Right now my initial strategy is pushing into the Empire of the Hand and trying to secure that stretch of territory so that I can have more planets far away from the front lines to tax and to close down one of my fronts permanently. However I find that by the time I push through three to four planets that they have built up some of those really powerful stations and I was wondering if the IR has any anti-platform ships that can hammer them from long range or if I just have to duke it out with ISD IIs leading the way and try to rotate them so their shields don't go down.
There's nothing specifically anti-platform.
Do the IR heroes in Era 5 have any special abilities? I know Pellaeon has the focus fire ability but I didn't really see anything for Daala and haven't seen anything like Leia where costs are cut from whatever system she's in. Daala in particular seems very bad because her ship is one of the clone wars era ships and she gets melted if she gets anywhere near the front line.
Most heroes like that are useful less for their personal combat power, and more for their combat bonuses. The strengths of them weren't documented in the game in 2.1, however any hero that has the little circles emanating from their icon at the top is providing a significant combat bonus to your regular ships.
How should I go about killing the viscounts before I have my own SSDs? I think the Rebels start with one and it always appears over that planet by Wayland sometime before week 10. I have seen that video of the TIE/D squadrons murdering it and that looks promising but if I had to is it possible to micro a few capitals behind it using the turn/stop keys and have them hammer it from behind?
The most efficient way to take out any SSDs for any faction is always going to involve bombers to some extent, but the most efficient way, especially if there's other support ships, is usually a mix of destroyers and carriers.
Ground forces: I've seen a few threads on here regarding how good the XR-85 is and I haven't gotten a chance to take it out to test personally. Should I even bother building AT-AT factories in era 5 with them being so good? Since stacking buildings gives a training time multiplier should I just have a planet for each type of unit factory? Also, what is the best strategy against the turbolasers that the AI likes to build? Is it necessary to constantly use artillery in every attack stack or do the turbolasers even outrange those?
For the XR-85s, in 2.1 they do tend to outshine the AT-AT when available. As for turbolasers, they don't outrange artillery, but usually a heavy vehicle can still take a few hits from them and beat it. The absolute best way to deal with them is to get some IDTs and search out the power generator to deactivate them, and microing infantry into their base (they can't shoot directly down) tends to take care of them pretty well, too.
I also figure that in Era 5 that my ships are probably just not going to be good enough to go 1v1 with their NR counterparts in particular the Bothan cruiser and the Viscount. I haven't tried the Tector out yet, is it comparable to whatever size ship it should be put up against? I'm also not sure what the "mid level" cruiser is supposed to be for the IR at this era. I've just been assuming that the ISD II and VSD II are pretty good ships for their respective weight classes and been trying to modernize my fleets where money allows
In general, yeah, the NR's got you beat one-to-one. The Tector does a pretty good job fighting the newer capital ships, but keep in mind you're not getting fighters with it. If you want versatility, so good fighter complements and still decent ship-to-ship combat, then ISDII and VSDIIs are still very useful.