A few suggestions to balance the PVP meta

[Cmdr. Numa]

I believe medium ships should be capped at four boosters.
IMO, the FDL shouldn't be a better combat ship than the Fed or Alliance official 'combat' ships.
I switched from an FDL to Chieftain because in PvE the FDL is OP, plus the Chief is more fun to fly.

The FdL/Mamba and the Fed/Alliance combat ships are different concepts. The former are shield tanks that can't build much hull due to their limited internals. Capping them at 4 boosters would gimp them too much. Diminishing returns for boosters work better. The Fed/Alliance ships are by concept hull tanks and are gimped by how easy it is to destroy modules. Alliance drives and hardpoints are particularly vulnerable. Increasing module integrity a lot or nerfing weapon module damage would help to make hull tanking viable. The current reality is that they pop at 80% hull, because their powerplants are shot.

 

[Brrokk]

Give heavy duty shield boosters the same diminishing returns as resistance boosters have. FDEV tried that a few years ago, but a vocal minority of 14000 MJ Cutters, most of which have meanwhile vanished from the forums and might not even play anymore screamed that down. Engineering balance hasn't been touched anymore ever since.

I'm not sure it was a minority. I agree shield inflation can make combat long and boring, but the point is it makes it boring mainly for other people. At the time of that outcry many pointed out, correctly, that reducing TTK would just increase the power of gankers. I think such a reduction needs to come after a proper C&P revamp and maybe some other features for letting people who aren't combat enthusiasts mostly avoid taking part in it.

 

[CardioTherapy]

I believe medium ships should be capped at four boosters.
IMO, the FDL shouldn't be a better combat ship than the Fed or Alliance official 'combat' ships.
I switched from an FDL to Chieftain because in PvE the FDL is OP, plus the Chief is more fun to fly.

That wouldn’t be fare. The chieftain has better thruster, is more manoeuvrable, and has way more internal modules. The major problem comes from the shield boosters.

 

[Screemonster]

reducing TTK would just increase the power of gankers.

Nerfing the effect of stacking engineered boosters wouldn't affect the TTK of small ships with only one booster, nor would it affect the TTK of unengineered ships, which are the vast majority of gank victims.

Reducing the TTK of a cutter from fifteen minutes to five minutes wouldn't make that cutter any more gankable.
What it would do is make people that fly AFK turretboats feel less invincible when they tank an entire CZ at once.

 

[V'larr]

The FdL/Mamba and the Fed/Alliance combat ships are different concepts. The former are shield tanks that can't build much hull due to their limited internals. Capping them at 4 boosters would gimp them too much. Diminishing returns for boosters work better. The Fed/Alliance ships are by concept hull tanks and are gimped by how easy it is to destroy modules. Alliance drives and hardpoints are particularly vulnerable. Increasing module integrity a lot or nerfing weapon module damage would help to make hull tanking viable. The current reality is that they pop at 80% hull, because their powerplants are shot.

Module sniping seems 'easy' because hull hitpoints are inflated so wildly out of proportion in the first place. Hull Reinforcement Packages are as much to blame as shield boosters.