A better way to handle turrets

[bs1110101]

Simply put, turrets aren't very good at the moment, being, at a given tech level, all stuck the same size, and with little variation between them for the early parts of the game.

 

I have a simple suggestion, make turrets craftable and scalable.

 

This would work pretty simply, there'd be a few turret blocks, each one being one style of turret, different numbers of barrels, firing arcs, armor, etc. Fixed weapons, missile tubes, casemates, flex-mounted weapons and all other sorts of things like that would also be built like this as well.

 

When placed, you'd configure it through a menu, projectile weapons would have three main stats, shell size, RoF, and range. Shell size would then have a submenu for warhead types and shell speed vs warhead size. RoF is simply the rate of fire of the weapon, and range would be mostly tied to accuracy and the max range you can target things with it. This menu would let you pick any ratio between the thee stats you want, with the sum of these three numbers being governed by the point cost of the turret. Other types of weapons would be effectively the same, but with different menu options.

 

Turrets would no longer need systems to have, instead needing special blocks to support them, ammo based turrets would need magazines, which would be explosive when destroyed, energy based weapons would use capacitor banks instead, being functionally the same, but less explosive. These blocks would govern the total points allowed for turrets, with projectile and energy weapons being on different points. Projectile weapons would also gain an RoF bonus the closer they where to a magazine large enough to fulfill their point cost, stopping people from putting all their magazines on sticks.

 

Balance would be covered simply by making magazines and capacitor banks have large crew and energy costs, meaning you couldn't have a ship with huge amounts of guns without large amounts of generators and crew compartments as well. I'd recommend making hull blocks more useful to keep them being used more, rather then just systems and armor.

 

Progression would be done by having different material types allow different weapons, iron would start with only canons and very basic lasers, titanium would get missiles, Naonite would get plasma and better lasers, etc.

 

The main benefit of all of this is a further separation of tech level and power, a large ship made only of iron and titanium could easily be made with powerful weapons without having to mount higher tech weapons instead of what it really should be using, bigger low tech weapons. The other benefit would be cosmetic, allowing ships to have exactly the weapons they should, letting people use weapons that look right for their ship, not only what they happen to find, and for that matter, letting weapons become more parts of ships, not simply things tacked on, fixing the issue of copying ships from other saves or off the internet, and having to always change them to suit the guns you can find. 

[LogicSocket]

At the very least I'd love to see turrets resizeable like the other blocks of the ship.

[Ishmod]

while others have posted similar about scaling the turrets , i'd like to see the same , though only sizing nothing with stats. having a corvette sized ship with such miniscule turrets no matte rthe tech level is plain silly .

 

[Sable Phoenix]

The more I play with it the more I think that the entire weapons system needs to be rethought, and this proposal sounds pretty fantastic.  It would pretty much fix my biggest sore point when it comes to ship building.

[Weylin]

Turrets right now are way too akin to weapons in Borderlands 2.

Seeing his playtime on it, I wouldn't be surprised if that was his inspiration :P

 

Anyhow, I've been on a long search for a game like this, one with scalable building blocks, and I would very much like to see creative freedom spread to turrets.

 

There's so many turret types I'd like to see and design, but the game just doesn't do that.

 

Perhaps I can mod it, but not until I understand how LUA works

[Ohm is Futile]

I don't dislike your proposal, it's a good middle ground between From The Depths and the current system. What I'm not so sure about is the implementation. It's going to be hard to balance and it's pretty far away from the current spirit of the game with the random drops.

 

I do dream of a game where you can design your weapons, though not necessarily to the point where it takes hours like FtD. I do enjoy the relative simplicity of Avorion right now.

[Blaine]

while others have posted similar about scaling the turrets , i'd like to see the same , though only sizing nothing with stats. having a corvette sized ship with such miniscule turrets no matte rthe tech level is plain silly .

 

I strongly disagree. I am utterly convinced that altering turret stats based on size would dramatically improve Avorion's gameplay. Larger turrets would deal more damage and have a longer range, but would gyrate more slowly (unless turret-locked, of course) and would also have progressively larger accuracy penalties vs. progressively smaller sizes of ships. Conversely, smaller turrets would have a progressively easier time hitting progressively larger ships.

 

This is realistic, logical, and most importantly allows for much more nuanced gameplay and specialization within a fleet, because then gigantic ships would be unable to effortlessly evaporate tiny ships by the fistful, allowing smaller ships to perform roles other than being cannon fodder.

 

Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, and XL would be a good range. Tiny turrets would fit on ships with 1-2 upgrade slots, Small would fit on ships with 3-4, Medium 5-6, XL 7-8, and XL 9-10+. Medium turrets would be the most versatile, easily hitting Medium through XXL ships from a respectable distance, and doing quite well against Small ships too, since the extra damage and range would mitigate the accuracy loss. Medium-sized ships with Medium turrets would be great all-rounder, jack-of-all-trades ships (which they already are now).

 

Larger ships could still fit smaller-classed turrets if desired, and a Medium could probably manage a few Large turrets or even one XXL, if desired. The flexibility to go above/below turret class in certain situations is also a desirable feature. You may be thinking, "So wouldn't a capital ship just fit small turrets, so that it can hit everything?". Sure, until it's evaporated by another capital ship of around the same size whose guns deal far more damage and reach much further.

 

This isn't just my personal opinion, but one held by many purists. It's considered fairly mediocre space sim design when a ship's size and the size of its guns make it flat-out better than smaller ships on a linear scale; being more expensive and less maneuverable isn't enough to make up for it.

 

You know how pretty much everyone thinks fighters suck right now? A very significant part of the problem with fighters is that massive ships with lots of guns can simply mow them down with near-perfect accuracy.

[Ohm is Futile]

[...]

I tend to agree with you, although I will say that accuracy is a poor balancing factor in a game where you actually aim the weapons yourself. For example, in EVE, turrets aim independently. You can actually set your ship to auto-orbit a target at a certain distance and basically go faster than the turrets are able to track and that's great for small vs big balance.

 

However, in games like these, I'll always remember good Freelancer players using torpedoes against anything and everything. Accuracy is no longer a balancing factor when someone can make sure there's almost no chance of missing. All that happens is that fights become dodging matches with the first one to make a mistake getting destroyed in one hit. Not saying this is exactly what would happen in Avorion, but I'm just not sure if the standard model is the best of ideas to balance this game.

[Blaine]

Well, this will still be a fantastic game even if bigger always = better (except for drag racing, naturally).

[DivineEvil]

Its a bit hard to pin point the specific points that I agree and disagree with here and even if I agree with many, I'd like to see some different approach to them, so I just fully explain how I'd like to see the weapons to be implemented as a whole.

 

- Weapons has variable mount mechanisms: Pylon, Turret, Cannon, Battery, Platform and Linear. Each method has its own advantages and stat multipliers. Lower-tech weapon types do not feature heaviest mounts, and high-tech weapons cannot be inserted into small mounts, i.e. you will never find a Chaingun Platform or a Railgun Turret, etc. Mounts naturally go from the smaller to larger as follows:

 

- Pylon weapons (ex: Laser Pylon) are the most simple. They're fixed, with exception for 5 degree vertical and horizontal correction ranges, that allows to accurately aim with consideration of ship's inability for precise alignment with targeting reticle. They have base stats of their weapon type. Pylon-mounted weapons do not need crew to operate, but they also cannot obtain Independent Targeting by any means.

 

- Turret (ex: Laser Turret) are the regular early mount, that supports tracking. They're placed on a ball swivel with full turning freedom and near-perfect tracking, however they have base stats of their weapon type. Ball swivel operate on two axis both parallel to the surface the mount is placed on, which means it doesn't need to turn around itself to track targets. Combination of these stats make them the best pick for point-defense against Fighters, while less accurate, but more powerful weapon types can be used for effective close combat. Requires 1 crew members to operate.

 

- Cannons (ex: Laser Cannon) works almost like turrets in general work now. They have two-axis mount with full turning freedom, but only 90 deg pitch (75 up/15 down), and thus they can't do a vertical reverse like Pylons can, forced to make a full 180 turn if the target went from one tracking hemisphere to another and can't fire directly above themselves. Higher damage and range. Cannon weapon type is renamed into Artillery. Require 2 crew members to operate.

 

- Batteries (ex: Laser Battery) are medium class mounts. They have a constrained two-axis mount with 180 degree horizontal arc and 50                    vertical arc (40/10), which requires smarter placement. Average tracking ability and substantial damage and range modifiers. Batteries become available in the Naonite ring and sometimes dropped from average Xsotan ships. Require 4 crew members to operate.

 

- Platforms (ex: Laser Platform) are heavy and spacious mounts. Platform weapons track slowly and only have 90 degree forward arc and 20 degree pitch (15/5), however they have double the range and triple the damage of conventional Turrets. Damage increase is partially offset by generally lower fire-rate. Platforms become available in the Xanion ring as general drop and as rare loot from Large Xsotan ships. Require 8 crew members to operate.

 

- Linear units (ex: Linear Laser Unit) are Capital Class super-weapons. They're also practically fixed-mount, with exception for 5 degree vertical and horizontal correction ranges, that counteracts current inability to precisely align to pointed direction, similar to Pylons. Linear weapons feature ridiculous range and damage multipliers, that are offset by equally ridiculous power needs and lower fire rate. Linear mounted weapons has an additional pro-gen component, that can produce weapons firing sideways (parallel to the parent surface) or upwards (away from the parent surface). Linear weapons become available in the Galactic Core area and occasionally dropped from Bosses. Require 15 crew members to operate and 2 weapon/utility slots to install.

 

- Mining, Salvage, Repair and Force systems has the mount limitations in accordance with their tech-level. Salvage and Mining units cannot be mounted into Platforms or Linearly, Repair units cannot be mounted into Pylons and Linearly, and Force units cannot be mounted into Pylons or Turrets. When utility units are mounted into Cannon-type mount, they're called Arrays instead.

 

- Turret's hull (white) should be possible to paint just like any other ship blocks.

 

- Ship can be modified and repaired anywhere, but turrets can only be placed and removed when docked to Shipyards, Repair and Equipment Docks. This prevents general abuse of open-air repairs and mid-fight modifications.

 

- Turrets are indestructible, but has a varying amount of individual HPs. If Turrets HP is depleted in combat, they're instead are disabled until repaired either together with the entire ship (Build mode, Repair Docks etc.) and also gradually repaired by Mechanics if the ship itself is intact. Implementing weapon HP can be use to further balance the variable types around one-another, especially more high-tech, long-range types, and differentiate ones that has similar properties.

 

- Turrets can be manufactured as per usual, using variable amount of components and resources depending on desired stats, however as "stock" variants they always has Common rarity level and thus will never receive any modifiers or bonuses that are not intrinsic to the weapon type itself. Found or purchased weapons can be, however, reverse-engineered and mass-produced at Weapon Factories too. This requires the destruction of the original unit to make a blueprint, and corresponding fixed amount of internal components, materials and credits to manufacture, where the mount and weapon type takes the overwhelming part of the price.

 

Now to some replies:

I strongly disagree. I am utterly convinced that altering turret stats based on size would dramatically improve Avorion's gameplay. Larger turrets would deal more damage and have a longer range, but would gyrate more slowly (unless turret-locked, of course) and would also have progressively larger accuracy penalties vs. progressively smaller sizes of ships. Conversely, smaller turrets would have a progressively easier time hitting progressively larger ships.

Introducing accuracy multipliers is unnecessary. Weapons with the same accuracy but higher range will naturally tend to be effectively less accurate anyway. IMHO, tracking speed, firing arc and fire-rate are better modifiers.

[Umbral Reaver]

I would absolutely love to see an option for larger turrets.

 

I posted about it on the Avorion reddit a while ago.

 

The idea was for larger turrets to be proportionally more powerful than small ones, but take up 2+ turret control points.

[Blaine]

I strongly disagree. I am utterly convinced that altering turret stats based on size would dramatically improve Avorion's gameplay. Larger turrets would deal more damage and have a longer range, but would gyrate more slowly (unless turret-locked, of course) and would also have progressively larger accuracy penalties vs. progressively smaller sizes of ships. Conversely, smaller turrets would have a progressively easier time hitting progressively larger ships.

Introducing accuracy multipliers is unnecessary. Weapons with the same accuracy but higher range will naturally tend to be effectively less accurate anyway. IMHO, tracking speed, firing arc and fire-rate are better modifiers.

 

Tracking speed isn't a better modifier than my suggestion, it's already a part of my suggestion—that's what "gyrate more slowly" is referring to, and I've mentioned tracking speed before when referring to EVE's system. Also, I'm pretty sure spinal-mount weapons are already planned.

 

I truly don't have an issue with your long list of personal preferences for how turrets should be implemented; it's well thought-out and interesting enough. However, as written, your ideas would involve huge overhauls of and additions to the game. That's not realistic. I have highly specific personal preferences too, but developers (of any game) most likely aren't going to implement them.

 

My goal here isn't to list my ideal and highly elaborate turret system, but rather to offer a suggestion that I think can reasonably be implemented without majorly overhauling the game or changing the developers' vision of it. Scaled-up current turret models with boosted damage and range stats dependent on size, as well as accuracy penalties based on size and targets' m³ would require minimal changes to the current system, be far easier to implement than what you've suggested, all while still accomplishing the goal: make it so that big ships can't effortlessly vaporize smaller ones, thereby greatly enhancing the potential for nuanced ship roles in Avorion (and going a long way toward fixing the very severe issues with fighters).

 

In fact, that should be quite easy to mod in if the developers don't care to.

[GrimJahk]

 

I truly don't have an issue with your long list of personal preferences for how turrets should be implemented; it's well thought-out and interesting enough. However, as written, your ideas would involve huge overhauls of and additions to the game. That's not realistic. I have highly specific personal preferences too, but developers (of any game) most likely aren't going to implement them.

 

 

This right here is the core thing for ANYONE that has suggestions to remember:

 

If it can be added or tweaked, it has a chance... If it requires re-work or scrapping old code, the odds are SLIM that it will happen.

 

This game is great, and we all have things/features that we'd love to see in the game. But the Devs have limited time to get this product ready for full launch... and ANYTHING that would threaten that is likely to be summarily dismissed.

 

I, for one, am NOT a fan of the scaling turrets concept. It allows a starter ship to just invest more resources to do more damage... BUT that being said, I'm not the one that has to design balance into the game either... and I trust that the devs will make the right decisions around balance and I am looking forward to whatever they toss our way.

 

 

[Umbral Reaver]

 

I, for one, am NOT a fan of the scaling turrets concept. It allows a starter ship to just invest more resources to do more damage... BUT that being said, I'm not the one that has to design balance into the game either... and I trust that the devs will make the right decisions around balance and I am looking forward to whatever they toss our way.

 

 

If bigger turrets cost more turret control points, this ceases to be a problem.

[Morbo513]

This isn't just my personal opinion, but one held by many purists. It's considered fairly mediocre space sim design when a ship's size and the size of its guns make it flat-out better than smaller ships on a linear scale; being more expensive and less maneuverable isn't enough to make up for it.

 

You know how pretty much everyone thinks fighters suck right now? A very significant part of the problem with fighters is that massive ships with lots of guns can simply mow them down with near-perfect accuracy.

On point

[DivineEvil]

I truly don't have an issue with your long list of personal preferences for how turrets should be implemented; it's well thought-out and interesting enough. However, as written, your ideas would involve huge overhauls of and additions to the game. That's not realistic. I have highly specific personal preferences too, but developers (of any game) most likely aren't going to implement them.

Yes, but its my "perfect scenario" preferences. The measure by which developers could or would be willing to implement any parts of it is beyond my judgement as a single player within a whole audience. Please note, that my suggestions as a whole directed to bring variety, balance, readability and customization. None of them are there for the "factor of cool", which is introduced in suggestions more often than it should be.

 

My goal here isn't to list my ideal and highly elaborate turret system, but rather to offer a suggestion that I think can reasonably be implemented without majorly overhauling the game or changing the developers' vision of it. Scaled-up current turret models with boosted damage and range stats dependent on size, as well as accuracy penalties based on size and targets' m3 would require minimal changes to the current system, be far easier to implement than what you've suggested, all while still accomplishing the goal: make it so that big ships can't effortlessly vaporize smaller ones, thereby greatly enhancing the potential for nuanced ship roles in Avorion (and going a long way toward fixing the very severe issues with fighters).

And I do not argue against it in general. I just think that making adjustments to weapons parametric accuracy based on target volume is unnecessary.

 

Small ship classes are non-existent in the game right now, at least not in a combat sense. Even if implemented, the issue will not be with weapon-against-size balance, but with the combat AI for these ships. All AI-controlled combat ships only care about reaching the range for their weapons and to turn so as to being able to fire them. Enemies at least should consider keeping the distance from their target if the weapon's range allows it, but unfortunately at the moment enemy ships are target practice regardless of size.

 

As for Fighters, I've already stated in several threads, that the problem is that Fighters are at best look like missiles or drones. Just set your Fighters to defend your ship and then leave it in you Mining Drone. You will see, that Fighters physical size, and thus their endurance and mobility parameters, are plainly ridiculous. Problem is not that Fighters are easy to hit - problem is that any successful hit is lethal. Could you imagine anyone  voluntarily pilot a metal rake, that blows up from the first round hitting it? None would agree to that, and most importantly, nobody will construct such a spacecraft for zero-drag, zero-G, abundant-resource conditions. Space Coffins work fine for cinema, but not for games.

 

Even if a bit easier to hit, ability to perform faster sweeps and to return for repairs when substantially damaged would achieve much more, that nerfing weapons, some of which are already unrealistically inaccurate.  I'm also afraid of those adjustments causing a Starmade situation, where AI-controlled turrets can spend literally hours trying to hit a small target once.

[gblnk]

 

I, for one, am NOT a fan of the scaling turrets concept. It allows a starter ship to just invest more resources to do more damage... BUT that being said, I'm not the one that has to design balance into the game either... and I trust that the devs will make the right decisions around balance and I am looking forward to whatever they toss our way.

 

 

If bigger turrets cost more turret control points, this ceases to be a problem.

 

This can also be balanced if the negative aspects to weapons also scale. Someone can try to put a huge cannon on a fighter, but it won't seem so clever when the recoil sends them tumbling. The same goes for energy consumption.

[Blaine]

Turret slots in general are pretty crazy right now even with only one size of turret. The best M-TCS modules I have are two Exotics that grant +5 armed turret slots, and just one of them in a single slot allows a fairly small ship to fit seven turrets. Seven factory-made Exceptional turrets, with a little luck from the RNG god, are powerful enough to obliterate just about any enemy or group of enemies in the game in its current state. Smaller ships mounting seven factory turrets would have issues surviving sustained firepower, but that's the only limiting factor.

 

Also, NPC ships in Avorion are insanely slow compared to pretty much any player-made ship, even if the player's ship is heavy and they're not using boost or stacking sliced thrusters. This is a bit of a tangent from discussing turrets, but it's related because at the moment players can disengage pretty much at will as long as they don't get seriously in over their shields' head for way too long.