Yes the claw things will be the blue planetary bombardment cannons (already got the models done), and the 'no entry of them in the table' trick is exactly what i intended to maintain balance.
Modeling the three nose circle thingies: probably not. It's already pretty high poly, so i'm going to have to be a bit careful about what i add to the rear. If you reckon it's worth it tho, i can give it a go. (they
are at the back of that deep recess in the nose - it would be a bit hard to see any difference)
Shields: umm, still undecided about that really. The decal method definitly sounds like it would be more ideal, since a shield mesh would mean another 4000 or so polys if it was to completely cover the ship, and at least a thousand or so if it were to hover a bit higher above the hull. If the decals can achieve the same effect with no extra shield polys at all - then that'd definitly be the way to go.
Non-targetable subsystems: probably not. Being separate objects from the hull means that they either use their own small textures or the main big texture, both options incur a cost performance-wise, and i'm really trying to minimise that.
Besides, most ships, HTL or not, don't have much at all in the way of destroyable, non-targetable subsystems with the exception of the Orion's antennae and Deimos' pipey engine things. Neither of which are hugely obvious anyway.
There is the possability that i could add 5 reactor models (they'd basically be covers over craters, so when you destroy them, the cover blows, leaving a big crater open to space), though i'm undecided about that.
wow, long post.
One final note: the primary anti-ship flux cannons on the arms will now use those three tube things and their connected triangle recess as the turret object as opposed to the original's white tetrahedgens. So it will be a bigger target yes, but should look much better if they're destroyed.