New Turret Design Idea

[Lecic]

I have decided that the current turret design has major flaws. I've made some graphics showing off the problems at the moment.

Those are the current turrets above. I feel they have major problems, in how they work. Turrets clip wildly into their own ships, and aim at impossible angles to fire at ships. Seeing a turret sticking sideways out of a ship to fire at something is ridiculous and annoying for people in small ships trying to avoid larger ships turrets.

This is how I feel the turrets SHOULD be.

A Gun Dock would be similar to a Turret Dock, except it would only be able to rotate up and down. With the implementation of Gun Docks, Turret Docks would only be allowed to rotate left and right. Things attached to Gun Docks should use the power and shields of the main turret body they are attached to, similarly to how turrets already use power from their main ship if they are not provided their own. I also included a cap on how high and low the Gun Dock could rotate the gun, finally deciding on a 0* for the lower cap to prevent clipping into the ship, and a 75* upper cap to prevent aiming straight up with the gun.

The gun would not need a bobby ai for itself. If the main turret has one, the gun uses it. If a gun is given a bobby ai, however, it overrides the ai the turret is using. This could be used to have turrets face towards an enemy, but not fire until given the command via lock-on from the pilot of the main ship.

Along with these turret changes, I would like to suggest a turn speed limiter on turrets similar to those on ships, but at a much higher level, probably at a 5:1 rate. A turret that is 30 meters long would turn at the speed of a ship that is 150 meters long.

As well as improving turrets, people could use these new combinations to produce cool mechanisms. I had an idea for using one to launch fighters out of a hanger.

Edit 1: If something is docked to a Gun Dock, it does not have a diamond that shows up on the HUD. Also, yes, the gun section of a turret would require extenders.

 

[Aecetym]

Wouldn\'t that make turrets really weak as the AMC part of the turret would need to be in the barrel/gun part. With the need of extenders and hull the only way of making a viable turret would be something like this.



(if you don\'t get it: the barrel or main turret part is supported by 2 connecting arms)

Now to me that is not a bad thing but it would pretty much kill most turret designs or at least lower the viable build options for them.

But i support the overal idea of fixing the way turrets act now.

 

[Lecic]

Most of my turrets are already pretty useable with this new type of system. I mostly have AMCs in the \"barrel\" area of the turret, and shields and power in the \"body\" area. If you design your turrets with a lot of AMCs in the back area, then yes, you may need to redesign.

 

[Zeveryn]

Gauss cannon From Ogame :P

 

[firestar3637]

+1. Good idea! I\'ve always thought it was stupid that turrets could be inside the mothership.

 

[Aecetym]

In that case you\'re turrets are or pretty large that they can compensate the loss or laughably weak. What makes me wonder what they look like.

 

[NeonSturm]

Suggested before, but not with images!

 

[Calbiri]

How about a \"Pivot\" and a \"Rotation\" set of check boxes on the Turret dock block, that way you can set the behavior the turret has. (These two options could also be used by AI or Lua to create motors and hinges)

Also, an option to place the core at any height would allow much more natural looking turrets when pivoting (since the core is the center or pivot)

 

[jzimmerman4]

Instead of adding a new dock why not use rotating blocks like from the minecraft mod ugocraft. This would allow for the turret to remain one entity and not clip into the ship it is docked to.

 

[AlveKatt]

I suggested this very thing a while back, and I still want it to happen. Would love it to become true.



Edit: I would want negative inclinition to be possible though. I really think this should be calculated on a case by case basis depending on the geometry of the turret and the ship it\'s on.

 

[Crusade]

To create more realistic looking turrets turn docking validation off.

This way you can create brackets for your turret to sit in, like this;


Granted it will still clip into the ship, but at least now it looks physically connected to your ship!

 

[therimmer96]

yesss please, an option to configure how far away the ship is from the docking unit between 0 and 1 blocks would be nice

 

[BeefBacon]

Could something similar be achieved by chain docking? Add some parameter that says the first turret (the base) cannot fire and cannot change pitch and roll, but the turret attached to the first turret can only change pitch but can fire. Perhaps. I have no idea. Where am I?

 

[NeonSturm]

Could something similar be achieved by chain docking?


It won\'t turn at all or in all directions toward the target. It won\'t use the shields of the turret-ship between turret and your main ship.

I think that is a clear no...

 

[Lecic]

I specifically made this because of turrets clipping into ships.

 

[firestar3637]

Precisely. I don\'t much care about how turrets are docked, or how they move, it\'s just that right now, when turrets rotate, they can be inside the mothership to be able to aim at an enemy. Lecic\'s idea is a way to solve that, and I don\'t see how turning docking validation off would fix the problem.

 

[firestar3637]

The idea is less about making turrets move in the way that is described in the diagrams than it is about keeping turrets from being where the mothership is. Even if you chain docked and disabled different movements of the turret, it would still have the capability to occupy the same space as its mothership. The main point of this thread is to figure out a way to avoid that. The system proposed by Lecic is one of the ways to achieve this.

However, the idea proposed by Lecic is just ONE idea to fix the problem of turrets occupying the same space as the mothership. Maybe it could simply be programmed into the turrets\' code to not take up the same space as the mothership. (I don\'t know if this is feasible, as I\'m not a programmer).

 

[lazarus78]

If you consider the OPs method of a second docking block for the pitch of the guns, you could allow this block to be linked to an AMC array and any other AMCs attached to the barrel would count for the attached array in the body of the turret.



My only issue with this idea (which I do like where its going, so dont get me wrong) is that I like making smaller ships, and having more blocks needed to make functional turrets decreases my avalible work-space. Which is why i mention making the barrels able to link to arrays inside the turret body, so i can keep my smaller turrets and still comply with the proposed method.

 

[Legolas170]

guess that you could just have side-to-side rotation on fighter turrets. If we\'re talking about fighters, their agility should make up for lack of turret angles, and if you REALLY wanted that turret coverage it would only take 4 turrets. Also, I thought I heard calbiri say that you would have an option ( maybe) so that you could still have a turret in the current fashion.

 

[WaffulMann]

Maybe gun docks can share 90% shields or something?

And, in reply to lazarus, maybe implement cross-dock weapons sharing? Like, you can link ship-part guns to turrets, or turret/ship-part guns to gun docks, with a designated output block?