2 player game Zenith Destroyer and Lightning Torpedo as starting ship.
Major cheese potential, there.
Current major challenge is the 3K or so special forces roaming as a pack. Current thought is to put a beachhead down and smash them, but the special forces are both special and a force to be reckoned with.
If you can get a core of LTFs, Enclave Starships, Spire Blade Spawners, Riot Starships, and maybe Mobile Space Docks if you have them (set to crank out fighters or whatever the cheapest thing is), then you could probably kite the SF around a particular planet while the spawnable stuff is distracting them and ultimately wearing them down.
In general, having both LTFs and Spire Blade Spawners is a brutal combo.
Still, quite a bit different in this expansion. I'm almost feeling like starships plus some select fleet ships is a viable path.
Even without the expansion the starships are quite viable by themselves for moderate-difficulty scenarios. No fleet ship support at all hampers them significantly, but particularly if you get an Advanced Starship Constructor you can basically get mini-superweapons going. MkIV Zenith Starships Just. Won't. Die.
But going starship-heavy costs a ton of m+c and the total available firepower is quite a bit lower than a big blob of fleetships.
