Defense/Carronade Buff

Oh man, this is gonna sound so biased coming from me. Defense is near useless. It helps a little bit against most weapons but it mostly affects the carronade, which is why I use it. I am a rudder speeder, so I am constantly dashing in and out of combat, mostly fighting at close range. Carronades, as unpopular as they are, are my worst enemy, therefore I use defense perks on my shield. The problem with this is that these perks pretty much only help me against carronades. So I've got 2 ideas that could bring defense the value they deserve.

1. Buff defense. Ship defense should increase at least a little bit per Mk for every ship. Even for speeder and fixer, they should have at least like 25 defense by Mk6. The perks should give much more defense than 9 for epic. Heavy hitting weapons will still be dishing out the damage if you are stocked up on defense, but a higher reduction value would make them more useful in the hp meta.

2. Add a couple "armor penetration" talents to swift's skill tree for carronade. Idea #1 would definitely impact the carronade too heavily, and the goal isn't to make defense overpowered. Currently, I am already satisfied with the way defense and carronades interact, it is the uselessness against everything else that causes defense to be so underused. These new armor penetration talents should give just enough to counteract the defense buff I proposed so that only defense against other weapons is affected.

Again, this sounds totally biased in my favor, but try and convince me that defense perks are balanced with hp perks.