Astral with 3 heavy blasters ?!?!?!? That's a huge amount of flux generation (2160 flux/sec). Your expectations for dedicated carriers are way too high. Paragon maxes out at 1250+600+150 = 2k dissipation (minus shield upkeep so not even that high). I think your memory of old carriers is mixed with your memory of old skills. The astral being able to use 3x HB comfortably with 2 large missile slots and a top tier shield would make it a pretty solid capital warship... ignoring 6 fighter bays and an amazing fighter system.
It seems like you just want the ship to have everything and be very overpowered (use good fighters and the best fighter system and have good weapons and max flux stats and good hullmods and.....). The whole point of the ship is to be the extreme of carrier specialization (most bays, best system) meaning it should be worse at everything else than any other capital ship. You don't get to specialize without giving up on other things. If you want a battle carrier, the legion exists. IMO, astral should have a little more OP, or a Hullmod that reduces fighter OP cost, and then a worse shield and higher DP cost to compensate. Astral is the most dedicated carrier, it should not be good at brawling.
Then what are the mounts for? (Don't say bonus OP like Alex, that is a cop-out.) If guns are too much to ask, then the mounts should be erased from the ship. Otherwise, it should be able to brawl, albeit not as well as a pure warship. That is, if Onslaught or even a hybrid like Odyssey charges up, Astral should be dead, or at least be at a significant disadvantage. Otherwise, Astral should squash whatever small fry with pea shooters drive up to it.
While I like high-power, I want carriers to use guns - and support good fighters too - like they used to. They were not the best, but they were capable like combat freighters were. (Mules, Gemini, and pre 0.8a Venture were capable brawlers, even if worse than dedicated ships.) Now, carriers are like dedicated logistics ships like Atlas/Prometheus, who cannot (or should not) fight at all (outside of auto-resolve), except they haul fighters instead of personnel/cargo/fuel, because they need their OP for fighters, and after they are done with that, there is not enough OP left to properly support guns. If that is what carriers will remain as, then better for the sprites to be updated and have their mounts rubbed out.
Astral being able to do all the feats you mention does not mean that much when most other ships have their own high-powered shenanigans.
Before v0.8a, Astral could brawl with three heavy blasters, and you know what? It was worse than Odyssey with two or three plasma cannons (which was more inefficient, but could strike very well, great for vent spamming). (Odyssey had three mount overlap before v0.9a.) Astral was a pig, worse than Odyssey in every way except number of bays (which was only three for some releases). Even so, Astral could brawl, just not as well as Odyssey, let alone Paragon or Onslaught. I did not use missiles on Astral back then because they ran out too quickly in an age when battleships (and one or two cruisers) could solo the simulator in ten to fifteen minutes, and only large missiles back then were Hurricane and Cyclone.
Back then, in the more faster-paced high-powered releases (which would have been more fun than modern releases if ships and weapons were not so rare back then), I considered three heavy blasters cruiser-level firepower. Aurora back then could not do it, since it was proto-Gryphon back in the day with large missile mount before Gryphon was made. Eagle could run with three blasters (plus three heavy autocannons), with some difficulty (like two blaster Tempest), but it could do it. Back then, I wanted Aurora to smash things with three blasters more comfortably than Eagle, since Medusa could comfortably use two blasters back in the day. Instead, Aurora was the point-blank Cyclone Reaper missileboat specialist (that could still shoot two blasters like Medusa plus HEF). Today, Aurora is much like pre-0.8a Medusa.
Speaking of Gryphon, Gryphon today has much in common with modern carriers (at least in stats), except it has the misfortune of specializing in real missiles instead of fighters, and given more aggressive warship AI, which combined with destroyer-level stats, dooms it in a brawl. It should hang back automatically like a carrier would, so it can lob homing missiles a safe distance away.
Astral is the most dedicated carrier, it should not be good at brawling.
That would be represented by any other opposing capital crushing soon after it gets into range. Maybe opposing cruiser can give it difficulty, but would otherwise be a roughly even match.