From a personal perspective.
I can understand Kansas becoming Indep but I don't see Penny turning into Indep it has several Liberty footholds and while arguably it definitly can have a strong pirate presence.
I think it should stay Liberty space.
If anything for it to keep any Liberty Player Patrols encouraged to keep patrolling it rather than just staying in their own space to benefit newer players that join.
Chugoku becoming a Sigma seems a little strange as it has no direct route to any of the Sigma systems itself independent would be more ideal as it is a wholey Blood Dragon controlled system for the most part.
Can see Okinawa and Tohoku in turn being a Sigma system though as it does share a direct connection and is outright closer to it.
I can semi understand Lorraine turning into a Tau as ya did remove the Battlefield from 37 in favour for Lorraines so technically means they're getting pushed back.
Poole should stay Bretonia (They're loosing enough systems as it is)
I don't see Gunboats being marked as Capital, Their sub-capital at best with a small crew and should be recognised as such as they do not even meet cruiser classification in weight or size by a large margin.
I like alot of it but some of it is iffy
It would be nice to have a second post or edited updated in why these decisions were made to give alot of us more information to understand them.
unrelated things:
Does Unkown need to exist or can be moved to make a new nomad connection?
Would locking caps Battleship+ maybe to their ZOI's also be an idea?