Obviously this is a fairly subjective question, but I was wondering if there is a ‘sweet spot’ for string gauge + tension for picking.
I know @Troy and team have devised a pick guide on how to choose a pick based on how you play, so I wonder if there could be something similar going on with string gauges + tension?
Alternatively, it could be entirely subjective, and depends on what the player prefers, not how they pick or what pick they use
Any ideas? 
I’m sure everyone has a preference to some degree. I just went the trial and error route and tried a few gauges, and settled on something that felt right.
I just re-watched the Andy Wood interviews recently and he mentioned he has an easier time picking on thicker strings. He opts for 9’s on electric though. He says lighter === more challenging to pick but he prefers the tones he can get out of the thinner strings.
I bet you could ask 10 different players on his level and get slightly different answers lol!
For me, I play a variety of gauges on electrics and acoustics with some variation in scale length even. I don’t start really noticing a difference unless it’s an acoustic and I put a capo on and I’m doing crosspicking. I feel like that extra tension sort of helps the pick deflect (think like a bicycle going over a ramp) and I get some curvature for free. More anecdotes!
I suspect that the the combination is string gauge + pick stiffness + various technique issues like how deep the impact of the pick is and how much one bends. I suspect that if one barely scrapes the top of the string then its tension won’t really be a big deal (unless bending), but if one hits deep with a rigid pick then that would likely seriously impact the hand’s path. Tuning flat a semitone and using light-gauge strings (like 8’s) is a night-and-day difference vs. something like 10’s at a standard tuning.
Yes. When players use super light strings for their scale length, every note has that loud snap and sounds like you’re killing it. It makes it almost impossible to play with even attack on all notes and it makes it difficult to learn technique.
I have played more than one guitar that players have brought to our studio that has been set up this way. You might get away with it if you’re a high gain player and the distortion masks the attack so all the notes come out sounding the same. But as soon as you switch to clean, it sounds super uneven and becomes difficult to learn how to have smooth pick attack.
Ideally, in picking technique, playing with light force should produce quiet output, medium force should produce medium loudness, more force should produce loud notes, and only the most forceful pickstrokes produce that snappy sound like what a Gypsy jazz player gets.
That’s the test. If your guitar setup makes a loud snap on most notes, and it’s difficult to get a “medium” level of attack, then to me that is wrong. You can’t learn to modulate your picking technique if your entire dynamic range, no matter how softly you pick, is now squished into the “loud” end of the spectrum.
Implicit in this is that you should actually * have * different levels of force in your picking technique and know how to control that. If you only play with the tiniest softest possible pick attack all the time, you’re not learning how to play with dynamic range, and you will not be able to dial up or down the intensity as needed.
Obviously, there are jazz players who make super gentle picking movements, playing super lightly all the time, and just turn a clean amp up higher for their sound. That’s a style, I get that. But I still think for learning picking technique, there has to be dynamic range, and you have to set it such that medium pick + medium force = medium loudness. You can always play more softly for the jazz gig if you like.
So I would choose whatever string gauge produces that result for your pick type and scale length.
By “force,” do you effectively mean depth, e.g., how much pick hits (and therefore displaces) the string? Does “light” mean “barely hit the string,” or possibly, “has a lot of edge picking?” Or do you mean something else? 
Thanks!
I find it easiest now to pick correctly on thicker strings but not too thick, there seems to be a sweet spot for me. It gets a lot more difficult on the high e string (I use 9.5) and the low e string (44). I can play the fastest on the A string (34) and it gets progressively more difficult but not much until the high E. I use a 12 for the B and 17 for G and those are fairly comfortable.
I’ve been testing different string gauges, scale lengths, action, tunings, and come across “string tension calculators”. Have others used this resource, and if so what tension do you aim for? I tend to drift toward ~20lb per string, but wonder if this means my right hand is maybe working a little “too hard” vs those who prefer ~13lb per string. Thanks for any thoughts
From my experience I honestly think it’s largely preference and guitar used. It’s also almost always a compromise.
Personally, for any type of faster lead playing, I don’t like lower string tension and prefer 25.5 scale guitars. However I do like it (lower tension) and reduced scale lengths more for rhythm playing, on the flip side of that I also tend to like the tone of lighter gauge strings a bit more, and find heavier gauge strings kind of dense for some things. For all these reasons I tend to stick with .009’s with standard tuning, and .0095’s when funded down a half step, and a 25.5” scale length. it’s the comprimise I think many make.