Turret fire groups

[uberadiant]

I made this suggestion in another thread about targeting a couple of weeks ago, but I've been thinking about it a little more and feel like it would be useful to gather people's opinions.

Basically, instead of targeting another entity and just having all your turrets letting rip at it as they see fit, how about we introduce firegroups as a way of controlling them? It would work like this -

The weapons screen could show a list of turrets currently docked.

Also in the weapons screen is an "Add Firegroup" button.

Clicking on the button adds "Firegroup 1", "Firegroup 2" etc. to the weapons screen, displayed in much the same way as individual weapons are now. Firegroups can then be renamed i.e. missile group, forward beam group etc. AI can be set per group, or per individual turret.

Turrets can then be dragged into a particular firegroup. When at least one turret is added to a firegroup, a new icon appears in the hotbar (or in a specific weapons bar maybe?)

Activating the firegroup icon in the hotbar commands all turrets in that group to fire on the specified target. Clicking again orders them to cease fire. No weapons are fired until the icon is activated.

This would allow players to order specific groups of turrets to fire on command. Perhaps useful if you only want to fire specific types of weapons, say to bring shields down without causing too much hull damage. And nothing would fire on your target until a firegroup is activated, allowing you to select a target and see all of its information without opening fire.

For picking off small fighters and missiles, perhaps a specific "point defence" option could be added, maybe as a tick box or something in the firegroup bar in the weapons screen. All turrets in that group would then automatically target and engage hostiles in their range under a certain mass.

Thoughts?

 

[Nickizzy]

I made this suggestion in another thread about targeting a couple of weeks ago, but I've been thinking about it a little more and feel like it would be useful to gather people's opinions.

Basically, instead of targeting another entity and just having all your turrets letting rip at it as they see fit, how about we introduce firegroups as a way of controlling them? It would work like this -

The weapons screen could show a list of turrets currently docked.

Also in the weapons screen is an "Add Firegroup" button.

Clicking on the button adds "Firegroup 1", "Firegroup 2" etc. to the weapons screen, displayed in much the same way as individual weapons are now. Firegroups can then be renamed i.e. missile group, forward beam group etc. AI can be set per group, or per individual turret.

Turrets can then be dragged into a particular firegroup. When at least one turret is added to a firegroup, a new icon appears in the hotbar (or in a specific weapons bar maybe?)

Activating the firegroup icon in the hotbar commands all turrets in that group to fire on the specified target. Clicking again orders them to cease fire. No weapons are fired until the icon is activated.

This would allow players to order specific groups of turrets to fire on command. Perhaps useful if you only want to fire specific types of weapons, say to bring shields down without causing too much hull damage. And nothing would fire on your target until a firegroup is activated, allowing you to select a target and see all of its information without opening fire.

For picking off small fighters and missiles, perhaps a specific "point defence" option could be added, maybe as a tick box or something in the firegroup bar in the weapons screen. All turrets in that group would then automatically target and engage hostiles in their range under a certain mass.

Thoughts?

Great solution to the Death-By-Navscreen things. Are we using the Fx keys yet? We could make them the hot keys for each group. Holding Fx would show what that group is targeting.

 

[uberadiant]

Holding Fx would show what that group is targeting.

I like that idea, the more information you can get at a glance, the better. We could even have a hotbar at the top of the screen corresponding to each function key, showing the name of the firegroup and having it highlighted if it's actively firing.

 

[MacThule]

It would be awesome to be able to group turrets and activate them directly from the hotbar.

 

[Nickizzy]

activate them directly from the hotbar.

? Explain.

 

[MacThule]

? Explain.

Scenario:
You're flying a frigate with 6 small anti-capital turrets. 3 of them have 50% ion. 3 have 50% pierce. You also have some main weapons. The frigate has enough power, but not to unload everything at once nonstop. You don't want your piercing turrets opening fire if your opponent is still above 10-20% shields, and once enemy shields are down, if the regen isn't insane, it would be nice to switch off the ion cannons and save that energy for thrust, jamming, shield regen, other turrets, main weapons, etc.

Consider that you might have some turrets set to target ALL (enemy) but others set to SELECTED. You don't want the focus turrets firing on every ship you select to examine, but you don't want the standard turrets turned off and run into trouble then need to waste time turning them on when you should be maneuvering.

So it would be nice if we could assign turrets to a "firing group," and each turret group would have something like an inner-ship remote so you could attach it to the hotbar to toggle the turret AI only in that group on or off in a second. We have 100 slots available in our hotbars, after all.

 

[Magrim]

I'm pretty sure we are getting this at some point. The devs commented on a similar thread a while back and marked it as a planned feature. It's a good idea though, I've been waiting for this for a LONG time now.

here it is: Planned - Turret System Control

 

[uberadiant]

Perfect!

 

[Brokengauge]

I'm building my larger ships with a system like this in mind. For now, I'm planning on faking it with logic, but it would nice to have an actual interface.

IRL, a battleship would train it's larger guns on other battleships, but it's secondaries would fire on smaller craft that had come in closer.

Look up

Battle of the river plate (by the Germans)
And
Battle off samar (by the japanese)

for examples of this tactic.

 

[jayman38]

As always, I would like turret AI to have a hierarchical target-selection list, where it goes for the highest-rated target on the list that it can hit.
I would like to see "firegroups" as a relatively ambiguous "item" that has target selection criteria to pick the most convenient target that matches the criteria, and can be placed on an AI hierarchical target list. That way, if the turret can't hit the target designated by "firegroup 1", maybe it can acquire and hit the target designated by "firegroup 2". Going back to the 3-turret example, maybe only 2 of the 3 turrets can acquire the shielded target. The third turret, instead of being useless, can pick out a target lower on its AI priority list.

 

[winggar]

I need this in my life, death by navscreen is very, very annoying