It works perfectly here so it must be on your end. Are you positive you are dumping to shields and not rerouting power to shields? It’s two different things and I have seen a lot of people mixing that up.
Upgraded to a Sandhawk yesterday, put some Autocannons on it and bought a space station after some subtle hints. Money isn’t easy to come by but not grindy either. Missions pay out 10k to 25k so that’s “easy” but of course they are hard to do sometimes. I tried some “bounty” missions and so far I have paid more in repairs then I earned. But it’s a learning experience.