"...the turret's arent facing the direction they are firing in the attack - and as we know, the death of these ships occur in the case of battles (i.e., the turrets firing boardside)..."
Yes, I realize that. Since Civ3 is a game, and a game where one country may leap ahead of another country technology wise, just consider that a ship may not know it's under attack until it's too late or the attack may be aerial, where the main guns are useless. Examples:
A country develops ER(extended range) munitions for it's naval guns. The US Navy did this in the 1980's with 16" guns on the Iowas, and today with the modern smaller 5" guns. The said munitions have achieved ranges from 40-80 miles and even a couple hundred miles with the 16" scramjet shells.(which the Navy never put into production, but did test.) Fire finder radar wasn't around on WW2 era ships, so if it is being fired upon from 50-70 miles away, it wouldn't know until the shells hit.
The warship is attacked with JSOW(joint standoff weapon) or JDAM(joint direct attack munition).
Here's the scenario, in the Civ world, using real weapons : An F18E/F is cruising at 20,000 ft. It is packing JDAMs, laser guided in this case, since ships move, you would be unable to use a GPS guided bomb. His wingman, illuminates ol' KGV and the lead pickles his JDAMs. KGV, may have picked them up with her WW2 era radar, maybe not, doesn't matter, the fighters would be well out of AAA range. Several JDAMs hit her, blowing her up. (yes, they would be dropping Bunker Busters to penetrate the deck armor) Now, if that were the scenario, having her main guns pointed in any direction, would not have mattered.
Anyway, I'm still a little stuck on using Civ's lousy units as a basis for animations, which is probably a mistake. I'm still in the process of developing my own style. Bottom line is this, considering the events I was setting up in making the death animation,( there are 4 particle systems, debris to assign to the paticles, a gravity force, a deflector, 4 sphere gizmos-the explosions,4 lights to time with the explosions, 2 visibility tracks to make the funnels disappear after blowing up, and the animating of the ship itself), well, the direction of the turrets was not a concern.
getting better and better...
