First, I loaded my old saves to check out the Gryphon and Tachyon Lance.
Gryphon is difficult to use, but it can be very powerful. Reaper Gryphon plays much like Reaper Aurora except instead of pounding enemies with blasters, it uses machine guns to break down enemy shield then shove missiles down the enemy's throat. With less OP, you cannot fit Safety Override without giving up something more important. With +30% OP and Optimized Assembly, you have barely enough OP to squeeze Augmented Engines, Expanded Missiles, and enough cheap weapons to function. Gryphon feels OP starved like the Hammerhead, another ship that cannot quite get everything (unlike Enforcer and Dominator), and both Gryphon and Hammerhead could use an elite variant with more OP akin to XIV ships, if adding +5 OP to Gryphon and Hammerhead will not happen.
I will be brief on Tachyon Lance: Without the EMP bug, this is merely a Phase Lance with +400 range; and it feels like a 20 or 22 OP heavy weapon, or even a 15 OP medium weapon. It need to be unfair again (2500+ range, EMP bug, whatever) to be worth 32 OP and enough credits to buy a destroyer. No need for me to say more here (because I ranted enough elsewhere).
I tried Easy just to check out sensors. Fleets are easily visible on the screen. Easy seems to be a viable option for those frustrated by Normal.
Satisfied, I started a new game on Normal, planning to ally with Tri-Tachyon now that they have two military markets and more enemies to shoot (for more commission rewards). This time, my character is the "Blue" Power Ranger instead of the "Doom" space marine.
Pirates are more visible than in 0.7a, but they still appear a bit close for comfort, and I need to act fast or I get caught anyway. I think I can still hold Shift and react in time, but I need to be highly alert for that.
Before I got a chance to suicide the shuttle for Lasher, I earned several thousand credits from an early fight (or two) and I played around more (since suicide was not profitable enough), building up reputation (up to favorable with Hegemony) and assets. A little later, I spent enough to make the suicide exploit useful, so I tried it... and discovered I respawned in another system. After more attempts, I finally respawned back in Corvus... in a Wolf! Looks like Wolf is now a respawn choice now. With random respawn location, suicide exploit is not so easy. The main point of suicide exploit is to effectively trade cheap broken shuttles for 10,000+ credit frigates, but it seems easy enough to make money early, and more tedious to respawn back in Corvus. Suicide exploit is still an option, but it is probably more trouble than it is worth unless you do it immediately after starting a game, which takes time away from the guaranteed bounty event.
Commissions are nice, thanks to more money (to offset what you lose by staying neutral) and accelerated reputation gain. I got mine from Tri-Tachyon at level 20, and I ground pirates and the occasional Luddite in Magec. I feel like I am playing Nexerelin. All we need now is Industry and Outposts and maybe a way to destroy factions.
Overall, 0.7.1a is more forgiving than 0.7a.
