Finally got around to doing a full play through of the excellent Project Ironclads TC, and man, what an experience. Quite different from vanilla, but very fun and well put together. A little overwhelming maybe with the sheer number of weapons, many very similar, but it works out alright.
I played primarily as ISA, so naturally had ISA flagships of increasing magnitude up until the end game.
What I found there was absolutely incredible. The Michigan-Class battleship has to be one of the most fun ships to play ever when fitted out carefully. A pair of assault gauss cannons, a pair of 40mm flak, rotary PD guns all around, and a load of devilfish missile launchers make this an unstoppable force when piloted carefully. With a single Michigan, a small support carrier, and a swath of fighters I found myself able to easily cut through system defense fleets of any faction one after another. Just unbelievable. You have to carefully manage your weapons and flux, backing out to vent down, then coming in for attacks. When done right though, you can essentially guarantee a quick kill of any single ship before backing out again. Once I had dominated RSA I went rogue, taking on the rest of the fleets until I was convinced of my invincibility.
Then I found the prototype destroyer. It seemed a littlelackluster, until I fitted it with a pair of captured AI pulse beams, a trio of alien missile launchers, and microlasers all around. Then I was able to single handedly defeat just about any fleet in that destroyer if I played carefully enough. A great bit of fun for the final endgame. Played around with a the other factions for a bit before putting the mod to rest. I might revisit it later if any major updates push through.