Planned Turret System Control

[Promethesus]

Having control of your turrets (or a selected group of turrets) as a weapon system would be pretty practical.
Engaging in ship v ship combat, sometimes your turrets bug out, so to switch to a fixed location, 3rd person with a weapons cross hair, and where ever you look, thats where your turrets will aim. Making broadside shooting pretty cool. You'll have the option to chose if you want pinpoint shooting (all turrets firing to your crosshair) Or barrage shooting (turrets fire in general area of crosshair). With those options, you'll also have a screen to select which turrets can be controlled. Adding a master control block and attaching it or connecting it to the turrets allows crew on board to enter the control block which he can then use the selected turret, or group of turrets for combat as well. This idea will work great with larger ships.

 

[dwwojcik]

The ability to control turrets as the pilot of a ship would be very cool.

I'm thinking the ability to control a turret or turrets when you aren't the pilot should work with the upcoming chairs. If you sit in a chair that is linked to one or more turret dockers you should be able to control those turrets.

 

[jayman38]

I think to avoid an overpowered pinpoint attack, I think turret control should only allow barrage fire and not pinpoint fire. That is, the turrets on the hotbar (or linked to the control block, or however they are assigned pilot control) as a whole should point where you aim, but all outputs on the turret should shoot straight out their respective barrels as if logic-fired.

This way, builders who build the weapon system with its output properly aligned on the turret will still get precise control, but multi-output turrets won't just focus on a single point, but spread their damage properly, according to the position of various barrels on the turret.

 

[dwwojcik]

You should just be able to tell the turrets in the group(s) you're controlling what to attack, I agree that it might be overpowered if you can tell them where exactly to aim too. If someone else is controlling the ship and you're only directing turrets, obviously you should be able to directly aim the turret of your choice, but the rest of the turrets under your command should just be slaved to yours as if you were a pilot.

There should also be an option to have turrets cease fire. Obviously unnecessary for when you're just clearing out pirates, but it seem like that would be something that might come in handy in roleplaying situations if your enemy wants to surrender instead of being completely destroyed.

 

[Blodge]

I think to avoid an overpowered pinpoint attack, I think turret control should only allow barrage fire and not pinpoint fire. That is, the turrets on the hotbar (or linked to the control block, or however they are assigned pilot control) as a whole should point where you aim, but all outputs on the turret should shoot straight out their respective barrels as if logic-fired.

This way, builders who build the weapon system with its output properly aligned on the turret will still get precise control, but multi-output turrets won't just focus on a single point, but spread their damage properly, according to the position of various barrels on the turret.

I don't consider a pinpoint attack to be overpowered. If I have multiple targets, a pinpoint attack is relatively useless. If I have one big target, rigging the game so that half my available firepower will miss is equally useless. A player should have the freedom to respond how they need to any tactical situation.
Besides, what's the point of adding more turrets if not to add more firepower?

 

[dwwojcik]

I'm pretty sure what jayman was saying was that the turrets should not go out of their way to hit exactly where your crosshair is pointing, not that they should intentionally miss.

 

[jayman38]

I'm pretty sure what jayman was saying was that the turrets should not go out of their way to hit exactly where your crosshair is pointing, not that they should intentionally miss.

Exactly. The turret would shoot straight at the target you are aiming at.

I am thinking along the lines of left-clicking your weapons vs. right-clicking your weapons. With left-clicking, all shots converge on a single point. With right-clicking, all the weapons shoot straight out from their barrels. However, with right-clicking, as long as you are aiming at a target, most of those weapon shots, especially the ones mounted toward the center of your ship, will hit the target under the cursor. It's just that the different outputs will hit different parts of the target.

Example turret:
If it has 5 weapon outputs in a cross pattern, instead of all five weapons hitting the exact block your cursor is aimed at, it should hit 5 different blocks on the target in that same cross pattern. (Well, depending on the terrain of the target and angle of attack, there might be one or two blocks that get hit by two or more different weapon outputs on your same turret.)

 

[Zekester81]

Personally, I'd rather see more control of the turret system we have now. We sort of have that, with being able to set turrets to fire at the pilot's selected target, and I'm happy with that. What I'd like to see is the ability to separate out what turrets do what from the ship core, or from a module on the bridge that could be linked to a chair for NPC. Then you could activate/deactivate groups without having to go to each individual turret to reset them. As it stands now, you can do this sort of, but the command you give to the turrets affects all of them. You can't just set some of your turrets to fire at your target and leave some the way they are, like AMS for example. AMS does no good set to anything other than missiles as targets.

I'd like to be able to: set a group as main turrets that shoot at what I tell them, set another group to fire at whatever is a threat, and set another group as AMS, and be able to activate/deactivate the groups individually. There could be as many groups set up as you like. I just want more control than setting all to a specific target, all to AMS, or all to fire at will.

Not that I'm against what you're proposing, as long as we get the ability to control groups of turrets separately. I also wouldn't want those turrets in different groups set to my task bar not doing anything because I don't currently have them selected, say when I'm using a on-board ships cannon or missile set instead.

 

[Jack Caos]

...
I'd like to be able to: set a group as main turrets that shoot at what I tell them, set another group to fire at whatever is a threat, and set another group as AMS, and be able to activate/deactivate the groups individually. There could be as many groups set up as you like. I just want more control than setting all to a specific target, all to AMS, or all to fire at will.
...

but exactly that you can do. set the Bobby AI of the main turrets to shot at your target. and the other turrets to shot at anything

 

[Zekester81]

but exactly that you can do. set the Bobby AI of the main turrets to shot at your target. and the other turrets to shot at anything

Reading skills please. This has to do with the first paragraph I wrote too, specifically

"What I'd like to see is the ability to separate out what turrets do what from the ship core, or from a module on the bridge that could be linked to a chair for NPC. Then you could activate/deactivate groups without having to go to each individual turret to reset them. As it stands now, you can do this sort of, but the command you give to the turrets affects all of them."

You left out the important part. I want to be able to do this from the ship core or a module, not have to leave it and go to every damn turret to change them to not have to have them all the same like we do now if they are changed from the AI tab. Context is important.

 

[Jack Caos]

Reading skills please. This has to do with the first paragraph I wrote too, specifically

"What I'd like to see is the ability to separate out what turrets do what from the ship core, or from a module on the bridge that could be linked to a chair for NPC. Then you could activate/deactivate groups without having to go to each individual turret to reset them. As it stands now, you can do this sort of, but the command you give to the turrets affects all of them."

Sorry My bad.
But, what you suggest is a really good idea

 

[Nickizzy]

Maybe you can link turret dockers to the core? Or a turret computer? And they would show up as a weapon computerlike thing in the hotbar. Like rail dockers.

When holding onto the turret computer, all turrets in that group will attempt to aim at your crosshair. The turrets, not the barrels. Give the barrels a 10-20° firing ark, but the majority of your aiming will come from your turrets. You could make banks of turrets under one copilot!

 

[Criss]

I am marking this planned, because it is on our long term gameplay features goals list. I cannot say how this will be implemented as it isn't a concern at the moment.

 

[alterintel]

I am marking this planned, because it is on our long term gameplay features goals list. I cannot say how this will be implemented as it isn't a concern at the moment.

I don't see how this will be all that difficult to implement. It shouldn't be all that different than fleets... right?
Just substitute the flag ship for the mother ship, and the fleet members for turrets?

 

[Criss]

I don't see how this will be all that difficult to implement. It shouldn't be all that different than fleets... right?
Just substitute the flag ship for the mother ship, and the fleet members for turrets?

It is never as easy as anything. That's the fun part about making a game from scratch.

 

[Blodge]

I don't see how this will be all that difficult to implement. It shouldn't be all that different than fleets... right?
Just substitute the flag ship for the mother ship, and the fleet members for turrets?

That does sound like a fairly good way to manage turret groups. Using the same principal as fleet management would make it intuitive to use. Set a Primary turret, add other turrets to the group, issue orders such as "Target missile", "Target my Target", "Idle" etc. I would suggest a Turret Computer block be created containing the Turret list and orders menu, which could be accessed either by pressing R and entering the computer, or added to your ship's Hotbar and the menu brought-up when the Computer is "fired" from the Hotbar slot.

As an alternate method, Turret Cores could be linked to a Turret Computer which would then only show the orders menu for the linked Turrets when fired. Creating separate Turret groups would require a Turret Computer for each individual group.

I'm more in favour of the first suggestion as it makes Turret management a more full-time job for whichever co-pilot gets lumbered with gunnery control duties