The SG is much too powerful for it's own good. particularly at militia and basic level, but the advanced, and even proto do so much alpha it's game breakingly good.

The fact that you can alpha almost any proto medium suit off the field with two or less shots at militia level is ridiculous. Heavies are different. you should probably have at least an advanced shotty to kill a proto heavy in a few shots.

I don't want shotguns nerfed into uselessness. but I just don't see how to balance it in this game, especially since ISK grows on trees for half the people who play this game regularly. Maybe decrease the projectile count, as my friend Laz suggested? the biggest issue is risk vs. reward. You can run shotgun cloak for nearly free, and kill any suit in the game 1v1. Even if you lose, you are still coming out ahead, as you've undoubtedly dealt crippling damage, and the guy lost his suit anyway.

If you're not rich, why risk running you best suits when they can be taken by some guy using militia/basic gear? Very low risk (ISK wise), Super high reward potential, vs. Very high risk, Very high reward potential with proto any other suit/weapon combo. You don't have to take a risk to run scout anymore. THAT is what bothers me. You can tank a cloaky scout to have over 600 EHP, granted that ups the ISK efficiency risk, but it also makes you even MORE powerful, which is like putting wheels on an aircraft carrier.

Truthfully, the shotgun probably only needs a slight tweak or two to get it into balance with other weapons DPS range. I'd say, if it were at all possible, Drop the damage dramatically.. (like within the range of AR's DPS), but give it a sort of webbifying effect, where each hit slows the target. Gallente are E-War, just as caldari... or maybe even moreso. So it would make sense that their weapons might have some crazy e-war effects. that way you wouldn't have the crazy alpha, but you'd be able to take more shots, with slightly more risks, but not easy mode.

The cloak needs to be urgently fixed first though IMO.