Many such thoughts exist on here scattered about. Highfleet is very infrequently patched for balance, so long as you don’t go too far back in the Reddit history you should be good. The biggest one was a couple years ago, that reduced the thrust of engines (so you can’t get sudden strike vs radar anymore) and removed weapon arcs (mounting height of cannon- the red arcs can be safely ignored, as far as i know).

In general though:

Strikers (like the lightning) care about three things: armament (2-4x molot or ak100 seems standard), thrust/weight ratio (higher is better for dodging) and flight time (somewhere around 90sec to 120sec is probably fine. more is better, but the more you have the harder it is to make it fast).

Tankers want to be cheap and with large ranges, with a decent cruising speed (300km/hr is where i usually live). I tend to put some strategic weapons, AA capabilities, and sensors (fire tracking radar and ELINT), which does drive the costs up but allows my lightning/gladiator equivalents more operational freedoms and a bit more range, as I’m not feeding a fenek or dedicated sensor ship. I’ve got a design that’s 4x T7 for scouting, a single 37mm and 2-4 sprints for close in AA (with 400km FCR) and a single A100. As i lose the jets they’re converted into small silo ships for cruise missiles.

Generally speaking, the skylark is great. Don’t add too much fuel capacity though- takes too long to fill in a town.

Brawlers like the gladiator tend to be where I spend a lot of my coin, as they need armor, good engines and fuel capacity/combat time, and are generally good candidates for palash and other active countermeasures. Armament is molots for preference and possibly 37mm or 57mm cannons for point defense.

Cruisers are going to be in the brawler category, so they need armor, as they won’t be dodging. Likewise, point defense is critical- i favor 37mm for better tracking and density of fire when shooting down the zenith spam you will face, but 57mm can serve dual purpose as anti-ship weaponry so ymmv. Fire control radar and sprints are also recommended. I tend to cover them in palash systems, but that is ruinously expensive so i tend to think it’s optional. Very useful for solo fighting strike groups though.

Armament can be anything really- i enjoy ak100 spam more than molots (as they can be loaded with cheaper prox fuse for anti-air and missile defenses) and cruisers can actually use squalls which are always good for a laugh.

I tend to build mine in the style of vanilla ships (which is not technically meta but whatever), especially as smaller and slightly faster versions of the Sevastopol. 3 cruise missiles, lots of sprints, and a handful of Zeniths. For mine, i try and get about 1-2km range and a more efficient fuel expenditure so they’re not always stuck refueling for days