I'll note that for a typical SO Hyperion with Combat Endurance/Crew Training/Hardened Subsystems, going from 100% to 40%, takes 79.2 + 360=439.2 seconds. Same ship without SO takes 600 seconds. 439.2 * 2 = 878.4 > 600, so it's actually dissipating more flux in 439.2 than the normal ship over 600 (ignoring venting). Safety Overrides is both faster flux and more flux possible per fight.
Hmm - would you mind clarifying how you're getting these numbers? I'm a little tired so it's entirely possible I'm missing something obvious here, but wouldn't the time it takes to go from 100% to 40% CR be the same regardless of SO or no SO, if we're discounting peak time?
And since the CR decay rate is 0.25% per second, and Hardened Subsystems plus Combat Endurance modify it by 0.75 * 0.75, we have:
Rate of CR loss = 0.25 * 0.75 * 0.75 ~= 0.14
And the time to lose 60% of CR (regardless of SO being present, yes?) is thus 60 / 0.14 = around 429 seconds.
If we add in PPT, it starts at 240 (with CE + HS) and is reduced to 80 with SO, so, it's:
Total time without SO, until down to 40%: 429 + 240 = 669 seconds
With SO: 429 + 80 = 509 seconds
What am I missing here?
... ah, 79.2 is 240 * .33 (which I rounded to 80), alright. So this means you're getting 360 seconds to lose 60% CR, and I'm not seeing how.
Aha, ok, ok, I think I do see. It's 240 seconds base, and you're multiplying this by (1 + .25 (CE) + .25 (HS)) = 1.5, right? Except this is not how that works, both CE and HS modify the rate of CR decay and are multiplicative with each other to boot.
For example, if it was just one of them, 240 would not be multiplied by 1.25 - rather, it would be multiplied by (1 / 0.75), which is 1.33 - it's actually better than what your calculation gives. For both, the rate would be multiplied by around 0.56, so a (1 / .56) multiplier for the time it takes.
(... this makes me wonder about putting Delicate Machinery on the Hyperion...)