So i just finished my Nexerelin SCY campaign, and it was pretty fun. Early game was quite rough though.
My main issue during early/mid game was to keep my ships alive. Until the armored ones, SCY ships can't take many hits, their shields are very crappy even if it's kinda offset by their huge flux pool. Most importantly, the narrow shield arcs make them extremely vulnerable to flanking, even more so as their ships tends to be very long.
Fighting factions like Blackrock or Exigency as SCY is a nightmare, missiles flying around the shields and hitting the very vulnerable engines was the death sentence for many of my ships. SCY handle outnumbered battles even worse than Neutrinos. Installing insulated engines is hard too, as they tends to be starved on OPs. Ships like the Alecto and the Euryale are pretty good early on, thanks to their unusual shield coverage that prevent them from losing their engines too easily. I also deployed quite a lot my Centaur freighters in combat. They can't defend themselves but the medium mount that can support a LRM bring much needed help in early battle.
I wasn't sure at first what kind of guns i should get, especially since SCY have truckload of them. KAcc and HEMor hurt very hard and are cheap despite the crappy range. My favorite was probably the triple blaster, short range but wreck shields and armors. It can kill enemy ships very quickly and reduce the number of opponents that can surround you, which felt like a pretty successful strategy. Most of the time, battle with SCY felt like a race. Unlike factions like Exigency or II that can take their time to kill you, SCY must wreck everything, right at the beginning.
By the end of the game, my fleet consisted of two Nemean lions, a Keto and 2 armored Stheno that i deployed beforehand so that they aren't stuck behind the rest of the fleet. Behind, a carrier Manticore, an Euryale that somehow managed to survive the whole campaign, and a truckload of fighters. Of course i went beyond my logistic limit, i didn't needed ships with full CR, i needed more ships to atomize the enemy fleet in one go, otherwise things started to get ugly.
The Nemean lion is an awesome front-liner. Yes, its burn speed is atrociously slow but it's probably the best brawler in the game, i managed to win a duel against a Neutrino Jackhammer with my triple heavy ENB loadout. Also ridiculously tough, even when venting, the PDs on the armor plates are still functioning, intercepting any possible incoming missiles. For the guns, i wasn't convinced by the experimental ones like the Ricochet or Orion cannon, not reliable enough. As said earlier, i used the triple ENB with its 700 DPS goodness and constant fire rate. However i switched later one for three plasma cannons for faster kills, especially against other capital ships.
The Keto was a bit underwhelming. Sure the 4 launch bays are handy but the Manticore could prove roughly the same for a smaller logistic footprint. Also i rarely saw it using its main gun, and when i did there were a lot of missing.
The two armored Sthenos weren't doing anything flashy or anything but their presence prevented my 2 Lions from being overwhelmed from every sides. They fulfilled their supportive role pretty well.
For the fighters, the Combat Sufi is probably the big winner here. The pinpoint accuracy at 550 range with the Minigun make it a beast at intercepting everything of its size and sometimes bigger. Same thing for the Combat Afti, while they couldn't intercept fighters as well as the Sufi, their blasters and missiles wrecked everything bigger. The Interceptor variants weren't that bad, the hacking com links were handy to disable the engines of fleeing ships. No love for the PD variants though, i mean, i have miniguns already!
So yeah, that was an enjoyable game. SCY struggle pretty hard at the beginning but once the steamroller is launched, it wrecks everything. Too bad the Templars were wiped out early, i'm curious to know how a slugfest between those two factions would have turned.