We can add many guns and firing points but the basic aiming mechanism will still default to 6+fwd guns. That limit is hard coded into the programming. So how do we trick the system into creating a more realistic illusion of ships with dozens of independently managed turrets?
One possibility that comes to mind is to create several shadows of the basic ships model. So that a "ship" within the game actually consists of multiple layers of identical shells overlayed one over the other in exactly the same position. Each shell would be provisioned with up 6+1 turrets, a launch bays and missile stock; creating the illusion of a single ship that can fire targeted missles by barrage, that can dock or launch from multiple hangers, or which is capable of mounting a large number of turrets.
Only one of the shells would be solid. The rest would simply mount additional equipment, and damage to these would be set by script to reflect the damage for the solid model. To the mechanics of the game it would look as though you have several independent ships firing from very close proximity (identical). They all turn as one; they are all positioned at the same point; they all yaw and pitch from the same center point. The mathematics would be just an identity; whatever the solid ship does is exactly what the shadow ships do (all at the same time, all at the same place). They all have the same xyz coordinate and the same orientation.
If you build a model of a ship using 3 shadows, your game map would show all 4 ships (say Argon M0 Main, Argon M0 port hanger, Argon M0 starboard hanger, Argon M0 bottom) at exactly the same spot. You can select one to obtain landing permission, or to provision some of the hardware (like missles); but; only the main section would carry a repairable hull, drives, and provisional shield values. The rest would be scripted to mirror the condition of the main hull (remember they all occupy the same physical space).
Perhaps by doing this we could end up with something behaives like an M0. The example above could have:
1) 4 independent hangers so you would launch 4 fighters at the same time in four different directions.
2) 4 missile launching at the same time from 4 different points all targeted on the same unsuspecting victim- and you can define which missile type to ready for each bay
3) One main battery and up to 24 self aiming turrets. You could program each of these turrets as you prefer.
I suggested something like this for X2 a while back; but, at the time we had envisioned a segmented ship where each body part represented a solid section that had to be flown in a tightly coordinated dance with the main body. The problem with managing such a delicate dance of parts within the x2 environmet was impossible. This approach simplifies the original strategy by simply using one solid body with identical shadows. Since all the bits occupy the same space the management problem becomes much simpler. Turrets 8-24 may seem like they are hanging off the same ship, but it is all an illusion, and I won't tell anyone if you don't.
