@ Megas:Again, you assume too much. You assume the player has a Hyperion. You assume that they have Combat 10. If you are hunting down bounty fleets and you care about money, you aren't in the end game. If you can chain Hyperions, you are at the end game, and if you are in the end game, I have to say again that, it's only a short period of time before you exhaust every possible avenue for fun and just start a new game, another mod, or wait for a new patch to come out.
Does it matter if the shade has three of its mounts as energy only? It has 2 universals, and chances are you would want to use ion cannons or antimmatter blasters or reaper launchers. Not as perfectly set up as 4 perfectly lined up universals, but pretty close in effectiveness. The Shade can fire 2 AM blasters at the same time, phase and vent just like the afflictor can. Heck, with your end-game-maxed-everything-out-skills, it can 4 AM blaster, phase away safely and vent. Sure, it has worse flux and vent stats, not not that much significantly so, an initial 500 flux difference and 100 vent, a 20% and 33% increase respectively which decreases as the more OP you have available to spend. That said a major disadvantage is that the Shade does have less OP, but it is enough OP to do your litmus test of effectiveness of firing 2 AM blaster, phase, retreat to safety and vent. I don't see much point for small ballistics either. No small ballistics have enough instant damage to make use of phase cloak as well as AM blaster, and IR Pulse laser dps and OP cost is good enough to take advantage of shieldless armourless dps. If all the other frigates are good, then so too is the Shade.
Ok, lets say that tempests are as rare as shade and affictors. Point still stands. By the time you have say 5 of them, you probably have a capital ship like the Paragon long beforehand. Mostly because every major ship yard seem to stock a capital ship.
When I do not have a Hyperion, I grab a Dominator, Onslaught, or Paragon flagship from the nearest storage base to the bounty fleet, fight the bounty fleet with my frigate fleet led by big flagship, put the big ship back in storage after I win, then travel the stars as a frigate or Atlas fleet."
Yes? That's the point I am making? That you can't assume that he would have a Hyperion? But what are you doing travelling the stars? There's only 6 star systems in vanilla at the moment. What exactly are you travelling for? It can't be for bounty fleets, because you just put your combat ship back in storage, unless you have one in storage every star system. It can't be for trade, because events aren't exactly flying thick and fast. What exactly are you spending that time doing? You might as well go hunt down another bounty fleet, of which there are always 3 of, in 3 systems, which means you are practically always travelling with your big flagship.
As for using disposable ships for boarding, I'm not disagreeing with that. When you board ships, and it isn't your first game, you have already decided that the overall lost in money is worth it. I question using Lashers and Hammerheads as disposable boarding ships, when far better and cheaper alternatives are available.
I have never said that you said all ships were disposable. I question that you recommend any ship for combat for use as a disposable ship. They are either cost effective or they are not. There is no disposable. Any loss is a loss except for fighters with a flight deck.
"Only by endgame do I fight deserter bounty fleets, and by then, I have money to burn."
I wonder about your journey to the end game. Especially since once you get there, it is boring. Bounty fleets of all sizes and prizes are part of the game. No point racing to the end game if by the end there is nothing to do.
If you can deploy lashers in overwhelming numbers, then you can employ any ship in overwhelming numbers. Might as well employ wolfs insteadl the supply difference is small change when you can deploy mass amounts of anything. Heck, in order to deploy Lashers in overwhelming numbers, a lot of time would had been spent on buiding up small amounts or storing something you say is rubbish at combat.
"You can be surprised how quickly millions can be spent. When shopping for rare ships, player often needs to buy out the entire shipyard so that the shop can refresh its stock with more ships, hopefully with the rare Hyperion or other ship the player really wants instead of yet another junk Hammerhead for sale. This is like gambling from Diablo 2."
It'll probably be faster to farm and run across hyperions than to gamble for elites. Either way, as I said, it would take a lot of time and luck.
Also, even with unlimited money, not every ship is available in sufficient quantities. I cannot build a Hyperion only fleet even if I want to, because they are too rare. There are also a few ships that are not for sale, such as Astral (no high-tech 10^6 market available) and Valkyrie (may not even be enabled)."
Yes, you can't seem to get them, therefore tens of millions is still enough that you can experiment with every available fleet composition.
I'm not disagreeing that the Enforcer and Medusa are excellent ships. They are rightfully excellent recommendations for destroyers. I think Sunder is too, but I am fine with your disagreeing with that.