Playing as a Orion, commanding a squadron of fighters take a LOT different approach to the strategy you pick.
It's almost sad that most of the work really depend on fighters. You can't engage Destroyers with it's beams operational - you get blows to pieces.
Remember it's not the post-capela era ship, but even if upgraded, Orion is still great-war relic - it's bound to have weak spots.
Intelligent command of your fighter squadron I think, is essential. When I lost all fighters on the scene, that was almost like a sure-failure.
But hey, remember all those missions command given to you! Wasn't it beams disable and later on, cavalry was to arrive?