Ships
In Vanilla ships were too similar for my taste, with the only real difference that played role was the "hull" amount and number of weapon slots, "power gap" between ship sizes felt quite small as well. I wanted more diversity here so tried to separate ship classes and sizes one from another making capital ships survivability and support nature of fighters more prominent. I also wanted to make players to use combined army approach to the combat as in vanilla (in most cases) spam of small fighters was enough to deal with all threats, so I tried to balance ships with specific role in mind. Also, there is no specific overall best ship in the game (like Nemesis in vanilla), every ship has its usage niche and can perform poorly in specific situations.
Scouts, Interceptors, fighters, heavy fighters each have their own niche, but in general fighters are meant for support of medium and capital ships, best for turret distraction, harassment, hit and run tactics or just effective in swarms. Do NOT expect 10 fighters to kill a destroyer (with some anti-fighter turrets installed at least) easily without appropriate fire support. Torpedo bomber runs can be devastating though.
Corvettes and Gunships - those are damage dealers that require support from fighters to stay alive. Some are more tanky, while others are squishier but with many powerful guns. Gunships also have access to Plasma Bomb that bypasses shields entirely.
Frigates - now L size, fire support or fleet support ships, can be forward-focus damage dealers or light carriers etc. Should mostly be used in fleets with other capital ships. Good for early-game flagship for player as they do not require capital license to obtain.
Destroyers - general all-rounders. Can fight most targets effectively, but die to defense stations or swarms of fighters fast without support.
Battleships - very sturdy with a good array of L turrets for long-range bombardment, best used vs capitals and stations. Can be overwhelmed by fighters.
Summary of changes is below. Stats for all ships are not listed as as those change overtime in the mod due to constant balancing.
General Ships Changes
S ships are now divided more into Interceptor, Fighter and Heavy fighter roles.
L and XL ships are now true capital ships, more survivable, expensive and dangerous with powerful internal generators.
Some ships have changed turret loadouts (mostly tealdies) for better performance In-Sector.
Vanilla frigates were designated as corvettes.
Frigates are now new large ship class, something between corvette and destroyer.
Gunboats get special weapon slot - plasma bombs.
S and M ships now have different types of weapon hardpoints, see weapon changes for mode details.
All L and XL combat ships have varied sensor ranges.
Capacities for deployables is decreased.
Drone and missile storage are different for all ships.
L freighters storage capacties increased 20-30% to make them more viable vs M freighters.
Teladi ships have most drones storage.
All L and XL ships have varied docking capacities to distinguish their role better.
Faction focuses
Argons tend to have good all-rounders, focusing more on L ships and heavy fighters.
Teladis prefer tanky M ships as well as sturdy XL ships, they tend to be a bit slow though. Buzzard is one of the most efficient heavy fighters.
Paranids focus on regular fighters and packs of destroyers with overall balance of speed and damage while lacking slightly on the hull values.
Splits have fast "glass cannon" fighter as well as one of the best destroyer and battleship. Most ships have poor internal generators so shield regeneration is abysmal. Their large ships tend to have less shields but more hull values
Terrans are high-tech beasts. Their ships usually have less hull but that is supplemented by powerful internal generators that provides good shield regeneration. Also, most of the Terran heavy weapons are exclusive to terran ships and cannot be installed on ships from other factions.
Borons are sturdy, fighter/carrier focused.
Carrier and Auxilary ships changes
Carriers and Aux ships have much increased storage space for materials so they can support/ refill ships for longer.
Carriers have long scan range so should be used as command ships mostly.
Carriers and now battleships (in limited slot numbers) have access to special powered L beam turrets to provide some long-range damage support (Raptor is an exception)
All carriers and Aux ships have varied docking capacities
Non-carrier L/XL ships now have lower hangar capacity
New Ships and Xenon changes
Xenons
New V-class uses hull of the K destroyer but with long-range missile launchers.
K and V have improved turret loadout to reduce blind spots.
M now has anti-corvette plasma gun.
P now fields anti-fighter missile launcher.
New U-class XL carrier with unique weapons. ( it will appear only after 60 hours in the game)
New LX fighter-bomber with torpedoes
Argons and Antigone
New Corona Battleship from Argon_Matt for Antigone
New Titan Battleship from Lc4Hunter for Argon
New Centaur frigate (x3 port) with focus on forward firepower.
New Cyclops and Cyclops Enhanced Frigates (thanks to Axeface)
Paranids and Holy Order
New Deimos Battleship from Argon_Matt
New Hyperion Frigate (x3 port)
Teladi and Ministry
New Fulmar Battleship from Lc4Hunter
New Shrike frigate, fleet support vessel, light carrier with ability to repair fighters.
Cormorant Vanguard version for Teladies.
Splits and Free Families
New Gharial Battleship (kitbash from other models).
New Panther frigate (x3 port), light carrier with good M-turret coverage.
New Viper missile frigate with unique launchers and special missile for them (model by KrYcHokE)
Terrans and Pioneers
New Akita frigate from Lint5
New Kitsune frigate from Lint5, this one has cruise missile launchers
Triton - light fast frigate, only for PIO
Borons
New Megalodon battleship (based on Orca model)
Pirates
New Incarcatura Raider - modified freighter with heavy weaponry, slow and clunky.
New Hound Destroyer - unique pirate destroyer obtainable only by boarding.
Engines and thrusters
Ships in general are faster, including travel speeds.
S ships have a bit more varied maneuverability, M, L and XL ships are more clunky and less maneuverable
Engines are rebalanced for their role (allround/travel/combat)
Boost was changed to last longer but be more of a combat boost than travel-drive replacement (no instant boosting)
Terran engines are one of the slowest, but they have great boost and travel "attack" values, meaning they will reach max speed much faster.