A few accounts of issues with the AI in the patch, some are also from previous patches.
AI:Ships with Annihilators that use the Burn Drive will occasionally hit itself with it's own volley.
Ships with Annihilators will see them as enemy projectiles and divert shields to them.
Ships with Flare Systems will deploy them on Annihilators.
Frigates still try to 'turn the most well armored side to the enemy' which frigates only get weaker by as their armor is made of tissue paper and it only serves to prevent hardpoint guns from facing the right way. Similar problem exists for 'Dropping shields versus kinetic damage' in which frigates will often drop shields versus any kinetics and take a lot of unnecessary hull damage. This is also sometimes a problem for larger ships too, often when being shot at by explosive missiles such as annihilator pods. The behavior is quite counter productive for most ships because the ship does that even when shields are up and flux is low.
Ships that are 'Panicking' from low health will often not lower their shields even when well out of range (or firing arc), leading to more frequent overloads. Most of a problem on OMNI shield ships.
Sometimes ships that are out of range from all but missiles will still keep their shields raised, even if they're at high flux with or without omni shields. Even if the shield faces the wrong way.
Ships with temporary combat boosting abilities such as the Ammo Feeder will activate them on phase ships even if they are phased or capable of phasing instantly.
Ships retreating from enemy fire near overload will not attempt to strafe while moving back, leading to slow moving long ranged projectiles still hitting. Not as much of an issue for larger ships, but a problem for smaller more agile ones.
Frigates still attempt to attack targets larger than themselves even at high flux levels instead of using their superior speed to back off. They also lack proper kiting AI. This can lead to a frigate charging in to a lot of fire, especially with the hammerhead's ammo feeder and being destroyed instantly.
AI sometimes will have the ship keep aiming towards a recently killed enemy for a few seconds rather than assuming a new target.
Ships sometimes vent at inopportune times, such as when still within range of enemy weapons, or when one enemy has been disabled (Like out of a fighter wing), or when they flame out, even against ships that have a very large firing arc or still facing your ship. This is mostly a problem with frigates who are the most vulnerable to damage.
Ships sometimes will fire high-flux costing weapons such as the AM blaster, H Blaster, and Plasma Cannon at ships still in phase.
In a 1V1 fight between the Shade and Afflictor, one of the ships overloaded and the other ship backed off while still at low flux. I thought this was fixed already but apparently not.
BalanceLight Machine Gun VS Duel Light Machine Gun
Spoiler
Ordinance Points: 3 VS 6
Damage per second: 156 VS 208
Flux per second: 19 VS 25
Shots per minute: 375 VS 500
Ammo: 1000 VS 1000
Range: 300 VS 300
That's a huge discrepancy between power and cost. It costs twice as much for not even a 25% benefit.
There's also another issue, lore related:
"Any weapon that fires over 1200 rounds per minute is called a light machine gun"
The fire rate is 350, even if you count the Ammo Feeder, that's still only 700 which is short.
Racks VS Pods and Singles:
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Very simply one.
Pods are 10 OP for 12 missiles, Singles are one missile for one OP, Racks are 3 missiles for 5 OP. A huge difference in terms of overall costs. The most inefficient overall is the racks.
Atropos:
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Another simple one. A single missile for 2 OP, versus 2 missiles for 6. A rather large difference in terms of relative OP efficiency.
Reaper Singles VS Pod VS Duel Pod:
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For a single Reaper it costs 2 OP for a single missile, for the Pod it's the same, however for the Duel Pod it's 26 OP for 20, a little over 1 OP per reaper.
Flak VS Heavy Burst Laser:
Spoiler
Ordinance Points: 8 VS 13
Damage per second: 200 VS 82 (275 Burst)
Range: 500 VS 600
Shots Per Minute: 60 VS 30 (129 Burst)
Flux per second: 50 VS 120
Missile Effectiveness:
Flak destroys almost all missile variants within it's explosive radius, regardless of number.
HBL destroys all missiles in a straight line until they reach the damage per shot limit. This is usually 2-3 missiles per shot, but only if they line up perfectly. Otherwise it's 1 missile per shot, not counting larger missiles.
It's a bit of a balance problem to be sure, it makes flak much much better than burst lasers are for their price. So I think that the Burst PD and Heavy Burst Lasers need to be taken down a few OP.
Now here's a few that I can't quite justify, but I just feel like that they should be done:Spoiler
Drop High Intensity Laser to 15 OP (from 20).
Increase Guardian PD recharge rate to 60 per minute and decrease cost to 20 OP
Drop the Tachyon Lance (Post Nerf) OP cost to 25 and decrease activation cost of lance to 1250 or 1000 (from 1750).
Drop the Plasma Cannon to 24 OP.
Drop the Swarmer Launcher to 3 OP.
Drop the Storm Needler to 26 OP.
Decrease the Flux Per Shot of the Mjolnir Cannon to 400 (from 600).
Decrease the Flux per shot of the AM Blaster to 1250 or 1000 (from 1500).
Decrease the Flux per shot of the Ion Cannon to 80 (from 120)
Drop the Graviton Beam and the Phase Beam to 8/9 and 10 respectively.
Drop the Gauss Cannon's cost down to 20.
SuggestionsSpoiler
Add in a medium sized Swarmer PD Launcher.
Add in a 'Regular' Mauler to fill the role of a small sized long range explosive launcher.
Add in a 'Standard' Blaster to act as a middleman between the fast firing IR pulse and the very slow firing AM blaster.
Add in a Reaper Missile Rack like the Atropos has.
Add an Ion Blaster for the medium slot that acts as a medium EMP weapon.
Add in a Small and Large Pilum Launcher.
Add in a Medium beam PD to give more variety next to the Burst PD.
Add in a Medium 'Heavy Mortar' that fills the role of cheap low range explosive damage.
Add in a Large kinetic missile launcher.
Add in a Large Annihilator missile launcher.
Add in a Large short ranged Explosive/Kinetic weapons that are very cheap or flux efficient.
Add in a Medium and Large Atropos Launcher.