Defender is poor

Defenders are strong. Highest hitpoints (and defence, for what it's worth), and for the 3 weapon slots they get 5 points so can equip 2 "heavy" weapons. It's a powerful thing. Speeds are slow ofc, but they have to be, it would be mad OP if not.

 

You keep mentioning shooter's higher hp and more raw damage as "mathematical advantages" while conveniently leaving out other "mathematical advantages" speeders have over shooter like faster speed, faster turning agility, and faster turret rotation. Not to mention its ability to stun, shield, or freeze.

"you need to keep up the manoeuvre long enough to land 8-9 shots, one mistake and you’re toast"
No, you're not. You can always nitro away or bring up your shield whenever you make a mistake. Do you need the game to hold your hand for you to do that?
That's the advantage speeders have over shooter, you can get out of sticky situations a lot easier.
With shooter you're stuck with turtle speed maneuverability and meh hp and defense that can get your boat fried pretty easily.

What do you want devs to do anyway? To nerf shooters hp to speeder's level while ignoring all the shooter's drawbacks?
Lastly, if you so insist that shooter is OP, why don't play as one and enjoy its OP-ness?

 

Well firstly, I think it might be prudent to put some false arguments to bed.

1. Whether I (personally) choose to play speeder or shooter, has no bearing on how well the ships are balanced. Maybe I just like yellow, or maybe I saw how prevalent shooters were, and wanted to do something different. None of which implies the ship is better. That argument is non-starter.

2. On a related note: if I were to ‘cave’ and start playing shooter, it would not solve the problem of relative balance. Perhaps I would stop caring about it, but it would still exist. If everyone did that, then we would see nothing but shooters (which is pretty much the case below mk5). That doesn’t help the game, it just makes it a shallow game with limited options. If the game were no longer being developed then, I agree, it wouldn’t be worth discussing. But as it is still getting balance updates, it is absolutely worth discussing and drawing attention to.

3. What do I want devs to do? This is a legitimate question, but you then saught to answer it for me, and deliberately made my answer more rediculous than it needed to be. For what purpose I’m uncertain. Perhaps to win an argument against yourself?

In all seriousness, what I actually want the devs to do is make the game as balanced and fair as they can, across all ship mks and captain levels (not just mk5+). Not just for ‘my ship’, I’m actually more concerned about the defenders, enforcers and fixers. These ships often feel like they’re struggling, but IMO they don’t need more guns, or better items. What they need is a game where they aren’t getting flattened instantly by a whole team of shooters, that are able to unleash 25 shots in the first 10 seconds.

 

Actually my last sentence was a joke, didn't think you'd take it seriously. But since you took your time to write a really structured reply, I can appreciate that.

But still my point hasn't changed, your argument isn't compelling enough to convince me that shooter is OP. If your argument full team of shooters can flat you out, have you ever played against a team full of defenders? They're like walking fortresses charging towards you and smack you into submission.
Any team full of any classes can flat you out, full team of fixers will have unlimited healing, full team of speeders will be almost un-hit-able, full team of enforcers will shower you with frosts or stun etc while being able to shield themselves.

Just because you see "full team of shooters" scenario more often, doesn't mean the problem lies with shooter, it just shows that more people play shooters than other classes.
If there's an underpowered class, the solution to boost that class, not to nerf the other class it goes against.

Lastly, let's clarify your claim about shooters unleashing 25 shots in 10 seconds. That's impossible.
There's 3 seconds cool down to all weapons after each shot. So in 10 seconds shooters can only shoot 3 shots at most, which is 15 shots if you combine for the whole team.
What happened? I thought you're a mathematical person because of the calculations you did before.
Did you just made it more rediculous than it needed to be. For what purpose I’m uncertain. Perhaps to win an argument against yourself?

 

Haha, okay I accept your point about a whole team of shooters. You’ve given me something to think about

As for the 10 seconds... I thought global cooldown was was 2 seconds? I counted it as one mississippi, two mississippi

 

Glad we finally have one thing to agree on.
Cheers.