If you're using SO on ships that have zero vents then you're doing something wrong. You save OP on cheaper DPS weapons and hullmods that you now don't need since SO gives so much. 2 Heavy Blasters is much much cheaper on OP than an usual high tech build with more mounts filled. And so are Chainguns and HMGs.
Then you also don't need any range enhancing hullmods, nothing for speed or maneuverability, turret turn rate, and probably a few others. This is all being saved by simply installing SO. And sure some ships will be more hungry for OP depending on their mount layout, but most don't care.
You end up having to put a lot more points into capacity since you'll be taking several times the amount of damage compared with non-SO. That also likely means Hardened Shields, Extended Shields (since there will be more incoming fire from different directions), and more PD coverage. There's simply not enough OP.
From a fleet perspective more of the fleet will also be cycling out when they get high on flux. And so they're doing damage a lower percentage of the time.
Analysis of SO's performance cannot ignore weapon range, as if the ships start off at 450 range from each other. Only the Hyperion gets to do that since it can teleport.
The thought I had about it - and it's not fully fleshed out, and I'm not fully committed to doing this, so, big disclaimer/grain of salt - is to change SO to function as an active ability instead of a constant passive buff.
I feel like SO as a passive ability makes more sense. The flux, weapon range, and PPT effects all work together to create a high-risk, high-reward situation. Part of that is the PPT decrease means that the ship is forced to take the initiative, i.e. cannot just sit around waiting for the "perfect" opportunity, which is part of the "high risk" aspect. Changing it to an active ability, unless the effects to weapon range and PPT are retained, basically makes it into another version of AAF or HEF.
The main issue with this currently is that CR decay takes too long when SO is used, so the PPT decrease doesn't have that desired effect of forcing an engagement. Hence SO affecting CR decay by the same factor of 3 would solve that issue.
I’m getting the impression that this discussion is becoming an extremely polarizing contest between newer players who want an easy-to-start strategy for dipping their toes into the game and combat…
…before slowly graduating to the more hard-core players who are digging into deeper options for the tougher ships and a more challenging combat game…
…and the communication between the two is getting close to breaking down big-time.
It's tempting to see internet discussions that way, as if it's just red team versus blue team or whatever, but I'd encourage you to look at who are actually bringing specific points to the table and are able to address other points being brought up with facts or reasoning, and which reasoning makes more sense.
Where it might become more productive is:
* start with X to get used to things
* gradually have a play with Y and Z mechanics, get a feel of them - you can always go back to X if the game is whipping you or you just want a more chill game playthrough occasionally
* after a certain point, stop using A/B/C ship mods to challenge/force yourself to try new strategies
So from this (naive) perspective, taking X out as a starter option is counterproductive on the whole.
That's actually more or less how I see SO. It's good for the early game, when the initial enemy fleets are d-modded pirates or whatever. They don't do much damage so SO is helpful at a point when the player is still learning about the different weapons, maneuvering, flux management, and so forth. But once you get to harder opponents, or fighting bigger fleets, having to absorb a lot more incoming damage, while outputting your own, becomes a much bigger issue. At that point, weapon range and ways to prevent incoming damage (such as EMP/Xyphos) become more important. So the more effective fleets start naturally moving away from using SO as the player encounters more difficult enemies. To me that naturally keeps the power of SO "in check".
A lot of the discussion focuses on the flux dissipation, but ignore the costs associated with SO, which are specifically there to balance out the flux dissipation increase. It essentially gives more flux dissipation and takes away flux capacity. That needs to be considered when looking at SO.
Also, it seems like a lot of people base their opinions on how the player makes use of the ships, as opposed to the AI. The player is much better at evaluating risks and forecasting than the AI, so SO is much stronger in the player's hands than AI. I look primarily at how AI uses it, and particularly under the condition that none of my ships die in combat.
The AI is much more sensitive to % of total flux compared with the player -- it's easy enough to go into sim, equip a Heavy Blaster (higher flux usage) and a Pulse Laser (lower flux usage) and other weapons, set the ship on autopilot, and then watch the AI flicker on and off autofire on different weapons based on how full its flux bar currently is. The AI is going to be more skittish about having autofire on with more expensive weapons when the flux bar goes up, while cheaper weapons will stay on longer. So when an AI SO ship goes in, and absorbs a lot of damage on the way in, it tends to turn off the higher DPS weapons first -- which are precisely the weapons that you want the ship to be using (to maximize damage before having to back off). So the AI tends to not make full use of SO's capabilities, particularly when not enough OP are put into flux capacity.
The player however tends to run the flux bar up higher in regular usage, since the player is better at forecasting. So the player might see SO as very powerful since it's very good
in the player's hands, but that's not necessarily the case when used by the AI.
(... this makes me wonder about putting Delicate Machinery on the Hyperion...)
While the discussion has focused on the SO Hyperion, the long CR decay making the PPT decrease a non-factor for SO is an issue with SO ships in general, not the Hyperion in particular. It's just the most extreme because of the ship's very low PPT with SO.