I suggest that if the gun is destroyed, the tank is either considered as knocked out, or a new state of knockout is added in which you can still drive to ram vehicles, but someone gets a partial knockout on you if they knock out your gun barrel. I suggest this after I managed to destroy 2 or so tanks’ guns, however, I was unable to completely knock out the vehicles. In tanks, ramming is mostly ineffective due to their low-ish speed, so they rely mostly on their guns. In real life, knocking out a gun would be considered as a “firepower kill” in which the enemy is considered as knocked out due to not being able to deliver a projectile accurately. It does mean that repairs are possible IRL to put a tank back in combat, but in-combat repairs would probably be considered as overpowered in-game.
Well if in real life the barrel was damaged and cant deliver a shot accurately at long distances, then if you knocked the barrel off another tank in the Tank Battle gamemode it shouldn’t count as a knockout instead it just means that the opposing tank cant fire exactly where the crosshair is.
Perhaps they can introduce a new hit and damage system for cars and tanks alike, like if the barrel is shot off, or you do otherwise critical damage that severely impacts the target’s performance, IE for tanks, blowing off barrel, managing to slice off more than 3 wheels in one shot (in a head on profile like if they’re chasing you, if you aim long ways at a track, while they are facing you, it can, if your gun is strong enough, cut the entire side of wheels off)
and for cars, if you hit them hard with a truck or something and it takes the whole rear end of the car off, or if you manage to take a wheel off or something potentially crippling or severely effecting performance, it can register as a “critical hit” or “critical damage” instead of a knockout, a knockout adding 50 points excluding parts, and critical damage adding…25 points.
and this would apply to derby and tank battles. Also, a critical hit can just be a hit destroying more than 40 parts or something, which typically results in a vehicle being immobilized or otherwise having a gaping hole in it
edit: maybe 50+ parts