The other day I made a huge ship without realising how slow to turn they are so i started looking into turrets, the ship was huge to give it a verry strong sheild and when i found that the turrets wernt covered by the sheilds, i had a go at making some rear facing cannons. These were going to be turrets that can't rotate but would be covered by the sheild. Now my suggestion is this: the bobby ai should be able to control weapon computers, cockpits should look the way they are rotated and be linked to a wepons computer (so you could have 1 central control room with control panels for every peice of artillery that people can use and see where theyre shooting or the bobby ai can shoot if you cant find a crew)
And my suggestion for shields, if you have ever watched a sci fi the sheild will have probably been like a bubble around the ship and i think this is how this game should be.
When building you should be able to go into a "program mode" which lets you build with sheild blocks around your ship to create the bubble. Then this opens up more possibilities for sheild mechanics, the sheld can turn off and on, drains enegry while active, smaller ships could get inside the sheild and shoot at the hull/turrets, ships can dock on the outside of carriers and be protected.
And my suggestion for shields, if you have ever watched a sci fi the sheild will have probably been like a bubble around the ship and i think this is how this game should be.
When building you should be able to go into a "program mode" which lets you build with sheild blocks around your ship to create the bubble. Then this opens up more possibilities for sheild mechanics, the sheld can turn off and on, drains enegry while active, smaller ships could get inside the sheild and shoot at the hull/turrets, ships can dock on the outside of carriers and be protected.