[Suicide Junkie]

With normal damage & really short range, ripper beams should be one of the mose efficient weapons in the game (damage/mass/reload)
With proper orders (point blank range) and fast ships (to close to range) they should be able to do decently in battle.
With some other distraction ships, the ripper escorts should be able to get in and kill.

In SE3, they were a defensive weapon only, since the defender got to move Last, and could get close enough to use the rippers (or run away and avoid rippers) before the firing stage. Attackers could only get in ripper range of objects with 0 or 1 movement.

For SE4, they should be extremely damaging, to compensate for their short range.