Just wondering, do you think a ship that doesn't use any shields can be made to be competitive with ships that do use shields? (This of course refers to normal shields not the powered up shields in mods.)
Shields do cost quite a bit once you include power and crew. Around 17k credits per shield for it to be close to full strength.
If all the credit spent on shields were used to to add weapons a ship could have a lot more guns, but would it be enough?
Here's an idea for a ship not using shields,