[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

But these situations are rare enough that only the biggest ships would spend their hangar space on dedicated boarding pods rather than general-purpose shuttles.

Hmmm...

For each SM +6 shuttle you carry, you can use the space for:
3 SM +5 starfighters or shuttles, or
10 SM +4 starfighters, or
30 SM +3 boarding pods carrying a squad.

Really, I see the latter being "fired" like escape pods rather than being launched from a hangar bay, but that's a bit of aesthetics. Of course, like missiles, boarding pods tend to be somewhat expendable, though generally recoverable post-battle for re-use.

Overall, I think I'm going to go with Anthony's suggestion that piloting a pod through a force screen takes a bit of skill unavailable to most computers, coupled with Diomedes's suggestion that force screen busting tech is too bulky for use on most missiles, hence why it's never used on SM +1 or +2 missiles (because it can't).

Thanks, y'all.