Some first impressions of the update after a few hours of play:
> Sensor Ghosts. Fun little faeries indeed.
> Also, slipstreams! Although my first impression on them is they change slightly too often.
> The Venture is surprisingly rare at Open Market shops. I've been trying to get one because it looks decent now with its stat buffs and with better Pilums to try out. Alas, haven't found one for sale so far. Am I looking in the wrong places?
> New Skills system is amazing. It just works - no more impossible choices between skills. The reworked skills themselves also look very good. I suspect my Officer corps will end up with more varied skillsets as a result of more skills being viable options now, which is good. And I'll be respeccing myself a fair few times...
> Funny thing: Polarized Armor buffs armor damage absorption based on *Hard* flux. And also unlocks the Shield Shunt hullmod, which removes shields and therefore makes it *impossible* to build up Hard flux! (Not a problem though, just funny)
> Somewhat less funny: Elite Combat Endurance. "When below 25% hull..." yeah you can stop it right there. My ships will not get to 25% hull very often. If that happens something has gone horribly wrong, and that ship should retreat immediately before it gets itself killed. If it even manages that - situations that get a ship to low hull tend to be situations that get a ship killed ery soon afterwards. So this Elite skill is looking kind of useless.
> Vanguard is true to its name: very powerful first-wave attacker with plenty of speed to catch Frigates and keep pressuring them, but sooner rather than later its armor is busted and it needs to retreat (which its speed lets it do, mostly).
> Manticore is my new favorite Destroyer. It actually has enough flux (esp. with Ordnance Expertise) to support a Mjolnir or Gauss Cannon, which is super neat. Also, twin medium missiles add a lot of punch - or two Pilums for support which seems to work well alongside Gauss Cannon. Canistar Flak is cute. Thank the light it regenerates charges - at first I was afraid it would be like the Flare Launcher (which should totally be given regen as well).
> Eradicator is a beast. Just recently I got my hands on an Eradicator (P), and SIM battle performance is amazing. Will have to see how a real battle goes. And that's without Ballistic Rangefinder so far. Burn Drive is actually good for catching fast Destroyers like Mules and chasing targets that like to flee. Along with the 5 DP reduction from the base model I think that balances out the lack of AAF quite well. My only concern is that the Eradicator is to the Enforcer what the Onslaught is to the Dominator: completely superior at the cost of more DP (and sllightly worse campaign stats). More speed, more armor, more flux, more weapons. There is nothing an Enforcer can do that an Eradicator (P) cannot do better.
> Ballistic Rangefinder is awesome, but I feel it lets down Medium Ballistic weapons, specifically the Arbalest, Heavy Mortar and Thumper. I was really hoping for 800 range Heavy Mortars, which have an important role to fill as high-DPS anti-armor against big targets, for which 700 base range isn't enough. But it turns out only ships with a Large ballistic mount get to have that. you know, the ships with access to Hellbore Cannon and Hephaestus Assault Gun which completely outclass the Heavy Mortar regardless of its range. Meanwhile, the many Cruisers and Destroyers who desperately want good medium ballistic weapons find these weapons don't benefit at all from the hullmod. The Enforcer is particularly a victim of this. One of its key advantages is having many turreted medium weapon slots. But Ballistic Rangefinder does nothing for these medium weapons! And then there's the fact that small Ballistics do always benefit, so weapons like Railgun and Light Assault Gun end up having 100 more range than the abovementioned medium weapons.
My conclusion is one of two things should happen: either let Ballistic Rangefinder buff Medium weapons to 800 range max in the absence of a large mount; or outright buff the Arbalest Cannon, Heavy Mortar and Thumper to 800 base range.