My two cents: It's all about balance, to make the stats of the ship not matter much.
Shield Busters: there's a reason why the Tizona does 1050 shield damage and the Adv. Debilitator 795. How maneuverable is the Titan? Also, the Cosairs have weaker Hull Busters (the Salamanca MK II does 489 Hull Damage) and less range and projectile speed (600).
Hull Busters: the Kraken 2 does 587 but it has greater range and projectile speed (the Firekiss MK II is even stronger, but lower refire and more energy consumption, refire 2.00, energy 203.75, range 500, speed 600, hull dmg 978, shield dmg 489), the GMG "Skyblast B" Photon Blaster (8.33, 61.12, 750, 600, 245, 122) has the greatest overall damage, but you should keep hitting the target more times, the Bundschuh "Luger" Tachyon Cannon Type C (3.03, 106.00, 700, 700, 424, 212) isn't much weaker than the Salamanca MK II, it's a Tachyon Cannon which doesn't work so well against Graviton shields, so goes for the Wyrm as well, that's why the Kraken seems to be so much better than the Wyrm. The "Buckshot" Bounty Hunter Particle Blaster (4.00, 122.25, 750, 750, 391, 196) is perfect in conjunction with the "Reaver Mk II" Laser Cannon (8.33, 61.12, 700, 650, 163, 82) and the agility/maneuverability of the Hammerhead and so on.
The same is with the battleships, an Osiris will always have the advantage of small size and high maneuverability over a lot of others.
Continued ranting:
True, the low level fighters/weapons are obsolete for advanced players but that is so because of the SP.
What makes things highly unbalanced are the MK II Light fighters, like the Slipstream -- with 6 class 9 mounts and a class 9 shield, so fast and small that they are virtually unhittable (!?spelling) and they have way too much firepower, and the new VHFs that generally are close to enough maneuverability to counter them which makes the Vanilla ones obsolete.
There are less things that need nerfing than cranking up the whole game. At least I understood the idea of Discovery is to keep to the original game and adding content. If it's not so, I understood it differently, my bad. By all means then, crank up the whole game, just make it balanced.
I'll put a pause to my ranting here. I generally agree with fixing the hardpoints on the battleships, but it has a lot of downsides too - one is they will need more turrets for better coverage... what to do?
Btw, Dab weren't you on the side of weakening the cruisers not long ago?
If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God? - from 'Nightfall' by I. Asimov The Outcasts consider Siniestre Nube a sacred place for several reasons. Early explorers discovered a jumphole within the depths of the cloud that leads to a strange world of ringed stars and strange craft. All ships in the burrial ground are placed facing that hole to honor the Alien Spirits. - An Outcast rumor