Could a hybrid system work?
We know that a lock-on system simply isnt as much fun. It takes away the freedom that you want in a game world that you create and populate.
The devs have stated that large ships could have huge crews... what if crews are required for manual firing?
(This is just my example, not sure how much would be feasible in the game) For example, say a frigate has 6 turrets and a crew of 10. Take 4 away for pilot, copilot, engineer, and navigator. Those 6 remaining members could each operate a turret and give it manual firing ability. Now say the crew is just the core 4 (im TMing that, I like the sound of it), the copilot could have the ability to lock on to fire the turrets.
This could do two things:
1) It would promote flying in crews rather than alone and thus reduce the number of ships in a battle, easing the computational requirements.
2) It still allows the lock-on system to be in place.
If you think about it, would you rather have 50 people manning 25 ships, or 50 people manning 5? I feel like that along could reduce the computational requirements enough to allow manual fire