Astral is a 40DP ship, it should just go back to that while keeping the system nerf. Or scratch that, even system could be buffed slightly, like 25s CD.
if u did that, it'd become the antithesis of what it's supposed to be according to its description. And also it would probably be kinda overpowered when compared to Heron and Mora. These two ships barely have the firepower to do anything but send out fighters. Mora is at least tough, but it's also slow. Whilst Astral is super slow, it has 2 large missile launchers. Which can be a huge difference, if you know what you're doing (I don't). And would be even more useful if Squalls weren't so bad nowadays (please give them as much as ammo as Locust has).
I think making the Astral simply tougher when holding its ground would do the trick. And make it far less punishing to use. The description even states that it has a ridiculous shield gen, but in-game it's actually really weak. Cause the base flux capacity is really low. And you never have spare OP to install Hardened Shields or even get any flux capacitors... You have to s-mod Hardened Shields and Stabilised Shields... And then replace two of your extremely valuable slots with Wasps to be able to get any shielding... But then Astral becomes useless... Especially considering bombers tend to be designed to deal high_explosive damage. And all the late game enemies are shield-centric. With armour being a secondary defense that can be somewhat defeated with cheap secondary tricks...
Astral's shield generator refers to its 0.6 shield ratio and 360 coverage, not so much its durability over all. I don't see a contradiction in descriptor. But you know what does contradict its description? Hanger size per ship. At 40DP it is tied with Heron for hanger per DP. Description makes it sounds like it min maxed for the hangar. This is why I proposed 40DP buff at bare minimum. Arguably it could get even lower, if you focus on the ingame description. If it is staying 50DP, then 8 hangar is not unreasonable.
Don't worry about Heron, it is currently arguably best pure carrier there is. I would not worry about 40DP astral overshadow Heron at all. Heron also has 80 speed, which ultimately is a good niche not competing with Astral. I will never take an Astral if I am running a fast fleet, so Heron always have a spot.
