Apache made an interesting point. The thing with the battleship rebalancing is, what is our end goal? Make them more usable in pvp or for pve or for both. I believe the main aspect is the pvp.
I can't quiet remember if you already mentioned it OP, but could we just increase the shield capacity of battleships and not touch the dmg modifier? I think it would cause less issue for the npc part as well. I think you mention that the hull hp can't really be increase, which is fine I think, since Sci-fi logic kinda makes sense (shields down=ship starts taking dmg, life support down=kaboom). Anyways, could you just confirm to me that a shield increase of 300% (i think maybe even more, to simulate the 80% dmg reduction of weapons to shields). This might be a more valiable way to approach it?
Regarding the battleship vs VHF, I mean i get it that usually the battleship would blast the VHF into pieces in seconds, but the VHF alone shouldn't be able to kill it anyways, having a squadron to take down a battleship is kinda okay. Now, to make it easier for the battleship, could it be possible OP, to take the code or the "homing misile" part of the cruisse disruptor misiles (not sure if I named them right), and put them in a new type of turret/gun for the battleship to have to combat VHF.
I hope I haven't wondered off to much of the main topic or made some crazy ideas.
Cheers!