New asteroid mining base

[PiratesBane]

I am attempting a new asteroid mining base. It is inspired by photos Ida and Eros sent back by probes. I tried to upload a picture, but got "Upload Error: Could not upload Attachment to ./files/asteroid1_287.jpg".

The concept is that the asteroid is tens to hundereds of kilometers in length. The mining operation consists of several installations on the asteroid surface. A space ship would dock at one of the installations. The asteroid is too big to blow up, but the installations could be destroyed individually. The installations would be armed (and ideally help each other when attacked).

I am looking at two concepts to do this:

1) The asteroid is a "ship", the installations are non-moving "sub units" which, in turn, have turret "sub units" for defence. Can the subunit system handle this extra level of nesting?

2) The asteroid is a "planet", the installations are non-moving "ships" which have turrets. Is it possible to have non-moving "ships" on a planet's surface? How would they be placed?

Any suggestions are welcome.

[Wisq]

I know subunits can contain subunits. Almost all turrets I've seen are (interestingly) a subunit within a subunit. The inside one contains the actual guns.

Whether those subunits can be individually animated at that level... that I don't know.