For beams, I use Tachyon Lances (less than before due to buggy autozoom), (Heavy) Burst PD if I have the OP to spare, and LR PDs when I do not have enough OP or burst PDs to spare. If I have Advanced Optics, I may use regular PD laser on a Wolf. I sometimes put Graviton Beams on an Eagle, and Tactical Laser on phase frigates to deal with fighters.
I've read about the autozoom problem with TLs but haven't encountered it since I don't use that feature. I give my Paragon TLs all around (including one up front as LR chase armament), with a Plasma Cannon (PC) also up front which I control, and put the TLs on autofire and leave 'em to it. Similarly, I put an autofire TL on each side of my Odysseys, with a manually controlled PC in the port aft slot. They seem to do pretty well without using any zoom business, so I leave 'em be. Maybe you could try something like this to alleviate your problem?
If I use an Eagle, I tend to use a mix of Grav Beams and Phase Beams; but I don't use the Eagle or Falcon... IMO possibly the two worst ships in the game (genuinely no offence to those who love them, YMMV etc). I was very excited about reaching the Cruiser stage of the game, and had high hopes for those two beautiful Cruisers... and ended up keeping my Sunder as my flagship, and Hammerheads as my rank and file line units until I started to get Apogees and Odysseys.
I think that this update will make those two Cruisers even worse, as Cruisers will now have CR timers and the already meager firepower/range gap between medium and small beams will shrink much further. Like I mentioned way up above, theoretically put a Hammerhead head to head against a Falcon. All weapons cancel except the Falcon's 2x medium beams vs the Hammerhead's 2x small beams forward. In reason and realism, the two medium mounts very noticeably outgun and outrange the two small ones... right? Not as it stands now, and still less so after the patch.
The Eagle's three medium (beam) mounts should be a ferocious amount of firepower... but isn't at all. I personally think that there are lots of balance issues where these two ships are concerned, where they're kind of the worst of both worlds (in that space between the excellent Destroyers and excellent Cap ships), rather than best. A lot of that is beyond the scope of this topic but if these Cruisers didn't have CR timers then they'd be relatively less bad (though the higher tech Cruisers could still have the timer, to reflect their higher maintenance loads, if that timer really had to happen...), and a large part of what makes them so comparatively feeble is how anaemic medium beams are compared to small or large ones - both of which are firmly within the topic's bounds.
[Lol, look at me not wanting to get told off for being 'Off Topic'.
]
What I notice is the enemy flagship is the backbone of the enemy fleet. Kill it fast, and the rest of the enemy fleet is not that hard if your fleet is better than theirs. I can bring a frigate horde of over thirty ships and usually destroy the remaining fleet without casualties if the enemy flagship has been removed first. As for the enemy flagship, Hyperion is great for removing enemy flagships if Hyperion has Missile Specialization 10 and Reapers, but if that is not an option, I deploy an Onslaught (or Paragon, if handy) first and alone, then deploy my frigates seconds later after my Onslaught starts blasting enemy ships.
A lot of folks' comments here are heavily shaped by their playstyles, so it's good for those to be explicitly stated; so Alex has a better idea where each person/opinion is coming from. I never use the reinforcements system, and go in with the fleet I need up front - taking care to balance that with keeping some ships fresh for the second pursuit battle that often happens, to catch the faster units that retreated etc. The Flagship I choose at the beginning of the battle is the one I finish in, unless it gets destroyed (which it almost never does). For whatever that info might be worth *shrug*. I guess that it's an indication of how important immersion/realism is to me - and I'm not just saying that. Not that I have any issue at all with those who choose to play differently: This game supports many styles - awesome!
Good luck getting an Astral. I made it to level 71 and never found a single Astral, even after cleaning out Tibicena numerous times and bought about twenty Paragon or Odyssey ships. I do not know if the Astral can even spawn in Tri-Tachyon fleets; I did not see one (but I have seen Paragon and Odyssey) or else I would consider attacking such a fleet just to board their Astral.
Ugh, I didn't realise it could take that long. My entire play from Lvl 40 to 50 has been: Buy all the ships from the Tri-Tach shipyard at Tibicena, scuttle most of them, do the bounties rounds in one go, come back to Tibicena, repeat. Much as I'd love an Astral to play with for a bit (which chances are I probably won't be into too much after the excitement and novelty's worn off), not sure I'm up for another 21+ levels of this grind.
Just while I'm here, and in the name of efficiency, can I be briefly indulged in a kind of 'Off Topic' question, having already used the Search function? The only other rare ship I don't have is the Conquest - I'm guessing that they only ever drop at the Sindria military shipyard, but is that the case?
I see that they're going to be added to Sindrian fleets, but my Admiral prides herself in her perfect relations with all factions (except the pirate vermin, natch
), so won't be attacking any main factions to try to snaffle their ships.
Cheers.