Thanks for running these tests, the numbers are quite interesting. The NF variant has a much bigger improvement than I expected!
The biggest surprise in the numbers for me is the 2x Talons being so poor, and in your later tests the Warthogs being able to catch up at all!
Having more than ~8% of an IR Pulse Laser past the first second can do wonders for its performance. The test has certainly shaped how I feel the Gladius "should" be.
In the case of 2x Talons, I believe that is because most of the Talon's (anti-armor) firepower is in the first burst of SRMs... which impact the Lasher's front-facing shields, leaving the Talon group with only Vulcans for a while. The Talons basically had to be lucky enough to survive the Lasher's PD fire, reload and fire its Swarmers while the Talon was at the Lasher's rear arc,
and the missiles had to survive/avoid Vulcan PD fire long enough to hit the Lasher's armor. The process had to be repeated until the armor broke, and then the Talons still had to hose the backside with its Vulcans to finally end it. Compared to most other fighter groups which had a pretty clear path to mopping up the singular lasher, the Talons had a slow and arduous process.
As for the Warthog, the test Lasher didn't make a honest effort to escape, for whatever reason (I guess that Condor looked like too juicy a prey for that greedy Lasher to run away from?). I'd imagine in the campaign, a Warthog-equipped carrier would have much greater difficulty in actually
catching a frigate that didn't want to be caught.
I actually used warthogs combined with a mod heavy fighter that basically is an anti-shield version of the Warthog (it even has the same 12OP cost) but only on a mod carrier that litterally applies a temporal shield to both itself and its fighters (It's a 14FP carrier Called Vortex from the Ship/Weapon pack for anyone interested) so they could actually reach their intended target.
They do still feel subpar tough, since I ended up switching both fighter setup and carrier for Assault Corvettes (Battleaxe to be precise) in a later part of that campaign. I don't even think they would actually become overpowered if they actually gave the Warthog its third mortar back, or maybe a machinegun for minimal shield damage and anti-fighter/missile capability?
A third mortar by itself would do almost nothing for the Warthog, as its limiting factor is its poor flux stats (only enough to operate 1 mortar). The machine, as of today, has 50 dissipation and 200 capacity (used to be 80/400).