I have said this many times before and I will say it again.
Make a private server. Make yourself admin. Go into console and type “itemmenu” without quotes.
This will give you the same item menu you get in creative. You can then use resources to spawn any blueprint you want. Type “finishbp” to finish the bp immediately so you can spawn it. You need to test these things. Nobody is going to tell you how turret targeting works because we have put countless hours into figuring it out ourselves and if you are unwilling to learn how pvp works then I’m happy to kill you repeatedly until you figure it out.
Off the top of my head I can think of 4 very important core concepts you need to know if you’re serious about pvp, none of which anyone I have come across has displayed they understand.
We used to think that the post you linked was accurate but it’s very, very not.
I will, however, say this. The stick thing is a good idea but not for the reasons you think.
So I make a ship that is one line of blocks that is 3km long and put the core in the back. Will turrets at the front side then fire at my ship? Or will they be like “out of range”.
Turrets aiming at cores = stupid design once again anyway. Also I have still seen some rotating missiles that can’t seem to hit their target indeed. I assumed this was fixed 1-2 patches ago but I guess not. And for big ships you could just relocate the core mid-battle to even out the damage.
I believe the maximum length of an entity is 500 blocks.
I tried to design a base that was just a giant cross with turrets scattered all over it to place around the orbit of traderworld to kill any ships entering or leaving the planet but then Rexx made a post that that activity would result in a ban so the project died.
I’m really not sure about the maximum blocks but you can test in creative to see how long you can make a ship.
The devs have already stated that the current turret mechanics are really stupid and they are changing it in an upcoming patch to target devices in the ship rather than their current behavior.