On a related note, I've seen a whole bunch of designs that have 2 fire controls for either missiles or AM. Since it sounds like a single fire control can do all the work, particularly if the reload time is longer than 1 tick of 5 seconds, what's the point of the second fire control? Redundancy? Or is there sometimes a time when you'd want to fire 1/2 a broadside at 1 target and 1/2 at another?
All missiles that are fired under the control of a single fire control count as one "salvo". Importantly, defensive fire like AMMs or beam PD consider each "salvo" as a separate target. Therefore 1) more offensive/ASM firecontrols allow your broadsides to be divided into more distinct targets, overwhelming enemy PD more easily and 2) more defensive/AMM firecontrols allow to engage more incoming "salvos" simultaneously.
Example: Lets say you have a broadside of 10 missiles. The enemy has two twin-gaussguns-turrets that fire a total of 10 shots, which achieve a 90% hitchance against your missiles. Lets assume the enemy uses a single firecontrol for both gaussguns-turrents.
-If you launch your 10 missiles by a single firecontrol, they are all considered to be the same "salvo". When they strike the enemy he will be able to fire all his 10 shots against your 10 missiles, killing all but one.
-However if you would be using two FCs, then you would present 2 salvos of 5 missiles. The single enemy FC could only engage one of the salvos, completely destroying this one. However the second salvo would remain entirely unengaged, so 5 missiles would get trough.