Re: HellboreI consider it the second-best heavy ballistic, bested only by Mjolnir. Near top-tier performance for obscenely low OP cost. So cheap that I will use medium kinetics instead of Mauler (though it I really want Mauler, there is no substitute for Mjolnir as a companion). Generally better than HAG, and very cheap too. Great for outfitting Dominator and Onslaught and still have OP to spare. The only time HAG is useful for all-purpose configuration is if my kinetics are HVDs and I do not have enough Mjolnir to go around. Although... Hellbore and Arbalest/HVD gives the Conquest that quaint sailing pirate ship feel.
As for the coming Hellbore changes, that sounds like something a flux-starved ship can use. Without skills, I find heavy weapons too flux hungry and too OP costly (less OP for vents). Often better to use Mauler and some medium kinetic so unskilled ships can fire and vent spam (although the latter should be gone soon enough). If ships want old Hellbore-like performance, they will need to go to HAG.
Re: TempestI consider Extended Shields almost mandatory on Tempest because it is narrow enough that AI often gets clipped by attacks. My Tempests last longer with a bigger shield. Bigger default shield will be nice.
@ Midnight Kitsune: Somehow, I doubt it will reliably call more hostile reinforcements to make enemy fleets bigger. If it does not call an enemy defense fleet, it probably will not be useful as a call-to-arms. Until Starsector features a kill-em-all-conquest mode like Nexerelin, I rarely have incentives to kill random friendlies. Being locked out of markets due to bad relations kind of hurts.
P.S.
I like the ship limit raise to 30. Combined with fighters are weapons instead of clogging ship slots, that should help at least level the playing field against endgame AI fleets and maybe enable more fleet action.
Now that fighters can only be fielded with carriers, it would be a damn shame if smaller high-tech fleets either can't field strike craft or must use lower tech carriers (granted the Heron fulfills high-tech's mobility doctrine pretty well, here's hoping the Drover does too).
Do not forget there will be a hullmod that can install a flight deck on non-frigate ships that do not have a deck into an improvised carrier.
One idea I may consider if missiles are still mostly limited, is to give the big ships with OP to burn the flight deck mod as an alternative to Pilum or Salamander missile spam.