Anti sabot-PD requires LRPD, IPDAI Tac lasers, IPDAI Railguns, or Heavy Burst Lasers. Anything else probably lacks range.
If I spam all of my Sabots on one ship, that ship had better die. Otherwise, I am better off leaving the mount empty and putting OP in more useful stat like flux stats to support bigger guns or Hardened Shields. (Better yet, bring few quad Reaper Afflictors and kill one or two ships or battlestation sections per ship painlessly.)
Whenever I dump a ton of Sabots, enemy tends to drop shields and armor tank. Single slug sabots would have wrecked the enemy, but this version may or may not, depending if the spreads work out.
The only time Sabots may feel overwhelming is Longbow spam from a skilled carrier. (Last version had Hammer spam from three-wing Perditions that killed everything.) Even then, I do not use only Longbows for bombers. They get mixed up with Dagger/Cobra/Perdition/Khopesh.
Fighter spam from carriers can make some missiles more powerful than from ships. If Dagger spam was not so effective, Atropos might have done 1200 damage instead of 1000 after its OP costs were slashed after 0.7.2. Similarly, proxy bombs are awful, except on Flash wings.
I think Harpoons are underwhelming. Too slow without Missile Specialization, too easy to shoot down, and AI wastes most or all of them on the first vulnerable target (especially if an insignificant unshielded enemy ship approaches first). No good in an endgame fight against ten capitals and more big ships.
Well Aurora's don't need sabots, they just help it in its best role as a burst killer.
No, that's Afflictor. Reaper variant + skilled character one-shots any non-omni Capital (or brings omni Capital close to death, to be finished off by AM variant). AM variant one-shots frigates/DEs and two-shots cruisers.
I didn't say it was the best burst killer, I said that is the strongest role of an Aurora. Word order.
This is my biggest complaint with Aurora, given its cost. If I try to use it as an endurance brawler like other cruisers and capitals, it is underwhelming. If I use it as a burst attacker, I feel like I pay too much DP (not to mention supplies and fuel) to do what a cheaper ship can do (especially Afflictor). If Aurora did not cost more than 25 DP, I probably would be fine with it. At 30 DP, I feel like I should spend a bit more to get Doom or a real capital that can wreck fleets until PPT times out.