There are two things that make marines a bit overbalanced as you say for power.
1. They are relatively cheap (modules certainly are. You can research them very cheaply with RP and build them with next to nothing in cash) Filling them a little more costly, and losing a battle with them costly to replace
2. They are the only weaponry that can constantly reload combat after multiple combat. This itself makes a lot less sense than the actual power rating given to a marine unit for overall power rating of the ship they are installed in.
I think i have posted at other times that a marine should be limited to:
Only being able to attack to board a ship after the opponents shields are dropped (or armor plating) and;
They should only be able to deploy once per battle as other weapons. It is much more likely that a laser can generate enough power to shoot more than once with enough speed in a combat round than it is for a detachment of marines launching from mothership into an enemy vessel, securing that vessel and then somehow in the middle of a space battle, re-join the mothership, reload and re-deploy into the next vessel to be boarded.
If we are to believe a marine module can do all this, then why cant we believe you can load a cannon more than once in a battle, or have an energy source to power a laser more than once, not to mention viper, which is basically a bunch of marines in a light combat vessel with no boarding capabilities. Surely they can do more ship to ship damage on multiple ships than a marine module can. Dont even get me started on nukes which i think its OK for a one off shot, but should be an AoE shot, affecting all combat vessels before needing replacement.
If we must limit conventional weaponry and allow marine to rule the weapons list for cheap, affordable multi-ship killers, then can we have energy bank modules that allow energy weapons to fire more than once in a round, ammo modules to allow for multiple rail shots etc.
Now as for the cheap rise to power by using these marine modules, giving a disproportionate power ratio to a pilot than he actually deserves: I guess what it all boils down to is, we can all get a cheap boost to personal power by doing a similar build to Admiral Raphael, but lets face it, unless there was a prize for top 5 positions, why bother? The combat ability of that build sucks big time! As I and others have shown, raw power using this method does not make you a supreme combat veteran and power player in the game, even if it gives that pilot a false feeling of superiority. Ego is this pilot's worst weakness. At the end of the day, the best ship builds will be something that combines marine with conventional weapons plus a decent defense kit out. If pilots like Raphael want to keep putting up marine only ships, i am happy to relieve them of 33-66% of their troops to re-educate them in a proper strike force, for half wages lol
More of a concern is 1 member corps taking advantage of buying cheap corp licenses to boost their personal ships available. This is a definite exploit to a corporation registration and should be severely looked at. If Sir Emi will allow 1 member corporations, i would propose that other than the cost of a corp ship license be a factor, the max number of corp ships be limited as a factor as to how many team members are in that corp. say a square of the number of members. eg member corp = 1 corp ship max, 2 members = 4 corp ships, 3 members = 9 corp ships etc. This will allow a balance and remove an obvious exploit to buy more ships for personal gain and power. The practice of padding corp members with alts to get around these proposals needs to be strongly policed should these types of limitations be enforced on a corp.
To answer JamJul's pro's and con's directly:
PRO's:
-It would allow for quicker attacks from boarding ships giving them a real purpose in the game.
This can be achieved simply by using less marines, building either a boarding optimisation or reinforced hulls to give marine stronger actual fighting abilities than is reported. No need to reduce marine power here to be able to achieve this.
-When launching an attack or seeing an incoming attack they would need to do more then just look at the odds and power ratings.
Who looks at odds when in a battle anyway? I dont think i bother with those mathematical algorithms. Look at base enemy weaponry potential minus marine power vs your (actual) hidden defense shield/armor rating before looking at what a marine may or may not do. Marines cant board if they got no ship to board from as it e-jumps out of orbit.
CON's:
-People using boarding ships for COM wouldn't be able to get high paying COMs anymore. (Though they could learn to build real COM ships then).
Not true. the size of the boarding ship power rating in combat has nothing to do with what power of the ship that picks up that combat marker. All my ships, boarding ships and others, always "punch above their weight" meaning they are constantly doing higher combat missions than they could possibly qualify for if they were to pick them up for themselves, which has the effect of lowering the combat counter by providing a lower combat ship to do battle with. The question is, would your boarding vessel survive the battle...answer, of course it would, so long as you do your math correctly, regardless of odds. some winning battles i can boast of is winning 3:34 against with no loss of power (shield hit only)
Not wanting to play Devil's Advocate in this matter, I guess my point is, by simply lowering the power of marines wont really fix anything positive since there are always ways around these numbers. The big factor for me is that a 1 member corp is able to buy 10 or more corp vessels relatively cheaply and load them up with cheap marines to boost his/her personal power beyond what they should be physically capable of if those ships were all bought as personal licenses.
Lets limit the number of corp ships available as I suggest in this posting to reflect the numbers of corporate members in the team. That would definitely force a player not to waste so many vessels in stupid stat padding builds that couldnt beat a boy scout in real PvP battle