I think the selection of point defense is a bit limited.
Lets shotgun suggestions for alternatives!
My idea: Canister Gun. Offspring of the light flak and the mauler and sister gun of the mortar; twin barreled high velocity gun that fires long range (800) HE slugs with a small aoe blast. Hits hard enough to one-shot all but the strongest torpedo in the game, has high accuracy and has a mag size of 2 shots, but has slow enough post-fire tracking speed that the only way it could fire twice on an individual projectile is if the projectile is on a low-vector flight path (ie can only repeatedly fire on missiles targeting itself)
High flux cost, for a small ballistic gun, but loads slow enough that it sits between the mortar and the LAG on both the fps and dps scales, with it being a little closer to the LAG in terms of flux cost and a little closer to the mortar in terms of damage output, making it only just somewhat better than the mortar in terms of flux/damage but with not only severely increased per-hit damage from the LAG but actually just somewhat out-alpha'ing the Mauler with both barrels coming into play
My thinking is it'd be a low-effectiveness jack of all trades, while also filling some niches that the small ballistic mounts don't handle, from alpha striking enemy ships to kiting unshielded vessels to strike fighter/torpedo interception, with the justification that the hull mods that would optimize it for those roles are mutually exclusive-- extended mags makes one CG hit like nearly 2 maulers but a triple shot takes longer to load and spends way longer unable to track, making it useless for pd, or getting the range and turn boost to make it an effective missile/fighter sniper but then usually being too busy to ever build up the dual shots it'd need to justify using it offensively instead of a lag or a mortar or a mauler.
Also, lord forgive anyone who runs into a pather brawler with dual heavy mg's, safety overrides, extended mags and dual cg's, putting out the hurt of triple maulers
Thoughts? Or, your new PD gun pitch?