I just compared the x piratez wiki section on craft weapons to my ingame bootypedia and it seems the wiki is outdated, my lascannons performed so well because they hit a lot harder than the wiki says. Wiki says 16 dmg but it's actually 36 dmg compared to the ripper cannon's 22.
I just had a thought, if I use a dragon to down ships then do the pilots each get a chance for a bravery increase? Could be a good way to train bravery.
I already went ahead and made the ripper cannons and barracudas but I have a new plan. I assault the battleship with all 12 interceptors. The first assault will be 4 barracudas equipped with 2 l shield generators and 2 lascannons, these are to strip away the shields. After the shields go down I retreat the barracudas and send in the next 4 interceptors which will be Sabres. The reason is because I need a craft that can use missiles and which only requires 1 pilot and can survive some attacks. The Sabres will be expensive in force circuitry but I've got a base dedicated to buying and enslaving beastmasters for their force circuitry so I think I can get the shield generators I need. The Sabres will each have 1 light shield generator, 1 lascannon and 2 meteor missile launchers. Although Sabres are squishy, with their inbuilt shield and an additional shield they can take 1-2 hit. They lack the barracuda dodge but if one takes a hit I'll pull it back out of firing range then send it back in while the aggro switches to another. Meteors only have 3 shots so it wont take long for them to fire their payload and then I'll retreat them and send in the next 4. The lascannon are to keep the shields completely down but I'm considering swapping them for more shield generators (I'm just worried we won't have the firepower to bring down the battleship/silver towers if some missiles are hitting regenerating shields)
After the Sabres have fired their missiles they retreat and if the ship still hasn't gone down I'll send the barracudas back in to try and finish it off with their lascannons, relying on their high dodge, double shields and decent HP to endure long enough to bring it down. I considered bringing in a tanking craft but considering the tanking crafts aren't that much tankier than interceptors when you take The dodge of barracudas into consideration it might not be worth it. On the other hand a single dragon stationed at my main base and piloted by 5 of my A team (I'll feel safer with a 5 pilot crew knowing they live in my main base) and armed with 4 plasma cannons should be able to do some tremendous damage. All I'd need to do is let my barracudas draw fire while my dragon hammers it with it's heavy hitting plasma beams, with the pilot aim bonus and the aim bonus to ship size those plasma cannons should have the power to drop it at least twice over, I could give the barracudas 2 shield generators each and lascannons to help keep the shields down, then have the second wave with only shields equipped
EDIT: I've got an even better idea. I send my Sabre to another base from my main base, and then I put 2 dragons in my main base. They're pretty beefy already with an inbuilt shield and a ton of health. I'll use barracudas with shield generators as tanks and let my dragons do the work.