Difficulty 9 is adorable

[Faulty Logic]

A very relaxed game to explore the new features:

60 planets spokes NCC (657748272)
2 Champions, Schizo, Complete visibility.

9/9 Golemite / Special Forces Captain // Zenith Descendant /Reservist

Marauders 4
Resistance 6
Rebellions 6
Dyson 6
Golems 4
Enclaves 6
Fallen Spire 4
Spirecraft 4
Nomads 2
Exodian Blade

Avengers
Hybrids 6/6
Advanced Hybrids 0/7
Beacheads
Preemption 4/4
Warp Relays
Shark B 4/0

And very little caution.

I immediately unlock Enclaves III and Combat Carriers III. They easily stomp the first waves.
Within the first two hours, I've conquered 21 planets.
I'm actually conquering stuff faster than I can build it.

Observations:
NCCs and enclaves need a nerf of some kind. I can waltz into most planets and never take casualties.
Beam drones don't appear to actually self-damage.
I like the new, reasonable numbers.

Turret changes are nice. I think they were a good move, but I am left with basically no reason to capture core turret controllers. Could they be returned to per-planet caps? Or give the choice on capture?

[Toranth]

Beam drones don't appear to actually self-damage.

Nope.  I can confirm:  Tested some Beam Drones that had the exact same HP after firing as before, and the same HP as the adjacent drones that didn't shoot.

Observations:
NCCs and enclaves need a nerf of some kind. I can waltz into most planets and never take casualties.

As much as I like enclaves, I think you may be correct.  I've had tons of fun pairing up the new NCC with the older Enclaves and launching a combined 96 drones every 7 seconds starting 1 second into the game, but it is certainly abusive.  Those 12 ships (Mk I-IIIs) can clear a Mk IV planet held by a Diff 10 Core/Fortress Baron AI, as long as the ship count is no more than 200-ish.

I wonder if changing the Enclaves to act more like the other drone-producers would help:  The Hive Golem, Roaming Enclaves, and Enclave Guardians all get to build up a store of points, then dump the entire spawn at once.  That, combined with a slower buildup rate, might help.  Say, 1 spawn per 10 seconds and can hold up to 10 spawns (80 drones)?  Compensate drone balance by upping lifespan to 1:00 minute.  That's about a 50% nerf, which may be too much, but the burst capability may make up for it.

[keith.lamothe]

very relaxed

Special Forces Captain

Hybrids 6/6
Advanced Hybrids 0/7
Beacheads
Preemption 4/4
Warp Relays
Shark B 4/0

I suppose I should not be surprised.

NCCs and enclaves need a nerf of some kind. I can waltz into most planets and never take casualties.

The fix to the scaling issue is a pretty heavy nerf, we'll see how that settles out.  It's entirely possible that it would still be overpowered with drones that had 1 hp and did 1 damage, though, so it may be necessary to buff their stats and nerf their drones-per-second again.  A hive-like approach is possible but I think that would be more fiddly and not really make them less powerful overall.

Beam drones don't appear to actually self-damage.

Thanks for letting me know, fixed for 7.041.

Turret changes are nice. I think they were a good move, but I am left with basically no reason to capture core turret controllers. Could they be returned to per-planet caps? Or give the choice on capture?

7.041 actually goes ahead and makes the mkIV AND Vs per-planet-cap.  That may be too far, but I figured "why not?".

[Faulty Logic]

The fix to the scaling issue is a pretty heavy nerf, we'll see how that settles out.

I started a new game to test the new enclaves/NCCs in isolation, and they're about in line with normal starships now (less damage, but greater range, and provide some survivability boosts). With effort (and both enclaves/NCCs up to mkIII), I can clear out a planet with no casualties, but I could do that with twelve mark-caps of most starships. So, mission accomplished.

Also, a couple things are really annoying, and think fixing them might be really easy:
TINY threatfleets will make a relay. Killing every stray AI ship is tedious, and will often release more, and even if you scour the planet, it can always reinforce right as you leave.

Minor faction patrols go onto enemy planets and die. That's fine for a zombie network, but resistance fighters/dyson gatlings/freed nebula allies should defend only, even if they don't have the awesome high-level enclave logic.