@The Bloodfang gun issue: I specifically remember that all stats for it were incorrectly stated in manuals and strategy guides and that there were 5 guns on the ship. I even used to have a screen shot proving it. Sadly no longer. So if someone can grab a screenie of that moment....
Note: I'm the ultimate WC ship trivia buff. I used to even be able to remember the mass of the Ralari for the WC1 copy protection.
of time I spent (I was also much younger) using the view system to watch ships and having memorized the sounds and graphics used could tell exactly what weapons were being used. Like on the Sorthak and the Bloodfang, whose stats were never reliable in the manuals or anywhere else. CIC's ship database I commend on the massive effort, but some of the stuff is incorrect so don't swear by it..
@the Shield issue: I wasn't sure if you guys were able to make a shield mesh or not. I guess that would be ideal...not sure if any of the new enhancements to the source code have fixed that issue. The other possibility is to make the hulls REALLY tough and the torpedoes, anti-matter guns, and other capital ship killing weapons very strong to boot (since these weapons don't fire at fighters the balance should be preserved). Then you start working with fractions of a percentage point for the turret hitpoints but very doable.
How are the turrets on WC2 ships going to be done? Lots of long range inaccurate flak and a couple of turrets for antimatter guns?
Also another good point, check out the one source modification that creates a new skybox so you can paint a big texture on it. If they get that working bug free and performance equivalent, you guys may want to use that system to do nebulas and star backgrounds - create more WCish backgrounds ala WC4 cutscenes or WCP in-game.