FireSoul. Mixed message.
All of these were played in single-player skirmish using stock (no spacedock) ships. I loaded all of your files (shiplist, ftrlist, strings, and names)
On the Z-CD.
Of the 6 missions I tried, I crashed on 5 a split second after the game started (the point when you would hit the R-key). I'm not positive if this is a problem with the Z-CD or the K-D6D (the one mission vs a K-D5D worked fine). After 2 crashes, I ran a mission flying a Z-CA (to see if it was a "me" problem) and it worked great. So I ran the missions listed below and then cam back to the CD. Crash, worked (the report above), and crashed. No idea why it would be intermittent for this other then the Klink ship I selected.
As for the ship load, I thought the 12 DC would make the ship a real killer, but it really didn't. I'd take the Z-SDF over it given the BPV advantage the frigate will give you.
On the Z-SDF.
No crashes, no real problem. When fighting an equal BPV ship (K-G4) it dominated. The SDF with a 12 DC may be a bit under rated in its BPV. I admit it would be a complete and utter POS vs a human, but most players who fly DFs are looking to do hex work. The 6 A-racks and only 1xPh1 and 2xPh2 really makes it a junk ship once the drones are gone (usually only a problem when facing a human). Thus increasing the BPV (to improve the AI faced) wouldn't be a bad idea (bump it up 20?).
Side note. In the tactical text (lower left hand part of the screen that shows your weapons, the drones were listed as ESG ("6X ESG 0-144 (144)"). Everything worked fine, just the text "ESG" looked a bit out of whack.
On the Z-MSC.
No crashes, no problems. Not really much of a ship. May actually be slightly too high on BPV. Again, it had the same ESG text instead of Drone-A text listed in the tactical display in the lower left hand corner.
Anyway, thank you for making these lists. I enjoy flying a lot of these rather "unusual" ships (Monitors ... go slow, carry big stick ... 'we don't need no stinkin' HET")