I haven't had the chance to play again until recently. So I finally refit my fleet and tried out the various recommendations. I will say that things have definitely improved and my Vapors are surviving better.
First thing I tried was dual Recson V's. This made the Vapors live forever, but at the same time, they could never kill anything. Recson V projectiles were simply too slow to ever hit the target unless it was a destroyer. At best, the Vapors just ended up being a distraction and nothing else. Certainly a viable tactic if thats all you want your frigates to be, but I want my frigates to have teeth, though. Recson Vs themselves seem to really only be reliable against destroyer and bigger ships.
Then I tried dual Trifires. Muuuuch better results! They were actually able to kill things at a range that didn't have them suiciding to superior fire power. Only problem is that they tend to take their sweet time killing anything. Time to kill is a bit low to my liking, but the Vapors are no longer dying left and right like they were at least.
Tried a twin Glowtusk set up just to see what would happen. In the hands of the AI, they won't fire these things unless they're at point blank range for some reason. They always fly in super close and get wrecked. The other problem is that firing two of them eats half the flux capacity of a Vapor, and if they turn their shields on at any point, they'll immediately get fluxed out from enemy weapons fire. This is from the Vapors firing the Glowtusks just one time. When I was flying the Vapor, obviously I'd use the weapons at the proper ranges. However, I found that the flux generated by hitting the enemies shields would all be gone by the time I could fire the Glowtusks again. They fire too slowly to manage to get past enemy shields, and the flux generation also makes using these weapons a huge problem. Glowtusks probably work well on a destroyer but I don't think the frigates can handle the flux these weapons produce.
Just for the lulz I tried the twin Phase Lances in the simulator and found that the flux generation was even worse than the Glowtusks. Was kinda neat being able to fully saturate an enemy frigate's flux with these though. Ultimately I still couldn't get past the shields without fluxing myself out and putting myself into serious risk of overloading. I love challenges, but not ones that would put me at excessive risk like that.
All in all I'm beginning to realize that the bigger issue here regarding the Vapors is more to do with Diable's weapon systems than the ships themselves. Diable's weapons seem quite flux intensive and the Vapors do not have the flux capacity to handle them. This is most apparent when going up against ships such as Lashers who can dish out similar damage but keep right on going due to their much more flux efficient weapons. Wolves on the other hand get eaten pretty regularly by my Vapors.
Unfortunately, I got caught by a Cabal fleet that had 2 Starlight Tempests and a bunch of random other junk and wasn't able to get away without losing my Fractus. Kinda saw that coming even before hitting "Disengage", which of course didn't work. Starlight Tempests are like fast mini-destroyers so I certainly don't blame the Fractus getting wrecked like it did.
Picked up a Calm as a replacement for the Fractus and I'm pretty happy with this destroyer. Put a pair of Recson V's on it with 4 Thunderbolt MRM Racks. Managed to solo two hammerheads at the same time with this ship quite easily. I am having a bit of a different problem, though. I installed Converted Hangar with a Frost LPC, and they're great for dealing with frigates that engage me, but the replacement rate of fighters is so terrible that I find myself without fighters at all for most of the fight. This is the first time I've actually used the Converted Hangar and was wondering what other peoples opinion on this hull mod was. Would I be better off just dropping it for ECCM (faster more agile missiles would be very nice) and better Capacitor stats?
Later I grabbed a Hayle, fitted it with 2x Recson Vs, 1 SRAB, 4x Micromissiles and 2x Thunderbolt MRM Racks. The lack of PD is apparent and even Magicbox PDs wouldn't really work due to the orientation of the missile slots. But other than that, it feels like a solid destroyer. Again, like the Calm, I fit a Converted Hangar using a Frost LPC and I'm wondering if it would be better to drop that for ECCM. Also, keep the 2x Recson Vs and the SRAB or go 2x SRAB and 1 Recson V?
Is the SRAB projectile considered a missile? If I fit ECCM, would that apply to the SRAB ball?