Just to further clarify, the sim test with the Paragon vs Olympus Conquest wasn't done with the AI super captain, it was done with the player mostly specced for logistics stuff instead of combat.
I generally agree with a Paragon being somewhat useful in large fleet engagements, with two caveats. One being that the Paragon is 50% more expensive in DP than the Conquest so it should probably be more useful, and the other being that the Paragon is the Anvil of the fleet, powerful but lacking the speed to chase and finish off targets that refuse to get too close.
Completely disagree with the claim that it's not as good as the Onslaught; if the Onslaught cannot destroy its opponent outright quickly, or fall back from the opponent's pressure and vent (hard to do with a slow cap), its flux stats will let it down, badly. The Onslaught
With that said, it's a good point about judging the ship without officers. I did run some more sim fights in that Olympus Conquest, but w/o captain:
Spoiler
vs Victory (SWP, 55 DP): Conquest win, light hull damage
vs Onslaught (40 DP): Conquest win, negligible armor damage
vs Astral (45 DP): Conquest win, negligible armor damage
vs Vendetta (42 DP, DaRa): Conquest win, virtually no armor damage
vs Dominus (45 DP, Imperium): Conquest win, negligible armor damage
vs Caesar (50 DP, Imperium): Conquest win, negligible armor damage
vs Matriarch (60 DP, Imperium): Matriarch win, moderate hull damage (Very long fight. AI Conquest refused to use the PD side against the infinite waves of bombers and missiles as intended, though its performance was still decent considering the huge DP gap. Player control of the Conquest to properly use the PD side results in a Conquest win w/o hull damage)
vs Atlatl (Coalition, 50 DP): Conquest win, light hull damage
vs Halberd (Coalition, 50 DP): Conquest win, light-moderate armor damage
vs Mokarran (Mayasura, 45 DP): Conquest win, very light hull damage
vs Javanicus (Mayasura, 50 DP): Conquest win, negligible armor damage
Anyways, my point wasn't that the Olympus Conquest can beat some higher-DP units in the sim. That's just kind of an example that I can run in a somewhat controlled environment. My main point is that it
feels like a ~50 DP unit for the price of 40 DP in the campaign, and it definitely hangs with the best of the unique Bounty Boss Caps from the SWP mod. If I ask it to kill a Hegemony XIV Onslaught, then there'll be a dead XIV Onslaught within a minute, as well as quite a few dead escort frigates/Destroyers. With 2x the effective shield capacity (1.2(flux caps buff)/.6(flux/damage ratio buff)=2), I can and routinely do send it to hunt normal Capital Ships with little (or sometimes no) support in a way that a stock (or even a LG or XIV) Conquest just can't do.
It's not quite a Paragon killer, but it certainly
is an Onslaught killer. That's why I think its DP would be best at home somewhere in between the two.