Independent Turrets and the current 50% dmg redux

[Palad1n]

Independent Turrets should not be receiving any damage reduction. It honestly doesn't make sense.

 

Why would there be any penalty for essentially allowing the computer / AI to target the weapon for you?

 

IRL - we have technology that auto tracks targets, and guess what, those weapon system do the same amount of damage regardless of who or what is aiming.

 

With this space game, technology would already be at that level and required to track and aim at targets.

 

It would be nice to see how this system works and instead of players / servers having to go and download mods to turn off these penalties, it should be integrated into the base game.

[FuryoftheStars]

You could argue that the AI tracking system would fire at a lower rate of fire, but the devs just decided to take that off from damage instead.

 

That said, we have gunner crews on these guns.  There shouldn't even be the need for a fully automated AI system (lore wise) for them to work and track independently, so I'd argue that everything should be capable of independent fire and not have the damage reduc or at the least a much reduced damage reduc (like 25% max).

[XTRMNTR2K]

You could argue that the AI tracking system would fire at a lower rate of fire, but the devs just decided to take that off from damage instead.

 

That said, we have gunner crews on these guns.  There shouldn't even be the need for a fully automated AI system (lore wise) for them to work and track independently, so I'd argue that everything should be capable of independent fire and not have the damage reduc or at the least a much reduced damage reduc (like 25% max).

 

THIS. With the ability to potentially have dozens of guns mounted all around a ship's hull it doesn't make sense to limit most turrets to manual fire, and gimp those few with independent targeting even further.

 

The status quo is the reason I consider mods to remediate these issues absolutely vital. I can't even imagine anything other than having dedicated main guns (manual), precise defensive weapons like lasers (auto), point defense (defensive) and r-mining turrets (auto) on my flagship; toggling these on and off whenever I need to is great. I reckon it would make a lot of people very happy to see this implemented in the base game.

[Sir Charles]

I have seen topics about this at least 3 times before. Afaik the devs do read most of the stuff in the forums and they are paying special attention to suggestions and feedback threads...

 

From that, I conclude that they do not want to change this.

[TESL4]

They probably want to keep the negative effect for balancing reasons and to possibly encourage multi-piloted ships in multiplayer.  Personally I don't like this idea either as gunners should actually do their job instead of hanging out in the crew quarters drinking some space whiskey and making me do all the aiming and shooting lol.  Just make all weapons independent targeting and get rid of the negative modifier all together.  I have to have those mods which remove the affect all together and make everything independently targeting.  If they want to keep the negative modifier to the independently targeting turrets, at least make them require no crew to operate.

[SneakyTacts]

I have seen topics about this at least 3 times before. Afaik the devs do read most of the stuff in the forums and they are paying special attention to suggestions and feedback threads...

 

From that, I conclude that they do not want to change this.

 

We’ll see if they want to adjust this soon, since they said the first updates will at least partially be about the popular topics. Perhaps they changed their minds in the past few months but were too involved in their busy projects to consider and implement alternatives. Or not.

 

About the turret crew: I like to think that my turrets (and fighter craft) are controlled by AI and/or humans, and that the details are complicated. The AI need maintenance and upgrades and whatever else, and that’s why they’re paid for. Maybe humans are needed to understand the AI so they could maintain (or do something else to) the complex machines. Any way it is, I don’t mind hiring crew because I imagine that there is complicated reasoning for it.

 

Ah, yes, I almost forgot: as TESL4 says, there exists a nerf for automated weapons on a player’s ship probably because they want people to be active in battles, as opposed to sitting passively and letting omicron do it’s work. Of course, though, battles are more complex than this.

[DivineEvil]

Completely agree. The only limitation should be that Coaxial Weapons has to be Manual, as it would not make sense for them to be automatic.

 

Absolutely all Turrets should be Independent by default, and if the player wants to guide them manually or give them to their teammates to control, they already can. Not only this distinction seems to be completely meaningless, but IT turrets right now are so rare, that you'll never get to enjoy the expected broadside, capital ship combat.

 

If developers want to balance things up, then they should consider another targeting principle which I've already mentioned in the Beta forums, which still tracks and fires automatically, but only do so against the currently selected target - these turrets should instead get a 20% damage bonus.

 

If they want people to be active in battle, there has to be a benefit to do so, because at the moment it is limited to two giant ships facing each-other and measuring who got better omicrons. Automated weapons is what actually would allow for maneuvering in combat. If maneuvering is something that has to be encouraged, then introduce accuracy penalties against moving targets and more strict traversal limitations for heavier weapons.

 

They also should rebalance the scaling to prevent overpowered weapons with insane damage-type modifiers - I cannot recall a single game in 20 years, that made a weapon feasible by making it do triple damage against something. In the current state of balance, there are best weapons to use, and everything else is garbage - it prevents any counterplay or tactics, and all you need is better weapons of the same type with best stats and no associated upkeep/demand.

[MrJoshua]

Just adding my two cents that independent turrets should not get a damage reduction at all.  I'd absolutely love to use them and focus on maneuvering but the 50% reduction is too big, with the gap getting bigger at higher levels.  5% would be more reasonable.

 

Ideally there would be no reduction in damage and would have the option to fire only at selected targets.

 

[Gorbald]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1793763687

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1816511488

[FuryoftheStars]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1793763687

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1816511488

Yup, I made a mod that does similar with balance changes. Would still be nice if it’s in the base game, though (especially seems many people don’t use mods).