I was doing a bit of brain storming as ways to balance out the shotgun and nova knife. Currently these close quarters weapons do extreme damage up close. Below I are my suggestions to keep these weapons competitive while keeping them from overshadowing all the other weapons in CQC

Nova Knife: Currently the Nova Knife only has the Caldari variant. But questions come up as to how can this type of side arm be expanded? My suggestion is make each racial Nova Knife do something better than the next like breach weapon and assault weapon variants.

Amarr Nova Knife (Breach Variant) - does the most charge damage.
Caldari Nova Knife - has the best range.
Gallente Nova Knife - best non charge damage.
Minmitar Nova Knife - lowest charge attack time.

Shotguns: As it is the shotgun only needs roughly 1 shot to dispatch light and medium suits and two against heavies. The damage seems roughly reasonable but not all variants need this damage output, the same interval between the next shot need more noticeable differences, and better recoil penalties needed for this weapon amongst the breach, regular, etc.

Breach shotgun - should have heavy recoil and intervals between shots but the shotgun variant suited to doing the high damage all shotguns currently do at close range.

Standard shotgun - needs less recoil and perhaps the same intervals between shots but much less damage compared to how it operates now. Give it a longer range, roughly 10 to 20 meters max range, needing to empty most if not all its maximum shotgun rounds to take down a heavy.

Look forward to hearing feedback from the community and CCP a like!

Yes being stabbed once makes time to kill off here. That was why I proposed it having a quick charge so the minmitar could address the issue of being ideal assassin with Nova Knives in terms of speed.