A) Mining lasers use hardpoints. All the new mining equipment is going to use hardpoints. A hardpoint is just a type of mount. There are utilities in the game already (all the scanners) which just use regular old slots rather than utility mounts. Many of the "utility mounts" won't actually function unless you have "deployed hardpoints". Don't get so bogged down on the names of things and instead think about what kinds of tradeoffs are being set up when you restrict a device to one category of slot rather than another.
B) I am proposing that shield boosters use hardpoints precisely because it would force a type of tradeoff which would inherently be more balanced than the current one. Yes it is all arbitrary and none of it is mandatory. I am saying that it would be *better* than what we have now, and it would accomplish this with a minimum of disruption to all of the other module functionalities and engineering balances.
C) The current system does NOT WORK FINE. If you think it is fine, there is no conversation to be had with you. You can disagree with my proposed solution, but if you think that it is "fine" then we are operating in entirely different universes. I am starting this conversation from the standpoint that there IS a "Hit Point Inflation" problem, and there IS a colossal imbalance in defense abilities between dedicated combat builds and all other builds, and that something should be done about it. I am not interested in re-litigating that particular discussion. As far as I'm concerned it's a done deal and I'm treating it as fact.
Fair warning, there is no conversation to be had with me either because I think you're wrong.
The defensive difference does not stem from utility slots. They all have utility slots, and they all make their choices--a combat anaconda has exactly the same number of utility slots as an exploration anaconda--in fact, this is a great example because an anaconda with all its utility slots full of grade A shield boosters can still have a jump range that competes with other exploration vessels. All vessels must consider scanners, chaff, and point defenses.
The difference is the passive choices and literally none of them have a thing to do with utility slots. A combat build is much more likely to place a shield generator in its largest internal slot, and much more likely to carry shield cell banks. The difference here easily translates into thousands of shield hit points---enough survivability difference to kill half a squadron of traders/explorers equipped with only a "bump shield". A combat ship is also much more likely to survive until its shields come back up, which accounts for half again the HP number.
The difference in combat ship survivability versus other builds is by design. Don't believe it? Consider that HRP exist. Now consider that the newest military ships in the game have three military only slots, fitting only shield cell banks, mrp, or hrp---they are literally three grade 4 slots of guaranteed hit points that a combat ship has, by design, that a non-combat ship does not(or at least has the option to equip other things). The military ship is absolutely expected to equip a thousand or more hit points that a non-combat ship won't.
Shield boosters fall into this same logic, but only barely----they CAN be equipped by any ship with the utility slots, and any ship with those slots can enjoy the exact same shield bonus as a combat ship. It's up to you to decide if you really need a manifest scanner, wake scanner, chaff, and a heat sink or point defense(and combat oriented ships have to weigh whether or not they want the last three plus a manifest or kill warrant scanner too, incidentally) instead of shield bonuses(and seriously, if that's your choice, why complain? You know dang well you'd better be avoiding getting combat, you just chose to halve or less your shields).
As if that's not enough, combat ships tend to have more hard points than non combat oriented ships. A chieftan or challenger has three small hardpoints plus an actual combat loadout, plus three military slots. It'd lose three smalls worth of DPS(read: against medium or larger targets, not very much) DPS in order to have the same hull, nearly the same DPS, and same or nearly the same shields.....AND it'd now have room for chaffs and heat sinks in the same build. All for the price of the three pea shooters.
This isn't a balanced idea anyway. A ship that has no interest in combat, if hardpoints where required for shield boosting, could easily skew itself to have drastically more HP because it has no real interest in carrying weapons anyway. There is no balancing choice for that ship. It would gain survivability by giving up something it doesn't use anyway. A combat ship would have to make much more difficult choices, and as if that isn't quite enough, it would severely damage the survivability of some of the 2s/2m and smaller ships--and combat is a large part of their world too.
