Sleeper, I've played with the artillery a little more and frankly, it appears so rarely in shop (most of the time, I don't meet it till sector 4 or 5, at all), that I don't think anymore, that having it with the warning about saves (if all proposed methods to circumvent it fail) would unbalance game for the runs when we need to save&quit. And artillery is really awesomely integrated and balanced, by fact that it takes place of another possible system, by it's price, etc. It was very much fun to play with it.
As for the thing with artillery from start but disabled until lvl2 or augment - would it be possible to mod if the way, that hacking or mind control would replace it on purchase, just like clone bay replaces medbay? Player wouldn't loose anything, as artillery lvl1 would be for free from start and just a placeholder, in practice.
If not, then, indeed, it may be some kind of problem. In such case, having it with the warning seems like best idea - after all, we can roughly decide, if we can purchase it (and save scrap for it), or we're going to end this session before end. And in cases that session becomes long (and we don't want to mess with virtual machine) - well, there is a minimization and keeping machine ON. I remember it from the days of old Amiga games, for when we had no spare formatted 3,5'' disk for saves
/Estel
// Edit
BTW, had an awesome run with Stealth B today. Just like with everything on CE/Hard, it started HARD, and in fact, during first 4 sessions I haven't bee able to leave sector 2

It forced me to think really creatively on how to soften the ship edges (go around it's weak points), and 5th session ended in end of sector 4. Decided not to give up, and 5th session was going OK, with it's up and downs. Until I got a Maul Beam in the end of sector 3, from when it started to went just awesome. I was on absolutely sure Stealth C unlock, and possibly win - had heck of shields, engines, fully upgraded artillery, and 300 scrap in hold, at the middle of sector 6!.
Then, a simple not-so-dangerous Lanius ship bring my crew to their knees, thanks to fckn teleporter. Well, it seems that I had too few fights with Lanius boarders before. Just 2 of them took my whole ship apart - actually, managed to repel first boarding wave, but they returned way too fast.
Of course, I could have easily win that. If I would only be experienced with them enough to know, that their lvl 2 teleporter is much more dangerous than 4 weapons (artillery, missile flak or smth like that, burst laser IV or 5, and Halberd Beam) - foolishly, I decided to first take weapons our with my maul beam. Silly - those cruiser-like armanent is *nothing* compared to 2 oxygen suckers running amok on your ship. Either have oxygen 3, or take their teleport first (or have teleport blocker, but it's not as reliable). Otherwise, don't step into lanius sector if they're further than 4th one, or eat spacedust
Anyway, I've learned lotta hell during that run (which doesn't happen so often during my FTL playthrougs anymore, not in so large experience quantity), and I observed something about maul beam. sleepy, I know that you've nerfed it first, then, after some months, buffed it a little - now, it's *almost* balanced. Almost, as it's still at least 2x better than Glaive, in practice. I understand the whole concept of overall high damage around many systems vs focused damage, but Glaive is 25 second cooldown 3 damage per room, and Maul Beam is 5 damage focus with 18 seconds cooldown. It's a little off, in practice - trust me, since getting maul, I haven't touched my glaive with a long stick, and sold it at first opportunity.
I think that making maul 20 or 21 seconds cooldown would balance it almost ideally. 18 is a little too short, it just kick the dirt out of everything. For the very first time since playing CE/Hard, I wasn't (like in old days) afraid of venturing into fleet-controlled teritories. On sector 5, blowed 2 cruiser and battleship in a row (why, ah why rebel fleet delay doesn't add?), without losing damage. All thanks to Maul (and later, single sucking hull laser 1, just to take one shield bubble and make maul even more rockin'), mostly. I wouldn't dare to ignore them so much with *any* other weapon. I think it's a little off, if just by having it+ anything else, we're, basically, set up for at least up to flagship fight (on Hard, again). In it's current state, I would buy maul even for 300 scrap. totally worth the resources (if you can hoard them before, that is).
Speaking of which - the focus beam step below maul (can't remember name... Mace beam?) have a little too low cooldown, to. By chance, it shots *exactly* as often as heavy lasers (10 seconds), which seems a little to short for 2 damage, 1 shield-piercing, never-missing thing. I think that 12 would make it more sane.
/Estel