Something that makes mines worth using so far sounds like the most interesting idea.
Or is it? I don't really care about mines, they weren't used that often in Star Trek. Though the two occassions I remember, they were quite important. Mining Cardassian ships in a Nebula and mining the Bajoran wormhole entrance - but regular combat seems not to be that common.
I think more devices would be cool. I actually think they should add 4 device slots to every ship and turn every universal console with a clickable into a device. It's ridicilous how much regular consoles are ignored for universal consoles, and design wise, it's never a good idea to give people a choice between a passive and an active. You should always create different silos for this type of skills. (Something they have been doing in pretty much every other new system - Reputation Traits are all passive, except the final one, which is always active. Set bonuses often work like that, all bonuses passive except the final one.)
Leave the number of device slots on ships exactly as they are (seriously, stop making escorts the end-all be-all of STO), but allow all clicky universal consoles to be slotted as either consoles or devices. I rarely use universal consoles as their usefulness is far from universal. Most of them are waaaaaaay too situational and of minimal value to waste a console slot so that I rely almost exclusively on regular consoles.. Meanwhile, the only device I bother with is the red matter capacitor.
How about an anti bfaw console, reduces the damage you take from 'uncoordinated random beam fire'...
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