First a question. Is faction protection active between nation ships, particularly capital ships in Deneb battles? If yes, then disregard my comments below.

If the answer is no, then the ai needs some fixing because in the mission I just took, there was a Itani Teradon attacking the Serco conny nose to nose. Normally, unless the Teradon gets close enough to use it's gatling turrets, this is not a threat to the ship. However, in this instance, the Serco Heavy was broadside directly behind the connie firing at the Teradon, but scoring heavily on the connie. This is absolutely absurd behavior.

Regardless, cap ship ai needs serious improvement across the board.

By faction protection I assume you mean friendly-fire protection? If so, no, everybody can kill everybody in deneb skirmishes. And the situation you mention is actually a border skirmish technique that is favored by some solo players: drawing fire from enemy onto their own ships.

There is certainly more to be desired from the AI in the skirms, but I think on this issue it's fine IMO.

i like to get the hac to kill its own connie by hiding in the nose

Interesting. I'll have to give this tactic a try. I usually don't bother trying to win the medium & large and just go for fighter kills since it's proven to be excessively frustrating otherwise to try to have a solo impact on a mission only to have a random positioning of the enemy teradon undo an hours worth of bombing runs.

Ok. I see what you mean. I killed 2 Connies this way using a vulture.

I'm not sure how much priority the devs should give this at the moment. It does make for allowing a player to meaningfully solo the larger missions. I still don't like it and think once we have more active players consistently playing in Deneb, this should be fixed.

Heh i prefer Larges and Border Battles, the fighters and Small skirmishes are tedious and boring.