If you look at Clarents vs Reapers solely from a damage per OP perspective, they're indeed vastly inferior. But you can't forget that they're extremely dissimilar weapons that cannot be compared this way. A Reaper is fairly short-range and requires careful aim and positioning to connect and can be easily dodged or repelled, while a Clarent has longer range, can be fired from any orientation, never misses, is much faster, can retarget and can recover from repelling such as that by a weak Priwen Burst. It's a very reliable "press button to kill target" weapon and when your loadout requires that it's easily worth the OP.
I look at Clarents much like Harpoon MRMs. Very deadly, but too few ammo to make it worth using in all but short fights. I think Harpoon racks and pods cost too much OP for what they do. Clarents are simply high performance Harpoons or Atropos that cost as much if not more OP. If I want to use Clarents, I will grab two or three Smiter wings and a non-Templar carrier.
Personally i never had trouble with supplies in my Templar campaign. Then again, most of the time i only deployed a single Martyr to take down everything from fighters to destroyers, sometimes isolated cruisers. I brought the Paladin (then later i went full Jesuit pack) to take care of the big ones. By doing this method, my expenditures in supplies were very low.
It was tolerable with smaller ships, up to Crusader. But, if I wanted all Templar fleet like NPCs, it was impossible. The only way I could thrive as a Templar was to use stock Domain ships armed with Templar weapons. Occasionally, I would use a Jesuit, Crusader or a few Smiter wings without too much pain. However, if I wanted to use a Paladin or especially Archbishop it would consume all of my supplies, and I would not be able to buy enough replacement supplies. The only markets I can buy supplies in bulk from are Templars and Pirates, but they were not enough for a proper Templar fleet.
Re: JoyeuseIt is fun to use, and player can snipe with it. But the DPS is not much higher than Sentenia, sort of like Heavy Blaster vs. Plasma Cannon. What is more, Sentenia tracks the enemy, but Joyeuse does not. Also, Sentenia has no ammo, but Joyeuse does, and I have ran out of Joyeuse ammo and got stuck with low DPS. I wrote elsewhere that I prefer Heavy Blaster over Plasma Cannon for most ships because Heavy Blaster performs nearly as well for much less OP. Same deal with Sentenia vs. Joyeuse.
Re: SenteniaHowever the Blaster have the advantage of dealing a single instance of high damage (500 to 10x110 spread all over the ship) which tends to be better at cracking open the armor faster.
I need to aim with a blaster, and I miss enough that getting full DPS cannot always be relied on. With Sentenia, I rarely need to aim and I often get the full DPS. With more range, I can kite from even further back. Range is one of the most powerful stats in Starsector.
On a Hyperion, if I use blasters, I need IR Pulse Lasers for anti-fighter. With Sentenias, I do not need any other weapon to kill a wide variety of ships. Sentenia's only weakness is long windup, which may give the AI enough time to raise shields to block any Sentenia salvos Hyperion may try to fire after teleportation. If I want to kill a Paragon with Combat 10, I am not sure Sentenias would work, and would probably need to use blasters which do work. Phase ships are a real pain to kill with Sentenias alone. On the other hand, if I use blasters, I risked getting instakilled by a Priwen Burst from a Templar ship if I make one mistake. Sentenia is much safer to use against Templar ships (and many other non-Templar ships) than blasters.
Re: Upcoming changes.Arondight Accelerator needs to shoot faster and/or lose the ammo, not do more damage and cost more flux (when it already generates lots). You can give infinite DPS vs. shields and they will overload the same as a shot with less overkill damage.
Change to High Maintenance should help for a faction that relies mostly on measly combat drops (buying supplies is not an option if most markets refuse to trade). Extremely High Maintenance made big Templar ships too difficult to use without a steady and generous source of supplies. Why use Paladin, let alone Archbishop, when I can devastate fleets with a Domain ship armed with Templar weapons?
Other commentsPlayer needs high to max +OP skills and Optimized Assembly perk to make Templar weapons usable on non-Templar ships.
Clarents are at their strongest when used by fighters, who can launch never-ending salvos of them. Clarents from bigger ships are fearful, but limited, not unlike Harpoon salvos from a Dominator with Combat 10.