I think, that this is all going in a wrong direction.
Lets start from the top.
Embolism, at the top wrote, that:
a)Phase Teleporter is bad, ergo hyperion is bad.
And i do agree. What Embolism fails to realize, is that he stumbled onto a much bigger problem.
Hyperion is garbage. That statment may be abit exaggerated, but whatever. Am not afraid to say it. And reasons for it are a bunch. The most important ones go as follows:
1. 70/100 weight approximately. The biggest reason is the fact, that AI is *** at flying frigates. This is a big subject, that deserves a topic on its own, so all ill write here is that if there are enemy ships present, that are bigger than a destroyer, frigates become useless, since AI is bad at fights where opponent has more range. And if there are carriers present, frigates become somehow even worse than useless.
2. 20/100 weight approximately. Second to the size is the fact, that as was mentioned before, AI is bad at using mobility abilities. So, Phase teleporter is just being wasted, while having something like HEF wouldnt be. Subjectively, if i may say so, i think that blinking is overated ingeneral...
3. 10/100 weight approximately. Tempest exists. Tempest is flat out better in everything but shield. It turns better, its stronger, has more armor, more hull, its dirt cheap compared to hyperion. It packs a mean punch with its HEF. It has better flux profiles arguable, if you consider that terminator drones are for free. And most importantly its faster, and has better mounts.
My point is, that the reason why hyperion is garbage, is not hyperion related. Its bigger. So if you decide to change the ship, into HEF or anything else, im afraid that that wouldnt fix the problem, it would just make it same type of crap but for a slightly different set of reasons.
To fix hyperion, you would have to fix all the frigates. You would have to address the AI problem. Or, you would have to give people reasons for flying frigates, even tho there are bigger ships around.
b)Recall Device makes the game boring.
And again this is true, but you have it backwards. In a world where AI knows what to do, and for example is camping its fighters around the ship that your bombers are targeting, and attacking them before they reach the drop zone, Recall is nothing else, but a semi useful skill that sometimes saves a ship from destruction, but i dont care about it, since that bomber, that potentially can be saved, can be saved only after he dropped his bomb already, and at that point i dont give a *** anymore. Its even better, if someone is shooting at an empty bomber, instead of shooting at something more important, like bombs for example.
But because AI doesnt know what to do, and AI fighters just fight mostly whatever, bombing runs are safe on the runs to the targets, and in danger only after they droped the bombs already. ANd thus Recall shines. If the danger was, like it should be, on the way TO the drop zone, that would, potentially, force people to mix bombers with support to cover the runs, as you said you would like to see happening.
`And there is also a second point, that Recall is not really a safety mechanism, but a speed mechanism, since it cuts in half the time of a bombing run, so you could say that bombers in Astral are worth twice the value... If you want a simple nerf to the Astral, make it so, that recalled ships are frozen inside of it for a while.
And so this is also, mostly an AI problem. And as much as i would like to, i feel, like its impossible to fix the second floor, without fixing the first floor first.