[--Steve-O--]

so we have something resembling recoil for external secondary pods. from what i understand (correct me if i am wrong) the model is deleted and a new one created and slid into place, velocity is controlled by refire rate and distance is half the length of the launcher model. so i got to thinking, is it possible the extend this to primary models as well? and even better work it into a primary submodel like how we have Gatling style guns, one part is the body and the barrels are animated.  in the case the barrel is deleted and a new one created and moved forward.
flag it as  "recoil primary" or something and add adjustment option to the table  like
$primary recoil distance:
$primary return velocity:
i know we don't have true reciprocating model translation so would this be a viable work around?
is it even possible?

[Nuke]

well the model is just translated back along local z, which is possible because its a separate model and not a submodel. thing is the whole gun would need to recoil, and you might need to add yet another model for the gun mount since you cant translate submodels the way they can be rotated like with gatling guns. you can also completely do away with the mount and just model that into the ship and only model the recoiling part (which is acceptable for me at least because i've been modeling the mounts as part of the ship). if you wanted to have a non-recoiling part like a recoil slide like on a howitzer, and wanted it to be interchangeable (not part of the ship) that would need to be another weapon model. despite the caveats it still it seems possible, you just have another model to deal with.