Defensive Turrets for ships

[BlackWolf]

I would like to see if small defensive Turrets that could be made for ships to mount in the aft port and starboard side of any ship.
Types would be pulse, beam or rail.
About half the damage of norm.

Flying in the Cadisus gave me the thought. Plus I like to dogfighting and never use the gun mounts on the sides or rear, as they distract me from the ship I have targeted.

As for the rail gun, there is an oxp on the wiki that has small med and large, it works and the small railgun would be perfect, of course with the railgun you need to buy ammo, and for a defensive turret you would want to up the ammo storage to 5000 rounds, with a price of 5000 credits to restock.
Pulse and beam turrets should cost twice as much as the railgun turrets as there is no ammo cost.
Turrets are an auto fire weapon that targets hostile ships within weapon range.

[another_commander]

I could be wrong (been ages since I looked at the turrets code), but I don't think you can just slap a turret on a ship after it has been spawned. You probably need to define the turrets as sub-entities for each ship you want them to appear on. Maybe someone has found a way to do it by script that escapes me, but my recollection is that it can't be done universally.

[BlackWolf]

I was thinking they would be great for the lone trader in the big hualer ships like the Boa, Python, Anaconda and Ace's Cruiser.
Would help out a lot when jumped by a large group of pirates.

[another_commander]

I'm sure I've seen somewhere Anacondas with turrets OXPs (maybe other big ships too), but right now I can't remember where.

[BlackWolf]

I'm sure I've seen somewhere Anacondas with turrets OXPs (maybe other big ships too), but right now I can't remember where.

There is Carriers with turrets, but I never used it cause the base Carries oxz drove me nuts waiting for it to dock at station and sure enough every time I'd get to the station a Carrier was lagging around taking it's time docking. lol
The Yensan ships have turrets as well.
Haven't seen any other oxp's or z's though.

[montana05]

I was thinking they would be great for the lone trader in the big hualer ships like the Boa, Python, Anaconda and Ace's Cruiser.
Would help out a lot when jumped by a large group of pirates.

I guess Griff Boa is about what you are searching for, there is also a "Griff Boa Prototype" you can download from the OXP-manager, with Sniper Gun installed it will offer a Heavy Sniper Gun as front weapon.

[BlackWolf]

Actually have all of that installed.
Boa, Boa prototype, and snipergun.
I actually have all of Griff's ships except the Krate pirate.

[montana05]

How about the Kirin XM ? Slow but plenty of cargo space and a lot turrets. With Multiple Lasers installed this ship got a lot of firepower.

[BlackWolf]

I'll check it out.

[montana05]

I'll check it out.

I tried a lot ships but at the end I still stick with the Caduceus Omega or Dark Rainbow, my personal version Caduceus Psi is larger but faster, obviously an ueber-ship I still struggle how to publish, specially because this ship got a habit to leave "unworthy" pilots stranded when their AI isn't happy anymore.

[BlackWolf]

I have a hunter saved game that is in the Omega Caduceus currently. The instagation for this thread on turrets.

[Astrobe]

Some time ago someone asked a question about newtonian physics and I made prototype for it (basically you remember the velocity vector and force it to stay the same). At the same time there is this problem that big trader ships are a bit boring because they "have to" be slow and not maneuverable, otherwise they're just big über-Cobbies. That lead to solutions like escort deck, hire guns, etc. which are good to have but take away the aiming and the shooting from the players' hands.

Where those two facts connect is that newtonian physics can let you move one way while facing and shooting the other way. I think it's possible to have a "turret mode", in which the pilot virtually takes control of a turret, taking down hostiles, while the ship carries on with its trajectory, like if it were on auto-pilot.

[jackiebean]

that would be cool and the most logical way to handle pilot control of the turret, however, it would also be cool to have computer aided turrets, sort of an auto mode, maybe making them not as accurate, or maybe have an upgrade system, using die roll or some other mathematics so they are not overpowered. say for instance you dont have upgrades, then the chance of them actually hitting something would be decreased and pilot control would need a longer lead on the target. the more upgrades, the better the aim in auto mode and less pilot lead needed (think of it as similar to todays course correction algorithms in jet fighters). the tradeoff is obvious, the higher the upgrade, the more money it costs. making it cost prohibitive gives more incetive to grind toward the upgrade, so it doesnt take away all the challenge. the experience also improves overall skill. maybe add something in so the computer "learns" how to aim bettter over time? then plateaus so the upgrade is almost necessary at that point? i dunno. just a few ideas.

turrets on behemoths and other large ships are on auto mode all the time when you attack them.

side note: since i just finished the updated model of the caduceus, i think it would be cool to see those turrets on auto fire mode, and i got a feeling this version has guns more like plasma forks, so there should be a beam weapon effect and charge up similar to (not to copyright violate or anything) the mass effect reapers. seeing that in a video would be awesome lol. (hint hint) but of course that is way off topic since it has to do with particle effects and such.

[Prester John]

Instead of turrets, couldn't we have automatic 'Defensive Lasers' (pulse, beam, military) on Port and Starboard sides that would do the same thing as defensives turrets?

[montana05]

Instead of turrets, couldn't we have automatic 'Defensive Lasers' (pulse, beam, military) on Port and Starboard sides that would do the same thing as defensives turrets?

The turrets work quite similar to automatic lasers with a shorter range. The catch is that the ship design need to include the turrets but as you can see at your Dark Rainbow they could be pretty useful.