A roadmap would be nice, yea. There is a list in the front page of possible future features, which is similar at least.
Shields are currently an issue, I agree.
Did some thinking on Shields, and specifically shield armor. Main issues I see are.
A: Shield armor isn't a vanilla stat, so it has to be derived in some way.
B: Kinetic damage is often in rapidfire kinetic weapons, but still intended to fight larger ships. So Damage comparisons probably make the Needler line, and Machine guns ineffective or useless vs shields.
Having it be based on Shield efficiency, flux/maxflux, Ship size (Fighter/Frigate etc) and maybe shield radius might work, and use weapon size more than damage might work.
Log10 of flux capacity, or Armor/ShieldEfficiency might give useful numbers for actual shield armor.
An entirely different shield mechanic, using the whole Deflection shield thing might also be interesting. Based on how well it penetrates, the projectile might be turned aside to an extent, either missing, or at least hitting the armor at an angle, and likely losing some fraction of speed and penetration power in the process.
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Of course, the first question really needs to be, How do we want shields to behave? What weapons should be effective and what should be ineffective? And given the intention for realism, what mechanics can be used? I do certainly want to see ineffective shots pinging off of the shield as much as armor.
The big thing seems to be that point defense, normally trading range for massive DPS, gain a massive boost in range while retaining their massive DPS.
I would think that they probably should actually lose some amount of that DPS, simply because they have much longer to shoot at missiles. Alternatively, instead of adding a flat range bonus, you could add a percent bonus, or a combination of the two, so that short-range weapons remain rather short range.
Do you want point defense like the Machinegun to deal less damage, ping off of, or otherwise be ineffective vs Frigates? Destroyers? Cruisers? Capital Ships?
Should this be all small weapons, or just PD? Kinetic? I could absolutely see explosive weapons always bursting on the shield for minimal damage, in much the same way Kinetic usually pierces armor for minimal damage.
Many kinetic weapons are very rapidfire for consistant shield damage regardless of dodging or accuracy concerns, because vanilla shields have no armor. If resistance is in any way based on damage, Needlers, sabots, and machineguns will all be hit similarly, which is probably not ideal.
I honestly can't think of an obvious solution here. Not like with adjusting Frag damage.