We had it in Trillion Credit Squadron where all the ships were 1,999/19,999/74,999 tons and mounted the best weapon (Meson N/T) for the size to Min/Max the rules.
This is annoying, but did it make his fleets so overpowered compared to everyone else's that he wins every (or most) games?
If he does, that's not his problem.
It's that the game's rules are bad.
It's time to change the rules (or play a different system entirely). TCS in its various incarnations has been the source of flawed rules that have created the "Eurisko standard" and made TCS into something of a laughingstock among computer scientists of that era.
If he doesn't win every (or most) games, then let him have his little horn to toot. If the perceived advantage is too great and everyone else is doing the same, then your only choice is to change the rules. The thing with min/maxers in situations like these is that they can be loud and quick, but they're only finding the issues with the system that everyone else will eventually find, just it'll take everyone else longer but the problem isn't going away. That player just found it first.
It isn't an issue (imo) with the min/maxer - it's an issue with the rules. Sharp breakpoints are an issue. When you add a single ton of mass in a system that supposedly handles vessels of hundreds of thousands of tons of mass and suddenly your maneuver class drops a whole category (or something similar), that's not a problem with your players. It's a problem with the rules. Many games have issues with rules like this.
To use an RL example, if you look at warships during World War 2, they all kinda look the same. They have a similar layout guns in the centerline, carriers pretty much have a single deck, and so on. If you turn back the clock, by the end of WW1, these trends were firmly in place; naval architects had essentially min/maxed to find what works best for ships.
However, if you go back even further, say to about the time that steam power became practical in warships right up to about the beginning of WW1, things were wild and wooly. All kinds of loony (and visually interesting) designs. That period is what most players like in games like TCS - that loony period where nobody really knows exactly what works best you have aircraft carriers with three flight decks, battleships with huge tumblehomes and weird gun layouts, and so on with lots of experimentation and lots of "holy cow, that worked better than I thought!" or "ho ho I thought that'd be great, but man was that embarrassing."
If you play a game long enough, people who are playing the game as an exercise that winning is the point of a game and that the fun will happen along way as a result of the competition to win, they're going to optimize their strategy to winning. That "we're playing to have fun and he's not" excuse doesn't work (imo) because ... he's playing to have fun, too.
And could they argue...Oy Vey!
Arguing about the rules is a different beast. Tell them to go play Star Fleet Battles where finding obscure rules to win a combat appears to be part of the design of the game. In a RPG (or any situation where there's a referee), the best method I've found is for the referee to make a quick decision to keep play moving. If someone has an issue with a decision, they can discuss it after the game (or games) is over. In this way a body of house rules can be created for the future.
If you're playing a game that doesn't have a ref, the solutions are pretty standard:
1) Stop playing with the person.
2) Get a referee.
3) Tell the offending player that their constant arguing about the rules is really affecting your enjoyment of the game and to either tone it down or you'll simply stop playing with them.
