Basically, my issue with the winning plan is that we don't need three/four designs for medium-ish grav vehicles which we have between the existing 'light' grab vehicle, the grab barge, the iterated design, and the proposed new design.
Worse, the new design isn't as different as it can be from the two existing designs.
If we want a medium chassis for roles where the vehicle isn't intended to enter heavy combat, like ferrying around troops away from the line of fire, or carrying a vehicle grade artillery piece a long way behind the line of contact, we can just use one of the two existing designs for that.
What we can't get an existing design to do well are jobs that a medium armoured design would be better at, like being an armoured personnel carrier, or being a short ranged SPG. They're talks for which more armour is more important than acceleration. For things where acceleration matters most we have the two existing designs.
This applies to a new vehicle. We have nothing that really can fill the role of a heavy vehicle. This is particularly true if a heavy vehicle can mount a super-heavy weapon slot, but it still applies. 38 is a lot more than 24 base slots.
If we want a MBT or a heavy as opposed to light SPG, this is the chassis we want. We can just squeeze a lot more gun in than we can on the medium design, which is what you want for these roles. I think, particularly as we more likely to be avoiding exotics, so need to make size and quantity a quality of its own.
I could see a use for them as an independent Heavy Support unit, carrying lots of guns for suppressing fire as they do a drop somewhere very hostile. And for extraction under the same circumstances.
The kind of place where we wouldn't want to open a Webway Portal because something hostile would take the opportunity to go through it.
That's not a "right now" kind of investment, though. Won't need those anytime soon.
Thing is, any time you'd fighting someone that might go through a Webway portal, you want them to be stupid enough to do so, as then they'd be walked into a quarter sphere of pre-sighted powerful weapons all pointing at the gate. Baiting someone into chasing you through a choke point onto a prepared killing ground would be great. Particularly as you can have things like permanent fortifications with structure sized reactors, shieds and weapon systems not limited by the constraints that vehicles have, and can be freer using exotics as they're unlikely to be lost.
You could even have starship weaponry aimed at the gate.
Also, with temporary burrowings, they're temporary. When the force steps thorough you can let them evaporate behind them if you prefer. They don't leave an open gate or a tunnel behind. They're basically a better form of teleportation if you chose to use them like that.
The place I see for assault shuttles is boarding enemy voidcraft.
