Glad to see these changes (making the shock repeater a premium PD/EMP assault combo is great), but as noted by others here and on the discord, you might also consider taking a look at the reality disruptor.
Ah - the reality disruptor is seen widely as an enormous waste of OP and a valuable energy slot - the bolts it fires are just the equivalent of launching an omen overtop something, and besides the enormously undercosted radiant, I'm not aware of any ship where that's a DP efficient use of a large energy, much better to just have the actual tanky omen to soak more attention and flux from things, while the energy mount is put to better use with a tach lance, plasma cannon, rift torpedo, or whatever.
I guess there's a few people who enjoy it as is - but I don't believe I've ever seen anyone use them more than once.
Hmm, interesting - thank you for the info! I'll have to have another look at it and maybe try out some more builds.
(... I mean, being able to launch an Omen at something seems like it'd be worth a large energy slot, no? ... hm.)
I guess since it's my discord post being quoted I'll pitch in that I actually do like the Reality Disruptor a lot, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone else praise it ever. I guess most people strongly disagree with the thought of paying premium OP for support weapons, however specialized (I imagine the same line of thinking is part of what leads people to dismiss the Proximity Charge Launcher).
Anyways, despite me liking it lots, I guess it could use some buffs to make it more attractive to use - any combination of lower OP, slightly higher range, perhaps even shield piercing arcs so it has non-zero utility against 360 degree shields.
Lovely set of patch notes; I'll enjoy messing around with all the balance changes and new stuff. Especially very curious about the new Proximity Charge Launchers. They look like nice changes, but with the refire rate change they'll run out of ammo even more quickly than before, so I'm unsure how that'll play out.
Other thoughts in no particular order:
I feel like bumping the Hyperion up to 20 DP hurts the non-SO variant excessively, which feels acceptable at its current cost. An SO-specific nerf like giving Phase Teleporter a cooldown/charges would be far more preferable, even if it'd look less awesome for the gifs :p
(also would make SO Hyperions less annoying to fight, which a DP shift doesn't do, if that's a consideration)
Scarab feels like it got drive-by hit for no reason :< just as it was finally finding its legs!
The hit to Hardened Shields is pretty heavy, with a 40% decrease in effectiveness but only a 33/17/17/17% decrease in cost (and it's also now out of automatic s-modding range). New breakeven (vs capacitor) values of 4533/11333/17000/28333 capacity are unattainable for the vast majority of ships. I'm leaning towards thinking this is probably too excessive compared to something like a 4/8/12/20 OP cost, but maybe reduced EMP pierce and vent time will carry the difference?
At a glance the new Cryoblaster looks like it'll become worse than the Heavy Blaster. The current iteration is excessively strong, but it seems like it should have a slight flux cost reduction to go along with this change.
Also I guess the elephant in the room when it comes to weapon balance is still Sabots; the Pods in particular are still far and away the best medium missile (and probably best non-Omega weapon in general). Penny for your thoughts on its current state? I still find suggested changes like removing the arcing effect or the EMP effect entirely to be pertinent.
Edit: also I forgot to mention, but I see that Ordnance Expertise got its effect slashed in half. Was it really excessive in testing? The current Elite effect especially seems extremely underwhelming, probably amounting to less than 2000 additional capacity on even an Onslaught.