From my personal experience, Automated Ships skill is really good at 60 points (which I changed with
this mod), because it allows you to use destroyers and cruiser or two without CR dropping to sub-50%.
From frigates, I have used Glimmers - Ion Pulser, 2x PD Laser, 2x Sabot, add Reinforced Bulkheads or Heavy Armor as s-mods, Expanded Missile Racks are a good idea too. Max vents, maybe capacitors too. Gamma Core as officer, picked uh, Energy Weapon Mastery, Reliability Engineering, Shield Modulation, Helmsmanship. I don't remember the exact build really, it was few runs ago, but that's the gist of it.
It was extremely effective due to not backing down and being able to shut down enemy ships, it could break armor with High Energy Focus, so it was pretty good against cruisers and smaller ships. A chunk of my fleet is mobile enough to make use of openings like that.
From destroyers, well, Fulgent is only real option. Scintilla has access to non-crewed wings only, which makes it... kinda worthless. Especially with its system (maybe add a hullmod that allows usage of crewed wings? who knows) which doesn't benefit most of wings you can put on it anyway.
Anyway, back to Fulgent. My personal favourite is 2x Typhoon Reaper in synergy turrets, because why not. Put Sabots in half of small synergies, Heavy Blaster in medium hardpoint, accompanied with 2x Ion Cannon, use rest of the slots for PD Lasers. Expanded Missile Racks / Heavy Armor / Hardened Shields as s-mods, max vents. Similar skills to the Glimmer officer.
Works quite well as damage dealer and for finishing off overloaded ships. 2 Reapers is nothing to laugh at... especially if you're overloaded and in range of these things...
Overall the skill would benefit from increase of possible points to 60 and have Radiant's DP set to 60 instead. That makes smaller ships more viable while still allowing player to run a Radiant if they so desire. That might even make some Explorarium ships somewhat viable? I did try Sentries with stuff like Salamanders and Harpoons. Kinda funny to see a lot of Salamanders just flying across the battlefield. They still died easily though, maybe I should have put Safety Overrides on them and nothing else and use the power of annoying AI against itself
