I agree with @Lythrilux. Most ships would suffer more than gain from such implementation. Longer and bigger ships would be in terrible situations. Overall your idea (I saw some gameplay videos of Rebel Galaxy) might not work well in FL due to its engine.
@Haste Instead to totally rework BBs, why don't you focus on implementing new weapons by modifying what we have. Would be nice to have like 3 variation per heavy weapon so the players to get what they need considering their play style.
For example:
- A battle razor could be turned in 2 more variations: 0.5 refire rate (with all stats properly balanced to maintain same DmG in a different way) and 1.00 refire rate. So those that love to snipe (deal all damage instantly) might decide to keep the sniper, while those that can't aim or want a type of "primary turret" vs cruisers - to get 0.5 version or 1.00 for vs gunboats (which will deal same DPS like the "sniper", not instantly but over time).
- Missiles now are like heavy siege bombs/rockets. By making their refire rate higher (but keeping SAME DmG by playing with the stats) you can end up with light but multiple missles with lets say 2.00 refire rate or "katyusha" version with 5.00 refire rate. To make them interesting lets say that firing 5 missles in 1 second will drain half core and also some ammo (which could be different quantity per version - so katyusha to have around 50, equal to 10 sec bombardment and then you are dry).
- Cerberus are fine so far.
- Pulse cannons might also needs some attention - one or two more variations with better refire rate...like 2.00 (to mix them nicely with primaries) or 1.00 (with cerberus) of course the DmG should be "same" (Current: 36500 with 0.5, New2: 18250 with 1.00, New3: 9125 with 2.00 )
- Primaries might get slight buff until something new arrive on the scene (like 1k more damage) *and also have their shield damage reduced by 50%, again moving pulses as legit option. (BB shilds will go down slower if not using proper weapons but still go down...)
- *Heavy Mortars should have their "shield" damage removed - turning them as primary source of damage to hull and in same time moving Pulses forward as legit weapon instead as junk (overall)
- *Mortars (small version) could simply be turned in "deshield" version of "mortar" that contains EMP explosion - doing only shield damage but 0 hull. (In this way "mortars" wont be so dull but far more specialized and will lead to tons of mixed builds)
I mean instead of going in a super test mode and try to implement something that might not work or might not be enjoyed by most - first improve what we have and then move on. Cap weapons havent been touched for years, without counting slight changes. Total overhaul might take you a lot of time while tweaking, copy>pasting existent weapons (razor/missles/pulses...) and simply changing the files and turning them in new weapons will be less time consuming and will give more variations to the community.
Thats my advice - simply add ~2 more types per type to give the players a choice.
Note also that broadside combat were for sea ships because of the cannon placements on boats. There were still cannons sometimes in the forward and back but they took up a lot of room.
In space it is now not in one plane but infinite planes.
Plus the way you mount these guns it makes sence for them to have wide arcs and not small ones...
Im curious how haste is going to justify this broadside change because to me at least it makes less efficient sence for this combat system to happen.
But hey.. There are some examples like the shire that have a kinda broadside setup. One of my fav transports because of it.
On the topic of battleships, why are all cerbs still Rheinland green? You'd think with all the stuff in the mod, house specific cerb turrets that are just a different colour would be easy peasy to slap in. I don't like green.