Thank you for replying so quickly Meridian! Here is a zip file containing an MP4. I'm also going to describe my experience in a little more detail below.
I cannot speak for the other difficulties (as I don't play them), but on Superhuman Ironman in the Milestone version, the first ships always show up at 14:30 during a new game. There is always a small scout and a very small scout. Sometimes I'm able to down them both, sometimes I down the small one and the very small one escapes, rarely I don't get either or something funky happens. Regardless, I'm almost always able to down them without using stingray missiles (I like to save them because I'm cheap and because the very small scout could be destroyed by them).
In the nightly version, so far, I've been able to down the small scout once or twice using stingrays, never just using cannons. If I turn off stingrays, the cannons are never enough. That tells me something has changed. They also seem to close in on the enemy ships slower in the nightly.
Perhaps this is just the new normal, but I hope it isn't.
