Had some ideas for how some of the issues with turrets could be solved, with solutions that feel like they'd be relatively simple to implement, and wouldn't require a ground-up remake of the turret system.
I'll address the three points I thought of:
1: Colouring
Make it so the light grey portions on turrets change colour with paint.
Sorts out issues people have with turrets not looking like they fit on their ships.
Might require changes to how textures on turrets are handled, but no major changes.
2: Duplication
Give turret factories a "blueprint" option, where you insert an existing turret and the factory will then allow you to build more of that turret, given an appropriate quantity of components and a credit fee.
Expansion of idea:
Factories can only build turrets of their material or below, maybe the same restriction on tech level as well? (maybe exotics and/or legendaries would not be able to be duplicated to make them feel more special?)
Credit fee should be notably greater than building the equivalent turret normally in a factory, making duplication a "luxury" feature.
Component costs might be difficult to figure out, but could just go with them being at (or over) the maximum required for that turrets rarity level, this further adds to the "luxury" feel. (factories aren't tooled to make these one-off turrets, so material waste is to be expected?)
This feels reasonably balanced to me, would just have to get the costs right to make using turret factories normally appealing.
3: Scale
At turret factories you can scale your turrets up or down, for a fee.
Damage and crew requirements would scale with turret size.
Possibly add more levels to turret size beyond the 0.3/0.5/1 that we currently have, higher sizes could just be scaled up versions of the 1 scale turrets to save devs from having to model more turret variants. (Suggesting additional turret sizes, as a common complaint I see is "turrets are too small" and this would allow you to have turrets that look right for some of the larger ships people make.)
The efficiency of scaling up turrets as far as crew cost/damage ratios is something to consider when you start going bigger than current maximum turret size, As such: Maybe make it so that a 0.3 scale turret only takes up 0.3 turret slots and so on for other sizes. Would likely require a change of how many turret slots you get per upgrade/etc. but could be interesting.
So, thoughts? feedback?
