Cool. No, Blackrock only starts hostile to the factions that hate almost everyone in the game, such as Templars, Junk Pirates etc. Also I believe both me and Kazi agreed that Mayorate should be hostile to Blackrock, but I don't remember.
I've been using a lot of Darts lately. Even at twice the price of the Swarmers, they're great for a few things. Obviously they slaughter most fighter wings but they're also decent at hitting exposed hull as a finishing weapon, and their amazing speed and tracking not only gets them through light ballistic PD that would get a lot more Swarmers or Salamanders, it also lets them catch those especially fast vanilla targets like Tempests or burn driving Cerberuses. I don't use them on frigates, but larger craft that lack the speed to catch retreating ships get Darts to make sure anything they beat gets destroyed, not just defeated. Their range is deceptively long too, as they last for a long time after they burn out.
Have you considered buffing the Sunfire any in light of the new addition of the Phase Lance? I think the Phase Lance may get a nerf, but as it stands it's a good deal more powerful generally than the Sunfire for less OP. The Sunfire has a tad more range and more DPS only against armor, but fires a tiny bit slower and of course is nearly useless against shields. I like the look and feel and sound of the Sunfire, but any time I want to equip one the Phase Lance is tempting me with added EMP, energy damage instead of HE, and a cheaper cost. I understand if for thematic reasons you want an ultra-specialized beam weapon that noticeably underperforms the more generalist vanilla competition though. I do end up going with the Sunfire but only because its color complements the BRDY color scheme instead of clashing with it.
Despite the lesser range of the Shard Gun, its continuous fire seems to work a lot better for suppression or countering phase ships than the Shard Cannon, plus it has better DPS. I'd swap the OP cost for the Gun and the Cannon.
Thanks for the feedback yo.
It'll please you to know the big Dart launcher is getting slowly regenerating ammo in the next patch. 8op is quite the overinvestment for frag missiles, but this should make it attractive as a "filler" weapon. I've been taking a look at Shard weapons recently so the Shard Gun/Cannon is going to be changed to ensure one is worth the extra OP. Ideally it'll be like so:
Shard Gun: Damage, bad range, inaccurate, efficient
Shard Cannon: Suppression, long range, accurate, less efficient
As for the PDEs, HE damage type ensures they still stand out from the Phase Lance, but I've slightly increased their burst duration so they do more damage from max range.
Here's a new weapon I'm working on. Also the curvy Desdinova is back.