I acquired me a Falcon_d3 out in deep space, the only two guns I had was two chainguns and a pair of tac lasers, so, supplies not being a concern I threw them on & repaired the thing, gave it SO and maxed out its reactor in the process Just In Case we get caught out on the way back to the core. Out of curiosity I booted up the simulator, and proceeded to first-try murder every single destroyer in the sim, taking almost no damage in the process on the second try. Here is my grand-master strategy for how to fly a dual-chainguns falcon light hunter-killer cruiser;
R to target enemy, T to fix camera to them, place mouse on center of enemy ship, hold Shift to orient your ship to the enemy's, set chainguns to autofire, de-select all weapons (press 5), play
this in the background and hold W. Retroburn away if your chainguns are disabled, raise and lower shields as needed to never overload, and mix until slag ensues.
Simple enough. They key factors here are; it lacks variability in damage type, so it should have at most one strategy because it has one way to interact with the world, therefor all strategies but the one it's capable of should be
NO GO. It has; 1:1 fps/dps ratio, which means if it's reactor is better than the enemy's, it can out-assault them. It has poor range so it can't kite, but good speed so it shouldn't ever
be kited.
The strategy is clear; if you are bigger than a target, jet-boost in, press fire on them until their reactor is maxed out, and do as much damage as you can until the guns stop, then jet-boost out to repair your guns before going back to step one until the next engagement will kill you (at which point retreat or dis-engage until backup arrives then see -> light flank striker behavior)
TLDR; a dual-chaingun falcon should assault until either its guns stop or it's too damaged to survive another assault. There is no reason it should do anything else; it is physically incapable of interacting with the world in any other way in a 1v1
So I spent the last hour or so running my falcon on autopilot in the sim. It not only can't kill a single destroyer, it won't even damage them. Currently I have the game paused on my falcon holding at 750 range and sub-max speed (it could disengage) against a medusa, letting it overload its reactor, pummel it with heavy pulse lasers & antimatter blasters while its shield regens then putting shields up again all the while not firing a single shot at it because it's at twice its own max range. Other noteworthy behaviors;
getting just close enough for its SO tac lasers to fire but not its chainguns, against a hammerhead.
turning its 800 dps chainguns away from the enemy to try to protect its hull despite being at full health and the enemy near death, until the armor on that side is blasted through from the enforcer's heavy mortars then turning its other side and then turning its back to the enforcer until the enemy it could (I checked) have killed within about 3 seconds of fire killed it from full health uncontested.
I've also experimented with stripping the tacs and running it with nothing but a pair of chainguns, a safety override and reactor ugrades and it still does all of this. I just now tested it against frigates and it won't even damage a Vigilance, and the vigilance it's been fighting in the background while I typed this has not only not taken any damage from the cruiser that's been ordered to intercept & eliminate it but has actually managed to damage the falcon with its burst PD laser & pilums by a lucky pilum that wrapped around the shield and bank-shot the falcon's engines out, twice now.
Just a very stark situation in which it feels like the AI should be able to make use of such a simply laid-out ship but can't
