I played a bit the campaign, and it definitely feel more polished than before. My favourite change was the destination list on jump points, to avoid needless waste of fuel. Also, the intel screen is much cleaner, it wasn't that much of a problem with vanilla, but with mods it could rapidly become a mess. Also tried the new ships and weapons.
The Mudskipper MK.II is in the ultimate cannon fodder. It's cheaper than the gun it uses, and have a tendency for suicide (thanks ill-advised modification!). I'm not sure i would even uses one even for free, but they makes good target practice for early game.
The Wayfarer is a safe Cerberus, Their cargo stats are almost identical, but the Wayfarer is a tiny bit more expensive to deploy. Not the kind of vessel i'd use as a flagship but it can find its purpose as an early game wingman, a Kite with cargo in some way. I outfitted mine with a pair of frontal railguns, two sideways PDs for missile interception, and then a pair of Salamanders or even Swarmers on the rear for further fire-support despite their weird turrets arc.
The Centurion is a bit of an oddities, like a really tough Lasher, or a Monitor with a bite. It got a lot of small turrets, but the arcs prevent the Centurion to come even close to the Lasher in the offensive department. It's similar to the Monitor because it is really hard to kill, even if it relies more on armor than its shield. Like the Wayfarer, it can be a pretty good wingman ship early on, but thanks to its survivability, it can keep its job even during mid-game against destroyers and even some cruisers. My build didn't changed much, a PD/fire-support mix. Two railguns on the front, four PDs on the sides/rear, and a Salamander. Not the most existing ship, but at least i had some backup that stayed alive.
The Scarab was much more interesting. It worked for me like a high-tech Lasher, lot of small mounts that encouraged a very aggressive melee play-style. And because of the temporal shell and its really good shield, even the AI could get out of tricky situations. I used it as flagship for quite a while, and gave it 3 IR pulse on the front, coupled with a pair of Annihilators, and two PD lasers on the rear. The sideways mounts felt very superfluous to me, punishing arcs that can only mount more costly PDs that the Scarab doesn't even need, i left them always empty. Also, strapped SO and unstable injector on top of that, because with that much speed and temporal shell, the enemy can't even land a single hit. Later on, when i passed the Scarab to the AI, i replaced one IR for a ion cannon and removed SO. Not the greatest killer of our time, but it survived a lot of pirates.
The new Afflictor is really evil. It was already quite a beast before, but could only be used as a Striker or an un-catchable distraction. While the distraction Afflictor doesn't works as well, its new Quantum Disruptor can give it a role as an escort craft, as it can terrorize everything that rely on its shield or cloak. Most phase ships can fill that role with their respective "powers", but i found the Afflictor to be the dirtiest. Paragon hiding behind its fortress shield? Disrupted! Doom playing hide and seek in P-space? Disrupted! The biggest winner of the patch in my eyes, a must have in any fleets, either as a flagship or AI support.
The Harbinger is also a newcomer. It's monstrously expensive at 20 supplies per deployment, almost as much a an Eagle! But in some way, no other ships can back-stab someone with that many torpedoes. The triple Typhoon Harbinger is for me THE build, especially with the Entropy Amplifier that can boost the damage by 50%! Other build can works, like the new Ion Pulser, but i found the Harbinger to struggle a bit with the flux. Missiles are more convenient to its strained generator.
Didn't had the chance to play the Doom a lot in the campaign, so not much to say about it. The Interdictor Array is fun against fighter swarms, watching the enemy fighters crashing helplessly against my ships.
The Aurora is better in my opinion, kinda, at least it feel less of a Gryphon variant and more as a proper High-tech cruiser. As debated above, the Striker Aurora isn't what it used to be, even though the new AM Blaster build offer similar capabilities but at higher risks. On the bright side, it can now Laser boat, Pulse boat, and more if you include mods. The new Aurora isn't strictly better than the old one, but it can try more diverse loadouts, some that works better with the AI. Still, it's the most expensive cruiser to deploy with the Doom, and as Megas noted, not exactly superior to the (much) cheaper Dominator. It might require some more testing, but i'm not opposed to that large hardpoint idea.
For the weapons, the Ion Beam is an interesting one, if very expensive (high OPs and flux/sec for insignificant damage). It works pretty well on a laser-boat Aurora, or even Paragon and Medusa (the only ships that can seriously try to use it). It was very rare in my campaign, so i couldn't use it that much, but it felt situational.
The Ion Pulser wasn't so interesting. Unlike ANGRYABOUTELVES, i found it to be a very good (well...) shield-breaking weapon, thanks to its very high-sustained DPS. Still, the 450 range is crippling, especially for a bigger ship, and the limited ammo means i have to dump OPs in the very situational Expanded magazines. I even tried to uses those in some kind of weird SO loadout, but the limited ammo was still a problem. In the end, if i needed to deal some EMP, a bunch of ion cannons can do the job without being as inconvenient as the Pulser. It probably could find its niche if it was cheaper i think but right now? Not a fan. Also, as said earlier, its sound effect is very underwhelming.
For the Tachyon lance, i expected this change to start the coronation of the Paragon as the absolute king of battleships. Fortunately, the shield bypass effect is very uncommon, even at higher flux, so not as much cheesing as i expected. Still, the cost reduction makes it more interesting to use now.
So yeah, other than the underwhelming Ion Pulser, i'm very happy with this patch.
Also, agreed with Cyc's argument over the whole missile power creep thing. I didn't felt as much the gentle caress of the Harpoons in this campaign because i spent most of my time in a P-space, but i clearly saw the results for my allied ships with shields. That guillotine effect when one overload is really merciless, even when playing carefully. The missile skill is part of the problem obviously, but i guess this will be resolved with the skills rework for the next patch.