Hey there Sullla, this is mzhao1992 from your stream. You may not remember me, but I appreciate your informational streams and have had a lot of fun watching some of your more challenging attempts. I agree with you on the majority of your points, but one thing you may have overlooked on the Engi A is the Ion Mk 2's ability to split its fire towards more than one enemy system, and more tricky setups with 2 ions of varying cooldown can disable two systems reliably while occasionally hitting a third. This applies mostly to when enemy ships have 1-2 shield bubbles in sectors 1-3, but that's at the critical juncture where you're trying to minimize damage taken to conserve scrap for better weapons and system upgrades.
With 20% CDR from crew, the Ion Mk 2 fires once every 3.2s, dealing 5s of ion damage. The commonly drawn conclusion is that it can eventually knock down all of a ship's shields, but we can also conclude that this is overkill if we keep the Ion Mk 2 aimed at the shields. Instead, consider alternating between shields and weapons in a 2:1 ratio as their last shield bubble goes down. This is especially applicable in sector 1 against 1-shield bubble enemies, where you avoid taking damage from most weapons setups by ionizing the second weapon. Think of the otherwise-dreaded 2x Heavy Laser - a single point of ion damage will de-sync them and effectively nullify that ship as a threat, even if you never inflict any additional ion/conventional damage to their weapons. Give it a try, you may be pleasantly surprised. Ions don't have to be low skill cap
Even in the most straightforward use case of auto-firing the Ion Mk 2 against a 2-shield bubble enemy, it's significantly better to aim at weapons, not shields. Doing this results in doing enough ion damage to take out their shields, at which point the shields will be locked down for the next ~6-10 seconds. That's enough time to fire 2-3 times at weapons. Then the enemy shields will come back up, at which point you repeat the process. This approach effectively draws out the battle but keeps their last weapon out of the fight or de-synced, which results in far less damage taken. Against 1-shield bubble enemies, auto-firing at weapons is even more effective - you only need one hit to take down their shields, and you can ionize one of their weapons in the first 10s of a fight, before they get a shot off. When this works, the only ships that can damage you are ones with a missile in the first slot.
With 20% CDR from crew, the Ion Mk 2 fires once every 3.2s, dealing 5s of ion damage. The commonly drawn conclusion is that it can eventually knock down all of a ship's shields, but we can also conclude that this is overkill if we keep the Ion Mk 2 aimed at the shields. Instead, consider alternating between shields and weapons in a 2:1 ratio as their last shield bubble goes down. This is especially applicable in sector 1 against 1-shield bubble enemies, where you avoid taking damage from most weapons setups by ionizing the second weapon. Think of the otherwise-dreaded 2x Heavy Laser - a single point of ion damage will de-sync them and effectively nullify that ship as a threat, even if you never inflict any additional ion/conventional damage to their weapons. Give it a try, you may be pleasantly surprised. Ions don't have to be low skill cap
Even in the most straightforward use case of auto-firing the Ion Mk 2 against a 2-shield bubble enemy, it's significantly better to aim at weapons, not shields. Doing this results in doing enough ion damage to take out their shields, at which point the shields will be locked down for the next ~6-10 seconds. That's enough time to fire 2-3 times at weapons. Then the enemy shields will come back up, at which point you repeat the process. This approach effectively draws out the battle but keeps their last weapon out of the fight or de-synced, which results in far less damage taken. Against 1-shield bubble enemies, auto-firing at weapons is even more effective - you only need one hit to take down their shields, and you can ionize one of their weapons in the first 10s of a fight, before they get a shot off. When this works, the only ships that can damage you are ones with a missile in the first slot.