Also, the personal skills do make ships punch an entire class above their weight. In addition they allow for greater concentration of force, which is really important.

Personal Skills definitely make your ship better, I don't think anyone is denying that, but they are competing with skills that make every ship (or many ships) in your fleet better. Why would I effectively upgrade my flagship by one class when I can upgrade every ship in my fleet by half (or whatever amount) of a class and get 10 officers to upgrade all those ships by a class? Or I could get a bunch of carrier skills that make all my carriers much better. It's just not a fair comparison. Concentration of force is a fair point though, I just don't think it's significant enough. It's about opportunity cost in skills, not the usefulness of the skills themselves.

Re: Phase Lance. Imo, it just occupies too much of a ships flux profile. You need another source of hard flux for it to be useful, and high tech has no efficient sources of hard flux so you will likely be high on flux before you can really fire the phase lance, and then the big burst of flux from firing it puts you in a really dangerous situation. If you are depending on your fleet for hard flux, then you are relegating yourself to playing passive behind friendly ships until an opportunity presents itself to do damage. In my experience, this is neither reliable nor enjoyable. The only ship I really find it useful on is the medusa because it can mount kinetics (an efficient source of hard flux). It also has the mobility to take advantage of the burst damage more effectively. Even then it is only good, not great. Maybe an aurora with a bunch of sabots could use these effectively? I haven't tried that, but depending on limited ammo for hard flux is also risky.

edit: a lot of this got said while I was typing

[Megas]

This is wrong. The alpha/burst of phase lances is completely different from a Pulse Laser. It has 5 times the armor penetration (which has a nonlinear effect on breakthrough time), can force overloads or shield dropping, and does much more damage to hull against heavily armored targets. The burst nature lets it overwhelm and instantly destroyer frigates. Its high accuracy means its actually also an excellent anti-fighter weapon; with skills it will destroy multiple fighters per shot.

Also, the personal skills do make ships punch an entire class above their weight. In addition they allow for greater concentration of force, which is really important.

I consider hard flux more valuable than armor penetration because if I cannot get through the shield, then all the armor penetration is irrelevant.  Phase Lance works on Medusa, Doom, and midline ships because they have ballistics to back those lances up.  On something that cannot use ballistics for hard flux, using Phase Lance alone to overcome shields is hard.  Every time I tried Phase Lance on Wolf, I always wished I had Pulse Laser or Heavy Blaster instead.

Also, the burst nature of Phase Lance can be a drawback, due to fast flux buildup.  And it bursts over a second, not instantly like blasters, so it is not useful for those that need to hit-and-run fast.  Anytime phase lance would be more useful than pulse laser, a blaster is an even better option than both, unless I have Advanced Optics to extend lance range.

If Phase Lance had 700 range natively, like it used to when it was Phase Beam, then it would not be so niche or useless.

[Thaago]

Who said anything about solely mounting Phase Lances on high tech ships? On the following ships, phase lances with or without AO works:

Medusa, Sunder, Falcon, Eagle, Conquest (no more strike fighters), Paragon, Astral.

Ships where it doesn't work:

Wolf, Vigilance, Harbinger, Aurora, Apogee.

They are niche, strong weapons for assault, brawling, and popping small ships that try to attack a larger ship, but not kiting. As a niche weapon, once you find the correct usage it performs very well.

Blasters are good, but they are not always better than Phase Lances: Phase lances have (much) better flux efficiency so are less of a burden on midline or overgunned ships. Phase Lances are pinpoint accurate and will crush those fighters and frigates people keep complaining about. Heavy blasters have a large tendency to miss their opening shot or be outrighted dodged: firing them against fighters can cripple the ship firing them due to flux costs!

With regards to range: sometime you actually want their range to be shorter rather than longer, and I'm undecided whether or not its better to NOT have AO at all. This is especially true on Falcons and Eagles: the ships will fire their kinetics at their longer range, driving up enemy shields. The Phase Beams can't fire until the ship closes, so the target will naturally be high on flux. Not to say the weapon wouldn't be better at 800 range: it absolutely is. But 800 range, and paying OP costs for AO, and having a slower turret turn rate, is a little much.

[Megas]

Who said anything about solely mounting Phase Lances on high tech ships?

High-tech are the ones stuck with energy weapons and (usually) cannot use ballistics, with Medusa and Paragon (and Doom if you consider phase ships high-tech) being the exceptions.

For midline, we have Vigilance, Sunder, Falcon, Eagle, and Conquest.

Vigilance needs no explanation.

Sunder... I guess it can work, but it I want to be that close without Advanced Optics, I probably would use triple pulse laser for being the common and disposable option.  If I want to be a bit silly, triple mining blaster to cause overloads.  If I want to rely on beams, and availability is not a factor, then HIL or tachyon lance seems more useful.  Tachyon Lance is really brutal thanks to shield pierce, and Sunder can mount needlers to put hard flux on shields.  Although in practice I do not use that loadout because light needlers and lances are so rare they get put on bigger ships instead.  Since I try to build ships self-sufficient, I generally avoid the AO plus Graviton and HIL combo others use despite being effective for its purpose.  In general, Sunder is not that good of a ship late in the game, despite being fun to use.

Falcon and Eagle are probably the most useful ships for phase lance and ballistics combo, provided they have either Advanced Optics (more range) or Safety Override (short beam range is irrelevant).  They do not have the flux stats to support three pulse lasers or blasters for long, especially if ballistics are flux hogs and/or vents get cut to make everything else fit.  (I generally prefer to rely on ballistics for damage because either they can kite from extreme range with HVD/Mauler or they are meant to be disposable and rely on easily obtained Arbalest and Heavy Mortar, and Phase Lances are less common than PD/Tactical/Graviton beams).  Also, three lance Eagle is not that easy to use.  One moment, my flux is fine and I am busy fighting.  Next moment, beams fire and flux shoots up wildly, and my ship is highly vulnerable to overload if I am not careful.

Conquest... if I have spare OP and manageable flux use, I prefer either Ion Beam for shield pierce and EMP or another burst PD.  If not, it gets left empty in favor of other mounts.  Gauss and Mjolnir are flux hogs, especially if both broadsides are firing.  With base OP, something will get cut.  That usually means medium missiles and medium energy to get everything else I want.

[intrinsic_parity]

The thing is that midline can mount HE so they don't really need extra armor penetration and they don't have amazing flux stats so the flux profile of a phase lance is a big deal to add on top of multiple medium ballistics and PD. I usually just give them beams like graviton and tac laser that compliment long range kinetics better, and also create less flux.

For paragon, there are just so many better options. The quad tach lance is already tons of burst, it doesn't need to waste additional flux on an inconsequential amount of damage. The same goes for conquest, capital ships have many better ways of getting armor penetration and burst much more efficiently.

For me, the sunder is all about the large mount, it can barely use that in the first place. I usually leave the mediums empty if I have any large weapon. SO sunder with an auto pulse and needlers is my favorite in the early game.

Also, three lance Eagle is not that easy to use.  One moment, my flux is fine and I am busy fighting.  Next moment, beams fire and flux shoots up wildly, and my ship is highly vulnerable to overload if I am not careful.

This is what I meant when I was talking about the flux profile. The weapon appears efficient and low flux because its stats are averaged with the time it's not firing, but for the short period you are firing it, it generates 1200 flux per second, which can easily overload you. It's only doing 1000 damage per second during the burst so it's actually significantly flux negative.

It will lose you the flux war unless you have a lot more capacity than your enemy (in which case you likely have a larger ship that should win anyway). All it really is for me is substitute HE for high tech ships that can't mount real HE.

[Cyan Leader]

I avoid superstar because making my flagship punch a little above its normal power takes the most points, but the benefits I get back are relatively puny compared to other options.  If I want the most powerful character, I do not take lame options.

Not min-maxing isn't "lame" but sure, I understand that.

Today, Paragon, the most powerful ship in the 0.8 game, with all of the best combat/personal skills, is unable to solo the simulator (which has 80-something ships) before running out of CR.

Chain deploy. CR isn't an issue in the mid-late game, which allows for SO builds which definitely punch above their weight.

Frigates with all of the combat skills have trouble soloing big ships, and destroyers might not be able to solo Paragon.  This assumes the enemy is unskilled.  If they have skills too, I probably simply breaking even with my flagship, while the rest of my fleet may be at a disadvantage (because I did not grab some of the fleetwide skills).

Breaking even? That's just false. Megas, you are and will always be a much better pilot than the AI. It doesn't matter if they have an officer with equivalent skills when you can outpilot them easily.

Also, another problem with personal skills that are highly specialized (like Carrier Command) is I may be married to a ship.  If I want to be the best carrier pilot, I would be stuck with Astral.  If I want to change ships, I have useless skills.  I cannot respec.

Since you are not a fan of editing limits, have you considered having multiple characters with different specialties? If you get tired of piloting carriers, switch to another save.

I tried Aurora, and I have trouble killing multiple cruisers without either 1) Sabot spam (which is risky) or 2) getting Hardened Subsystems and outlasting them.  Multiple cruisers simply ball up and make it hard to kill.  Well, enemy Aurora is fairly easy to separate, but the rest simply blob up into a deathball and trying to kill them with terrible shot range (and terrible flux effienency) is very hard unless Aurora outlasts them in peak performance.  At least Aurora can kite and stall.  Others, except Heron, would probably get surrounded and killed.

Aurora is sufficiently expensive enough that I prefer to grab a capital (except Odyssey without any Tachyon Lances) to kill cruisers as well as capitals.  I do not trust AI to pilot the Aurora either, especially when it is the easiest enemy cruiser to kill due to its relative recklessness.  (Aurora tends to be less cowardly than the average ship.)

AM blasters + Heavy Blasters with SO is a really deadly build that will kill multiple cruisers and most capitals in a short time. The point of piloting this is to give you some of the fun of having the glory of killing some enemies and not playing support all the time. I can't solo fleets with this since it runs out of CR, but I definitely can if I chain deploy. I choose to play with some officers supporting me though, which is good enough.

Consider it as an option, that's all. You are too dead set on min-maxing (which hey, it can be fun on its own) and I'm hoping you can make some exceptions here and there so that you can enjoy the game more. You are probably full of supplies in your saves since you optimize so much, use them.

[Megas]

There is a difference between not min-maxing is lame and taking weak options is lame.

I know about chain-deploy, and have abused it since the pre-0.65 days (since no Leadership back then meant only 25 DP worth of ships), especially during 0.7.x when officers were so powerful that the only way to avoid casualties was to solo everything.  Fights are long and drawn out, especially when enemy runs away (first, Timid officers in 0.7; now, almost everything without enough forces in 0.8 ).

CR is a bigger deal later in the game, not less because fleets and ships get bigger.  SO is useful early, but by endgame SO anything is not useful because peak performance is much too short.

Breaking even? That's just false. Megas, you are and will always be a much better pilot than the AI. It doesn't matter if they have an officer with equivalent skills when you can outpilot them easily.

What I mean is if you need skills to kill a unskilled ship that you could not kill with an unskilled ship, it stands to reason that your skilled ship will not be able to kill a enemy ship upgraded with the same skills.  (For example, unskilled small ship may not be able to kill a capital.  With skills, small ship may kill unskilled capital.  When enemy gets skills, your small ship cannot kill it, because playing field is leveled.)  And because the player is generally a better pilot, in terms of creating openings for everyone - with or without skills - it is probably better for your ship to stay unskilled while the rest of your AI ships exploit openings your ship create.  It take much less skill points to boost your fleet and still have points to get campaign skills or one or two critical personal skills.  If I buff the fleet and get more officers, they can crush enemies after I create openings with my unskilled ship.

Since you are not a fan of editing limits, have you considered having multiple characters with different specialties? If you get tired of piloting carriers, switch to another save.

I prefer to stick with one character because it takes a while to accumulate enough goodies with a single character to have fun.  With level cap, I no longer need to grind levels, but I still grind for ships and weapons.  Plus, endgame is the most fun phase of the game for me.  Some love early-game most.  I love endgame most.  It takes weeks of sporadic play to reach endgame because I do not have unlimited time to play games.  When a new release hits, it takes me about a month to play enough before I post a long post for Alex to digest.  Of course, I could cheat to reach endgame quickly, but I do not want to do that unless I want to examine and test (mod) game content quickly.

If Starsector was quick to play like DoomRL/DRL, then specialists are okay because most games end in about hour.  Starsector is too long for that.

Chain deploying Auroras are expensive, not to mention I do not find very many in the game in the first place!  I guess player can find plenty if he fights Tri-Tachyon much.  If I will spend that much, might as well deploy the whole fleet and get the battle over with quickly.

I do not enjoy games if I am not giving my best.  I try other options, and if they are sub-optimal, they usually do not get used for long.  I started min-maxing, then role-played (only to realize that those who advocate not to min-max are those that either wage psychological warfare to put their opponent into a disadvantage, or the game makers are sooth-saying their customers to ignore the flaws of the game), then looped back to min-maxing.

P.S.  Plus, if there was a ship to chain-deploy, it would be Afflictor because it is stupidly-overpowered for its size and cost, and it could do it unskilled too.  It is one of the few frigates I bring for endgame (mainly as backup capital killer).  Its main drawback is rarity.

[Megas]

Tried AM Blaster/Heavy Blaster Aurora with Safety Override, and under player control, it seems to play like a nova or raider loadout not unlike Sabot spam Aurora.  Instead of limited by ammo, it is limited by peak performance.  Unskilled, it can break few ships before it is crippled (by decaying CR), much like Sabot Aurora.  With lots of personal skills, it can punch above its weight by a class or two like other ships, or break few more smaller ships.

Seems Aurora is best suited for nova builds that hit hard and fast for a few moments before it breaks fast.  Classic forbidden technique, overclocking, or similar trope.

Unskilled SO Aurora can catch some of the slower frigates.  It has trouble catching something very fast like Tempest though.  Without SO, Aurora has trouble catching frigates determined to escape.  So far, SO Aurora seems best suited to eliminate small fleets like those with one or two Remnant destroyers and a few more frigates.  Could be good in pursuit if auto-resolve was not an option.  Against large endgame fleet, I think lack of peak performance would hurt too much, and it is too expensive as a one-shot when something like one or two Afflictors can do a similar job for less cost.