The belly gun is trash. Giving a air mounted HE weapon .35m internal splash makes no sense what so ever. Even the shredder has a .5 meter splash radius and its a freaking machine gun. The new gun is a straight downgrade from the zepher especially since they just buffed the reload speed.
I had a very different experience with the Hyena. Provided you land the majority of your shots, it'll 2-3 mag an ESF, and the shots aren't hard to land provided you're not a mile away from the target. If your lib pilot plays aggressively, it will be an extremely potent weapon. I'm actually a bit concerned about how Liberators are going to fare against other aircraft with these changes going through. With the combination of tail gun changes and exp changes, you're going to see a lot more 3/3 Liberators, and if the belly gun can shoot you, there's a good chance that the tail gun can as well now. As I see it now, where you used to be able to put up a good fight against an experienced lib crew in an ESF, they'll more than likely walk right over you. We may also start seeing A2A Racer libs, as they'll be able to keep pace, or even outrun non-racer Scythes and Reavers, maybe even Mosquitoes. In many ways they're receiving a straight buff in an already iffy relationship, Liberators are not in any way shape or form underpowered against air in the current state of the game.
