I actually enjoy the GH guns and don't find them underpowered. It just felt like they have a more command point micro intensive RTS playstyle (which is uniquely available to the player) than purely auto battling with micro focus on your command ship.
When playing multiple cruiser level ships with GH long range weapons (as opposed to only a few ships sporting GH guns), the longer-than-average ranges on the GH guns tends to (en masse) volley targets off the map using manual eliminate commands to your fleet, sometimes before the majority of hostiles get into the classic opposing firing lines positions we usually see in the game.
The longer ranges also mean that when things do get into the mentioned firing lines scenario, most of your fleet's ships can still focus fire a single prioritized target due to everyone having longer ranges.
This however kind of means that setting your ships into perma-overdrive goes counter to this volley fire mode of play as overdriven ships tend to get in close with targets (so I barely used the hullmod).
I also use steady ai officers rather than the more famous aggressive ones when playing this style for GH themed fleets
Maybe the point of the overdriven system is to have it on a designated "tank" ship, while the rest of your fleet run DPS?
Does anyone have any suggestions for the most optimal way to outfit Great House ships? I'd love suggestions for Legio as well
If you want to run a mostly GH shipline with GH weapons for mid game, you can try
GH Dominators with 2 Styrix, 3 Karions, the rest as PD
Integrated targeting Unit, Shield Shunt, ECM Package
GH Enforcers with Gardions, the rest as PD
Integrated targeting Unit, ECM Package
Maybe 1 Tank GH Onslaught (Haven't tried this yet), I prefer the old Tank Monitors to run distractions and take on the bulk of enemy fire.
These GH ships have movement based systems and will usually move as a bulk quickly to the center of the field, meeting the fastest ships on the enemy side,
who will find themselves under rain of multiple Styrix kinetic hardflux spam, overload, and then get surrounded (from afar) by the Enforcers who will pelt it with high explosive from around 1.1k range.
Most of the other enemy ships will eventually catch up but can also be focus fired by commands, so you'll find yourself more focused on the map (tab) than on your own ship
As mentioned, I also try to stay away from aggressive captains in GH ships since those tend to break formation and suicide into enemy lines.
Not sure how endgame GH plays as I've yet to experiment with their bigger ships
