the rings IIRC (doing alot of recalling lately) are models, so replacing them with a set of dock-bay models should be possible.
I wouldn’t recommend trying. The game alters the model (fiddling with colours and so forth), and I don’t know what it would do if you confused it. Also, it’s likely I’ll change how the rings are rendered as part of an ongoing redesign of the code. I don’t intend to change the design, because, well, there’s only one of me, and barely even that.