Re: HIL
Every time I tried HIL vs. Tachyon Lance against enemies, time-to-kill with Tachyon Lance is always faster than with HIL, or even HIL and Ion Beam combo. The conclusion I reached is HIL would be okay as a common Open Market weapon much like Heavy Mortar is to Heavy Mauler. But unlike Heavy Mortar, HIL is semi-rare. I do not find very many HIL either, but more than Tachyon Lances.
How is HIL useful on Odyssey without support from other ships? Even if player wants to rely on AI faults with shield for free hits, the beam does not reach the enemy instantly, and if it manages to score a hit before enemy shields fully raise, it is not long enough before shields are fully up and the HIL blocked before it can do significant damage.
With Tachyon Lance, at least Odyssey can sometimes cheese the AI and get free hits, and maybe overload a few weak ships. That makes it viable for Odyssey. HIL can do neither and (assuming solo) Odyssey must rely totally on its fighters for hard-flux. But two wings of fighters is not much against bigger ships that will eat them up. If I use any other weapon for hard flux (e.g., autopulse, plasma cannon, or tons of IR pulse lasers), I run into the problem of getting badly outranged by capitals and losing the flux war before Odyssey can get close enough to attack because fragile shield with no capacitors (and not enough OP to fix that) means near full bar of hard flux before Odyssey is in range to fire its weapons (or at least enough that Odyssey cannot afford to fire its heavy weapon flux hogs), and it cannot rely on armor and hull to take hits because enemy capital has more of it than Odyssey. (Claw wings can sometimes disable the enemy, so that Odyssey can approach safely, but that is not reliable.)
As for Sunder and Paragon, HIL is useful enough to use if player does not have any Tachyon Lances to use, thanks to backup from needlers or HVDs, but if I have Lances, the HILs will be left to rust. Tachyon Lance alone is cheaper (OP cost) and more effective than HIL and Ion Beam combo (as Tachyon Lance substitute). In case of Paragon, with Lances, I can fill my medium slots with Heavy Blasters instead of Ion Beams so it can dump flux pool and kill enemies that get too close fast.
I do not bother with Apogee - too slow and too short ranged to force fights, but if I must use it, I use plasma cannon (and almost nothing else; thanks to flares, I do not need beam pd badly) because it desperately needs the shot range that can hit for hard flux. Apogee is bad enough that there are better and more common options, like Eagle. Plasma cannon is rare until player can farm them from Brilliants at endgame. One more thing about Apogee, change the heavy energy into a hybrid, so it can have more shot range and be a bit like the Brilliant. Brilliant is similar to Apogee, weird and stuff, except it trades capacity for flight deck, and it can use ballistics.