A rant born of skill issue ahead, with story spoilers.
vinyl record scratch
freeze frame
Yup, that's me, you are probably wondering how I ended up in this situation...
Well, it could very well be a simple skill issue, indeed, but I still would like to go on a rant here on how the two phase-fleet fights in concluding steps of "Project Ziggurat" are so brutal for all the wrong reasons. First of all, I don't generally consider phase ships to be overpowered. I do understand how to deal with them, and more importantly, under normal circumstances, they don't make up 100% of the fleet you are about to face. Even if you don't have reliable means to put pressure on them, they will remain a hinderance, but most of the time, it won't determine the entire battle.
The mercenary phase-fleet you will find in the probe system sent by TT to smoke your ass is obviously nothing like it, as it consists entirely of S-moded phase ships. It feels more like a bizarre Custom Battle scenario, a fun exercise in applying anti-phase countermeasures to their full effect. That is, if you know about it in advance, and you won't on your first go with Academy questline. Even if you are good at picking up clues, and realized the pattern of sending Armadas after you throughout the story, nothing suggests an elite, exclusively phase fleet ahead. It can be a bitter-tasting experience if you choose to fight, even at equal or greater fleet strength. Without employing at least some of the anti-phase tactics, you are likely to get fleet-wiped, or at least suffer catastrophic losses, while feeling absolutely helpless.
Oh, and this brings me to the exhibit above. Honestly - no idea what fundamentally went wrong there. Although my choice of vessels is more thematical rather than perfectly optimized, its still a 240 DP worth of combat ships, that were refitted with best anti-phase practices in mind, specifically for this fight. The shield piercing EMP, however, was foolishly unaccounted for, and lack of RFC is what probably doomed this fleet. The encounter wasn't recorded, because I did fought and won Ziggurat battles before with arguably less impressive and less anti-phase optimized fleets (but I mostly attribute this to Gryphon's saturated missile bombardment freaking out the Zig AI), and I expected this one to be an absolute breeze. But frankly, I think this is beyond the point. Should your success in these two encounters really hinge on employing every single anti-phase trick in the book and then some? Is it fair to the player, is it unnecessarily frustrating? Is the Ziggurat battle, specifically, a bit over-tuned? I would like to hear some opinions on this, while I go mourn the 2510 brave souls who should've known better than to join my fleet.