I also love aquilo trenches, but I don't think author will update it to 2.1.
He is not active for a while already
I think I would rather make dedicated mod for aquilo water spitters, so I could repaint them instead of adding more settings to this one
as for weapons you already sort of do unlock cannons after finishing pelagos, I don't feel that's something I would like to focus on on Aquilo like mod
I was thinking for a while about mod that moves regular resources into waters so they spawn as offshore version that you can mine with oil rig.
That would add more reasons to build them.
Same mod could also add water enemy because kinda why not.
I am currently updating my other mods to 2.1 so I won't do that too fast but I think I could make dedicated cargo ship mod to aquilo similar to how these works:
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/depths_of_nauvis
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/spoiled_trenches_of_fulgora
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/sand_seas_of_arig
how about that?