That was my first thought, too, Dimejinky.
Sir Charles, have you considered which of the desired lights would need only a simply 'on-off' function and then run those as a separate circuit? Also, the lighting 'systems' will logically serve different situations and so you'd not want everything operating at one time (such as the 'headlights' [flight] vs the 'underside illumination lights' [landed]?) Grouping the lights into 'modes' might allow for a simplified switching functionality.
One basic concept I can recall is your "circuits" can either be in parallel or in series. If you want separate control of individual circuits, then that is parallel 'wiring' which may already be a part of the switching remote's design, while series wiring is just one switch controlling an entire string. Christmas light strings are a perfect example for both: ones that the entire string fails if one 'bulb' is bad is a series circuit because the power goes through each element in succession so every light depends on the power coming through its predecessor. Strings that stay lit even with a failure because the individual bulbs each 'bridge' between continuous ground and 'hot' lines such that a failure in the 'bulb' doesn't break the lines. There are rules regarding how & what 'mixing' of parallel & series wiring you can do, but I cannot recall any specifics. Thank goodness for Google!
For example (back to the MF's lights), the various operating regimes might include:
Visual slow flight (constrained space - aka 'headlights)
Approach & Landing
Grounding/Maintenance
Visual formation flight (atmospheric)
FTL travel (basically engines & nothing else)
Space Docking / EVA
Even the cockpit lights could have at least two modes:
Powered up / Flight
Low power / Non-flight
Of course, the 'canon' movie displays may have nothing to do with actual lighting modes & everything to do with 'what looks good'.
As with most things, determine your requirements first, then buy the hardware to 'do it'.
Regards, Robert
