Gald you admit that you are wrong, with a little testing.
I would not say I was completely wrong since player needs to build for it. When I first tried it, before you brought it up, I could not do it because Paragon got too much hard flux before it could shoot at the Nexus, but that was because I did not have the proper skills and hullmods. If player does not get multiple necessary skills, then he cannot do it. In particular, player needs to somewhat specialize in combat skills, that is spend significant and permanent character resources to get a flagship with superior speed, shields, flux stats, shot range, and hard flux dissipation perk. In addition, I had to give up campaign hullmods (which kind of hurts) to fit all of the extra hullmods I need to ensure enough flux (namely Hardened Shields and ECM Package). With useful campaign mods that take combat power away, Paragon could not get close enough to Nexus without exceeding half flux capacity (and thus be overloaded before withdrawing far enough away).
This is not unlike 0.8 Astral being able to solo Nexus, but player needed to min-max carrier skills and get six Sparks (which had two burst lasers instead of one) to do it. Here, at least player can build a direct combat specialist that is useful for a wide variety of warships and have Paragon solo Nexus that way. However, that means player does not have many skills to spare for other things, like exploration, or zombie fleet industrialist, or colony builder.
2500 range tachyon Lance was bad game design. It was excessive and not fun for the human player receiving the attack. it entirely negated a whole branch of fleet choice with it's excesively large range and spike damage.
Here, I disagree about so-called "bad design". It helps that Tachyon Lance did not pierce shields when it had that range, plus it costed 32 OP back in the day (though 28 with Optimized Assembly perk, before skill rebalance).
I read much about so-called jargon like "balance" and "good/bad design or game master", among others, in recent times, and I think some of the "bad design" is more like "spoiled-gamer-wants-win-on-a-silver-platter-syndrome" and does not want to admit it (and blame game designer for the problem), or someone who does not like the style of gaming that was either enjoyable or acceptable twenty to forty years ago.
The only thing Lance negated was shieldless targets like Hounds, which were already negated by Harpoons and other stuff, and some fighters that were more like ships than weapons before 0.8. It had better due to the price player paid to mount the weapon! Maybe other frigates and Enforcers if several could be focused (although a fleet with that many lances could just steamroll the enemy with other weapons). Otherwise, it was completely negated by shields since it is incapable of hard flux. Back then, Tachyon Lance did not have the shield pierce feature, so shields of most ships completely stopped it. AI would have shields up, and players that knew enemy Paragon was coming should have shields up to block it.
You have given no real reason for why the paragon must have +100% range.
I already did (which is basically leveling the playing field with ballistic ships since high-tech Paragon handles like one), maybe in a roundabout way, even if you do not accept it. A better question, now that Paragon has had ATC for 0.9a and all of 0.8.x without any problems (at least I do not see any), is why Paragon should lose range? Of course, you gave your answers.
As for Gauss Cannon, the only reasons to use Gauss Cannon over Mark IX or other heavy ballistics is range and accuracy. It costs 26 OP and generates a ton of flux, not to mention slow firing, so Gauss Cannon better have something going. As it is, I do not use Gauss Cannon unless I absolutely need the range (like Conquest fighting against SIM Paragon). Otherwise, the ship is better off with cheaper or better weapons like Mark IX or Mjolnir.
What do you think should be a reasonable number of cruisers or capital ships that should be deployed and lost? In any case rereading the notes for the next version, the next maximum deployment points will be 210, alleviating some of this problem, by simply increasing the deployment size.
Off the top of my head, I honestly do not know. If a single, optimized ship can take out the station, that becomes the standard to measure by, and anything less is sub-optimal, regardless of what feels right. I guess if player wants battle of Endor experience, then the death star will one-shot several capitals (by Rebel standards) before the death star itself gets knocked out.