So, uhhh.... there's been just a slight change of plans.
Since the poll was pretty close, and I also had a random idea that I was waiting for an excuse to try out, I did a stupid: Instead of pickin one, I decided to make all 3.
Here's how it's (hopefully) gonna work ingame:
Hitbox and stats won't be affected, and all variants will have the exact same pvp performance.*
Gunner will be defined as a turret in gamefiles (won't be able to fire), so you can mount it in its specific slot and it'll track the crosshair like any ol' turret.
There will be 3 gunners total, shared between GB and GS. Current preview only has 2 of the gunners, 3rd one needs some cleanin up so I left it on the GS for the time being.
The, uhh.... The extra bits and bobs, or lets call it "chassis" just cause it'd sound fancy, The "chassis" will function similar to cargo pods. They'll be defined as a special equipment in gamefiles which can be mounted on a special hardpoint.*
You'll buy the "strut" from the ship dealer, then can buy and equip the chassis item from the equipment dealer, and the extra parts will show up on your ship. The chassis item itself wont be hitboxed, so unlike regular cargo pods, it won't be able to block damage or get shot off.
The three variants of both gunner and chassis are interchangeable and you can fly to a sellpoint and mix and match whenever and however you want, and they'll be equip-locked via flhook so they can't be used on other hardpoints/other ships.
Whether each set of chassis will be a single item or different parts will be split into different items entirely depends on the limitations of actually crowbaring this idea into the game. Ideally, each part would be a separate item to allow for the most mix-and-matching, but if that doesn't work, each set will get a single item.
* In case anyone's wondering, the chassis/gunner wont be hitboxed. Instead, the "strut" (model for the actual ship entry in gamefiles) will get a hitbox with the general shape of all 3 variants combined, so while you can mix and match different chassis and gunner on the base strut, the hitbox of the ship will remain the same (even if you decide to fly without a chassis, but please don't).
As usual, some parts are more WIP than others.
Also, expect the proportions to get changed in the later tweaks. There was a lot of rescaling going on to try and fit all the variants in the same general space due to the hitbox limitation, so it looks slightly off right now.
And as a side note, the ship interior is currently placeholder, and it'll be properly modeled with consoles and whatnot once the actual ship is done.
Gunship will also have the same modular style, and will get its own separate thread hopefully early next week.
