Hangar Upgrade System

Hi, I'm currently working on a flight simulator project that involves a Crimson Skies-esque hangar function with a completely modular aircraft. Basically, after each mission, you can go into the hangar and swap out any number of components to create a completely custom aircraft. Turrets, for example, play a massive role in gameplay, and the hangar allows the player to swap them out for different types (light MGs, Heavy MGs, etc), while engines can be swapped, armor of certain components can be increased/decreased, crew members can be given body armor, and perks can be applied to the whole aircraft, to name a few upgrades. The only problem is that I have no idea where to start. I am all thumbs at coding, and although there are dedicated programmers attached to the project, I need to at least give them a rough idea for how to proceed. Does anybody have suggestions for how the system could at least be arranged? How could the aircraft configuration be saved for the next mission? How should each component be separated?

 

As long as it's only that one small problem.

I should point out that this probably doesn't belong in the WIP forum if you don't actually have any work in progress... Probably should be moved to Scripting or Game Design.

With any programming challenge, the goal is to break large tasks down into smaller, much simpler ones. Maybe break it into phases as well, such as what the minimum viable form of the idea is, what can be added in Phase 2, etc.