For absolutely no discernible reason, Nakalim's small Attacker and Protector ships have, respectively, a lot and too few support slots. I'm of course willing to accept that's a quirk of their design, except it serves very little purpose. I'm similarly willing to accept in an attempt to make the small ships specially weak (since you start the game with them unlocked) the designers made the Attacker too weak (and compensated with support slots) and the Protector, too fragile (and compensated adding guns).