I'm guessing this isn't meant to be vanilla balanced? Just saw some of your testing videos.. seems to me really that they have too much armor.
Give them all a simple hullmod that reduces weapon/engine in-combat repair time by 90% of the normal and you won't have to deal with that problem, and then you can balance them properly (if that's what you're setting out to do in the first place). I only suggest it because you seem to be testing vs. vanilla ships.
the testing vids are fairly old and i should change or remove them at present my capital ship can take down a paragon fairly easily but has much more difficulty against an onslaught, unless the AI is being stupid
their biggest weakness as far as far as Ive seen so far is bombers with reapers, my capital ship was torn apart by a single wing in a test play
Last time i played them they weren't overpowered. Strong? Yes, probably more now since the CR update. However they are shieldless, are vulnerable to ion weaponry and fly like drunk bricks.
I had some rare encounters with them in 0.61 in their home system (love the giant star BTW). While i got wrecked hard, i think it was more because their fleets tends to be pretty big. Also, they are integrally fitted with kinetic weapons, making shields very inefficient against them. On top of that, they are very fast, so once they get close, sh*t hit the fan and you can't run away.
I have to properly play with them in depth before drawing conclusions though.
not supposed to out run them, supposed to out maneuver them. I made them have high speed but horrible acceleration, though im unsure what to make their burn levels at, high with massive fuel burn or low an above average burn
at present their fleets are big because I haven't properly balanced them, ill try to get around to doing that at some point.
as far as ship balance, its fairly difficult to get right, as the current shield system works, my ships have a massive disadvantage in having none, increased armor gives a much better survivability and i made their weapons and engines repair faster as without that they tend to be floating bricks. another thing is that shields easily soak up most missile and fighter weapons fire, and while armor helps against those they still end up being a big problem. which is why they have so many small turret points, I've intended those spots to be mostly for point defense so i cant really do much if someone decides to put in assault weapons in those slots. Though I may make some of those built in if it turns out to be too much of a problem.
for the upcoming update, Im having issues making weapon sprites that match my ships theme, not to mention Im short on motivation so it may be a while before i release anything