Crimsonartist made some turrets he nicknamed "coins" a while back (like before the HP update when I kinda lost interest in this game but everything else in EA right now seems to be even worse shit). They only rotate up and down within a limited arc.
Anywho...I put a couple in the wings of a ship I was working on and they work fairly reliably (when they aren't getting blowed up) on targets in the general direction of their front.
I think Nuclearfun is probably the "missile turret king" around here and he wasn't even sure about acquisition and firing last time we chatted.
The best test would probably be to make a turret that can't rotate in any direction. So single rail and then block it so it can't rotate. See what it can fire on. I haven't really been able to do this since you really need a friend or two to assist and observe and I don't have any friends (and no, I don't want any before anyone offers...I'll wait for better AI :P )
Since we're talking about missiles, can anyone kindly point me to update logs where weapons were changed. It seems to me all weapon damage & power costs were doubled, and then missile damage was doubled again as lovin for other nerfs. All my ships have weapon systems they can't fire now