Thanks for all the comments. As I said in the beginning, I think the Weren are an excellent race to introduce to the Star Frontiers universe, they certainly have a place here. There have been a lot of excellent suggestions regarding alternate weaponry ( grenades; never crossed my mind ). Tactics too, would heavily influence their use of black powdered weapons - could this have a bearing on the Delta Dawn project with logistics, etc? Also, would there be an underclass carrying out the reloading of weapons for the Weren warriors? I can't see too many of them being enthusiastic with the role of being a loader over time.

I certainly don't want to change them. Of course indivdual Weren will pick up alien weaponry to utilize. There's a potentially rich background itching to be written about them ( Corvus, I havent read the Alternity books - Do these have more info?)

My original point over the Weren was large scale conflicts, where the idea of black powdered weapons can be their downfall. History shows our own examples of cultures  holding onto preferred ( inferior) weaponry. i.e. Egyptians, Incas, Japanese. In the end, these cultures either died out or adapted.
 
What it really boils down to is this. For individuals in the case of the scope of SF, the choice of is the key factor; otherwise we may as well be power gamers. It's with the Star Frontier Universe being expanded into mutlitudes of areas, certain scales (.i.e. army organisations )  may bring a certain credibility issue to the table.

From reading the information about the Weren, I get the impression that their tech base will change, they would just prefer to discover and make changes on their own rather than adopting someone else's tech.

Look at the American Civil War for loaders and shooters; that tactic would be used in a fortified or entrenched position.  There would be 1 shooter behind solid cover, then behind would a whole line of troops, 1 would load the powder, 1 for patch & ball, 1 to ram it all in, 1 to cap, and one to hand it to the man in the firing position.  All of those troops are under cover and only the gunner is can be reached by direct-fire weapons.  If he falls, he gets pulled out of line, and everyone moves forward.
It beats sending your firing-line to the wall, shoot, withdraw, and repeat with the next firing-line.  Troops would be exposed while moving to and from, not to mention how disorganized it would become after a few shots.
As far as the Weren weapons, it seems that most of us are under the impression that it takes them 1 turn to reload. Breech loading weapons come to mind. So that is where my thoughts on Victorian-era combat comes into play. Weren will load and fire their own weapons, and loaders would be utilized in tight spaces, but in the open, you make two ranks, first one fires, and reloads, second rank steps forward, fires, and reload; repeat as needed.
They wouldn't have to line up, because I believe that Weren muzzle-loaders are much more accurate than Civil War era muskets.  But a volley fire like that would create a continuous wall (or barrage) of fire that would cover a decent area. Would just depend on how many troops you have in those ranks.

For game purposes, I would say one rank would consist of one commander to coordinate the attacks and a minimum of 5 Weren gunners. One volley would then be 5 guns, they don't fire at a specific target, but an area, 3d10 per rifle plus 1d10 per person in the area, divided equally; just like a burst.  I would think that the area of effect would be 3-5 meters per 5 guns. I would also suggest no more than 20 guns per rank as combat is loud, powder smoke gets thick, and trying to coordinate movement for more than that would get tougher. But still, 2 ranks of 20 twenty guns would be vicious.