I played a bit the campaign with them, they make me think of some kind of hybrid child between Exigency and SCY.
Early game is hard with DA, very hard. Starting with the unshielded Draft frigate is suicidal, everything will hack you to piece quickly. The Vapor is the least dangerous (and only) choice for a starter frigate, it can pack quite a punch but the very weak hull and narrow Neutrino-ish frontal shield make it incredibly vulnerable to heat-seekers that pirates tends to use. The tiny frontal shield is something DA ships suffer a lot throughout the game, getting the extended shield hullmod is vital if you want to survive. Auxiliary thrusters and insulated engines assembly will also increase drastically your ships survivability.
The only worthy flagships are the three newly added Vapor/Hayle and Haze thanks to their good mobility and huge frontal firepower. The other ships are relegated to the role of support (debatable for the Calm destroyer).
If you want Flagships, pick the three on the right, if you want AI ships, pick the four on the left. I have to say however that the support ships are much better for an endgame scenario, the Gust cruiser especially.
The mechs wings are by far the best fighters in the entire game, definitely not the fastest but undoubtedly the most armed and armored. Getting at least one of those plus a Gust carrier is the first priority if you want to build a proper DA fleet. The Gust is good because not only it have a launch bay but it also have a large energy hardpoint, which mean you can mount a long range support weapon like the Tachyon lance (which is one of the variant BTW).
A single launch bay may seem a bit weak for a cruiser but given DA wanzers are incredibly though, you don't have to replace them regularly.
Unfortunately the Gust eclipse every other DA ships in the support category. The Storm capital carrier is definitely a good ship early to mid game but for twice the deployment cost you only get one more launch bay and lack the large energy hardpoint. You got 5 med mounts plus a lot more of small ones but as a DA ship, you really, really don't want to get too close to the enemy because of your paper armor and crap shield. So the Storm ain't as good as the Gust for long range support, unless you forget the DA weapons and go lolpilum spam, then it work great.
The Draft however? No launch bay. The Calm? No launch bay. For a faction that rely very heavily on its fighters, you don't want to take risks by bringing your frail ships to the frontline.
Currently DA lack some ships that could allow another strategy other than wanzer spam. Also to go on the discussion about differentiating the fighters, it is indeed very hard in the heat of battle as they all have a similar shape. Even in the fleet screen i'm not sure what is the role of each mech wing as they have their own custom weapons. The Strife appeared to me as the most bomber-ish one while the Frost with its shotgun seemed more like some kind of interceptor, maybe?
Being able to differentiate each wanzer is going to be tough without changing DA's color scheme but maybe just a color band to show each role? Yellow band interceptor-ish, red as bomber-ish etc... It's not that important in battle but at least it would be good to make it a bit clearer in their description, at least to let the player know which one would be best if you go for Onslaught hunting.
I had some strange behavior from the AI. Like sending its ships in very limited number, as if my fleet was weak even though i had a truckload of stuff. Maybe a problem with the reverse CR degradation? Speaking of CR, they all have disgustingly high CR cost per deployment (the combat regen doesn't seems to do anything after the fight) which lead to very expensive repairs, not sure if intended.
Also some problems with the DA station resupplying, haven't seen any new ships or weapons in a long while. If it wasn't for the Omnifactory, i couldn't have played this campaign.
I don't have much more to say, they didn't appeared as OP in my campaign so it seems okay on the balance. Still, they were pretty fun to play with.