I started playing with the new update, things have been pretty good so far. First year, into October, I stumble upon a ship that just so happens to have smugglers aboard. I'm still using the Airbus and I only have weapons like niners, domestic shotguns and harpoon guns with stun rounds. I decide to take a gamble and have my gal with the highest firing accuracy take pot shots with the Harpoon gun and... it works fantastically! I capture some bugbears, the goons and their smuggler captain, and even one of their cat girls (who, like an idiot, stood over the sleeping body of one of the goons I took out via melee near my Airbus).
Guess what I found them smuggling? Freaking Assassin Armor and a damn Splatty gun! At first, I didn't know what the Splatty gun did, but I soon found out that it works a lot like the Self-Charging laser pistol, but fires like a shotgun!
So here I am with my best stated gal running around in Assassin Armor, with a Splatty gun that just murders everything around the first year in-game. Unfortunately, a few missions later, I bump into a Cyberdisk after sneaking up on a landed Academy ship. Before I knew what I was getting into, my crazy gal with the Splatty and Assassin Armor ends up taking reaction fire from the Cyberdisk and instantly dies. I think she even had the disintegration animation play, because I couldn't even find a freaking body left! I had two more gals run out to recover the Splatty gun; the first one takes the remaining reaction fire and disintegrates aswell, the other one manages to take the gun and we all get the hell out of there.
At least I still have that awesome gun, easy come, easy go!