Not that herons are a great choice here, but why wouldn't you put fighters on them? I'm fairly certain the system benefits fighters just as much as bombers?
I put fighters on them, all of them had three Sparks loaded up, they just don't show up on the "congratulations you got murdered" screen.
I'll also freely admit that my fleet was
very build to deal with the innumerable times that pirate fleets managed to Broadsword my XIV cruisers to death, before getting capitals and Sparks to beef up the Herons (was running Wasps before, functional but not very inspiring), and that with a different loadout things might have gone significantly better.
And since I kept a save from before the fight, let me go and test that real quick
.
EDIT: Swapped five Tachyon Lances with HIL, replaced IPDAI with Accelerated Shields, put the remaining spare OP into extra Capacitors, and brought in a Sunder and XIV Falcon (should have brought an Eagle, had spare DP) instead of two Spark Herons. End result?
Spoiler
Much better! Still absurd for a 160K bounty mind you, that Paragon alone costs half a mil, but much better. Included is a snapshot of the final Rampart's final moment after continuous fire from the Sunder and the Paragon, in case someone can make sense of those numbers.
