Forums » Suggestions

Turret Ranges

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Aug 26, 2021 -Wash- link
Now that there are somewhat useful turret commands and they now cost energy the ones that have small port counter parts should have double the range of the small port version, trade off for the energy cost and fire arc limits.
Aug 26, 2021 incarnate link
The ability to place a bunch of weapons on a capship, via turrets, is an advantage, not a disadvantage. Turret-level auto-aim is also an advantage, regardless of "firing arc limits".

I'm not really seeing the "tradeoff" here, that would drive the Suggestion? Maybe I just need a clearer explanation?
Aug 26, 2021 -Wash- link
I wouldn't call 4 a bunch when they are limited on how they can fire i.e. all 4 won't fire at once at target directly in front of the cap ship. Now firing weapons turrets expends energy (for some) which means cap ships running with capswarms still have a huge advantage over their pursuer. Extending the range of the energy turrets by double will mildy increase the odds that one capship might be able to deshield before the target gets out of range, which in the current scenarios is only a few seconds. If they are now going to cost energy to use and only have limited firing direction based on where the target is at then they should be a bit more worthwhile to use.
Aug 26, 2021 greenwall link
Which turrets specifically are being addressed?
Aug 26, 2021 -Wash- link
Energy turrets that are based off small/larpe port web (neuts, gats, pcb, gauss)
Aug 26, 2021 look... no hands link
I've long thought the maximum possible ranges of the turret based weapons, except cap-gauss, cap-swarms, and cap-rails was a bit low.

I don't think they should have the same range as the 'Capitol' turrets, which varies between about 2km and 4km, but maybe 1 KM. Given how slow all the host ships are, except the Atlas, which has it's turret in the rear, the added range would be nice.

At 1 KM most of those shots have a flight time of about 5 seconds, I think this is plenty of time to dodge it in a fighter. It would however, probably be meaningfully usable against a capitol ship, which is a MUCH slower and larger target.
Aug 26, 2021 greenwall link
this suggestion would go a long way in making turrets more functional in the game. A large part of why it sucks being in a turret (and why pretty much nobody does it...ever) is that the weapons are totally useless.

The devs basically just took weapons that had practical use on a ship which you can also pilot and move around and plopped them on static points -- this lack of being able to do any maneuvering, or worse, being subject to crazy, unpredictable movements of the ship pilot, made the turrets particularly useless (outside of seeking missiles).

Turret weapons should really be a class and type of their own, not some hand-me-down.

+1
Aug 28, 2021 -Wash- link
Allow me to reference this thread. Capswarms got a buff for the purpose of being more anti-ship weapons with minimal discussion.
Aug 28, 2021 incarnate link
So, for starters, I'm not saying "no" to tweaks here, but it seems like I need to clarify..

Allow me to reference this thread. Capswarms got a buff for the purpose of being more anti-ship weapons with minimal discussion.

That was one weapon. This is basically "all" weapons of a given class (energy), and practically speaking, all future weapons that would ever be added to capships.

This doesn't just impact player capships, it impacts NPCs as well, and it means the battle-area of a given capship increases dramatically (since it's a sphere). That impacts the octree and other factors that help determine the relative impact of capship battles on the server.

A single Teradon has like.. 25 of these things? Or something? I forget. A lot of them.

Generally, when we increase the firing range, we decrease the firing rate, to maintain the same total count of in-flight objects and the scale of the "potentially collidable set". But, I'm guessing you probably don't want that. It would dramatically reduce the utility of the weapons at shorter ranges.

Extending the range of the energy turrets by double will mildy increase the odds that one capship might be able to deshield before the target gets out of range, which in the current scenarios is only a few seconds.

This is the challenge of threads that start out super vague. It's always better to begin with the problem you're trying to solve, and then present your possible solution.

What exactly are you frustrated by, here? Your ability to chase capship with another capship?

There is, and always has been, a vision for capship combat, and it isn't ready yet. A lot of the building blocks are still in development. And as some of the posts here illustrate, you guys actually don't understand why things are the way they are, so you tend to think they're all just trivial things the devs did out of laziness, or something.

I kinda started to try and explain why, just now, but I realized it would be another giant wall-of-text, and it's almost 4AM here.

So, again, I'm not against making some tweaks to try and improve certain capship use-cases. But I'd rather hear about the problems you're trying to solve. And maybe I can better align it to what we're actually going to do with capship combat.
Aug 28, 2021 -Wash- link
I was trying to come up a useful alternative to 180 rail guns but don’t sweat it. I’ll wait for the newsletter stating capship combat is finally in place.

I’ll work on the post that will earn a permanent ban in the meantime as there is nothing else worth while to do.
Aug 28, 2021 Anewold link
As an idea why not duplicate the weapon and have a capital neut or capital gem? Same stats just buffed range well and maybe a nudge up on grid to stop smaller ship users?
Aug 28, 2021 incarnate link
I’ll work on the post that will earn a permanent ban in the meantime as there is nothing else worth while to do

Jesus, Wash. I wasn't trying to shoot down adding something, just trying to articulate some of the challenges around it. Energy or projectile weaoon range impacts everything, including the AI that has to compute "lead off" to aim it.

As an idea why not duplicate the weapon and have a capital neut or capital gem? Same stats just buffed range well and maybe a nudge up on grid to stop smaller ship users?

That's basically what people are suggesting.
Aug 28, 2021 look... no hands link
Incarnate, I think wash was just screwing with you on that part.

I have a couple questions.

Is it a major undertaking to just increase the lifespan of the turret shots to push their maximum range out to 1km?

If it is not, then how hard is it to revert the change, should it prove necessary?

Could you try the change for a day or a week? I don't know if the AI that runs NPC capships, Skirmishes, ETC would crash or adapt, or just do something stupid. The only NPC ships I can think of that has weapons that this would effect at present are the Teradon and the Atlases, which I don't think use their turrets anyway.

For the Teradon, could NPC versions of the turrets be made with the existing stats as a temporary solution?

Again, I've got no idea how hard any of this would be to do. It's just a suggestion.

Personally I'd rather avoid having the grid bumped up on these turrets. Currently I think the turrets on behemoths and atlases have such limited usefulness that they could use a decent buff.

I did have a blast loading up a behemoth with 3 Gatling turrets and hunting collectors using active turrets a couple nights ago though, dunno if ANY SSS dropped from the kills, but it was fun anyway.
Aug 28, 2021 incarnate link
That's a lot of questions. Let's focus on my question, which is "what is the problem we're trying to solve?".
Aug 28, 2021 look... no hands link
Sorry if that was too many questions at once. I ask them because I don't know the answers, and I couldn't think of a better place to ask them. I try to be cognizant of your limited time and so try to ask for things that at least sound like they will not be an unreasonable interruption to your schedule.

Currently the problem I see is that the non capitol turrets are not usually useful enough to make it worth having actual players use them. Just about any player that is skilled enough to use a turret effectively would be of more use in a fight in a fighter sized craft. On capitol ships you have trouble engaging other capitol ships without the use of cap gauss, cap rails, or cap swarms.

Currently you have to get pretty damn close to manage to get much utility out of the other turrets. I'm not saying it can't be done, but engagement distances are often WAY outside the possible range of the other turret port weapons.
Aug 28, 2021 incarnate link
Sorry if that was too many questions at once.

I wasn't being critical, just trying to optimize on efficiency of discussion. Because answering those questions raises more questions about why.. and it's a lot of snowballing stuff, and I suspect that none of it is really going to help address my fundamental concerns (see later in this response). Asking questions is totally fine, but as a generality in Suggestions, we want to start with what we're trying to.. do.

Currently the problem I see is that the non capitol turrets are not usually useful enough to make it worth having actual players use them. Just about any player that is skilled enough to use a turret effectively would be of more use in a fight in a fighter sized craft. On capitol ships you have trouble engaging other capitol ships without the use of cap gauss, cap rails, or cap swarms.

Okay, I agree with that. But is that particularly important, at present? I expect most people to use ActivateTurrets. There could be other, orthogonal rewards to having players in turrets (similar to group mining), but I think it's probably always going to be more practically and tactically useful to have someone in a fighter.

The most I ever really envisioned on this, was the possibility of a "CO" and an "XO", where the XO was basically running (all) the turrets and handling ship defense. But that's still just two people, regardless of the size of the capship.

Currently you have to get pretty damn close to manage to get much utility out of the other turrets. I'm not saying it can't be done, but engagement distances are often WAY outside the possible range of the other turret port weapons.

Right, and that was my question to Wash as well: is this about proximity? Because I might prefer to decrease the standoff distance of engagements, through other pressures and methodologies, than potentially increase the ranges of weapons.

There are lots of possibilities. Tractor beams that induce drag, gravity-wells that attach vessels to a point in space for a period of time, cap-scale PCB type weapons that impact an enemy vessel's ability to turbo for a limited period of time, etc etc.

That's why I keep asking "what exactly is the problem?", because the "solutions" I see from the userbase are all based on a (no offense) really myopic interpretation of what capship combat could be, where basically we stack massive firepower on a single vessel and allow it to pound on another giant vessel.

But the inherent problems there are.. as significant as the massive firepower that you allow people to use. I am already having obvious problems with un-intended consequences of capital ships and, say, bot-farming. Having capships just have "firepower" and "distance" drastically minimizes the numbers of ways that you can modulate and trade-off their impact on other areas of gameplay. (You end up with goofy crap like reduced drop-rates for turrets).

Capital ships are supposed to be a cool long-term goal and improvement that un-locks other advanced forms of gameplay. It is not supposed to be a thing where you can sit in a wormhole and insta-kill everyone who jumps in, for instance. That creates a major "haves" vs "have-nots" problem, which some people want, because they happen to "have", but it's really bad for the game as a whole.

Conversely, a weapon like, say, a PCB-esque thing that reduces an enemy-capship's turbo for a minute, and only works on other capships.. that has almost no impact on any other area of gameplay. It has limited scope.

So, again, is the primary issue that people want to reduce engagement distances? Or target maneuverability? Or what?

I do not see "increasing weapon range" as the only available hammer, and that all problems are nails. I'd like to move beyond that, to identifying the underlying issues.
Aug 28, 2021 HunPredator link
Well I almost never do capship combat.
Range is not the only problem
Like take gat turrets as an example. They have decent range, but their spread makes them only usable at extreme close ranges, also they have a low velocity compared to neuts. Okay their tracking is an advantage, but just by decreasing its spread so its able to deliver the same dps, lets say at 200-250 meters, it would change things. That needs like queen gat type of spread, but it would make em more accurate, and also usable at longer ranges.

I don't know what to say about other weapons. Like gauss mk2 and neut 3 turrets. I have noticed however that they track enemies very poorly, usually missing most of the shots on a moving target if your ship is turning etc. I don't know how this could be countered, so I wont will say anything else about this.

Range isn't everything. You need good tracking, high velocity for accurate shots. Like a MegaPositron Blaster Turret would be neat due to the range and velocity of the weapon itself, even OP maybe. Just increasing range won't fixes everything. You can have long range but if your shots are slow like thrown rocks you will miss most of them
Aug 28, 2021 look... no hands link
For me it is not all about proximity. I like the idea of being able to engage other capitol ships at ranges of 1-3 KM.

I think this allows 'room' for fighters to engage between the capitol ships, trying to clear the way for bombers (Ragnaroks, Centaurs, etc). Forcing the ships closer together I think limits that aspect of game-play which I think could be lots of fun. I also suspect that the current sub-capitol turret weapons will be basically useless against fighters past 400meters or so, especially for things like Gatling turrets, which I found had trouble hitting Orun collectors at 250 meters.

You bring up a good point about Active Turrets. I don't know how important an issue it is at this time, other then I see it as something useful a complete noob can do in real large scale combat, besides soaking up bullets. I'd like to see enough noobs coming in that there would be a steady supply of them to recruit for such activities. Such hypothetical noob gunners would I hope give some advantage over Active Turrets by allowing a single ship to simultaneously engage multiple hostiles at the same time, like one with the dorsal, and one with the ventral turrets, or fore and aft.

"It is not supposed to be a thing where you can sit in a wormhole and insta-kill everyone who jumps in, for instance."

I am not asking for that ability, as hilarious as it could be for a few hours, especially when you accidentally scrag a friendly. I am NOT trying to produce a 'haves vs havenots" issue, as it might deter future players. My suggestions are in good faith, based on a limited understanding of the work involved to implement them, and basically no knowledge of your long term goals.

.

"Conversely, a weapon like, say, a PCB-esque thing that reduces an enemy-capship's turbo for a minute, and only works on other capships.. that has almost no impact on any other area of gameplay. It has limited scope."

That would be cool as well, but does little to allow for longer range pitched battles. I'm not trying to drag things too far off topic, but it made me wonder could jump distances be different for different ship types?

Edit, I had not seen Hun predator's post before posting this.
Aug 28, 2021 greenwall link
Such hypothetical noob gunners would I hope give some advantage over Active Turrets by allowing a single ship to simultaneously engage multiple hostiles at the same time, like one with the dorsal, and one with the ventral turrets, or fore and aft.

come on, nobody really thinks that will ever happen... not with the weapons as they are
Aug 29, 2021 -Wash- link
Capital ships are supposed to be a cool long-term goal and improvement that un-locks other advanced forms of gameplay. It is not supposed to be a thing where you can sit in a wormhole and insta-kill everyone who jumps in, for instance. That creates a major "haves" vs "have-nots" problem, which some people want, because they happen to "have", but it's really bad for the game as a whole.

I'm going to disregard that fact this is most likely directed at me for the moment.

The exact problem is that capswarms got a huge buff in damage and require ZERO aiming to fire and have a standing still travel distance of 1800 meters. (which I have pointed out many many times) This is how capship comabt happens in VO regardless of how you want it to go or what the grand vision is:

Ship A (Agressor) moves to attack Ship B (defender). Ship B proceeds to turbo away while cycle firing Capswarms that auto track to the target. Ship A has ZERO counter to this other than to disengage as there is no capship weapon that can reach out to a full turbo running capship and remotely do any type of damage. (180 railguns slightly mitigated this but was not a 100% guaranteed "instakill" and required skill to use effectivley {I'll find the reference in the past where you told me to "get good" when pointing out other lop sidedness and when I did "get good" at using caprails you nerfed them.})

And not that I'm for wasting more of your time but if you can do forensics to find exploiters and can do a quick forensic investigation and see that what I have stated above is 100% fact and how the game really is played. I'm guessing you won't though becuase god for fucking bid I make a vaild observation and it might be right.

What's really bad for the game is players spending months building capships for them to be good for nothing other than dump trucks and an Earl Scheib for your fighters. Oh yeah I have spent all this time building this and it's useless and there is nohting else to do with it.

At this point I'm quite fucking done as this is at least the 4th or 5th time I have pointed this issue out. Fix it or stay in denial that it is not a problem I quite frankly don't give a fuck anymore.

"Go run your little world"
- Malcolm Reynolds