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[Lortus]

Fair enough point.  I'd agree they are stronger than what autofit is going to give you, and in many cases they are close to what I'd use in many situations, with a few tweaks.  Take your SO Aurora for example.  As a flagship, I might change the missile choice up depending on targets I'm hunting, as I often use it as a fast frigate/destroyer sweeper.  The AI works better when it outnumbers the opponent, so one of my first objectives is to reduce the number of enemy bodies on the field as quickly as possible, which usually means popping frigates/destroyers in a fast ship with a mobility system + Systems Expertise.  Solo if necessary, then deploy the fleet once ships on the field is at a good ratio.  But yeah, the fundamental build concept, SO with a pair of heavy blasters, extra missiles, and with some ion damage on top is quite strong.  Once missiles are out and PPT/CR is low, I'd retreat and swap to a reserved Afflictor or something - assuming it was necessary.  The beauty of SO flagships is I can transfer my giant pile of combat skills to another ship after the PPT runs out, unlike officers.

I finally caved and moved the Aurora and Hammerhead out of the optimal builds section. I think you are right and you can make personalized changes to them. Not really sure why you would deploy solo and then deploy your fleet after that. Especially when it leads to wasting PPT luring ships away and retreating from fire.

I just have nightmares from early game Salamanders.  So I would likely be using s-mods to free up enough OP to put on a pair of burst PD, especially if this was a mid-game flagship and I lack the front shield conversion hullmod.  Unlike many other hullmods, I can't just spend a few story points to pick it up.

Heh. To be honest I have never really struggled with salamanders, and you can just straight up tank them if you want. RFC is something a lot of ships take regardless for that sweet venting and EMP resist but it also lets you tank a salamander or two without issue. Add on Insulated Engine Assembly and you can tank multiple salamanders and keep chugging. It's what I do for my S-modded champions and it will stop more salamanders, and cost less OP on most ships that aren't capitals. Even on capitals it can be worth considering. Although a couple burst PDs does also make you better vs fighters.

I think you're right you can't really make a preset build presentation for really early game, although fitting concept guides have been done.  So good point.

As for mid-game builds, or challenge runs using extremely limited DP budgets, my builds can vary a lot when doing that, since I'm pushing it to the edge, and often needs to be tailored to the opponent.  I don't think I've got any really early game pictures at the moment.  I can give you an example of an 8 to 1 DP ratio fight (370 DP fleet with eleven level 5 officers vs 45 DP with one level 15 character), so late game challenge fight if you will, with a base Odyssey with no s-mods I did not that long ago and posted to the other thread.  I don't have a picture of the exact fit handy, just the aftermath, but the Odyssey was something like:
Integrated Targeting Unit
Integrated Point Defense AI
Auxiliary Thrusters
2x Plasma Cannon
Locust SRM Launcher
3x Sabot Pods
2 Burst PD lasers on the rear most mounts
I think 4 PD lasers on the nose and left side.
Probably 48 vents, 0 caps.

Skills would have been (elite where applicable): Helmsmanship, Combat Endurance, Impact Mitigation, Field Modulation, Point Defense, Target Analysis, Systems Expertise, Missile Specialization, Crew Training, Navigation or Sensors, Gunnery Implants, Energy Weapon Mastery, Bulk Transport, Ordinance Expertise, Polarized Armor

Odyssey is fast, but it's not quite fast enough to dodge all the Squalls and Sabots all the time, especially while going in for an attack run, hence the non-trivial investment in point defense.   All told, 673 missiles were shot down, so PD must have been doing some work.  And yes, I use Plasma cannons as manual PD.

My early game fitting will typically follow that kind of plan.  As I mentioned earlier, grab Systems Expertise and a ship with a good mobility system. Probably slap on safety overrides and Heavy Blaster and maybe an Ion Pulser or Ion cannons.  If it fits missiles, great.  Clear the smaller and faster ships, swap to something like a cruiser or capital killer like an AMB Afflictor (assuming I've got Phase Coil Tuning) or maybe just another SO ship once the PPT is out, and then deploy the full fleet of a bunch of fast shield tanky frigates, with Combat Endurance officers if I've got them.  If I lack the officers, then without SO and only steady or maybe even cautious AI if I'm trying to use them to harass ships instead of kill ships due to lack of officers.  Those unofficered ships will likely be lower end on damage, although always include some ion damage, higher end on flux capacity and speed, so they survive to get out of range and vent.

I would definitely count that as a challenge fight, and I can't really include tailored builds for a general ship build list.

PD is important on capitals, and while my Oddy fit has no PD, it has 2 Xyphos, which is 4 360 deg Burst PDs with Advanced Optics. Also nice to meet a fellow Plasma Cannon as PD enjoyer.

SO ships are great for player flagships but you don't have to go with fast ships like that to do great as a player. The Onslaught for instance is a great player flagship. You can have the AI deal with frigates by using ships like Furies or Scarabs or other frigate killers. Not really sure why you would wait to deploy your fleet. Just seems like a waste of PPT and puts you behind on tempo. Putting more of your bodies on the field also reduces the ratio of your bodies to there, not just because there's more of you, but because it splits up their fleet. I also don't really have a problem with the AI being outnumbered. It's helpful certainly, but Reckless AI can just power through, and if I'm running a line fleet it can even be helpful in terms of AI, since it cramps your ships and makes it easier to get them to huddle in their death ball.

[Hiruma Kai]

Not really sure why you would deploy solo and then deploy your fleet after that. Especially when it leads to wasting PPT luring ships away and retreating from fire.

It's just a difference in challenge paradigms.  Looking at it from your typical vanilla multi-ordo fights, I agree you wouldn't, and in those kinds of fights I don't either.

It's a small fleet challenge thing that happens due to leaving the 400 total DP deployment limit as is.  If I'm running an Aurora flagship, backed up by some Omens and Scarabs that comes to say, 66 DP, and I'm taking on a 200 DP opposing fleet, I'm likely looking at the entire deployment against my 36 DP AI ships plus my 30 DP Aurora.  I can't keep those 36 DP worth of AI ships alive by myself, so I don't deploy them until I'm sure they'll survive due to their speed.  If I dropped the deployment limit to 160 from 400 DP, then I probably wouldn't need to do deployments at different times and would deploy everything at once.

It is essentially the ratio of the ships on the field at any given time.  The AI can handle +20% more DP (200 DP vs 240 DP on the field), maybe +50% (160 DP vs 240 DP on the field).  If you've got fast frigates to capture points, it might even just be an even fight (240 DP vs 240 DP) which the AI is happy to fight at.  In my experience (and admittedly with my not so great admiral skills), the AI completely fails at +200 to +260% ratios (66 DP vs 200 to 240 DP on the field), assuming equal individual ship bonuses due to officers on both sides.  Especially if a good chunk of that triple DP is just as fast as your ships (i.e. the enemy Shrikes/Medusa/Furies) so your ships effectively cannot disengage.  Perhaps I'm wrong about that though?

Consider the fact that in multi-Ordo hunting you are not actually increasing the density of enemy strength, you are just making it a longer fight.  Peak power is like 4 Radiants on the field (or maybe 3 Radiants and 12 Glimmers), which adds up to 240 DP.  That can be achieved in a single Ordo (or an Ordo plus a little bit if you're looking for 4 Radiants).  I have no doubt your end game fleet AI likely can handle that without a problem.  I'd be very interested to know if typical 240 DP fleets people run to grind Ordos would work against 12 Radiants on the field at the same time or even just a normal triple Ordo with the total DP limit cranked up to 1,200 DP.  I guess it would come down to how well you can prevent the enemy from focusing down your ships, and using the fact the game is 2-D to limit the concentration of enemy firepower on any given ship at a time.  I admit I haven't looked, so maybe there are some nice videos showing how to handle that kind of fight (240 vs 720 all on the field).

My old computer could handle 400 total DP fights, not 1200 total DP.  I've recently upgraded, so maybe I should try the 1200 DP limit setting and see how it looks.  My guess is I have no fleets nor the admiral skill that can handle that, but haven't tried it so I might be surprised.

SO ships are great for player flagships but you don't have to go with fast ships like that to do great as a player. The Onslaught for instance is a great player flagship. You can have the AI deal with frigates by using ships like Furies or Scarabs or other frigate killers. Not really sure why you would wait to deploy your fleet. Just seems like a waste of PPT and puts you behind on tempo. Putting more of your bodies on the field also reduces the ratio of your bodies to there, not just because there's more of you, but because it splits up their fleet. I also don't really have a problem with the AI being outnumbered. It's helpful certainly, but Reckless AI can just power through, and if I'm running a line fleet it can even be helpful in terms of AI, since it cramps your ships and makes it easier to get them to huddle in their death ball.

Oh, I have a blast with player piloted Onslaughts.  Last real play through was a Hegemony run, and that was rocking a personally piloted Onslaught XIV, along with another Onslaught XIV, Legion XIV, Legion, 2 Champion, and 3 Enforcer XIV.  It is great fun diving into an enemy group with it and can surprisingly hold its own 1 on 1 against a number of Radiant setups.  However, I would have issues with a single Onslaught taking on 240 DP ships simultaneously, say.  I don't think I could pull off what I did in an Odyssey with a single solo flagship Onslaught, for example.  Or even a single Onslaught with 2 or 3 frigates.  Although, I should probably try that and confirm. Still got a backup save of that particular enemy fleet.

[Lortus]

It's a small fleet challenge thing that happens due to leaving the 400 total DP deployment limit as is.  If I'm running an Aurora flagship, backed up by some Omens and Scarabs that comes to say, 66 DP, and I'm taking on a 200 DP opposing fleet, I'm likely looking at the entire deployment against my 36 DP AI ships plus my 30 DP Aurora.  I can't keep those 36 DP worth of AI ships alive by myself, so I don't deploy them until I'm sure they'll survive due to their speed.  If I dropped the deployment limit to 160 from 400 DP, then I probably wouldn't need to do deployments at different times and would deploy everything at once.

That's a good point. I would probably deploy them myself though. If they die they would die distracting the enemy while I kill, so they would be doing their job, although if you are also challenging yourself to not lose ships then that would probably be a good idea.

Consider the fact that in multi-Ordo hunting you are not actually increasing the density of enemy strength, you are just making it a longer fight.  Peak power is like 4 Radiants on the field (or maybe 3 Radiants and 12 Glimmers), which adds up to 240 DP.  That can be achieved in a single Ordo (or an Ordo plus a little bit if you're looking for 4 Radiants).  I have no doubt your end game fleet AI likely can handle that without a problem.  I'd be very interested to know if typical 240 DP fleets people run to grind Ordos would work against 12 Radiants on the field at the same time or even just a normal triple Ordo with the total DP limit cranked up to 1,200 DP.  I guess it would come down to how well you can prevent the enemy from focusing down your ships, and using the fact the game is 2-D to limit the concentration of enemy firepower on any given ship at a time.  I admit I haven't looked, so maybe there are some nice videos showing how to handle that kind of fight (240 vs 720 all on the field).

Really don't know to be honest. I suppose it would really depend on the fleet, not to mention that Radiants are just slightly stronger than human ships. The best automated high tech combo could probably take 12 radiants but I doubt less optimal (high tech) fleets could do it.

All in all though, I am really only concerned with what the limit is in vanilla, not editing files to get crazy situations like that. In an actual game if I met an enemy with 7 times my DP in the super early game I would just avoid them.

Oh, I have a blast with player piloted Onslaughts.  Last real play through was a Hegemony run, and that was rocking a personally piloted Onslaught XIV, along with another Onslaught XIV, Legion XIV, Legion, 2 Champion, and 3 Enforcer XIV.  It is great fun diving into an enemy group with it and can surprisingly hold its own 1 on 1 against a number of Radiant setups.  However, I would have issues with a single Onslaught taking on 240 DP ships simultaneously, say.  I don't think I could pull off what I did in an Odyssey with a single solo flagship Onslaught, for example.  Or even a single Onslaught with 2 or 3 frigates.  Although, I should probably try that and confirm. Still got a backup save of that particular enemy fleet.

In 0.95a I solo'd an ordo with a 4 dmodded Onslaught and even then I couldn't take 2 radiants at the same time so I doubt you could take 240 dp of remnants on 0.95.1a. If it was human fleets I think it would be a different story. I think 240 DP could be doable depending on the enemy fleet. Midline is probably the easiest. I am also a bit curious so maybe I will give it a try sometime.

[NocturneOfSolace]

I use this guide extensively, is there any chance it will be updated for all the new ships that have been added to the game?

[soylent]

As a newcomer to the game, I'm having some trouble identifying the guns. I'm trying to match the little pictures with the ones in the game 
Can someone tell me the name of that huge crab-like gun in the center of the Champion (and maybe where to find one)? I'm also looking for those red colored missile launchers on the Legion XIV

[c plus one]

As a newcomer to the game, I'm having some trouble identifying the guns. I'm trying to match the little pictures with the ones in the game 
Can someone tell me the name of that huge crab-like gun in the center of the Champion (and maybe where to find one)?

Plasma Cannon; a large energy weapon that fires as if it's a triple-shot-volley Heavy Blaster. This is a top-tier quality gun. I imagine Tri-Tachyon doesn't want to sell this to you unless you have a military commission with them.

I'm also looking for those red colored missile launchers on the Legion XIV

Hammer Barrage; a low-tech launcher which fires four Hammer torpedoes per volley. Pirates or Luddic Path might be the best factions to begin looking at.