Gotta say, I'm loving the recent changes. I have some thoughts on things in general, if you don't mind.
Most of the ships added with the mod work pretty well. The new VX Custom is probably the one that fits in the best with the vanilla line up. It's not too strong, and it doesn't have glaring weaknesses. In 240 DP battles, the primary threat against anything below cruiser size is fighters, and the VX has enough flexibility in its mounts that it can deal with it.
The Leynos is greatly improved to the point I rather like using it in the early game. It now goes pretty well with the Polarized Armor skill, and the narrower shield arc makes it easier to dodge incoming fire. I still find IPDAI a necessary mod, but the ship works well overall. The primary thing holding it back is the lack of escort fighters that just escort. They currently fly off and die before I can really tell what's going on.
The Leynos variant is pretty fun, too. Kinda wish the head mount was modular so I could slot in a PD weapon of my choice, because the built in one is pretty weak.
I was kind of miffed by the changes to the Einhander (P). It was my most played craft, and the EMP emitter seemed a bit overpowered at first. However, the EMP damage it did was less than standard EMP emitters, the effect looked cool, and it worked a lot better than the previous flares. The extra damage and protection from missile volleys also allowed me to branch out from my go-to combo of an ion pulser and thumper with phase anchor. You just shredded any incoming missiles and quickly shut down weapons with that, it was hard to let go. So that's a win!
The Altagrave is still a bit weak, though. It's built like high-tech but doesn't have great shields. Stray shots are constantly disabling weapons, and half a second of phase lance while you're trying to drop flux disables most of your weapons because the actual ship is so compact... The KARMA system doesn't help that much. As a system, it's a bit too slow to work in heated combat. Also, the way the bar builds up and then depletes, you kind of don't want to use it once you're getting the RoF and flux cost bonuses. Might be better to make the bar and its associated bonus slowly deplete over time and do the plasma bolts if you grab some big damage with the activation. The area of effect is a bit of a problem too, as without SE skill, you need to get right next to other ships if you want to block damage for them. Might be better if the area of effect was project forward like a cone or teardrop shape. That would also make it more useful for protecting the Altagrave itself, as taking projectiles further out means more time without incoming fire.
The Altagrave G is pretty fun, though.
The Aleste is kinda flux starved for what it comes equipped with, but it works with a player pilot. PD skill plus IPDAI works a little too well with everything in this mod. The sword actually is a good stop-gap point defense when it's got an extra 200su to its reach...
The Garegga is really fun. It's basically a ship with Safety Overrides you can switch on and off. Kinda sucks Systems Expertise works so incredibly well with it, as you then need 5 skill points in combat.
The Watchdog change was a good improvement. The original forward mounts just had too limited range to provide adequate PD, and they still didn't cover the rear, where fighters would just hang out and kill it. Still hampered by the lack of escort fighters, as the only vanilla example is the Xyphos. Firespitters from Torchships and Deadly Armaments and the Dorn Funnel from Tahlan Shipworks work very well, though.
Wish the Valkyrie CV was more common in the AA market...
I don't actually pilot the Valkhazard very much. Aggressive piloting plus an omnishield usually means I'm dead before I know what hit me. Too slow to work the omnishield. It's great to have an NPC pilot, though, as its varied loadout gives it a ton of flexibility. Plus, all the big weapons are rather cool, especially the big laser.
And that's about it. Thanks for the mod. Whatever else I'm using in a fleet, I'm usually using a ship from this mod personally. It's been a blast.