Quick Turret Questions

[Spartan4845]

Two quick questions about turrets that I hope someone knows.

1) Do turrets get no benefits from their mother ships shields?

2) I've seen ships with turrets built inside them that fire through the mother ships hull, but when I build it they fire but don't go through. What am I doing wrong?

 

[Criss]

1 - Docked entities do not recieve shields from the mothership.

2 - While I can understand you wish to achieve what others have accomplished, I would also consider it a design flaw. It's a bit cheaty. Im not sure it is supposed to work anyway. Perhaps that is why you can't get it working.

 

[blurb357]

yep Vanhelzing is totally right, the docked entities would not gain mothership's shields as that would mean that turrets would be OP as you would have to take down the main ship's shields first, and secondly, turrets should not fire through the hull of the mothership, it is a bug, and it makes the turrets OP in a way similar to the way you explained above.

 

[Criss]

yep Vanhelzing is totally right, the docked entities would not gain mothership's shields as that would mean that turrets would be OP as you would have to take down the main ship's shields first, and secondly, turrets should not fire through the hull of the mothership, it is a bug, and it makes the turrets OP in a way similar to the way you explained above.

I wouldn't mind a fraction of shields to be dedicated to turrets. Or something. On small ships the turrets are small. And small turrets are easily killed.

 

[SmilingDemon]

a shield system that is linkable to the docking block and then transfers its properties to what ever is docked. that would be nice.

 

[tno1]

Better is what Vanhelzing suggested a fraction like fx, 1/100th of the motherships shield will be given to the turrets :p

 

[Thalanor]

What annoys me most about turrets is that you need giant hulking gunhouses just to have halfway decent shielding. The need for turret shielding really does make them ugly in many cases; giving turrets 1% of mothership shields (but no more than a hardcap like 50k, so fighter-bombers still had targets) would make things interesting. For most turrets, you'd just include a couple rechargers, but the small turrets can be good-looking.

 

[Malacodor]

2) I've seen ships with turrets built inside them that fire through the mother ships hull, but when I build it they fire but don't go through. What am I doing wrong?

Turrets don't fire when parts of their mothership are in the line of fire. But since there's no collision detection between ships and docked turrets it's possible to have most of a turret inside of a ship and just the tip of a gun barrel sticking out.

 

[jayman38]

a shield system that is linkable to the docking block and then transfers its properties to what ever is docked. that would be nice.

Now this is interesting and sounds like it is right in line with what the devs seem to be designing. This way, you can -either- dedicate those shield blocks to the mother ship -or- to the turret, but not both. Very interesting idea.

 

[Mered4]

I was thinking just give the shields of the mothership to the docked entity - make them one big entity. That way, turrets can be smaller and yet still be effective. It would also put more emphasis on good shielding.

But yes, turrets used to fire through their motherships, which is wildly exploited in many builds from that era. Just download Skylord's Executor and peek inside the side walls :D

 

[Thalanor]

There must be some boundaries though, because it does make sense that turrets are somewhat more vulnerable. Given how turrets are your ship's defenses against smaller ships, said smaller ships should be able to do effective damage to the turrets (but not the mothership itself).

If it was limited but allowed to give turrets shields without making them huge and bulky, that would be awesome. I think 100k would be a good shield sharing cap between mothership and turret (with whatever system).

 

[Panpiper]

I would suggest rather than have ship's shields cover 100% of their turrets up to a certain limit (which would be very difficult to code), rather just give them a percentage of cover. Something like 50% of fire on a turret gets soaked by the ship's shields and the other 50% by the turret. Alternatively make the percentage of ship shield cover for turrets be something that is customizable by adding a new shield block.

On a related question, anybody know what the angle of traverse is for a turret? Can they point straight up? And does this not expose the ship core on their belly to enemy fire? Or have I again failed to divine something crucial and is there a way to put the turret's ship core behind a hull block?

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

Turret shots now do not penetrate the mother ship. They will probably still fire from the inside but their shots will not pass through any solid block. Interior turrets should no longer work.

 

[Bloodlance]

Docked stuff inside a ship gets hit by targetted missiles and targetted guns fire.

so docking stuff "hidden" does not help

 

[SmilingDemon]

Bloodlance .. yes ... but that is also a known bug

 

[Lecic]

I was thinking just give the shields of the mothership to the docked entity - make them one big entity. That way, turrets can be smaller and yet still be effective. It would also put more emphasis on good shielding.

How could you make the mothership and turrets a single entity, while still having moving parts? They can't be the same entity (and therefor share the same block grid) and have moving parts.

 

[Mered4]

How could you make the mothership and turrets a single entity, while still having moving parts? They can't be the same entity (and therefor share the same block grid) and have moving parts.

I have a certain feeling schema could pull it off. :D

Personally, I would keep the current turret docking block we have now and just make all blocks connected to it's action face ACT like a turret, be classified as a turret, then redesign the entire system to make it work. It would be a lot of work, no doubt, but I've come to realize that the system needs a long-term solution and not a quick fix.

 

[Lecic]

I have a certain feeling schema could pull it off. :D

Personally, I would keep the current turret docking block we have now and just make all blocks connected to it's action face ACT like a turret, be classified as a turret, then redesign the entire system to make it work. It would be a lot of work, no doubt, but I've come to realize that the system needs a long-term solution and not a quick fix.

There's a difference between "this is complicated to code" and "this would probably require rewriting massive amounts of existing code for relatively no reason."

There IS a turret revamp coming. We know that. I'm just doubting it will involve rotating blocks while still being one entity.

 

[SeaSloth]

I wonder if turret shielding could work similar to how Calbiri described assigning thrust in this thread. That way you could assign it to turrets from the "shield pool" at the cost of sacrificing some the ship's own shields.

 

[Mered4]

There's a difference between "this is complicated to code" and "this would probably require rewriting massive amounts of existing code for relatively no reason."

There IS a turret revamp coming. We know that. I'm just doubting it will involve rotating blocks while still being one entity.

I still consider it the best option. It provides more freedom to building ships with turrets than any other option thus presented.

In addition, it would greatly reduce the entity count on ships in general, which would be amazing for performance problems in that area.