Manually aiming even with Gunners?

[Akogishi]

Why do I have to hire Gunners if I am going to have to manually aim anyways.

 

Some thoughts...

 

Automatic turrets should not need crew. I imagine using them on small ships or for ships with small crew quarters. Or they should require half the normal amount of Gunners.

 

Non automatic turrets should either be aimed manually or should become automatic once all required Gunners are hired.

 

Captains generally give out targets for the Gunners.

 

Any thoughts?

[Ranakastrasz]

This is several thoughts, so its a bit hard to answer.

 

Maybe you are a hive-mind made up of each of the aliens flying the ship you built, and you are still doing everything. You just have multiple bodies.

 

Why do I have to hire Gunners if I am going to have to manually aim anyways.

 

The gunners might be misnamed, and are more along the lines of technicians or something, ensuring the weapons don't fall out of alignment, or overheat or something, and if you have enough of them, optimize the performance on the fly to keep them at 130% effectiveness.

 

Automatic turrets should not need crew. I imagine using them on small ships or for ships with small crew quarters. Or they should require half the normal amount of Gunners.

 

Automatic turrets should use gunners, normal turrets should not. The automatic turrets have the behavior of automatically aiming like you think gunners should be able to do.

 

 

Non automatic turrets should either be aimed manually or should become automatic once all required Gunners are hired.

 

Currently weapons are nonfunctional until you hire the gunners, so changing it to be manual, and then automatic could make more sense. Have spinal weapons be manual anyway, and gunners just speed up reloading or something.

 

Captains generally give out targets for the Gunners.

 

Yep, but in most space games, automation on weapons are extremely lacking. You usually control all parts of a ship and have to do everything yourself, even when theoretically you have a large crew.

Given this game has crew data which influences stuff like weapons, it might make more sense if gunners worked this way.

[Akogishi]

Thanks for the reply. I like a lot of what you said and I agree that some number of gunners/weapon technicians should always be needed to keep weapons functional.

 

Hypothetically there is a ship with 2 combat turrets. Without gunners or the minimum required gunners are not hired then the turrets would be nonoperational or have limited functionality. (Not sure how that would work) However...

 

If they are automatic turrets, then 1 gunner/turret should be required. Gunners keep the turret functioning and "ship systems" control aiming the turrets that the captain (the player) selects.

 

If they are fixed turrets, the same number of gunners is required, 1 gunner/turret. Unless it is a small enough ship (ie a fighter) then it would not require a gunner.

 

If they are manual turrets, 2 gunners/turret should be required. 1 gunner for maintenance and the other controls aiming like the "ship systems" from the automatic turrets.

 

Now, this is an over simplification of how this could work. Building on this concept, extra gunners could be hired to improve efficiency (reduce malfunctions, reload time, reduce overheating, etc.). However, at some point returns on hiring extra gunners would plateau. Only so many people can work on one thing in a set amount of space at one time. In addition, with more complex turrets, more gunners would be needed. Another example, rocket turret vs chain gun turret. Chain gun turret requires 2 gunners and rocket turret requires 3 gunners. If either types are automated (auto aim capable), subtract the minimum number of gunners required.

 

One step further, a ship system could be added to reduce the number of gunners needed to maintain turrets.

 

[Tajin]

Not sure what the benefit of any of that would be.  ???

I think its fine as it is.

[Akogishi]

The benefit is that you can be the captain of the ship. This  would be especially true with larger ships with lots of turrets and fighters. Eventually it would be great if you could assign groupings of turrets/fighters different targets. As captain you can focus on assessing the battle. Focus on flying the ship, choosing targets, assessing damage to the ship and it's systems, etc.

[Tajin]

if you could assign groupings of turrets/fighters different targets

 

Sounds good but that has nothing to do with how the crew for turrets is handled – that seems fine to me the way it is now.

 

Basically you just need a way to assign targets to independent turrets.

[SageThe13th]

You aren't aiming those guns manually.  That reticle you have is so you can tell your crew were to shoot.  Each gun has to be aimed at that spot by the crew and they have to account for where the gun is on the ship.  Ever notice all those other little dots that turn green when the weapon is on target?  Those are where the guns are actually pointing and they aren't always lined up with your reticle.  If you target something to your right and then switch targets to something on your left you will notice that it takes time for your turrets to reorient and lock on to the new target.

 

If you want different guns to target different things they need the independent targeting trait.  You can target three different ships at once.  One with fighters, one with independent turrets, and one with your main guns.  You can attack even more targets depending on how squadrons you have.  Each one go after a separate target.  You can also spread out your independent turrets into many different groups each one can attack it's own target.  At the end of the day though that's a lot of work when you should be focus firing on one target at a time.

[Akogishi]

You aren't aiming those guns manually.  That reticle you have is so you can tell your crew were to shoot.  Each gun has to be aimed at that spot by the crew and they have to account for where the gun is on the ship.  Ever notice all those other little dots that turn green when the weapon is on target?  Those are where the guns are actually pointing and they aren't always lined up with your reticle.  If you target something to your right and then switch targets to something on your left you will notice that it takes time for your turrets to reorient and lock on to the new target.

 

If you want different guns to target different things they need the independent targeting trait.  You can target three different ships at once.  One with fighters, one with independent turrets, and one with your main guns.  You can attack even more targets depending on how squadrons you have.  Each one go after a separate target.  You can also spread out your independent turrets into many different groups each one can attack it's own target.  At the end of the day though that's a lot of work when you should be focus firing on one target at a time.

 

I understand all of this. However, as the captain, regardless of whether a turret has independent firing or not, you should be able to assign a target to your crew (gun grouping, fighters, etc), and they should fire at that target until it is either it is destroyed, you command them otherwise, or line of sight is blocked because the turret is on the opposite of the ship. Even in the 21st century, this is how ships work. We are talking about a space simulator with advance technology, correct? What you described is basically manual targeting regardless of where the circles may be. You still have to manually have the targeting square over the turrets which may be delayed or not as accurate.

[SageThe13th]

I understand all of this. However, as the captain, regardless of whether a turret has independent firing or not, you should be able to assign a target to your crew (gun grouping, fighters, etc), and they should fire at that target until it is either it is destroyed, you command them otherwise, or line of sight is blocked because the turret is on the opposite of the ship. Even in the 21st century, this is how ships work. We are talking about a space simulator with advance technology, correct? What you described is basically manual targeting regardless of where the circles may be. You still have to manually have the targeting square over the turrets which may be delayed or not as accurate.

 

Simulation might be a bit of a strong word.  I'd describe the gameplay as being very arcade like.  Newtonianish physics where ships have a top speed.  A simple building system that doesn't use center of mass.  Also, you very much do not want you turrets to be firing constantly without your input.  Many weapons are best used if you time the shots yourself due to overheat and power cost build up mechanics.  And if you want a ship that does all the shooting for you, you can already build that with the right turrets.

[Akogishi]

Compared to Space Invaders it would be considered a simulation. But that's getting into how definitions can be relative.

 

I think my opinion of how the turrets work in Avorion stems from playing EVE. From what I recall, players assigned targets and could control whether they were firing or not. But the player was free to fly around and do whatever they want simultaneously. I enjoyed how that system worked. However the turrets work in Avorion I will be fine with and get used to. I was just stating an opinion. Thanks for all the feedback though.

[Thundercraft]

Why do I have to hire Gunners if I am going to have to manually aim anyways.

 

Exactly. I brought this up in my Aiming Reticle suggestion topic.

 

Gunners don't even give us an aiming reticle to show us how far ahead of a target to aim in order to hit. Nor does it give us turrets that aim automatically. Apparently, we need to install "automatic" turrets to do that. Oh, and a captain.  ::)

 

Automatic turrets should not need crew. I imagine using them on small ships or for ships with small crew quarters. Or they should require half the normal amount of Gunners.

 

Agreed. Why do so-called "automatic" turrets still require the same number of gunners per turret?

 

If you want different guns to target different things they need the independent targeting trait.

 

With a name like "automatic", you would think these are computer (AI) controlled - especially since they do a lot less damage than a regular turret.

 

This is the future where they have hyperspace travel, shields and all kinds of high tech. And they don't have the technology to produce cheap, small computers to direct all your ships guns to aim at the same target?

 

Non automatic turrets should either be aimed manually or should become automatic once all required Gunners are hired.

 

Agreed.

 

Captains generally give out targets for the Gunners.

 

Exactly.

 

I think my opinion of how the turrets work in Avorion stems from playing EVE.

 

I will admit that my opinion of how turrets SHOULD work has been colored by experience with the X-series of games. With those, the player has direct control over most guns - except the tail guns. I seem to recall using the tail guns required putting the ship on autopilot and switching to the tail gun cockpit. Capital ships were treated differently. At least, you could have automatic firing of turrets.

 

Not even capital ships had a crew. Though, there was a mod which added crews (even requiring you to give them wages) to give the ship certain bonuses.

 

You aren't aiming those guns manually.  That reticle you have is so you can tell your crew were to shoot. Each gun has to be aimed at that spot by the crew and they have to account for where the gun is on the ship.

 

Has nobody ever heard of Ship gun fire-control systems?

 

This is old, WWII era stuff:

During World War II, servomechanisms (called "power drives" in the U.S. Navy) were developed that allowed the guns to automatically steer to the rangekeeper's commands with no manual intervention, though pointers still worked even if automatic control was lost.

 

Aiming weapons at a target is so simple a trained monkey could do it. Indeed, during WWII they managed to train pigeons for pigeon-guided bombs.

 

We have much better targeting technology today. Now, imagine what this tech should be like in a few hundred or thousand years from now. It would probably be pretty small and pretty cheap, at that.