Optimal turret use

[Brain_Dawgs]

I am currently trying to build a good-sized frigate that's meant to hold its own in a fight, but the turrets are picked off in seconds.

Here is the ship:

I can see that just blanketing the ship with turrets wasn't a good idea. What would be the best use for turrets on a ship like this, and are there additional ways to make it more battle capable?

Stats:

Power: 1434052.2 (1039500.8 per second)
Shields: 94000 (8827 per second)
Thrust: 2679.4
Mass: 7059.9
Length:103
Width: 63
Height: 38

 

[Megacrafter127]

Spamming little turrets has the downside of the turrets being very weak. I e.g. only use a maximum of 2 turrets per side, and then those turrets regularly need a medium/large expanded docking box. The bigger the single turret, the harder it is to loose it, the more turrets there are, the less does the loss of a single one hurt.

 

[Yetimania]

I would strongly recommend using a smaller number of larger turrets, for a number of reasons:
1. the hull:weapon/shield ratio is more in your favour (small turrets might be 1/2 hull blocks, large turrets might be 1/8-1/10)
2. more shields per turret
3. easier to replace after the battle
4. less lag

I try not to have more than one turret with the same field of fire. I like to have one on the left, one on the right, one on the top, and one on the bottom; and I make those turrets really, really big. Think less "small defensive gun" and more "turret on a tank."

 

[Brain_Dawgs]

This has given me new ideas to try, and a better idea of what I'm doing. Thanks

 

[Aecetym]

Well if the small turrets get picked off easily, try building bigger ones.

Its like you said, you coated the ship with turrets but they don't pack enough of a punch. So if they can't kill then all they are is distraction from the core.

 

[karkinosz]

Aren't the turrets going to hit each other so close together? I know turrets can damage each other and AI is too stupid to not friendly fire...

 

[Keptick]

Apparently aceface is of the opinion that spamming lots of mini turrets (or some other tactic) is a better idea. Care to explain why instead of disagreeing with every post in this thread?

 

[CyberTao]

Sometimes a few small turrets are useful, like Rapid fire weapons to help in keeping shields down against a fast/small. But ultimately, you would want a few larger turrets over many small ones o -o

The issue I have with Large turrets atm is accuracy was fixed to a degree, and Damage is Linear. So if you merge 3 turrets into one, that turret has 3x the damage, but the with 3 turrets you're more likely to hit with a shot or two (Plus a flurry of missiles if more impressive looking xD). Aside from that; Large turrets are big and easier to hit, so rely more on shields then small turrets. But with a cluster of small turrets, a missile can more easily take several out o -o There are Pros and Cons to both small and Large turrets methinks :p

Aren't the turrets going to hit each other so close together? I know turrets can damage each other and AI is too stupid to not friendly fire...

Pretty sure that was a Bug, and I thought it was fixed now o - o

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

Spamming lots of small turrets is a bad idea if the opponent has missiles. I've done combat runs against turret spam ships and the first salvo of missiles from my ship renders them all dead and useless.

 

[Lord Daro]

How big you build the turrets also depents highly on what kind of tasks the ship is suppost to perform.
(Altougth, turrets that fit on just a single docking block, are definitly to small in most situation)

The bigger the targets you want your turrets to fight off, the bigger they have to be.

 

[Lecic]

Turrets that fit on a single docking block are really only useful for a helper turret on a fighter (I have a nice little design for 7x7x7 boxes, but it's kind of outdated) or on ground vehicles, where the turret is usually manned by a player and not AI.

 

[Hanspeter Schnitzel]

Small turrets look better though, big turrets stick out of the ship's shape so much. >.> I know that it would ruin a bit of the tactical part of the game if turrets were covered by the hostship's shield, but at least we wouldn't need those huge turrets then to effectively put turrets on our ships. Many small turrets can look so much better.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

Small turrets look better though, big turrets stick out of the ship's shape so much. >.> I know that it would ruin a bit of the tactical part of the game if turrets were covered by the hostship's shield, but at least we wouldn't need those huge turrets then to effectively put turrets on our ships. Many small turrets can look so much better.

Personally I don't like how turret spam looks, a wall of guns all pointed at each other in most cases. I do have a lot of turrets ranging in sizes and I cover my ships best as possible while still leaving "lines of fire"

If you think your bigger turrets are ugly and stick out it only means you need to tweak your designs. Make lower profile turrets that hug the ship better and compliment it well.

 

[Lecic]

If you think your bigger turrets are ugly and stick out it only means you need to tweak your designs. Make lower profile turrets that hug the ship better and compliment it well.

Slightly embedding a turret in the ship by docking it in a shallow dugout area can help with that.

 

[KiloZulu]

The main problem that small turrets face that I've seen are:
1. Energy for weapons plus a sufficient number of shield cap/regen makes for a big turret regardless of desire.
2. Enemy missiles can get to unprotected ship cores via area of effect damage.

The spacing of the turrets is important in order to minimize the number that can get hit by the splash damage of any one missile, and to avoid damage if you are using missile turrets of your own.

 

[Brain_Dawgs]

I have decided to try replacing all the turrets with 12 large and indented turrets spaced evenly on the ship along with thickening the ship's black armor plating. That should not only be more atheistically pleasing, but also be more tactically sound.

 

[Hanspeter Schnitzel]

Personally I don't like how turret spam looks, a wall of guns all pointed at each other in most cases. I do have a lot of turrets ranging in sizes and I cover my ships best as possible while still leaving "lines of fire"

If you think your bigger turrets are ugly and stick out it only means you need to tweak your designs. Make lower profile turrets that hug the ship better and compliment it well.

No no, not turret spam. I'm talking about lower profile turrets. :P I'm saying those look better than high turrets. A big flat disk also doesn't look great though. And of course turrets need space between eachother, so they don't get blown off all at once, but also for the looks.

 

[Qweesdy]

The problem with low profile turrets is that you end up with a worse "internal blocks to hull" ratio. Best case would be a cube (starmade's equivalent of a sphere, with minimum surface blocks and maximum volume) and the flatter it gets the worse it gets until you get down to 2 blocks high and it's all hull blocks.

What I've been doing for a long time is countersinking the turrets. For example, I might have a turret that's 17 blocks high that's recessed into the ship by 13 blocks, so that only the top 4 blocks protrude. I wouldn't say this looks pretty though, because you need to recess the whole turret docking area (I do it to make it harder for the enemy to hit the turret).

 

[Hanspeter Schnitzel]

Never make the bottom of a turret hull, there is no use in that. You barely see the bottom when it moves around.

 

[Qweesdy]

Never make the bottom of a turret hull, there is no use in that. You barely see the bottom when it moves around.

Turrets spin left/right; but can also point up by 45 degrees. When they are pointing up (if they aren't "extremely recessed") the entire bottom is exposed.

For an example, imagine a turret on top a ship with an enemy sitting above the turret shooting down at it. Now imagine a second enemy coming from the side.

Of course there's also the aesthetics issue - I'm relatively selective when it comes looking at exposed bottoms.