Its more of an RP ship.
PvP wise its not that great, nearly every fight you will have will be against the far stronger OC Dread or OC BS. You can kill those but you will need some luck.
Your best bet is a mixed loadout with IMG Primaries, one or two Mortars and Solaris turrets. Especially the Solaris turrets are quite useful in the Taus.
It's not good at combat, especially not alone. It will however work fine if used in numbers and as a mobile AA platform - it moves pretty well through rough terrain, more so than most battleships.
RPwise? Don't bother. Places where those carriers can be presently used, simply don't have anyone worth RPing with.
The mixed load is due to a doctrine we worked out lately - Zeps don't work alone so any specialization will result in the carrier more often than not being ill-suited for the situation at hand. Therefore whenever possible, they need to appear in numbers and stay focused - if a dready shows up, mortars from long range and primaries if the damn thing gets too close. If lighter stuff, chain them primaries and keep them away. If smalls, have your own screens start a furball nearby and play the zephyrs like flying fortresses with interlocking HMG firing zones.
so oin otherwords the szeps the only "true" carrier
in terms of guns awsome
,by true carrier i mean something like say a lexington class from ww2 or anything with 5 oinch guns that had antio sdhip capabslitys if things got to close>
Reason: It cannot be used anywhere (except in Taus) without triggering hostilities with Houses.
And in Taus you are prey for OCs if you don't have big armour class. And even if, you are an easy target if you are not organised in the CR-IMG-EDGE Zephyr-spam deathsqauds.
Also from my personal experience, the Tau action is rather boring, as it's only "If they jump into T23, we kill them all in 10 seconds" and on the other side "We wait in Alpha until they move, then we kill them in 10 seconds".
In case you are in IMG| (I think you are?) you are not allowed to use an IMG| tagged Capital, as we want to keep the number of these small. Caps always trigger mess and thus IMG| keeps them for Guildmaster use only.
Furthermore, I heard that the new IMG shipline will have a good light cap with thrusters that might well be much cooler to spend money on than the pvp-wise useless Zepyhr that can operate nowhere.
A Zephyr is sleek, fragile and light. It can easily maneuver inside roidfields (easier then bigger warships anyway). It's turret loadout is balanced, with good coverage to all sides, especially fore and aft. It has a very narrow height, so strafing up and down allows you to dodge quite some fire, helps with winning mortar pong. It can also be a good fleet support ship when loaded heavily with Solaris turrets - which I think suits it's role best.
In direct cap vs cap engagements with primaries it'll die so fast it's not even funny. Hitpoint wise it is the lightest battleship currently available. Don't put primaries on these. Ever. Load them with Solaris, missile, pulse and mortar setups to engage heavies at range, and snubs close by.
As Henderson said, the Zephyr will most likely not be in the IMG's arsenal anymore come 4.86, at the very least it won't be sold anymore, so keep this in mind. IMG will retain the Argus, which will get a redesign including a thruster.
Wide awake in a world that sleeps, enduring thoughts, enduring scenes. The knowledge of what is yet to come.
From a time when all seems lost, from a dead man to a world, without restraint, unafraid and free.
Mostly retired Discovery member. May still visit from time to time.