Brainstorm This Controllable & Grouped Turrets

[Mork2]

A simple suggestion that would get people to manually use turrets more. The problem with switching to turrets with the up or down arrow is each one you enter disables the AI as you go around turrets looking for the one looking in the right direction. If you had a setting that would re-enable the AI when you shifted control somewhere else, would make it more viable for people to switch to manual turret control.

Or as posted above a control block allowing the control of a turret with no possibility of undocking it. Allowing other players other than the pilot to manually control turrets from a control room rather than having to walk out and locate the turret core. Though better ship design would make that simpler.

A preferred targeting option would be nice. Even something simple as largest, smallest, closest while on the "any" setting. For largest or smallest go with total system HP though as using mass is bad as they would constantly be changing while taking damage.

 

[SkullCollector]

----- Sure that a human player can do certain stuff better, but if AI has better parameters for target priority I don't really see this as a competitive option, unless manned turrets have some kind of buff. Which in turn would need balancing.

You mentioned that buff yourself later on:

- Fun.

- Parameters.
[...]
--- This is imo the most needed for AI.

This.

If you had a setting that would re-enable the AI when you shifted control somewhere else, would make it more viable for people to switch to manual turret control.

You'd still end up wasting time hammering up or down through dozens of turrets until you find the one you need, up to which point the target may already have moved on and out of its line of fire.

Or as posted above a control block allowing the control of a turret with no possibility of undocking it. Allowing other players other than the pilot to manually control turrets from a control room[...]

My personal biggest issue with a solution like this is that you use the singular: A turret.
AI has no problem dealing with singular targets, after all, there's only one target to choose from. But once you enter flotilla combat or oppose anything with fighters or drone swarms, having all your turrets locked onto anything but their intended effective target, you're gonna have a bad time.

Thus, visibly, a single turret almost always is a mere tickle, barely dishing out enough DPS to scratch the shields of the opponent in equal ship-ship combat. Linking a plural of them in and thus controlling them as groups from a central uplink would open up a vast array of possibilities, as pointed out before.
Combine the grouping of turrets with an act-of-choice I/O system, spice it up with target parameters and turret combat might actually see a well-deserved revival.

 

[Agent_Bladelock]

TL;DR: Let us control groups of turrets as the pilot through a hotbar slot / mode.

To be honest, I hate AI turrets. The idea of literally doing nothing but the occasional dodge while being deep inside enemy territory just alienates me, especially when a capital ship with 360° turret coverage effectively becomes the be-all, end-all solution. Yes, turrets are important, correct and realistic, but I do not think that the current AI implementation can deal with factors such as target priority, burst fire, timing and, most prominently, fun.
There's no tactical thinking involved in letting the AI handle combat (warning: generalisation).

The easiest solution would be to let players control turrets from inside the mothership as the pilot. This is so blatantly obvious that I'm hesitant to even post this because it was definitely suggested before.

To implement this, all I can personally think of is a dedicated turret / hardpoint control mode parallel to flight mode (which optionally disables ship controls) and activates a free-look perspective with an aiming reticle.
All turrets will thus follow the crosshair on the GUI.

This turret control mode will be available similar to how weapons computers work already; either drag one into the hotbar to access it as the pilot, or enter it directly to be in charge of only this system / group of turrets.

Optional: Each of these turret computers can only ever control a fixed amount of turrets, possibly extensible with enhancers.

This would ask for a number of more considerate design decisions:

• proper view port placement to reduce blind spots (disregarding that you can zoom out from anywhere)
• crew; will you sacrifice mobility to assume turret control as a pilot or sacrifice versatility to shed gun control but retain manoeuvrability?
• better armouring of blind spots
• linking / grouping of turret batteries to function as units (to get maximum benefit of the (optional) limited computer capacity)
• in-combat decision making to pick the right battery for a certain threat
• proper f'n broadsides

All this doesn't necessarily make poor Bobby obsolete, though. AI can be utilised with diminishing returns; all turret AIs will have to be linked to the turret computer, but the more you add and the closer you come to the limit, the worse their aim and reaction time will become.
See edit below.

I'm sure there's more to say here, so feel free to discuss and brainstorm this.

Cheers
Skull

Edit to recap a post further down:

("Parameters" being the intended targets' mass, type, role, distance, whatever.)

Thanks for the brainstorming so far.

I totally agree. I just wrote up a much more basic tiny crappy version of this in the suggestions forum a few hours ago, I'll put in a link to your post so whoever sees mine will be directed to this masterpiece.
[DOUBLEPOST=1436146039,1436145777][/DOUBLEPOST]Also, implement this ASAP, devs!!

 

[whooplaah]

My thoughts:

1) Do we want to control turrets one at a time, or in groups?

Spoiler

Groups:
It could be simple (in theory) to have a Turret Control Computer which can slave multiple turret docks but only one camera module. The TCC goes in the ship quickbar, and when activated changes the ship view to whichever camera is slaved to it. The player can still fly the main ship, but cannot access the main ship's weapons or quickbar without exiting the turret control computer. The player cannot control which weapon system on the turrets are active, they simply use whatever main weapon they have. When the player clicks, all turrets attached to the Turret Control Computer's slaved docking areas fire at the cursor location. The player has to exit this view to go back to the main ship's quickbar.

This would entail: loss of access to main ship functions and quickbar, no access to turret's quickbar, control of multiple turrets from one point of view.

Single:
I think this is actually more complicated than using groups...

The change needed for this is a way to cycle between turrets. This could be accomplished if turret docks showed up in the quickbar (with names), and when activated change the player's controls to that of the turret. Bobby AI's should show up in the quickbar for the turret so that a player can exit the turret and go back to controlling the main ship (we also need to make sure that the Bobby AI activates once the player exits control).

This can get a bit complicated with chain docking, though; one dock on the mother ship might actually host 5 different Bobby's. This can be worked around by repeating the same steps. From mothership, I activate Turret Dock 1. Turret Dock 1 has 5 ships docked to it, and so the quickbar for this turret allows me to choose which sub-turret to control. Sub-turret 4 has 2 docked entities, so it continues.

This would entail: inability to switch directly from one turret to another turret, limited access to turrets if using chain docking designs, complete access to turret quickbar and systems.

2) Do we want complete control over the turrets, or just a way to help the AI?

Spoiler

We can avoid most of the hassle of question 1 by limiting how much control the player has over the turret(s). Instead of completely piloting the turret, the player can only control which weapon system is being used and which enemies are being targeted.

To clarify, I see the Turret Control Computer in the Quickbar working like multi-slot hulls do in build mode. Instead of having different shapes, it has different options - assign/clear target, deactivate/reactivate, use primary /secondary weapon, etc.

Use the mothership's quickbar to highlight the Turret Control Computer. Target a ship then click the mouse to 'fire' at it. All slaved docking areas will then target the same vessel until it is destroyed or goes out of range, then revert to at-will behavior. Similarly, clearing targets, deactivating/reactivating turrets (to save power), will let the pilot act more like a general than a soldier or a spectator.

3) Do we want a way to access the Point of View of a turret without taking control of that turret?

Spoiler

I think this would be a neat feature. The mechanics would work similar to question 1, but without the controls obviously. It would allow the pilot to determine whether a turret is being useful before changing its behavior, rather than having the turret stop firing as soon as the pilot jumps into the camera for it.

This feature would also allow multiple pilots to view from one camera/turret/ship while only one of them has control over that entity. Once the player with control exits the entity the control can be grabbed by another player who was watching.

My personal preference would be limited control over groups. I'd like to have a primary turret system, secondary turrets system, missile turret system, etc. which I can point towards a specific goal.

"Main turrets focus on the capital ship, secondary turrets target anything that's close. Have the missile turrets also target the capital ship. Deactivate the beam turrets to save power." The pilot's job is still primarily to pilot the ship and use the ship's weapons, but they can direct the turrets to behave a certain way rather than controlling them completely. Turrets remain automated, but now with player-enhanced directives.

 

[Agent_Bladelock]

I would definitely prefer to control all of the turrets at once-- or at least many turrets in a group.

 

[kookster]

Why not just add a option to bobby AI that allows them to target say where your cursor is. Heck call it "Cursor" and it will always point at where the main ships pilot cursor is.

 

[Groovrider]

While we're at this, is there any way to fit grouping the the AI in? What I mean is if I have 6 turrets in 2 clusters on the sides of my ship I want to be able to set 1 master AI for each group so I have 6 turrets being fired by 2 AI modules. See what I mean?

 

[SkullCollector]

See what I mean?

That is exactly what the second part suggests.

First step: Build your turrets and group them with this new computer.
Second step: Assign the group's computer to a hotbar slot.

As a pilot: Using left-click, activate full-auto mode. The turrets will engage anything within their parameters (and hopefully only cone-of-sight). You can leave this group alone and it will do its thing, say, point-defence.

Using right-click, activate semi-auto mode. The turrets will engage what you have locked on and require a constant feed of new targets. You can leave them alone while they are active, but once the target is destroyed, the turrets revert to standby.

This will keep AI as it is, probably even better, but allows full control over your weapons systems.

Each computer will represent what I think your master AI would do, just so that you can enable and disable it much more quickly. Every group acts as a unit and once activated, does everything in unison, but separate from any other group.
Whether every single turret or just every computer will need an AI module hasn't been discussed yet.

 

[Xskyth]

how about an AI control module that will allow you to take control of turrets with a Bobby in them? possible even take control of drones?

and, being able to set an arc of fire and targeting arcs for the Bobby AIs is a must! this would make broadside guns effective and help prevent lag from turret collisions with the ship.

 

[oninoni]

And you could link it via a similar system to the Cores of the Turrets like Wireless Logic works

 

[jayman38]

I would like to see two turret-control control concepts:
1. A client-side only targeting laser. AI turrets try to hit what you paint, even if it's not CoM. (Take THAT, donut-ships!)
2. A client-side only 3D targeting buoy, to target a specific point in space, for those times when laser-painting won't work, like point defense.

The targeting laser would be a simple, quick, straight-forward mechanic. However, the 3D targeting buoy would be trickier, and the player might not be able to set it quickly enough. Maybe implement a distance control, so that if the targeting laser is fired into empty space, a location based on that vector, out to the specified distance might be a workable, quick buoy-targeting scheme. The problem with that would be aiming at an empty point in space when there is a target-able entity beyond it. Then you'd need some way to quickly choose between entity and buoy targeting.

 

[SkullCollector]

I would like to see two turret-control control concepts:
1. A client-side only targeting laser. AI turrets try to hit what you paint, even if it's not CoM. (Take THAT, donut-ships!)
2. A client-side only 3D targeting buoy, to target a specific point in space, for those times when laser-painting won't work, like point defense.

I could see this as hand-held devices rather than onboard controls for ship turrets. Kind of like in EVE / DUST 514, where you can have a mate in a frigate in orbit around the planet, providing precision strikes on laser-designated positions. It's not exactly necessary in SM as of yet, but maybe once (if) we get a more weak point / critical structure system for ships.

 

[SkullCollector]

Eh, I don't feel that comfortable bumping my own thread, but positive ratings are coming in every other day. Interest seems to be there.
Any word from the devs or council regarding the latest revision of the idea?

 

[Zackey_TNT]

Just go with what every other game does, Turrets follow the crosshair.

 

[ltmauve]

Just go with what every other game does, Turrets follow the crosshair.

Do you honestly want all of them to do that?

 

[Zackey_TNT]

Do you honestly want all of them to do that?

Bobby ai block setting: Follow crosshair.

For PD Simply untick this and leave the ai on targing missiles.

Yes I do want my main 70K block turrets following my orders for once.

 

[kookster]

Idea 1:
When a logic block sends a signal to a bobby AI block it makes it so the turret tracks where the pilot cursor is. Once the signal goes off it stops tracking the cursor.

Idea 2:
Add a new option to bobby AI "cursor".
If a ship has any turrets with its mode set to "cursor", that turret will always track where the main pilots cursor is. Now for firing it could maybe make it so you can add the turrets weapons to your hotbar or just rely on logic.

 

[ltmauve]

I'd think having a computer for controlling turret points is the best option. Simply because a) you may not want your turrets always following the cursor. b) you may want to have different groups controlled by different pilots.

 

[Zackey_TNT]

I'd think having a computer for controlling turret points is the best option. Simply because a) you may not want your turrets always following the cursor. b) you may want to have different groups controlled by different pilots.

I am strongly against not having a cursor option.

I want to be able to control my turrets as in pvp it is normally 1v1 and if its 1v anything you've already lost.

Putting enough firepower down range is all that matters.

Player crew is also useless for PVP i'd rather have another dreadnought along side me then have him man something the ai or myself can man.

 

[ltmauve]

I am strongly against not having a cursor option.

I want to be able to control my turrets as in pvp it is normally 1v1 and if its 1v anything you've already lost.

Putting enough firepower down range is all that matters.

Player crew is also useless for PVP i'd rather have another dreadnought along side me then have him man something the ai or myself can man.

Ah sorry, wasn't clear. The idea is that you put the computer in your hotbar, and right click to toggle the mouse-tracking on-off. When the mouse tracking is on, left-click fires everything.

Or there could be the option to have target designation using the computer as well, it's been brought up in the thread.