Modified MCT-240 Light Transport "Scorpion" - Turret Demo

This ship started as a turret design that got a little out of hand.

Many medium-size sci-fi ships have really poor weapon coverage, with quite large blind spots.

From this premise, I started thinking about how to get near-360 coverage with as few turrets as possible.

This evolved into a turret mount that could pivot 180 to cover a half-sphere area on either side of a ship.

At this point, I did a bunch of tinkering with gearing, to get the turret to keep its orientation as it pivoted.

 

From this kernel, I concepted out a smuggler ship, originating as a small cargo tug, since that is something where only a single turret might make sense.

When building out the ship, I connected the gunner's seat to the turret gears, so it would rotate in line with the turret.

 

This video shows how the turret mechanism works, with the orientation of the turret staying the same as it moves from above the ship to below, and the gunner seat tracking with the turret orientation.

Done