I think PCLs should be toned down. They provide both PD and a lot of mid-/close-range burst DPS, as well as filling the area with a bunch of missiles (that I assume distract enemy PD too). My flagship Onslaught uses them ruthlessly against big ships and any swarms I can find, along with Hephaestus for general anti-armor/anti-hull. With elite Missile Spec, those 4 Medium Ballistic slots produce a whopping 3300 DPS at 550 HE hit strength, albeit at 1000 range, slow, and for limited ammo. That limited ammo (with elite Missile Spec and EMR) for those 4 PCLs is generally enough to do roughly as much damage over the course of a double Ordos as the twin TPC's with s-mod Expanded Magazines, or as much as two HAGs.
However, I haven't had much experience with putting them on AI ships; is it that they're overpowered on ships controlled by the AI as well, or is it just a player thing? What's an example of a ship/build for AI use that shows how overpowered they are under AI control relative to other options?
Switching damage type to frag so they can still do their other notable thing which is destroy waves of fighters and missiles, a fun semi-unique effect, without overwhelming enemy ships too, would probably be good.
That's an interesting suggestion. I tried out my flagship Onslaught XIV / 3 Conquest / 2 Gryphon fleet vs double Ordos, replacing 2 of my Onslaught's PCLs with ones that did frag damage instead (the weapon group was still set on alternating) via adding it to weapon_data.csv, for a side-by-side comparison. The PCLs are under manual control, for when I spam them against ships that get close to me (...such as when I burn drive into them), or as PD as needed. For those 3 runs, the damage results from the Detailed Combat Results mod (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11551.0) were:
(SS2863, 2881, 2901)
Regular PCL (2 of them):
Total Shield Armor Hull
Run 1 34719 4868 10736 19115
Run 2 42018 10898 12956 18164
Run 3 44497 7318 15786 21393
Avg 40411.3 7694.7 13159.3 19557.3
Frag PCL (2 of them):
Total Shield Armor Hull
Run 1 14625 2728 637 11260
Run 2 14730 4353 754 9623
Run 3 17627 3236 1110 13282
Avg 15660.7 3439 833.7 11388.3
So it looks like changing the damage type from HE to frag would cut the shield damage about in half, reduce anti-armor damage to almost nothing, and reduce anti-hull damage to around 60% of original. That means that although it'll still help a lot vs hull, you'll need something else to break armor first, so it seems like a fairly good nerf to me.
I don't know how to show overpoweredness but it used to be in .95.1 that the AI could not use them. So creating something like a Legion with 5x PCL would be extremely good in the sim if facing no missiles but extremely bad in fleet combat as the ship would be craven and fire the PCLs at enemy missiles. No longer, though.
One fleet I created in .96 that uses PCLs as its main guns was the Venture Mk. II double Ordo fleet
video
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GAgPFxq9HfI
Now this one also has Reapers and due to Missile Autoloader those work equivalently to 2 Typhoon Reapers with a 10 second delay rather than 15. (Although with 11 ammo rather than 24 total, but they don't use it all in a 2 Ordo). Now apart from the silliness of this fleet existing, you can see that the PCL does significantly more damage over the course of the fight while also providing point defense for the ship, it is in fact its main damage dealer. Even if Annihilator could match the damage which I doubt, it wouldn't be anti-fighter and PD.
However is that a point to that it's overpowered, I don't know but generally when picking PCL you are getting great attack and defense in one weapon with also excellent ammo for a missile and it's certainly usually hard to justify alternative options in a forward facing missile slot.
Edit to add: to elaborate on that, by that I mean to justify another choice you'd have to believe the alternative missile's damage justifies that it probably has poorer ammo and no AOE and certainly won't provide excellent PD cover and destroy enemy fighters. But it's not usually even true that the alternatives would have better damage.
Hmm. Would a frag PCL feel strong enough vs fighters? I have a feeling it might struggle some against Broadswords and similar.
Could they be given bonus damage to fighters/missiles? Emp would be another option.
Going from HE to frag means broadswords are just killed in 3 hits rather than easily killed in 2. That’s only one more hit unless it is far enough for reduced damage and then it lasts longer but I don’t think that’s a huge issue. I assume most will be within the full damage blast and it’s still really effective.
Edit:
Spoiler
100 - 500/4 * 500/4 / (500/4 + 100) = 30.555…
30.6 - 500/4 * 500/4 / (500/4 + 30.6) = -69.8
750 - 69.8*4 * 500/4 / (500/4 + 5) = 481.5
481.5 - 500 * 500/4 / (500/4 + 5) = 0.73