Weapons Modules, who would use them?

Someone asked, "Who of the Space faring nations would use there
modifications?"

Some of the inspiration for the design came from Ballista Boxes, those
devices for shooting large numbers or darts to incapacitate crews.  The
early drawings I made of the design were pretty crude, the support was
a tree trunk, the carpentry was crude.  I had in mind a quick pragmatic
method for adding firepower to a ship.

A lot of the elegant lines, the resemblance to a shark or bird would be
lost installing these devices.  While the Shou Lung and other oriental
space faring nations have ships which could mount these modifications,
they don't appear aestheticly _nice_.

They probably would not retrofit their ships with weapons modules, but they
might incorporate the concept in a new set of ships where the modules
fit into the overall design of the ship better.

The Elven Imperial Navy would not, and probably could not install them on
their Man O'Wars.

The Neogi might install them, and have their slaves man the weapons.  The
Illithids _wouldn't_, because the weapon stations are exposed to the sun,
and can fire directly at their own ship.  However, the Nautiloid and Squid
ships would make good platforms for the Modules.

A Beholder ship _might_ have slaves manning these modules, to complement
their own destructive powers.  They'd be able to use their anti-Magicy defensiv
defensively against other Beholder's rays and knock their enemy to bits
with their artillery.

No purely groundling ship would be equipped with these because the
concept would be very difficult for them.  However, ships which land
on planets, especially on water, have to have some defenses for their
bottom hull when in space.  One of the original design ideas had the
two modules lifted by a rope to the central mast, suspending them as
the ship descended into a gravity well.

The Scro and other humanoids would love to have these devices for use
against Elven Flitters, and Kobold Arrow type craft.  The Scro would
also be the race most likely to use them as improvised jettisons, possibly
with the weapons crew still aboard.  Most humanoids who'd use them would
use the Ballistae to fire boarding lines.

I could easily see areas of space where the introduction of weapons
modules spurs a bit of an arms race, first everybody goes for the
modules, then the modules get bigger to accommodate heavier weapons
or more ammo, then two sets of modules are put on one ship, etc...
The ships would become less and less maneuverable, to the point where
fast maneuverable ships designed to ram, shear and board are developed
because they are cheaper than having 8 or 12 heavy weapons crewed all
the time.

Ships with this modification are most vulnerable when just leaving a
gravity well, and so that is where I'd expect the most conflict.  Of
course, close to gravity wells there are also going to be much heavier
patrols.  I never understood how you could have a random encounter
in Wildspace millions of miles from a planet.  You could have a hundred
ships flying as close to the same course as they possibly could and
the odds of a random encounter between them, that would put them
closer than 12,500 yards, (less than 10 miles) is really low.

Michael Sandy