[aldo_14]

I'm not sure how possible this is... but;

The basic idea is that guns are seperate pof files (i.e. with their own firing points probably).  when a gun is selected in the loadout, the model is 'added' (i.e. stuck on) to a hardpoint on the ship, and effectively becomes part of the hull (merging firepoints so the player can fire it)

So, for example, you can strap on a Gatling type gun, or a 'cannon' like thing, or a missile rack.

I'm not 100% sure how this could be done.... I'd suggest using a 'docking' like system - i.e. the 'pylons' are specially named docks corresponding to gunpoint slots (i.e. dock name=pylonPrimary01), and the weapons models have corresponding dockpoints.  The weapons.tbl has a modelname for the relevant pof (something like '$geo_object:  default_laser.pof').  If the ship has the releavnt dockpoint, the game adds on the gun.

This, though is sort of where I get a bit confused on how it'd work... there obviously quite a few things that would need to be resolved, such as;

- How to actually 'merge' the objects and firepoints into each other, so that the player can fire the gun (and also so the engine doesn;t register the gun as a dockee ship and prevent the others, etc from docking)... I've no idea how this could be accomplished.  Maybe merging the firepoint data of the pofs open starting the mission (I'm assuming the engine parses the firepoint data upon loading the mission, here... if models are parsed at startup, that could be a BIG problem, I guess)?  Or making the gun on the mount a sort of invisible 'child' of the ship ; i.e. not regarded as a ship by game (but as a subobject of the main hull pof thing), and inheriting the ammo, and movement settings?

It's just an idea, but I'd like some feedback about whether its possible... I don't have the experience of C++ or the knowledge of the SC to know myself, unfortunately (and neither the time at the mo).

[LAW ENFORCER]

This is a very good idea - somebody make it soon! I am kinda relying on this for a number of things but I want it so you can have noraml style ones as well as pylons etc... Also they should be able to come off so you can have single missile or disposable rock pods or fule pods - if yuo use fule....

[Nico]

I think it should work this way:
you still have your primary and secondary points.
primary don't change, it's internal lasers, like it is now. secondaries, that I would call external points, would allow you to put anything you want on it. Like for real life helos, you can put missiles as usual, but if you want, you can also add canon pods, that would count as primary and not secondary. This way, you can, if you want, load your ship with lasers and no missiles. for a ship with three hardpoints, say, add two lasers, and a power supply pod. you can make a 100% external points ship too if you want.
My 2 cents.