0.95 has (unless it gets removed between now and release) a player skill that gives all beams x% hard flux - that would mean there's going to be easy code support for that. Maybe wait until then?
Oh right! I honestly had forgotten about that. Yeah I'll wait until I can look under the hood to see how the skill does it then. It will make my life a lot easier and make me feel better about skipping that change for this update.

Man, that was quick work right there. This might absolutely be the only time to shine for Timid captains all over the sector!!
I also propose another idea to go along with it, even though I don't want to delay the mod any longer. You know that carrier tag ships are really good at rear hugging a capital and that would be an ideal position for a fire-support team. I wonder if it is possible to make a Hull-mod that can override a ship tag to act as a pseudo carrier.
Now that I try to visualize it, the game complexity will really go up a notch. All tanky frontline ships may also need buffs to withstand this new barrage and the nerf to shield stacking may be somewhat detrimental now.
As for Advance Optic, I would put it on hold for the moment as it doesn't feel right. Any change right now would go over my head since I have no clue nor good judgment anymore from your across the board change. So, just put whatever you feel ok as a place holder.
You make it sound so good. I'm itching to test right now lol.
Yeah I could definitely see a use case for Timid officers in that role. With proper escorts I imagine they would stay just within fire support weapon range!
As far as the carrier AI idea, it unfortunately isn't possible for the same reason I can't make a hullmod change weapon AI hints. The object that contains AI related hints is global. So individual variants
reference that object to create the ship, but don't have unique copies of their own that can be independently changed. The only way to get around that would be to use a skin file since that technically creates a separate HullSpecAPI of its own. In layman's terms, changing the AI for the Enforcer means
all Enforcers will be affected, not just the variant with the hullmod. Theoretically, I could try and duplicate the HullSpecAPI (assuming it has the necessary exposed API hooks) and set that as the variant's reference until it is removed, but I'm not sure those kind of changes can be made in the refit screen without unintended consequences. Essentially, it would probably be more trouble than it's worth. Who knows, maybe after this update I'll give it a shot. If I
can get it to work it would allow some semblance of formation so that would be pretty cool.
All tanky frontline ships may also need buffs to withstand this new barrage and the nerf to shield stacking may be somewhat detrimental now.
I'd say wait and see. The game was previously a little too easy after the early mid-game. It would be better if there were scenarios where the player felt compelled to either retreat or accept attrition. Before I was able to do things like engage 3-4 Nex invasion fleets simultaneously with only about 200 total DP of combat ships and win flawless victories. I suppose there's probably a very delicate balance between challenging and punishing, though.
I think the very high flux cost and inefficiency (and low fire rate) of the really long range artillery fire support weapons is going to keep them from being overpowered even with ally pass-through. It's not like you can stack a ton of them on one ship - it'd be able to fire a fraction of the guns, once, and then be forced to vent.
Yeah it seems like they aren't overpowered by the change. If the fire support ship comes under attack it can't really do much. Escorts are pretty essential. I haven't fully tested ballistics yet though, so the assumption in a large scale fleet battle could prove false.
As far as beams? First of all, I reduced the flux cost penalty of Advanced Optics to 100%, reduced the turn rate penalty to 20% down from 40% and increased the range bonus to 650.
I may end up reversing some of that. I ran a test of 110 DP Tri-Tachyon forces against
111 109 DP Hegemony forces. Here are the builds and number of variants used for each fleet:
2 of:
2 of:
1 of:
VS
1 of:
1 of:
1 of:
2 of:
1 of:
I did ten simulations of this scenario. The results were overwhelmingly in favor of the Tri-Tachyon. I think the opposing Hegemony fleet won a single time. A couple other times the Tri-Tachyon ships were severely damaged at the end, but several times there was practically no damage taken.
The Paragon is actually pretty beefy even with Advanced Optics and full strike beam primary battery. It certainly runs its flux meter up quickly but hits very far away - through allies - and hits very hard.
It is hard to say what is imbalanced here. It could be the Paragon or the Aurora. It also might scale differently if I doubled the DP of the simulation since the lower DP of the Hegemony ships might make a larger difference. As far as the Paragon goes, I feel pretty confident that its not OP considering I have run a lot of 1v1 simulations against the Onslaught and the Executor and it loses just as much as it wins in every variant but the Elite Tachyon Lance variant - that one is a tough nut to crack.
I'll run the simulations using a non-beam Paragon and maybe two non-beam auroras and see if that makes a noticeable difference.
*EDIT*
Just ran the simulation 10 more times but changed 3 variants for the Tri-Tachyon:
New Paragon variant:
2 of:
-instead of 2 of:
The first point of difference is the Paragon role. It was a long range beam striker that could overflux before. This time it is a tanky close-to-0 flux build designed to hold a battle line. For the Aurora, it went from a strike beam role with kinetic missiles to a torpedo strike role with heavy assault energy weapons that provide a suppression element.
The results of the new test are pretty interesting. The face-value results are actually very similar. The Tri-Tachyons lost only a single time, and had a couple of times where their fleet barely took any hull damage (mostly lucky overloads followed by an Atropos salvo... ouch.) and the Paragon does most of the heavy lifting against the Onslaught. However, their are a couple key differences as well. For one, the
way the Paragon benefits the overall fleet composition is starkly different. Whereas before as the beam variant it did the most noticeable damage over time, this time it provides the rock around which the rest of the fleet operates. The shields are tough enough to tank while returning fire against the Onslaught for far longer. It is not enough that the Paragon always wins a one-on-one confrontation, but what it *does* do is buy time. The Auroras, on the other hand, perform roughly the same strike role as before and try and take down the Dominators so that the Paragon can finish off the Onslaught in a 2 vs 1 scenario.
Here is the interesting part for me: as a trend this fleet took a lot more damage than the beam fleet with the fire support capital. The Hegemony fleet almost got a second win at one point, but a twist of fate that let the last Atropos of a salvo sneak by the PD turned the tide in the Tri-Tachyon fleet's favor. The Paragon and remaining Aurora had less than 25% hull remaining and were at 90% max flux when the battle ended. If I could save the last few moments and repeat them I think it would be a toss up between the two. Another important thing I noticed was that the Tri-Tachyon fleet took more losses - though the Paragon only died once.
Finally, the tank Paragon could take 2-3 Dominators simultaneously as long as their attack vectors were spread along its concentrated shield arc. It couldn't dish out the return damage like the beam Paragon could, but it definitely could defend multi-pronged attacks in a noticeably better way.
Unrelated side note: I've given most medium and large PD weapons ally pass-through as well. That way cruisers and capitals can use those weapons to support nearby ships even if, say, a frigate is sidled up alongside their firing arc. I'm hoping that will make them a little more attractive as an options rather than just defaulting to the flux-free assault weapon most of the time.