So, I want to go over the issue of scale and damage and point out how rediculously overpowered ground weapons are to the shear volume that any BT space craft large enough to carry 'a crew' deals with.
Let's start with the ubiquitous Union Dropship. Its dimensions are 78m by 81.5 by 81,5. Since two of those dimensions are equal I'm going to assume its the horizontal diameter if one were looking at it grounded. That leaves a height of 78m. That's 13 elevation levels. And, from the top down, it would sit squarely over a central hex and occupy the surrounding six hexes.
It's current Aero Stats give it four (4!) damage locations. The nose has 180 points of armor. Each side (two total) have 180 points of standard armor. And the aft has 100 points of standard armor. That's over 13 ground levels and 7 hexes.
It also can only take 22 points of damage before it gets demolished once you're past that armor in any one of those 4 locations. Its Structural integrity value is 11, but you have to do 2 points per SI.
I would posit that most people might look at the Union and assume it should have hardened building levels of CF. They wouldn't be wrong.
Take a look at these images to get an idea of the layout of the Union:
Now! By comparison. The 100 Ton Thunderbird ASF, which can be carried inside said Union as one of two (2!) has an armor profile of 82 for its nose, 52 for each wing, and 40 for its aft.
Or, better yet, the EST-R3 Eisensturm has a profile of 110/85/69 at 95 tons. These fighters rival Assault Mechs for general volume. Maybe more since you have the wing span, but not by much.
I would like to point out that the old BattleSpace stats had two extra locations splitting up the sides into fore and aft, and each had 180 points of standard armor. A little better, but still an issue.
Do you see a problem there? I do. Especially on the ground when the Union is an immobile target. You would think that you should be able to work the armor for a weapon bay down to zero to eliminate that weapon or weapons. But, the way the system works, you have to power through all 180 points and risk destroying the ship, or hit it with a big enough gun to get past the threshold of 18 to crit the weapons out. And there is some ambiguity with it being an immobile target if the standard rules would allow you to pick out that specific hit item on the location table or have to roll random.
The way the Union is laid out, it seems like the different arcs would be in a singular turret, but I'll play it both ways.
A Union Foreward side weapon bay could be looked upon as a weapon emplacement building attached to the the side of the dropship. If we go by artistic layout, it carries all of the following weapons:
1 x PPC, 2 x AC/5s, 2 x LRM 20s, 1x Large Laser and 2x Medium Lasers. Technically, the emplacement could be any class and associated CF, but let's work with the tonnage of the weapons combined. After all, a building is supposed to be able to hold the tonnage of its contents in CF.
All those weapons together come to 50 tons. We can potentially add 3 tons of LRM and 4 tons of AC/5 ammo (since the 9 tons of LRM Ammo and 12 tons of AC/5 ammo for the ship are probably evenly distributed across the three arcs that have those weapons) making for 57 tons. And, an emplacement needs to run heat neutral. So, we'll want 38 heat sinks. And, since we're talking the classic Union, that's in singles. So, that tallies up to 95 tons. That forward side bay is already into the Hardened building range of appropriate CF. And, let's not forget the armor. A threshold of 18 would suggest a protection level of 2.5 tons standard armor, at the very least. So, somewhere around a 100 CF hardened building.
And if you were to target the smaller laser bay, either one, would be in light class building range after including heat sinks and the armor, if barely.
That's the ground equivalent for a single weapons bay. And, that probably doesn't take up more than a couple elevation levels near the middle of the ship.
And, that's just ONE weapon bay for one firing ARC on one SIDE. You still have things like cargo bay doors (6 of 'em), and Landing Gear (4 of those), and that large thruster bubble depicted over each landing gear. Do you really imagine that a single door is going to be protected by all of a side's armor? And, that door can rival a Mech or Fighter, like the Eisensturm for surface area.
But, let's take a look at the 'next level' of ship, shall we?