Yeah, Nex is the big one. The sector feels so... dead? Still? Without it now.
I actually avoid mods that add ships and factions. I like a consistent art style and have an irrational hatred of anime-style - especially the "big tiddy waifu" style - art, which a lot of the mods love to use. Also so many of the ships are hilariously unbalanced, which is fine if the faction's, say, hivers since they're *meant* to be unbalanced and more like a threat, but when it's "I'll add a few ships and weapons. They have heavy armour, good shields, good flux stats, a buffed temporal shell, can outrange a gauss cannon and do insane damage" it's just... eh.
I mean I don't mind the Doritos or the Ziggy because, again, they're supposed to be busted, end-game stuff.
Anyway, my current game: Using my favourite theme, low-tech fleet. This time I'm leaning heavily into the overwhelming firepower doctrine. No frigates, no destroyers, just cruisers and capital ships. Got an automated XIV Onslaught and Legion, both with integrated alpha cores (Never knew you could pick their skills at will), a manned XIV Legion and a manned Onslaught, four or five Dominators, two Eradicators (Normal variant for the sweet, sweet AAF) and three Ventures. And a few logistics ships.
It's been fun. I've been at war with the Hegemony most of the game, and with Starpocalypse it's difficult to get a hold of good ships so they've been my main source. Just yoinking ships from patrols and revenge fleets. Also going around bombing their planets, nicking worlds from them to give back to other factions and generally being a pain in their arse. Especially since they tend to dominate and I'm putting a crimp in their plans.
EDIT: My fleet's actually pretty damn good it seems. Every battle I'm deploying two Onslaughts, two Legions and four Dominators. Historically I've been... alright at combat. Not great, but not bad either. Between my AI ships being absolutely brutal thanks to having nine elite skills and creating builds that actually work well, I've been able to take on Hegemony invasion fleets three-to-one without much issue, even when the opposing ships are S-modded and have good officers.
The Legions have been built to act in strike roles - Lux bombers on the automated ship, Xyphos on the regular, double hammer barrages (Prefer reapers but hammers are cheaper), three thumpers on the front (I've been sleeping on thumpers because of their fragmentation damage. They're actually incredible) and a heavy autocannon either side.
Onslaughts are mid-range, able to perform admirably at long-medium range thanks to their TPCs but excelling in a mid-short range with every gun being able to reach and having four reaper pods.
Finally, the Dominators are set up with Mk. IXs, harpoon pods and maulers. Not so good at close range, but they often do a harpoon dump into anything on approach which usually causes them to overload or be forced to back off to vent. Make good close-support and finishers, every time a ship comes in with a shield shunt or overloads an enormous swarm of harpoons suddenly appears to destroy them.
I need to do some proper stress testing though. I've yet to find a high danger system where I can start prodding the Ordos to see if I can take them down too. Certainly the dominators were able to take down the fleet guarding the Red Planet without any capital ships helping them, but that's not a proper test.