And I can image your face when it happens the first time
It was not the fist time, I say two yellow cargopods also before, but the hostile cargopod I spotted earlyer stunned me more. But although it were your Harkov ships that should be there, it is not your oxp that has the flaw, but oolite that for some reason selects the wrong ships. (cargopods in this case). Probably a flaw in the new role system.
Local Hero not working is probably because local variables stoped working in ship_scripts.
I think this is one of the problems. I've extensively used all available _actions (setup, launch, script and death) and the conditions key. And maybe in conjunction with the new role selecting behaviour Oolites becomes confused.