Updated 22-Jun-2023

1 - Useful Destroyers, Cruisers, and small weapons. This is encouraged by making Large and XL weapons perform poorly against small ships. Primarily, this is done by reducing tracking on large weapons and increasing evasion on Destroyers and Cruisers. (Specifically, tracking bonuses are now multiplicative instead of additive; this means that a XL weapon with zero tracking will never have more than zero tracking.)

To highlight the difference, take a XL weapon on a fully upgraded ship (sensors and precog picket computer). In Vanilla, it would have 0 base tracking + 20 tracking (sensor) and +40 tracking (computer), making it effective even against Corvettes.

In SBC, the same XL weapon is stuck at zero tracking, forever, because the bonuses are all multiplied by the base amount. You'll need small or medium weapons to kill those Corvettes!

2 - More ship sections and loadout variety - such as XL Cruisers, 3P Corvette, or a 16G Titan Bow!

New Corvette configurations include:
Garda Flak Carrier - 3P
Harasser - 1S, +1 small utility slot, +1 auxiliary slot

New Frigate configurations include:
Garda Flak Frigate - 1G, 1P
Gunship - 1M, 1S

New Destroyer configurations include:
Mobile Gun Platform (Bow) - 1X, -6 small utility slots, +1 auxiliary slot
Hangar Bow - 1H (gated behind Advanced Strike Craft)
Spitfire Bow - 3S, +1 auxiliary slot
Point Defence Bow - 2P, 1M
Picket Bow - 1P, 2S, +1 small utility slot Note: This is an existing section, but modified to provide an extra utility slot due to the low weapon loadout.

New Cruiser configurations include:
Armored Bow - No weapons, +1 medium utility slot, +1 auxiliary slot
Interceptor Bow - 2P, 1M
Guided Bow - 2G
Fire Support Core - 1L, 1M, -1 medium utility slot, +1 auxiliary slot
Battlecruiser Core - 1X, -2 medium utility slots
Missile Stern - 1G
Light PD Stern - 1P, +1 auxiliary slot

New Battleship configurations include:
(Bow) Soul Breaker - 3M, 2S
Nova Core - 2L, 4S
Guardian Core - 2L, 4P
Fire Support Core - 5M, +1 auxiliary slot
Heavy Weapons Platform - 1X, 2L, -1 large utility slot
Armored Core - 4M, +1 large utility slot
(Stern) Aeon Bulwark - 1M, 2S
(Stern) Zenith Bulwark - 1H, 2P, -1 large utility slot

New Titan configurations include:
Guided Battery - 16G slots
Spitfire Battery - 8L slots
Auxiliary Stern - 2M, +1 auxiliary slot

Other ship changes for all sections:
- Corvettes now max out at 95% evasion, up from 90%.
- Destroyers have higher base evasion (45 vs 35) and one extra aux slot.
- Cruisers have higher base evasion (20 vs 10) and one extra aux slot.
- Frigates have higher base evasion (30 vs 20).
- Battleships have one extra aux slot.

3 - Ship Specializations. These are optional but can greatly change the character of a ship. For example, the Defender has a big bonus to shields, armor, and shield regeneration, but a big penalty to firing rate.

Bonuses vary slightly by ship type but in general are as follows:

General Purpose Elite (All ship types) - Big bonuses to hull, armor, shield, weapon damage, minor speed buff. Extremely expensive. Good for late game where upkeep and fleet caps become a problem. Implied advantage but not explicitly stated: Ship upkeep and fleet size is the same as a regular ship, providing much higher fleet power per fleet size. Also, the increased hull points makes these ships more likely to survive and escape via FTL.

Defender (All ship types) - Armor and shield bonus, shield regeneration bonus, fire rate penalty. Combine with short range weapons for damage-absorbing ships.

Escort (Corvettes, Destroyers, Cruisers, Battleships) - Point-defense damage bonus, weapon range bonus, general weapon damage penalty. Use for PD-heavy ships to provide better PD coverage.

Fire Support (Destroyers, Cruisers, Battleships, Titans) - Accuracy, tracking, and fire rate bonus. Evasion and hull penalties. Use for artillery ships that are not expected to take as much damage.

Interceptor (Corvettes, Frigates) - Big movement speed bonus, minor evasion bonus. Great for fast-response fleets.

ECM (Frigates Only) - Has an offensive aura that debuffs nearby enemy ships. Reduces accuracy and ship movement speed.

4 - New weapons, such as short range Large and XL weapons (Heavy Autocannons and Photon Cannons for example). There are also new auxiliary slot items, such as the Improved Rangefinder (range bonus) or Shield Regenerator (big shield recharge bonus for military stations only). Many particle effects are new and unique.

Most of these weapons have new, unique particle effects and muzzle flashes. The new weapon groups have their own tech trees and are as follows.

Energy Cache I - Photon Blaster (XL)
Energy Cache II - Stalker Point Defense Battery (M)
Energy Cache III - Photon Cannon (XL)
Energy Cache IV - Thermal Lance (M) and Tesla Coil (L)
Energy Cache V - Tactical Ion Cannon (XL) and Goliath Point Defense Battery (M)
Energy Cache VI - Advanced Thermal Lance (M) and Pulse Laser (S/M)
Energy Cache VII - Burst Laser (M/L) and Particle Projector Cannon (L)

Kinetic Cache I - Extended Range Coilgun (S/M), Twin Autocannons (M), and Heavy Autocannon (L)
Kinetic Cache II - Gauss Rifle (S/M) and Heavy Ultra Autocannon (L)
Kinetic Cache III - Mark II Incinerator (S/M), Twin Ultra Autocannons (M), and High-Velocity Penetrator (L)

Explosive Cache I - Cruise Missiles (L), Concussion Torpedo Battery (G), and Advanced Rocket Pod (M)
Explosive Cache II - Javelin Missiles (L)
Explosive Cache III - Halo Rockets (L), Gemini Torpedo Battery (G), and Hellfire Rocket Pod (M)

Specialized Strike Craft - Heavy Bomber Wing (H), Sentinel Protection Wing (H), and Carrier Defense Wing (H)

No Additional Research Required - Meteor Torpedo (T) and Shock Cannon (T)

All ships have access to new Basic Tactician and Advanced Tactician computers, which allow fleets to remain under manual real-time control during combat.

Other computer changes as follows:

- Battleships have a new short range computer, "Guardian", that provides a movement speed bonus.
- Frigates now can use the Picket computer.
- Picket computers now move to short range instead of "medium" range.
- Destroyers have access to the torpedo computer.

New auxiliary equipment as follows:

- Auxiliary Hydraulics. +tracking, available from game start.
- Improved Rangefinder. +range, gated behind the new technology, "Advanced Auxiliary Systems".
- Advanced Fire-control. +accuracy, effectively a Tier II accuracy bonus. gated behind the new technology, "Advanced Auxiliary Systems".
- Shield Regeneration System. +shield recharge rate, for military stations only. gated behind the new technology, "Advanced Auxiliary Systems".

Starbases now have a new module available from gate start, "Defense Battery", which adds a shield capacitor and two point defense guns.

5 - New Defense Stations and Fortresses (medium and large military stations).

Defense Platforms have a big boost to starting hull points (3000 vs 1000) and can now host XL weapons. Note the Defense Stations and Fortresses are purposefully not made to just be 2x and 4x Defense Platforms. For example:

- Defense Stations take much longer to build, but are much better provisioned with reactors and can more easily support high-powered weapons.

- Fortresses, relative to their size, have low hull points. This makes them vulnerable to shield and armor-penetrating weapons. However their firepower and resilience against standard weapons is undeniable.

6 - Combat modifiers that increase the duration of battles. This affects tactics but also make them much more interesting to watch.

7 - Many other minor changes to make combat more interesting!

AI hull preferences will be back in the next patch, for starters. This will increase the bias they have for specific hull types, ensuring a very different combat experience for each personality.