I agree with moosehead on that, you can always add nodes to a cmp file and make 2 different classes of ship in the ini. Just have a light version that uses only the original nodes and a heavy version that makes use of all the nodes. I actually think the designers had several unused nodes on some of the ships in the game.
Bulk, way ahead of you on the min/max settings, I've tried both 0 and 00001 with the same results, actually I beleive 0 is treated as if there are no restraints on the range the guns can fire and they will be able to rotate completely backwards like a turret. I will mess with the constants.ini next though thanks for the suggestion.
Moosehead, thank you, your last post made what you were saying much more clear. The problem is, if I make entirely new hardpoints will I need to take the ship into milkshape or something and phyiscallly make new hardpoint models on the ship ?.