Some way to limit number of turrets

[Edymnion]

Just getting back into things, but it seems like we're still at a point where tons of turrets with full range of fire is still the main way to fight, especially on large ships.

With missile spam no longer being as big of a problem, there isn't as much need for point defense turrets, so honestly I'd like to see something in place to encourage use of fewer, more effective turrets than simply covering every inch of hull in them.

I have no good idea how to actually DO that at the moment, but I'd like to see piloting be more important and needing fleets of fighters to protect large ships instead of hundreds of turrets.

 

[Nauvran]

Why use fighters when turrets are cheaper and more reliable?
Fighters have a higher chance of dying and needs engines.
Turrets just need enough room to be usefull

why are you making a suggestion that isnt a suggestion and more of a "I want this, now make it"
The suggestions subforum is for SUGGESTIONS not requests.

 

[Koloss_Meshuggah]

The suggestions subforum is for SUGGESTIONS not requests.

Since when ? I thought it was for demands !

 

[MacThule]

Just getting back into things, but it seems like we're still at a point where tons of turrets with full range of fire is still the main way to fight, especially on large ships.

With missile spam no longer being as big of a problem, there isn't as much need for point defense turrets, so honestly I'd like to see something in place to encourage use of fewer, more effective turrets than simply covering every inch of hull in them.

I have no good idea how to actually DO that at the moment, but I'd like to see piloting be more important and needing fleets of fighters to protect large ships instead of hundreds of turrets.

This came up recently as well, in the context of weapon power draw.

Because game is designed to encourage lower output numbers with a scaling energy penalty, but people bypass the curb by adding more docked weapons. So to uphold the intent, docked weapons - including turrets - ought to be factored into energy scaling at some point in the equation.

This would close a very common loophole and simultaneously reducing the overwhelming incentive to put as much firepower as possible on your turrets, and maybe result in something sort of balanced in terms of sacrifices and advantages.

 

[Edymnion]

Why use fighters when turrets are cheaper and more reliable?
Fighters have a higher chance of dying and needs engines.
Turrets just need enough room to be usefull

Yes, that was the jist of the what I said. Followed by "I think it would be better if we pushed focus away from a million docked entities as a primary combat tactic."

why are you making a suggestion that isnt a suggestion and more of a "I want this, now make it"
The suggestions subforum is for SUGGESTIONS not requests.

I'm sorry, I thought it was implied being that its the suggestion forum and I was stating a current game mechanic and suggesting that a change to the assumption that turrets > fighters is one that should be re-evaluated now that we are getting more fleet support to make automated fighters viable.

I'm sorry if you don't like or support the suggestion, but it was still a suggestion.

 

[Nauvran]

Yes, that was the jist of the what I said. Followed by "I think it would be better if we pushed focus away from a million docked entities as a primary combat tactic."
I'm sorry, I thought it was implied being that its the suggestion forum and I was stating a current game mechanic and suggesting that a change to the assumption that turrets > fighters is one that should be re-evaluated now that we are getting more fleet support to make automated fighters viable.

I'm sorry if you don't like or support the suggestion, but it was still a suggestion.

so instead of a million permantly docked entities you want a million docked entities that needs to undock and dock all the time?

 

[Edymnion]

so instead of a million permantly docked entities you want a million docked entities that needs to undock and dock all the time?

Giving fleets the ability to make jumps is listed on the To Do list. Which means you would not have to dock an entire fleet and launch it, you could travel with the fleet in a convoy.

But even if you couldn't, yes, having a dozen things undock once would be a lot easier to deal with than twice that number having to make nonstop collision checks for being inside the bounding box of the ship.

Unless its changed recently that I didn't notice, docked entities are still the largest source of lag in the game.

But yes, generally speaking, "Ways to reduce the reliance on turrets so that less is more" does typically include making changes to more than one thing to support it.

 

[Coyote27]

As far as I'm aware, the general PvP meta already encourages smaller numbers of larger turrets rather than the inverse; the larger your ship is and the larger the battles are, the more lag-reduction and memory/processor efficiency matter for combat effectiveness as opposed to raw on-paper numbers.

This would close a very common loophole and simultaneously reducing the overwhelming incentive to put as much firepower as possible on your turrets, and maybe result in something sort of balanced in terms of sacrifices and advantages.

That's really not the reason turrets are so popular; the main reason is that the player can only physically use one weapon at a time, and that's only if the ship is oriented to aim. Turrets are a control advantage primarily and the power advantage is a low second.

 

[MacThule]

so instead of a million permantly docked entities you want a million docked entities that needs to undock and dock all the time?

I don't think that the intent is to nerf turrets, though I suppose that would be the net result. I think that maybe you are looking at the extreme possible result though - turrets are OP. It only takes the most casual look at player selection habits between turrets and fighters to see this, and nerfing an OP mechanic which is meant to be an option (rather than the only intelligent decision) is pretty inevitable if players are ever to be given a choice about how they distribute their firepower.

For my part at least, the goal would not be to replace a million of one with a million of the other, but rather to replace a million of one with a variety and a choice. To give players a meaningful choice between fighters and turrets (or some balance of these), while hopefully improving game performance as well.

Because right now, turrets are way better.

The choice is no-choice.

If two opponents have equal resources and one puts his resources into fighters, he will lose against an opponent who invested in a mobile turret platform. That's not an option, that's lack of options. Go turrets or QQ.

The best option previously is to even put turrets on all your fighters (which hurts performance and makes... no sense, to me personally).

Fighters have substantial disadvantages in their ease and effectiveness of use that don't factor into a direct numeric comparison of their strength against turrets, as well as disadvantages which do (needing independent thrust, power, chambers, shields), and this is why even though players have repeatedly shown in math how 'OP' fighters are - in theory - they remain largely unused in reality compared to turrets, which have been the overwhelmingly dominant meta-tactic for years.

Yeah... it seriously sucks because it would (again) nerf some gorgeous, premium ships that represent hundreds even thousands of man-hours of work, but a better game in the future is probably worth it. And I don't think it would obsolete turret-beasts, just make them less overwhelming against a fleet of comparable mass and value composed more of fighters, escorts, frigates or any sort of combined arms approach that represents similar economic and engineering value.
[doublepost=1529620852,1529619407][/doublepost]

That's really not the reason turrets are so popular; the main reason is that the player can only physically use one weapon at a time, and that's only if the ship is oriented to aim. Turrets are a control advantage primarily and the power advantage is a low second.

That is a really good clarification. It is definitely the main driver for me to choose turrets. I would like the option of fighters to distribute that firepower to be competitive as well. Not OP, just comparable.

So the power curb bypass issue may be secondary or even tertiary, but... it exists, it runs counter to what appears to be the games intended functionality (because an onboard output curb exists) and removing it could help bring turrets into better balance with other options like fleeted forepower and possibly even manually directed firepower.

It may never happen, but I would see it as a good change, or at least worth trying out or having as a server option.

 

[Sachys]

So the power curb bypass issue may be secondary or even tertiary, but... it exists, it runs counter to what appears to be the games intended functionality (because an onboard output curb exists) and removing it could help bring turrets into better balance with other options like fleeted forepower and possibly even manually directed firepower.

They could always redo power to fit the defined goals of 2.o

*tumbleweeds*

...well...

Also, your quote of Coyote27 fits the bill as to turret use (aside from the fact they're frubbing cool!). That said, it never stopped me from fleeting a bunch of fighters etc at the same time as a turret boat to basically take the flak - was generally quite effective in pre 2.0 as AIs had a tendency to zone in on them for some reason (my experience, not stating a rule).

 

[Edymnion]

The best option previously is to even put turrets on all your fighters (which hurts performance and makes... no sense, to me personally).

*looks at his latest fighter*

Yeah, I'm guilty of this. My current gen fighter has a turret on it's back. Now granted, its just a point defense turret to protect a fleet from heatseekers, but it is still a fighter with a turret.

I also have designs for fighters that are basically just shells around a ball turret.

 

[Nebulon-B_Frigate_FTW]

Add a small fixed power cost to each turret and it should encourage having fewer of them. Many many small turrets would just eat up your power.

Turrets on fighters actually do make sense for limited purposes, and Star Wars has some examples (mostly on bombers, which are less maneuverable and heavier than standard fighters).

 

[JNC]

PEOPLE!.... what's a demand that you don't care for?... A suggestion

fuk

Also, something you're forgetting:
"Missile + Missile: A bomb with no self-propulsion and uses the ship’s velocity as its own. The bomb will ignore shields, but it is extremely hard to aim and use (almost impossible to fire effectively from large ships). The bomb does friendly fire and will arm itself after several seconds, which means you should clear away after firing one." ~Weapons Update~

Have you tried these? A ship covered in weak turrets would be no contest. I made one out of 27 blocks and it almost made a 35m crater in my test ship! Although, this requires player piloted bombers as SM AI is mostly garbage currently.

Also, no turret can be as powerful or well protected as a hull mounted system. A big ship with a bunch of little turrets sounds like a destroyer, so build a big tank that can shrug off the small hits and pick off the turrets one by one in return.

I'd like to see piloting be more important and needing fleets of fighters to protect large ships instead of hundreds of turrets.

I somewhat agree... I'm hoping the AI crew (much improved AI in general) is part of the answer to this.... they've been in work for some time now. :/ What role do fighter/bombers play in fleet battles? They are both a defensive screen and standoff weapon. Typically they are capable of attacking targets well outside the ranges of turrets. Because we don't have to worry about fuel or anything, a carrier could easily launch an attack on a battleship several sectors away (shitty AI excluded) where as the BS would have to be within 3-6km. In order for this to work for the carrier, the fighter/bombers would have to be able to avoid the targets defensive fire, i.e. big guns move too slowly (perhaps re-balance mass enhancers?) and small AA turrets are inaccurate.... that's why IRL ships had tons of them. Accuracy and such isnt well represented in SM yet but i think we're getting there.... Seems like the best short term balance for this would be turret movement speed and AI re-work. The big guns couldn't track the fighters, and the small guns are too weak to defeat them quickly.... so you'd end up trying to ensure your defensive turrets are appropriately sized in order to track the intended targets and/or use valuable interior space on lots of mass enhancers?