Turret construction best practices and questions

[paladin.oa]

Hi all, I'm working on my now third turret, and will be revisiting the other two that I made since I've learned a few things, but meanwhile I have a few questions about them.

1. Earlier I read that power generation and storage on turrets is bugged so it's better to just have the base ship provide the power, is this still the case?

2. If I have a turret of a particular size that I want to build and end up with empty space, what should I fill that empty space with? Bigger guns, more shield capacitors/rechargers, power storage/generation (related to question 1 above), and/or something else?

3. Is there a way to spawn a turret on a turret axis via creative mode or admin commands? I plan on making some very large ships with many turrets and it would be a pain to dock them all manually after spawning them in empty space nearby.

4. Is there any general best practices to follow when building turrets?

Thanks all.

 

[Sgtwisky]

1. The issue with turrets and power, is that you ether need them to be 100% self powered, or just 100% drawing from the ship. Anything in between causes issues currently.

Spoiler: The Issue/Bug

You can have the power stored in the guns OR the base OR the main ship. The issue is that when the turret is only partly powered, you end up with the turret draining all its energy, and going into power failure. The turret never stops pressing the "Fire The Guns" button, so it keeps drawing power from the main ship, when its power starts to generate again (what you put on the gun or base) it uses that power, and fails again. So yea its still bugged.

2. It depends. Do you expect the shields on the main ship to go down fast? Then maybe you want extra shielding on the guns. If not, then adding more firepower could be the way to go. BUT then again, if your doing a self powered turret, and you can't afford to power more guns, then I would say shields, thus avoiding the bug from #1.

3. Not that I am aware of, but I have not really tried.

4. I try to design all my turrets to be mountable on the outside of my ships. Mainly to reduce lag that is caused from collision checks. It has the added benefit of not allowing the turret to lag collide inside part of your hull when its shot off. Other then that I don't know of any good practices. And that's only what I use for myself. Not sure what others may do.

 

[AtraUnam]

4. In terms of effectiveness sphere turrets can fit halfway inside the hull and have the widest range of motion. This is more laggy when they undock though.

 

[Master_Artificer]

well, now AI doesnt cause power outages you know

 

[AtraUnam]

well, now AI doesnt cause power outages you know

It doesn't? when did this happen!

 

[Keptick]

well, now AI doesnt cause power outages you know

Since when??? Proof? I hope that it's true

 

[Master_Artificer]

Don't you guys remember the update where AI don't draw power once capacitors fall below 30%?
Doesn't that affect turrets now?

 

[Madman198237]

I've yet to fully combat-test my vessels, but I build some turrets with embedded citadels on the horizontal rotator (Turrets have 2 axes, and in my terminology the first rotator [The one mounted to the mothership] is the horizontal axis) in order to provide the power needed for each turret to be self-powered. Also, I use these citadels to provide extra shielding.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Hi all, I'm working on my now third turret, and will be revisiting the other two that I made since I've learned a few things, but meanwhile I have a few questions about them.

1. Earlier I read that power generation and storage on turrets is bugged so it's better to just have the base ship provide the power, is this still the case?

2. If I have a turret of a particular size that I want to build and end up with empty space, what should I fill that empty space with? Bigger guns, more shield capacitors/rechargers, power storage/generation (related to question 1 above), and/or something else?

3. Is there a way to spawn a turret on a turret axis via creative mode or admin commands? I plan on making some very large ships with many turrets and it would be a pain to dock them all manually after spawning them in empty space nearby.

4. Is there any general best practices to follow when building turrets?

Thanks all.

1: The above posters nailed it. I would follow their advice on this. Powering turrets can be tricky and in extreme cases, if you're not careful, turrets can drain all the main ship's power, leaving it unable to recharge shields or even move. I fell for this once.

Spoiler

Missiles (especially multi-arrays) draw a lot of power. This ship actually became immobilized by the power drain of it's own turrets. The design has since been decommissioned, pending a refit.

On the other hand, putting all your power in the gun or the turret base works like a charm. Be sure to add enough capacitors.

Spoiler

20% ship, 5% base 75% gun... and DON'T forget the mass enhancers!

2: For small turrets, I recommend shields to protect against missile splash damage after your shields drop below 50%. For larger turrets that are unpowered, add more weaponry, or shields. For self-powered turrets, I add a blend of shields and power capacity so that if the turret is damaged, it can still fire without running into the power bug.

3: Not yet, but it would make a great suggestion to the Dev team and save a lot of time.

4: Good practices include;
- giving your turrets the most rotational clearance possible to increase their firing arc and minimize collisions.
- taking advantage of the new armor 'slabs' to add protection as well as aesthetics to your turrets.
- surrounding your rail docker with armor so the turret doesn't get blown off by enemy gunfire in combat.
- adding sufficient mass enhancers to the turret base so that it can rotate at full speed. For some reason the game doesn't recognize the enhancers on the main ship. It's possibly a bug or it could be an intended feature to avoid crazy stuff like the turret I posted above.

 

[Edymnion]

1: The above posters nailed it. I would follow their advice on this. Powering turrets can be tricky and in extreme cases, if you're not careful, turrets can drain all the main ship's power, leaving it unable to recharge shields or even move. I fell for this once.

Spoiler

Missiles (especially multi-arrays) draw a lot of power. This ship actually became immobilized by the power drain of it's own turrets. The design has since been decommissioned, pending a refit.

Side note for this ship, or more specifically those turrets.

There is an energy tax of I believe 10% per additional array attached to a computer.

So if you had a hypothetical weapon that used 1 energy per module, and you built a single array of 100 modules, it would cost 100 energy to fire. But if you split it into two arrays of 50 blocks each, it would cost 110 power (extra 10% power usage for having that second array). Split it again into 4 barrels of 25 each, and you're using 130 power. 10 arrays at 10 blocks each would be eating 190 power.

Trick for multiple barrel turrets, long as you have the room, is to give each barrel it's own computer setup, as the AI can fire multiple weapon computers at once (players can't).

If each barrel has it's own computer setup, the energy tax is avoided as each weapon is only a single array, the AI just happens to fire them all together like they were linked.

Also lets you mix and match the tertiary effects of the barrels (so you could put Ion on some, EMP on some, and Stop on some to have lots of debilitating effects on the same turret).

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Side note for this ship, or more specifically those turrets.

There is an energy tax of I believe 10% per additional array attached to a computer.

So if you had a hypothetical weapon that used 1 energy per module, and you built a single array of 100 modules, it would cost 100 energy to fire. But if you split it into two arrays of 50 blocks each, it would cost 110 power (extra 10% power usage for having that second array). Split it again into 4 barrels of 25 each, and you're using 130 power. 10 arrays at 10 blocks each would be eating 190 power.

Trick for multiple barrel turrets, long as you have the room, is to give each barrel it's own computer setup, as the AI can fire multiple weapon computers at once (players can't).

If each barrel has it's own computer setup, the energy tax is avoided as each weapon is only a single array, the AI just happens to fire them all together like they were linked.

Also lets you mix and match the tertiary effects of the barrels (so you could put Ion on some, EMP on some, and Stop on some to have lots of debilitating effects on the same turret).

Yeah. I learned that the hard way. Unfortunately, there was no way to save this design since it was built before they re-introduced that power penalty. All my newer ship/turret designs are tailored to fit the AI capability to fire multiple systems simultaneously. I make power capacity a much higher priority than regeneration and even shields now. I consider the self-powering of large turrets mandatory on my designs. I've had no issues with power since then.

 

[Madman198237]

Yeah, most of my turret designs, in order to maximize firepower and self-sufficiency, are unshielded. That said, all the turret designs I'm working on are unfinished, pending integration with a vessel that's been on hold for a few days.

I am, however, going to be looking into the metrics of powering multiple turrets with a single extra docked reactor, and seeing just how the required space comes out (Two or more separate citadels or one extra docked reactor?)

 

[Nickizzy]

1. The issue with turrets and power, is that you ether need them to be 100% self powered, or just 100% drawing from the ship. Anything in between causes issues currently.

Spoiler: The Issue/Bug

You can have the power stored in the guns OR the base OR the main ship. The issue is that when the turret is only partly powered, you end up with the turret draining all its energy, and going into power failure. The turret never stops pressing the "Fire The Guns" button, so it keeps drawing power from the main ship, when its power starts to generate again (what you put on the gun or base) it uses that power, and fails again. So yea its still bugged.

2. It depends. Do you expect the shields on the main ship to go down fast? Then maybe you want extra shielding on the guns. If not, then adding more firepower could be the way to go. BUT then again, if your doing a self powered turret, and you can't afford to power more guns, then I would say shields, thus avoiding the bug from #1.

3. Not that I am aware of, but I have not really tried.

4. I try to design all my turrets to be mountable on the outside of my ships. Mainly to reduce lag that is caused from collision checks. It has the added benefit of not allowing the turret to lag collide inside part of your hull when its shot off. Other then that I don't know of any good practices. And that's only what I use for myself. Not sure what others may do.

Don't forget indented turrets! Make the base really deep and extend far into the hull(this is for larger ships), give it a bunch of shielding and power. Lets the barrel be pure weapons.

 

[Madman198237]

Yeah, Nickizzy. That's how I build it. My turrets (That need power or shielding) all come with a citadel of some sort.

 

[Edymnion]

Don't forget indented turrets! Make the base really deep and extend far into the hull(this is for larger ships), give it a bunch of shielding and power. Lets the barrel be pure weapons.

You can also make three part turrets for this.

Build the turret normally, then build an intermediary socket with power and shields that it plugs into, which you then dock to the ship (make sure you turn off the rail you dock the plug to though, in order to prevent lag).

Upside there being that it gives you a standardized shape to cut into your hull.

 

[Keptick]

Don't you guys remember the update where AI don't draw power once capacitors fall below 30%?
Doesn't that affect turrets now?

Uh.... what are you talking about? >_>

 

[Madman198237]

Edymnion, the same can be used for a two-stage design, like I build,

The problem comes when you have two types of weapon requiring two different types of power (Cannon requires continuous draw, missiles alpha drop and slow recharge) and then have to switch out bases.

 

[Nickizzy]

Edymnion, the same can be used for a two-stage design, like I build,

The problem comes when you have two types of weapon requiring two different types of power (Cannon requires continuous draw, missiles alpha drop and slow recharge) and then have to switch out bases.

Just go overkill and be able to handle both. If you think that's inefficent then make your turrets have both too.

 

[Madman198237]

That or do one of the things I was considering, and use power supply beams or something to power the mothership if the turret's not drawing both.

The other option is simply to standardize turret wells, and dedicate the remaining space in this well on turrets that don't need the full space to shielding. Nobody ever died because they used up some empty space for shielding.

Well, unless they then failed to outrun an enemy.....

 

[StarWars1981]

I'm thinking of several turret designs. Mainly, yeah, ball turrets. Massive rotation, but they do require armor almost all the way around. However, they don't look foolish when pointed all the way up.
Second one has a tower on it, like a battleship's superfiring turrets. These ones look like they're built to fire over others, and indeed they are, but this lets them NOT dig into the hull, taking up more blocks than they need, and still be self-powered. Haven't built one, so it'll have various issues, but it's a neat idea.