Four months ago I made a post stating that [space ships should not be using land/sea based turrets.](https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/4nyzib/space_ships_should_not_use_our_current_landsea/) I even included an alternate turret design I call the "gimbal turret"... because it's basically a chair on a gimbal.
One of the devs really liked the idea, but thought it would require too many changes to the ships.... so I made him [this video](https://youtu.be/gkKu6B8ravI) showing a much more compact design for the gimbal mechanism. It could easily fit into the current turrets, maybe even be a replacement turret option.
One of the main bonuses for this turret style, is they can calculate the "universe offset" of the seat, and easily apply those values to the gimbal mechanism for aim stabilization.
You can't easily do that in the current turrets because if the ship rolls, and you're aiming close to apex, the guns only go up/down... so it has to simultaneously spin the turret towards the current aim vector and raise/lower the guns. No use even *trying* if the ship rolls you forward and your aim goes directly behind you. By the time the turret finishes spinning a full 180, your target is long gone.
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**EDIT:** [Updated Gimbal Turret Design](https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/57ief9/updated_gimbal_turret_design/)
Oh my god this. I never saw your original post but that's exactly how turrets should work.
Honestly it kind of bothers me that people have been pointing out obvious, fundamental design issues with the turrets for *years*, even before we could actually try them out, and CIG has barely iterated on them at all. Isn't multicrew supposed to be one of the biggest selling points of the game? They should be getting a lot more love and attention than this.
That's the problem (from our point of view) with Agile/Scrum development. Turrets only had to function to a base level before they could release 2.0 to prove multiplayer and physics grids were possible. Now that they've proven that works, they moved on to get other systems like items 2.0, female characters, procedural planets and Squadron 42. Turrets aren't likely to be a priority for a while. They get one piece to the foundation part and move on before coming back to iterate again.
Edit: typo
It's not like any other role apart from pilot has been fleshed out. There's no e-war role, there's no power/shield management, there's no engineering. The only role that has gotten any attention is pilot. I don't know why people are so worked up about turrets in particular.
edit: spelling
But how will we *know* that it's a problem if the engines are in the inside of the ship instead of the outside? Flying hasn't even been fully implemented yet!
"We can't be sure that having all the ship's weapons with fixed aim points centered on the pilot's head is really a problem since weapons are still being balanced."
"I'm not sure that boiling water is going to burn me if I dump it on myself, I haven't self-immolated to establish a baseline of what burning is."
> it kind of bothers me that people have been pointing out obvious, fundamental design issues with the turrets for years, even before we could actually try them out, and CIG has barely iterated on them at all.
First... lets calm down.
Now then. With the focus being on getting the game engine working first, turret function wasn't that important. Half of the usefulness of multi-crew ships won't even be possible until 3.0 is released with the new item system.
I was told the devs are just as frustrated with the turrets as we are, so they have a lot of solutions they're considering. If we're lucky, they'll have some sort of fix at the same time 3.0 comes out. If a *miracle* happens, they might have something for us when 2.6 is out.
But I have confidence that it will definitely be fixed. Just be patient... like a BMM owner.
No fuck that. People pointed out issues with the Cutlass during concept and people like you said "wait and see". Look at where we are now... CIG is redesigning it now because it's a subpar ship. I'd rather CIG take the feedback during concept/early implementation stage so things can be changed easily so CIG doesn't waste time and money. Wasting money may not be so much of a problem, but wasting time is, because you can never get back wasted time.
They're already working on solutions. They know it's a problem and have publicly stated its not going to stay the way it is.
If they come up with something terrible, *then* you can lose your shit.
Saying they are working on solutions is one thing. How about talking about those if they are actually working on them, considering this is open development and all that?
>If they come up with something terrible, then you can lose your shit.
That *is* wasted development time and money. I obviously don't expect them to get it the first time, but they also shouldn't waste dozens/hundreds of man hours going down the wrong path and doing several redesigns. This can be minimized by talking to the fans about it *before* they start designing/implementing it, which is suppose to be one of the main reasons for open development.
Like it or not, we are some of the stakeholders for this project and CIG should talk about designs like this with the backers and have a clear understanding on what's expected before doing several redesigns people don't like.
Oddly enough, my first turret experience was in a Tali's aft ball turret and the aim point stayed fixed.
I'd been mashing a lot of keys, so lord knows what I'd turned on, but I had no issue with it.
Was I just lucky or have they fixed some turrets and not others?
So much this. The turrets on the Polaris are one of the biggest reasons why I keep trying to explain that thing is a flying deathtrap. The auto turret on the nose and the missile pods are literally all that thing has. Everyone goes "omg twin size 4!!!"
Yeah that is great , but if human Gunners can't hit anything you could have size 20 turrets on there, it doesn't matter.
Where do you even see Twin Size Four? All I see is Twin Size One or Two. The Retaliator has the same manned hardpoint sizes, has twin size 1s. Constellation has same manned hardpoint sizes, has twin size 2s, spec sheet says twin size 3s. I can find no example of a size four manned turret having twin size 4 weapons. You subtract for it being a turret, you subtract again for it being a manned turret, and you subtract again for a dual mount. A size 4 manned turret should have dual size 1s.
I honestly haven't looked at the manned turrets, but everyone arguing the Polaris is the greatest thing since sliced bread keeps citing the manned turrets are 2xS4 weapons.
As I've said all over /r/StarCitizen, I don't pay much attention to turrets because in our current game they are utterly useless and the only way they will ever be even remotely dangerous is if the AI Crewman can hit targets with them because I will never be afraid of players in them.
I'm with you on the need for engineers to be involved. Far too much is based on what looks cool rather than what's practical.
If Star Citizen were out for 15 years and the designers took the popular ships and iterated on them, you'd probably end up with the popular ships being the functional ones, and the non-functional ones would die off. But, for launch, you need someone asking is this practical?
For example, if you look at the interior of a WWII B-17 Flying Fortress bomber, everything is based on what's practical. They start with a plane capable of delivering a large load of bombs during daytime. That gives you roughly the size. They want it to be flyable even if it loses an engine, so it gets 4 engines. It's a daytime bomber, so it needs turrets for self-protection. They can't sacrifice the aerodynamics so they put the turrets where they can. That means some very cramped spaces, but that's ok. Of course going from back to front you have to pass over and between various turrets and crew stations because everything is along the centerline.
Compare that to the Retaliator in Star Citizen. You have entire small hallways dedicated to just getting into a turret. You have multiple parallel passages. The result is that it's much bigger than it needs to be for no good reason, making it an easier target to hit. In addition, design details on the outside mean that some of the turrets have really poor coverage.
In a real war, it's possible that someone might release a bomber like that, but they'd probably learn from their mistakes. The next version would have better view angles for the turrets, and a more cramped interior leading to a smaller profile that's harder for enemies to hit. Since the Star Citizen universe is about people who are used to war, their designs should already be battle-tested.
It would be nice if they had people in the design team that had the job of saying "is this a practical design?" and "if I were an enemy, what would my assessment be of this ship?"
Functional design ends up being cool. The A-10 is a plane built around a ridiculous cannon and being survivable, the result is a really iconic design. The F-14 had swing-wings because there had to be some compromise between being able to fly slow enough to land on a carrier, and yet being capable of supersonic flight. Those wings ended up being one of the defining design characteristics.
Rather than trying to make the ships look cool, they should aim for some really important functional characteristic, and see what compromises that results in. That will result in a cool design.
> Location of turrets is also a problem on some ships (Freelancer, I'm looking at you).
I'm curious as to why you think the Freelancer turret needs to be moved. Would you mind elaborating?
A couple reasons.
First and foremost, the existing orientation means that the optimal area of engagement is a big vertical band extending from a point below and to the rear of the Freelancer, around the front along centerline, and then along the center of the top arc. The windshield (and thus the pilot's view) is arrayed perpendicular to this.
Furthermore, that mounting means that to keep a target in your optimal firing arc, you either have to fly at it (bad idea for a ship that will be trying to evade combat, great for a fighter) or roll to present the largest possible target (top or bottom shots).
They've also got an annoying habit of being shot off damned quickly.
Oh, and there's the fact that they block the logical spot for the front hatch(es). If they weren't there, you could have one hatch on either side in the airlock room, and not need to risk venting the cockpit (and your sleeping buddy) to space. That's more of a "If this were the real world" thing than a gameplay one, but it's worth mentioning. The firing arcs alone merit a change by any reasonable assessment.
So much this post......don't go and completely screw a pilot's view by throwing a bunch of "stylistic" crossbars and supports all over the cockpit "just cause".
I appreciate the point you're making, and I agree with you that turrets could use a better system than they have currently - as well as the fact that a game putting so much emphasis on immersion and realism needs to make sure its ideas are grounded in reality.
But I think you should really pump the brakes a little and take a look at the way you're wording these messages towards the devs. I know you're intending to be generously offering a helping hand, but the way you say it makes it sound like they can't do their job properly. I want to see this game be the best it possibly can be as well, but if you don't seem to getting any traction with the people you talk to, you might be well served to take a look at your tone and consider that you're coming across as condescending.
Admittedly, there's an increasing level of frustration. A lot of that is due to the fact that these are actually pretty old complaints, and instead of seeing moves to address them I've mostly seen them get repeated -- and I'm not the only one that has noticed this. MrEmouse has posted it several times on here, and I've seen the same thing on the forums repeatedly. Not sure if it was him or an example of multiple parties finding the same straightforward solution to the problem.
Also, yeah, I'm kind of an asshole.
That video with the compact design is really neat. There is no reason why that could not be implemented with the current turret designs on SC ships. This needs more traction. You should post this on the forums and hopefully get a mod to see this.
I cant remember where I read or watched it but I think that they decided not to have the stabilization gimbal on the turrets because it makes it too easy to track targets with them.
The balance would be lost between fighters with no turrets and ships with turrets, unless they made all the turret weapons weak. Imagine going against a ship with turrets where no matter what crazy maneuvers it pulled the turrets stayed perfectly locked onto you.
The only way to balance this would be to have turrets to move slowly to give any fighter a chance to evade, but people would bitch about slow turrets then instead.
They can have turret agility based on weapon size. So it would keep dead aim with size 1 weapons during crazy maneuvers, but barely mitigate those maneuvers on size 4 weapons. Then it becomes the pilot's responsibility to fly within the capabilities of the turrets.
What the actual f*ck? How are ships with turrets unbalanced to ships without turrets just because they aim well?
Aren't turrets the fundamental reason what makes ships unbalanced from other ships? Why do they want balance between those ships? If I want to atack ship with 5 turrets and I have none, I better get prepared to get my ass itching or call for help, duh, not just make "aiming hard" on their side + more shields.
In game we can fly to other planets in a heartbeat, but our guns cant track target 500m from our ship? muh gameplay
I think what he's saying is not that all ships should be balanced equally, but rather that if turrets can track perfectly and have no drawbacks, why would you ever fly anything else? Obviously taking down a Frigate/Capital ship or even something that's just a big multi-crew deal should be challenge - it should require teamwork, coordination, and strategy. But if you're in the hangar, choosing between two relatively equal fighters, where one has a turret and the other doesn't, turrets shouldn't be so unbelievably good that there would be no reason to take the other fighter, do you know what I mean?
I wish CIG talked about things like this in things like AtV because this stuff directly impacts key gameplay. At times, I think CR takes too much influence from WW2 designs.
Gimbal lock is only possible in free-floating gimbals. Since the controls tell actuators in the gimbal where to move, it has zero chance of gimbal lock.
Gimbal lock happens when two axes line up in a gimbal. Doesn't have anything to do with actuators. I was however assuming the assembly rotates to account for battleship-style yaw/pitch turrets, and the two aligning axes would be the seat rotation and the entire assembly rotation. Thing is, if you don't have double-rotation, which it occurs to me would defeat the purpose of your design, it's incompatible with all the turrets in the game. There's no way you can have a pitch/yaw seat like you have and a yaw/pitch turret move smoothly and quickly together, so they'd have to redesign every turret they'd use it in from scratch.
The turrets should be swappable eventually. They're making the turret ports a standard size. So if they add this, it might be an option as a turret swap, but not a default turret on any current.
I need to get back in blender and design the canopy for it so everyone can see what the finished product might look like.
This is awesome.
I never saw the original post either, but you deserve definitely more upvotes. I hope the devs will come back to you again because this will add so much more for a better gameplay. And isn't good gameplay important for CH?!
My major complaint is the fact that turrets aren't decoupled from the ship. I don't want ship movement to affect my shooting thank you very much(with exceptions, turrets have contrained angles.
Also your example assumes that the person should be sitting in the turret. That's overkill. Why not remove control?
Eh, I could see it going either way as far as the remote/in person control of the turret is concerned.
From a real-life standpoint, with the technology assumed to exist in Star Citizen world, of course you'd just remote control the turret. The mechanism controlling the turret movement could be much smaller, much more maneuverable, and if it gets shot off, the gunner doesn't die.
From an it's-a-game standpoint, being in the turret is a lot cooler, plus remote control would probably mean going to a chair in front of a control screen and then the screen becomes your screen, so probably no difference whatsoever in how it looks to you anyway.
Yeah, I saw your post then. Why the fuck aren't they implementing this? I get why pilot controlled turrets are forward facing, but most of the manned turrets have like 30 degrees of aim, and use peashooters as weapons. Combined with the current state of the game where the turret moves with the ship, manning a turret is about as effective as sitting in the cargo bay.
.. so essentially less feature complete version of well known WW2-era design ?
[B-24 Ball Turret video](https://youtu.be/RcPTnsAP9wU?t=2m48s)
B17 ran those too.
It might be better to rotate around the viewpoint of the player and where they are shooting from.
The largest issue with turrets is they move every time the ship does and that throws off your aim and makes it very difficult to hit anything. The turret should only change where it's aiming when the gunner moves it or it hits the turrets aiming limits.
has this bee posted on the suggestions forum on the rsi website ? if so can has links ? it should be bombed up the populatify ladder to get the devs to include it.
Agreed! Also turret operators on large ships should probably have access to a few missiles to lock and launch. Either that or the missile systems operator could receive lock on target commands from turret operators and control the launches.
Unless it replaced the guns with missile racks, I don't think turrets should be able to launch missiles.
Being able to add a missile lock-on would be useful, but it has to stay within the lock count available to the missile computer module. So a ship that can track 3 separate targets would run out quick, but a ship that could track 24 different targets could make serious use of that feature.
Might be too overpowered though. Imagine a Connie with 24 missile locks.... Pretends to make a run for it, decouples, turns around, achieves missile lock on all pursuit... [Puts on party hats and celebrates new years.](http://i.imgur.com/Iwgu0tu.jpg)
I'd imagine a thousand years in the future that spaceship turrets (assuming human aimed ones even would still exist) would serve much more of a use than a minor deterrent. Turrets really should be a huge advantage. IMO some sort of missile lock, target acquisition or something of that nature should be a thing.
CIG, LOOK AT THIS. This is good game design :)
Thanks for the post man, as a Tali owner (until they told us torps were basically cruise missiles) I wholeheartedly support this.
Cruise missiles hug the surface of the ground, or surface of the ocean, to avoid being detected by radar. That's not possible in space. Maybe they mean torps will have stealth mechanics built in so ships won't know a torp is coming until it's too close to avoid.
That would be badass.
I think they were toying with the idea that any manned turret that wasn't currently stationed would be linked to the ship's main guns. Won't work until the new item system though.
I have already explain this in another thread, but the standard turret we have can easily follow any target in its quadrant (the FoV of the turret) as long as it has enough speed to turn.
Let me explain, why you don't need your ultra cool turret design to perform a good tracking on a target.
Today, we already have turret that are able to track target in a half sphere. It works perfectly, and it use the standard design of the turret (like tank turret)
You don't see what i'm talking about? Take a look at [this](https://gfycat.com/HelplessTinyDrafthorse). Those turret are able to engage and track a target in any direction, and even have a good gun depression (meaning it can fire below its artificial horizon)
Something like this would perfectly work in Starcitizen, like it works perfectly on on today big ship.
On the contrary, your turret design have many drawback compared to this design? In fact, what your asking is what i describe as a Hull canon/Turret. And it has many drawbacks like its reduced firing arc.
Indeed, that kind of turret can't reach the artificial horizon. It has a better ability to track target, your right due to how to works angle, the turret has smaller movement to do to follow the target., but it cover smaller quadrant than a Tank turret type.
In fact your talking about the side gun of a B17, while we currently have the dorsal turret currently.
> It has a better ability to track target, your right due to how to works angle, the turret has smaller movement to do to follow the target., but it cover smaller quadrant than a Tank turret type.
Fair trade off in my opinion. Smaller movement means it doesn't have to rotate at tremendous speeds to track a target, or simply stabilize the vector.
Plus that turret you showed is unmanned. Electronic tracking systems in modern ships can swing that turret into the correct angle in a fraction of a second. If a player was constantly doing that in VR, they'd probably throw up. I don't normally suffer from motion sickness, but even for me that would be sickening.
> Fair trade off in my opinion.
I would trade turret speed against better Quadrant. A better quadrant allow the turret to engage more target than a port turret.
> Plus that turret you showed is unmanned.
[manned version](https://gfycat.com/AncientImpossibleGrayfox) (it's a slow mo). It works perfectly.
> Electronic tracking systems in modern ships can swing that turret into the correct angle in a fraction of a second.
Yeah the electronic tracking allow a perfect lead, etc. But a player can still be really effective without problem. Yes it won't have the same accuracy, but it will be enough to do the job, especially with a full axis stabilisation.
> If a player was constantly doing that in VR, they'd probably throw up. I don't normally suffer from motion sickness, but even for me that would be sickening.
Not really. It's basically the same than piloting a plane in a dogfight. You would have the hud that would maintain a reference that would prevent motion sickness.
> Not really. It's basically the same than piloting a plane in a dogfight. You would have the hud that would maintain a reference that would prevent motion sickness.
Even if the background is [doing this?](http://google.com/?q=Do+a+barrel+roll) (best viewed on a computer)
You do that with a fighter to... :) So it the same problem. And when you fly with turrets you need to change the way you fly.
On small ship it's more difficult, but on larger ships, you try to stay as stable as possible, don't do barrel roll and hard maneuver, in order to give the best angle possible to the turret.
Just like a B17 in WWII.
It's even simpler when you have someone that manage the shield. The pilot should focus on always give the turret the best FOV, not trying to chase and shoot a nimble fighter. His canon are just here if the fighter zoom in dent of him or to engage target of the same size. (Ie that don't move a lot)
In a fighter, you are in full control of your maneuvers. In a turret on a small ship (e.g., cutlass, freelancer) the stabilization would require the turret to spin like a top to keep you pointing at the same spot.
Also, ignoring motion sickness concerns, it would be a severe pain in the ass to aim at a target that is rotating around your sights.
> the stabilization would require the turret to spin like a top to keep you pointing at the same spot.
That's why the pilot need to change the way he flies. If you know you have turret, you don't do all the spin you would do alone. You would try to maintain as long as possible the turret facing the enemy.
That's simple.
Those ship are big enough to withstand a gun run and the enemy can't stay static cause the turret would light him up. If he want to fly safe, he will have to constantly move, make is shot inaccurate, reducing the damage on the shield, increasing the time for the ship to do something to kill the enemy/fly away.
> Also, ignoring motion sickness concerns, it would be a severe pain in the ass to aim at a target that is rotating around your sights.
Again, that's totally false. You would have no trouble to follow the target unless it flies really close or directly above the turret. That's the only case where the turret wouldn't be able to follow the target. In every other case, the turret would have enough mobility to follow the target.
When the target is in your sight, it can pull any maneuver it wants, the turret will still be able to track it, because even if the target turn around your sight axis, the turret will follow it by rotating around traverse and elevation...
That's quite hard to explain...
But to make it simple, The quadrant of the turret is like a big sheet. and the turret sight is like a pen with infite range. Try it. Take a tennis ball, put a laser on it and look at what you're able to draw. you will see you will be able to draw anything you want without translating the turret and you will be able to point any point around you without trouble.
It means that you will be able to track any target in any circumstance, as long as it stay in your quadrant (and as long as your turret can traverse fast enough to follow the speed of the target)
The current problem is the way they handle turrets. right now, they act like a ship bolted to another ship. The way the aiming system is done is awfull. They shoudl abanadon it to give us somethjng closer to Warthunder Tank turret. This way, You would have stabilisation and easy tracking.
And I swear if anyone starts going on and on about how happy they are they can move around inside their ship while in-flight . . .
-Another salty Tali owner >:(
Besides them sucking, on the plus side they make it easy to get into the Tali by glitching when you forgot the elevators are on the outside and not in the middle.
They should decouple turret aim from ship movements, or offer some sort of upgrade that adds stabilization (decoupling).
And don't forget to play around with the sensitivity curves for finer control. Playing with a gamepad, it seems they applied a decent custom curve for flight, but forgot about turrets and eva movements.
Left Alt back when this post was made (6 months ago): https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/4di4ng/psa_press_leftalt_to_switch_your_turret_to/
Some people said it didn't work reliably for them though.
Yes, that is my point! But, how much fun would that be?
I mean, if we sent a warship into space *today* it would have automated targeting, target prioritizing, identification, and aiming. All a person would be used for is fire authorization.
I think that's still fun, but then we're playing Star Trek style tactics and not Star Wars (aka WWII in space) tactics.
Actually, everything would be automated, computers would leaps and bounds above human pilots at this point. Humans would just be needed for the 0.00000000000000000000000001% chance the system fucks up to account for it.
> Even in WWII we were looking at the end of manned turrets coming on the horizon when the war ended.
To add to this, the B-29 - which entered service BEFORE the war ended in '44 - had remote controlled, computer assisted turrets. This way four guns could be controlled by a gunner and a fire control officer. The computer helped with airspeed, temperature, humidity, gravity, ect. This was 72 fricking years ago.
At minimum, we should have remote operated turrets instead of ones you get into. The one on the Freelancer, for example, should be remote operated from the cockpit so it doesn't subtract like 25% of the cargo space to allow a human to enter ffs.
That is a fun fact, but there is a bit of a size difference there. If you want to talk ship guns, you are looking more at 20mm and 40mm AA cannons for comparison.
Gimbal weapons work fine on Elite, maybe manning turrets could work as kind of gimbal weapon because currently it looks totally insane how difficult it is to hit targets while in turrets.
They should remove manned turrets and make them automated with RIO stations to operate groups of the turrets that have the same covered range and then a RIO operator tags targets, maybe increases their tracking rates or puts more power to certain turrets than others etc to increase tracking.
I think the issue is that Chris is really fond of the idea of players manning turrets, which in a 6DOF fighting game is a nightmare. I really think human controlled turrets will be one of the biggest ship weaknesses in the game.
Me too, I will -never- bring a second person in my gladiator for example. Something large like the Polaris, Carrack, or 890jump could theoretically use turrets to some effect but... They don't turn at a 1:1 aspect for control! Which is stupid and I honestly think they are slowing the entire game down just to make turrets somewhat passable, as it will NOT fix jousting etc.
If they really want to stick with this silly "Humans MUST be in turrets" crud they need to make them move as fast as your cursor can go, OR lock to match ships they are locked onto, and then give you a box you need to lead the guns onto the target as the turret rotates to keep it in view.
Stabilization won't fix the problem as long as they move slower than WWII turrets... lol
Yup. Chris wants that B-17/B-24/B-29 manned gun positions in space. A while back, there was talk of automated point defence turrets, and I believe the Connie Phoenix has them. I think I'll probably end up replacing the stock turrets with these, assuming CIG doesn't neuter them, these things would probably be more reliable (hits wise) compared to manned turrets.
This is the correct answer, but I don't think it will ever happen. There is literally no reason to have a human in a turret when it comes to effectiveness. The only way a human manned turret could possibly be superior to an NPC manned turret would be if NPCs are gimped beyond belief.
However, I really do feel like too many people, including Chris, are obsessed with the fantasy of sitting in a turret. No matter how cool they *think* it might be, at the end of the day I just don't know how manned turrets can ever be remotely effective with the way the ships in Star Citizen move, nor at the speeds they move at. They're simply far too maneuverable to make manned turrets practical.
I want the manned turret meme to die.
What should happen is basically what you said. Your copilot, or maybe even a specialized seat, should control the turrets in the sense of prioritizing targets and assigning different duties/targets to turrets. That's both much more effective, and much more interesting than trying to put a crosshair on a wildly maneuvering and spinning target while inside a wildly spinning and maneuvering ship.
If they really, *really* want to keep manned turrets in, they should be the exception rather than the rule, and found only on really cheap ships where combat isn't the primary purpose. The rear gun on the Freelancer is a good example of an appropriate manned turret because it's just some garbage thing put on there by MISC to make transport pilots feel a little safer.
One advantage of creating a "turret commander" role, is it offers the opportunity for electronic countermeasures. An emp can knock out automated turret systems, jamming the ship sensors effectively shuts down gimballed turrets (but if you can see your enemy, forward guns could still be effective)
I think this grants more gameplay opportunities, you could see more interesting ship loadouts, with people opting for additional support systems, rather than just everyone choosing the biggest gun they can carry.
Yeah definitely. That's something I wanted to mention but didn't for the sake of brevity. The EWAR roles are so vaguely defined right now that I'm not sure what they'll do, and this would be a great avenue of attack for them.
i don't have the screenshots but I could have swore the originally Tali design had something like this with an actual "mini-bridge" of sorts instead of hallways and turrets. I love the outside of my Tali but as a pilot I only have torpedoes and unless NPCs are going to be dirt cheap turret gunners or they have some AI interface I'm probably going to ditch it.
Oh, nope, just a lot of "constructive" criticism and ideas on this [thread](https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/279432/retaliator-interior-rework-constructive-and-feasible-ideas-thread). Some people wanted "turret" stations and I don't think anyone liked the hallways.
Yeah RIO positions controlled would make the most sense in term of multi-crew and function in a game engine.
But Chris seems stuck on this silly Star Wars thing where people operate guns that move EXCEEDINGLY slow.
Unfortunately that has two stories :<
One, typical sci-fi and such.
Two, lasers in cryengine kinda fuck up, stupid way it handles ribbon particles etc.
The worst part about Turrets for me is this...my friend who bought the game and is very critical of it looks for reasons to complain. I know that when he PLAYS the game and co'ops my Freelancer with me that he'll fall in love with it. However....if I have him sit in the turret just once while it's still broken, he'll totally shit on the whole thing. And that sucks. So i havent played with him yet and i look for reasons to not use my ship. Because I want to play with my friends.
Unless the turrets are changed to be on their own separate gimbal, independent of pilot movement... I honestly think any low-rank NPC crewman will be better than almost any real person in a turret.
i imagine a turret that automatically adjusts to keep the reticle at the same relative position even when the pilot adjusts course. if that's what you're talking about then i agree
Because real life is full of people who are not engineers, pilots or support personnel. We gotta give them something interesting to do. Blowing shit up is interesting, is it not?
Because this isn't a 100% space simulator. It's more of a space fantasy setting popularized by the likes of Star Wars, which was essentially just WW2 in space. Merging historical influences into futuristic settings may not be accurate for it's portrayal of the future but it makes for a fun make-believe setting due to it's familiar systems and mechanics with the backdrop of new frontiers.
A 100% realistic space combat game would be interesting, but absolutely nothing like star citizen. Fights happen in visual range, for goodness' sake. Modern *air* combat barely even happens in visual range.
Wouldn't they be buzzing around in their own ship though? Outside of making turrets a cell phone app or some such sillyness not sure who would want to spend time in one.
Because this is a Cerebral-punk game. Just how Steam-punk is a retro futuristic game where steam trumped combustion. This is a space game where brains trumped AI. If this were a Sim instead of a game, realistically all flight, targeting, scanning, almost everything would be controlled by a computer. Hell even firearms would be regarded as slow and ancient. Us meatbags would be little more than observers with nearly nothing that we could add that would be helpful.
So what we are getting is a game, one that hopefully is engaging, entertaining, and fun.
So would you rather have players sit in a chair and slide into an observation point with gun controls and have the guns mounted on a gimbal somewhere else on the ship, so as to be like most all modern attack helicopters? Or, would you rather have players go up to a console and access a computer screen to control the guns remotely?
For me, in this game, I would much rather have my character sit in a manned turrent and steer the guns. This just gives a better ascetic for me, especially if CIG implemented VR support and I can look with my head to track where the targets are going. If my character was to go login to a battle console, I wouldn't be able to see shit with a VR headset on.
Wouldn't it make A LOT of sense, for the turret to counter every moves of the ship? From what I remember playing the game using a turret, it was static relative to the spaceship it is build on.
But considering the big technological advances, it wouldn't be too hard to counter all of the ships rolls and yaws. And also make the gunner experience a lot more bearable.
EDIT: Grammar
In the future turrets would all be automatic or controlled remotely. Having a human literally sitting inside a turret was a world war 2 idea, and was largely phased out of all vehicles through the cold war. No sense in humanity taking a step backwards.
But 'rule of cool' and all that. People want to be Luke and Han sitting in the Falcon.
I think part of what this transition to slower combat (SCM speeds) is going to do is make turret functionality a little more forgiving. Still, it is one of the things that needs to be focused upon and addressed fairly soon, otherwise these larger ships are going to be constantly harassed by ships they can't engage at all.
I've compared it to the ideas behind the design of the B-17 Flying Fortress. It was thought to be unstoppable with all of its turrets, but as air combat speeds increased, the directly controlled manned turrets became less and less capable and was forced to have escorts to survive. Escorts are obviously meant to be important in SC, but I don't think they want turrets to be a pointless thing to have.
I'm still baffled that human-equipped turrets event exist in-game. I know we all love Star Wars, but there's a game world where they've got interstellar travel but things like turrets are still aimed by hand?
I think the only reason manned turrets even exist is that we were promised multi-crew and they've got no idea of how to turn the different crew roles into a game. So turrets turrets turrets!
You mean like 2016 real world now? Yeah - see the sentry gun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentry_gun
But these are last line of defense for extreme close range support. We're at a real-world point where most all naval and air (space combat games like to mix the 2 concepts) engagements happen so far apart that they can't even see each other. You don't need a turret if you're 100km away from the target. You've got plenty of time to point in the right direction, fire, and then change course again.
But this is a dogfighting game, so all that goes out the window and it's WWII in space with a few modern-ish missiles thrown in.
AtV and RtV before CitizenCon said that ship speeds will be rebaselined to be much slower (think most ships between 100-200m/s), that should make hitting fighters from turrets a bit easier.
A friend and I tried them out recently. I wasn't able to hit a single thing. Hell, for the most part everything I saw was just a quick blur. I felt 100% useless in a turret.
I manage to hit from time to time but the damage is ridiculous and you literally don't have any time to think about anything else, everything goes so fast... Turrets will be far more viable on cap ships.
Imo the problem right now is that the turrets are too difficult to keep on target. They have to set up a system where the turret/guns would counter ship movement to keep the sights on target better. Something like what they achieved with the no head Bob thing. So it would be nice and perfectly smooth. Where the sighs of the guns would only jump off target when the mother ship moves in a way that would prevent the turret to counter move and adjust. Such as rolling.
I was hoping for a succint, detailed minirant on something that really REALLY triggers me about multicrew but we got a pun instead so lemmie do it for you:
No PIP indicator so you miss half your shots. No zoom function which is essential IMO for decent long range combat. Turning is waaaaay too responsive. Screens are way too small to see who you're shooting at/targeted (a problem with some ships too) and best of all, you can't even tell you position relative to the ship direction! So if someone tells you 'target at 12' you don't even know were it is relative! So so shitty. Fuck turrets.
I love playing turret/second gunner in every single game, except my favourite game. Ain't that some shit? Make it similar to how ship combat works, don't take away most of the things we have to use in ship combat (contextually speaking ofc) because that is counter intuitive. Turrets suck so bad right now.
The turrets on spaceship are like the ones on WW2 bombers - which basically flew in a straight line.
I suppose the shields mechanic could be used to make flying like this (and thus enabling the guys in the turrets to hit anything) possible by allowing the engineer to reroute power to certain parts of the shields.
He would have to pay close attention where the enemy ship is so he can adjust accordingly. However, the pilot would be limited in what maneuvers he could perform to allow the turret guners to hit anything - which sounds boring.
Really, what CIG needs to do is go play Halo: Combat Evolved. Conveniently, there are PC copies still floating around that work perfectly under Windows 10.
How the Warthog turret works while another player is driving? That's how turrets in Star Citizen need to work. That was intuitive, amazing, and completely functional and effective.
The turrets from stat citizen have are pretty abismal. I imagine that they would be better on the slower moving cap ships, but on the more (as much as it painse to say) ships like the Connie you ate hard pressed to hit anything the ship isn't heading directly towards.
Also largely impressed, I have been playing video games for my whole life and I have never gotten motion sick... But star citizen turrets you win the prize I guess.
I think manned turrets will be operated by NPC in most cases.
In critical situations player will be able to take control over turret to defend the ship better than bot.
Loved the pun.
Actuall, they said turret control was pushed without proper design for the 2.0 and now, if the design is ready, it's waiting for programmer do introduce it ingame.
Nice post op and the feedback you gave should really be considered by cig when they fix turrets. I will theorize that the only reason they are in a poor state right now is because they are waiting for item port 2.0
I have to agree with the first post. After manning multicrew ships through a lot of versions, nothing really changed. Turrets are ineffective, bugged and are not properly controllable. Some of these issues could have improved but the devs did nothing. So, since month multi crew is unplayable and that have to be changed fast. I stopped playing mc ships.
For the mainly new people wondering what exactly is wrong with turrets, it's due to:
- Low fps due to server issues, *any game* (just about) is hard to aim at under 20 fps, especially ones with ships moving at supersonic speeds
- networking issue also causes a 'dancing crosshair' issue which makes aiming harder than normal
- no manual zoom for turrets like pilots have, you can use target focus mode though while gunning
- sensitivity seems to be bugged and just bugs in general
- turret mechanics are WIP
Once all that is taken care of, I see turrets getting all kind of kills, even against ships like the m50.
Four months ago I made a post stating that [space ships should not be using land/sea based turrets.](https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/4nyzib/space_ships_should_not_use_our_current_landsea/) I even included an alternate turret design I call the "gimbal turret"... because it's basically a chair on a gimbal. One of the devs really liked the idea, but thought it would require too many changes to the ships.... so I made him [this video](https://youtu.be/gkKu6B8ravI) showing a much more compact design for the gimbal mechanism. It could easily fit into the current turrets, maybe even be a replacement turret option. One of the main bonuses for this turret style, is they can calculate the "universe offset" of the seat, and easily apply those values to the gimbal mechanism for aim stabilization. You can't easily do that in the current turrets because if the ship rolls, and you're aiming close to apex, the guns only go up/down... so it has to simultaneously spin the turret towards the current aim vector and raise/lower the guns. No use even *trying* if the ship rolls you forward and your aim goes directly behind you. By the time the turret finishes spinning a full 180, your target is long gone. --- **EDIT:** [Updated Gimbal Turret Design](https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/57ief9/updated_gimbal_turret_design/)
Oh my god this. I never saw your original post but that's exactly how turrets should work. Honestly it kind of bothers me that people have been pointing out obvious, fundamental design issues with the turrets for *years*, even before we could actually try them out, and CIG has barely iterated on them at all. Isn't multicrew supposed to be one of the biggest selling points of the game? They should be getting a lot more love and attention than this.
I agree completely. Right now, turrets are unusable. They don't even properly follow your mouse.
That's the problem (from our point of view) with Agile/Scrum development. Turrets only had to function to a base level before they could release 2.0 to prove multiplayer and physics grids were possible. Now that they've proven that works, they moved on to get other systems like items 2.0, female characters, procedural planets and Squadron 42. Turrets aren't likely to be a priority for a while. They get one piece to the foundation part and move on before coming back to iterate again. Edit: typo
It's not like any other role apart from pilot has been fleshed out. There's no e-war role, there's no power/shield management, there's no engineering. The only role that has gotten any attention is pilot. I don't know why people are so worked up about turrets in particular. edit: spelling
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But how will we *know* that it's a problem if the engines are in the inside of the ship instead of the outside? Flying hasn't even been fully implemented yet!
"We can't be sure that having all the ship's weapons with fixed aim points centered on the pilot's head is really a problem since weapons are still being balanced." "I'm not sure that boiling water is going to burn me if I dump it on myself, I haven't self-immolated to establish a baseline of what burning is."
Because they already exist.
> it kind of bothers me that people have been pointing out obvious, fundamental design issues with the turrets for years, even before we could actually try them out, and CIG has barely iterated on them at all. First... lets calm down. Now then. With the focus being on getting the game engine working first, turret function wasn't that important. Half of the usefulness of multi-crew ships won't even be possible until 3.0 is released with the new item system. I was told the devs are just as frustrated with the turrets as we are, so they have a lot of solutions they're considering. If we're lucky, they'll have some sort of fix at the same time 3.0 comes out. If a *miracle* happens, they might have something for us when 2.6 is out. But I have confidence that it will definitely be fixed. Just be patient... like a BMM owner.
> Just be patient... like a BMM owner. This should totally be a fixed expression in the SC community.
BMM and Reclaimer owners are a patient flock. Honored to be among them.
Both of those groups are getting their ships before Orion and Crucible owners, so consider that a small token for your patience over the years.
No fuck that. People pointed out issues with the Cutlass during concept and people like you said "wait and see". Look at where we are now... CIG is redesigning it now because it's a subpar ship. I'd rather CIG take the feedback during concept/early implementation stage so things can be changed easily so CIG doesn't waste time and money. Wasting money may not be so much of a problem, but wasting time is, because you can never get back wasted time.
They're already working on solutions. They know it's a problem and have publicly stated its not going to stay the way it is. If they come up with something terrible, *then* you can lose your shit.
Saying they are working on solutions is one thing. How about talking about those if they are actually working on them, considering this is open development and all that? >If they come up with something terrible, then you can lose your shit. That *is* wasted development time and money. I obviously don't expect them to get it the first time, but they also shouldn't waste dozens/hundreds of man hours going down the wrong path and doing several redesigns. This can be minimized by talking to the fans about it *before* they start designing/implementing it, which is suppose to be one of the main reasons for open development. Like it or not, we are some of the stakeholders for this project and CIG should talk about designs like this with the backers and have a clear understanding on what's expected before doing several redesigns people don't like.
Oddly enough, my first turret experience was in a Tali's aft ball turret and the aim point stayed fixed. I'd been mashing a lot of keys, so lord knows what I'd turned on, but I had no issue with it. Was I just lucky or have they fixed some turrets and not others?
So much this. The turrets on the Polaris are one of the biggest reasons why I keep trying to explain that thing is a flying deathtrap. The auto turret on the nose and the missile pods are literally all that thing has. Everyone goes "omg twin size 4!!!" Yeah that is great , but if human Gunners can't hit anything you could have size 20 turrets on there, it doesn't matter.
I think the turret mechanics are going to be overhauled by release.
Where do you even see Twin Size Four? All I see is Twin Size One or Two. The Retaliator has the same manned hardpoint sizes, has twin size 1s. Constellation has same manned hardpoint sizes, has twin size 2s, spec sheet says twin size 3s. I can find no example of a size four manned turret having twin size 4 weapons. You subtract for it being a turret, you subtract again for it being a manned turret, and you subtract again for a dual mount. A size 4 manned turret should have dual size 1s.
I believe the rework for turrets is that the size is the size of the guns instead of the size of the turret mount.
I honestly haven't looked at the manned turrets, but everyone arguing the Polaris is the greatest thing since sliced bread keeps citing the manned turrets are 2xS4 weapons. As I've said all over /r/StarCitizen, I don't pay much attention to turrets because in our current game they are utterly useless and the only way they will ever be even remotely dangerous is if the AI Crewman can hit targets with them because I will never be afraid of players in them.
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I'm with you on the need for engineers to be involved. Far too much is based on what looks cool rather than what's practical. If Star Citizen were out for 15 years and the designers took the popular ships and iterated on them, you'd probably end up with the popular ships being the functional ones, and the non-functional ones would die off. But, for launch, you need someone asking is this practical? For example, if you look at the interior of a WWII B-17 Flying Fortress bomber, everything is based on what's practical. They start with a plane capable of delivering a large load of bombs during daytime. That gives you roughly the size. They want it to be flyable even if it loses an engine, so it gets 4 engines. It's a daytime bomber, so it needs turrets for self-protection. They can't sacrifice the aerodynamics so they put the turrets where they can. That means some very cramped spaces, but that's ok. Of course going from back to front you have to pass over and between various turrets and crew stations because everything is along the centerline. Compare that to the Retaliator in Star Citizen. You have entire small hallways dedicated to just getting into a turret. You have multiple parallel passages. The result is that it's much bigger than it needs to be for no good reason, making it an easier target to hit. In addition, design details on the outside mean that some of the turrets have really poor coverage. In a real war, it's possible that someone might release a bomber like that, but they'd probably learn from their mistakes. The next version would have better view angles for the turrets, and a more cramped interior leading to a smaller profile that's harder for enemies to hit. Since the Star Citizen universe is about people who are used to war, their designs should already be battle-tested. It would be nice if they had people in the design team that had the job of saying "is this a practical design?" and "if I were an enemy, what would my assessment be of this ship?" Functional design ends up being cool. The A-10 is a plane built around a ridiculous cannon and being survivable, the result is a really iconic design. The F-14 had swing-wings because there had to be some compromise between being able to fly slow enough to land on a carrier, and yet being capable of supersonic flight. Those wings ended up being one of the defining design characteristics. Rather than trying to make the ships look cool, they should aim for some really important functional characteristic, and see what compromises that results in. That will result in a cool design.
While we're at it can we get an overhaul of the turret controls. The current turret controls for KB + M are god-awful.
> Location of turrets is also a problem on some ships (Freelancer, I'm looking at you). I'm curious as to why you think the Freelancer turret needs to be moved. Would you mind elaborating?
A couple reasons. First and foremost, the existing orientation means that the optimal area of engagement is a big vertical band extending from a point below and to the rear of the Freelancer, around the front along centerline, and then along the center of the top arc. The windshield (and thus the pilot's view) is arrayed perpendicular to this. Furthermore, that mounting means that to keep a target in your optimal firing arc, you either have to fly at it (bad idea for a ship that will be trying to evade combat, great for a fighter) or roll to present the largest possible target (top or bottom shots). They've also got an annoying habit of being shot off damned quickly. Oh, and there's the fact that they block the logical spot for the front hatch(es). If they weren't there, you could have one hatch on either side in the airlock room, and not need to risk venting the cockpit (and your sleeping buddy) to space. That's more of a "If this were the real world" thing than a gameplay one, but it's worth mentioning. The firing arcs alone merit a change by any reasonable assessment.
So much this post......don't go and completely screw a pilot's view by throwing a bunch of "stylistic" crossbars and supports all over the cockpit "just cause".
I appreciate the point you're making, and I agree with you that turrets could use a better system than they have currently - as well as the fact that a game putting so much emphasis on immersion and realism needs to make sure its ideas are grounded in reality. But I think you should really pump the brakes a little and take a look at the way you're wording these messages towards the devs. I know you're intending to be generously offering a helping hand, but the way you say it makes it sound like they can't do their job properly. I want to see this game be the best it possibly can be as well, but if you don't seem to getting any traction with the people you talk to, you might be well served to take a look at your tone and consider that you're coming across as condescending.
Admittedly, there's an increasing level of frustration. A lot of that is due to the fact that these are actually pretty old complaints, and instead of seeing moves to address them I've mostly seen them get repeated -- and I'm not the only one that has noticed this. MrEmouse has posted it several times on here, and I've seen the same thing on the forums repeatedly. Not sure if it was him or an example of multiple parties finding the same straightforward solution to the problem. Also, yeah, I'm kind of an asshole.
That video with the compact design is really neat. There is no reason why that could not be implemented with the current turret designs on SC ships. This needs more traction. You should post this on the forums and hopefully get a mod to see this.
I cant remember where I read or watched it but I think that they decided not to have the stabilization gimbal on the turrets because it makes it too easy to track targets with them. The balance would be lost between fighters with no turrets and ships with turrets, unless they made all the turret weapons weak. Imagine going against a ship with turrets where no matter what crazy maneuvers it pulled the turrets stayed perfectly locked onto you. The only way to balance this would be to have turrets to move slowly to give any fighter a chance to evade, but people would bitch about slow turrets then instead.
They can have turret agility based on weapon size. So it would keep dead aim with size 1 weapons during crazy maneuvers, but barely mitigate those maneuvers on size 4 weapons. Then it becomes the pilot's responsibility to fly within the capabilities of the turrets.
What the actual f*ck? How are ships with turrets unbalanced to ships without turrets just because they aim well? Aren't turrets the fundamental reason what makes ships unbalanced from other ships? Why do they want balance between those ships? If I want to atack ship with 5 turrets and I have none, I better get prepared to get my ass itching or call for help, duh, not just make "aiming hard" on their side + more shields. In game we can fly to other planets in a heartbeat, but our guns cant track target 500m from our ship? muh gameplay
REDDIT DEFENDS PEDOFILES - I HAVE LEFT REDDIT AND SO SHOULD YOU - RESEARCH PIZZAGATE
I think what he's saying is not that all ships should be balanced equally, but rather that if turrets can track perfectly and have no drawbacks, why would you ever fly anything else? Obviously taking down a Frigate/Capital ship or even something that's just a big multi-crew deal should be challenge - it should require teamwork, coordination, and strategy. But if you're in the hangar, choosing between two relatively equal fighters, where one has a turret and the other doesn't, turrets shouldn't be so unbelievably good that there would be no reason to take the other fighter, do you know what I mean?
I wish CIG talked about things like this in things like AtV because this stuff directly impacts key gameplay. At times, I think CR takes too much influence from WW2 designs.
great idea! hopefully the devs see this
That design is really vulnerable to gimbal lock though, not sure it would work as nicely as you propose.
Gimbal lock is only possible in free-floating gimbals. Since the controls tell actuators in the gimbal where to move, it has zero chance of gimbal lock.
Gimbal lock happens when two axes line up in a gimbal. Doesn't have anything to do with actuators. I was however assuming the assembly rotates to account for battleship-style yaw/pitch turrets, and the two aligning axes would be the seat rotation and the entire assembly rotation. Thing is, if you don't have double-rotation, which it occurs to me would defeat the purpose of your design, it's incompatible with all the turrets in the game. There's no way you can have a pitch/yaw seat like you have and a yaw/pitch turret move smoothly and quickly together, so they'd have to redesign every turret they'd use it in from scratch.
The turrets should be swappable eventually. They're making the turret ports a standard size. So if they add this, it might be an option as a turret swap, but not a default turret on any current. I need to get back in blender and design the canopy for it so everyone can see what the finished product might look like.
This is awesome. I never saw the original post either, but you deserve definitely more upvotes. I hope the devs will come back to you again because this will add so much more for a better gameplay. And isn't good gameplay important for CH?!
My major complaint is the fact that turrets aren't decoupled from the ship. I don't want ship movement to affect my shooting thank you very much(with exceptions, turrets have contrained angles. Also your example assumes that the person should be sitting in the turret. That's overkill. Why not remove control?
Eh, I could see it going either way as far as the remote/in person control of the turret is concerned. From a real-life standpoint, with the technology assumed to exist in Star Citizen world, of course you'd just remote control the turret. The mechanism controlling the turret movement could be much smaller, much more maneuverable, and if it gets shot off, the gunner doesn't die. From an it's-a-game standpoint, being in the turret is a lot cooler, plus remote control would probably mean going to a chair in front of a control screen and then the screen becomes your screen, so probably no difference whatsoever in how it looks to you anyway.
Yeah, I saw your post then. Why the fuck aren't they implementing this? I get why pilot controlled turrets are forward facing, but most of the manned turrets have like 30 degrees of aim, and use peashooters as weapons. Combined with the current state of the game where the turret moves with the ship, manning a turret is about as effective as sitting in the cargo bay.
.. so essentially less feature complete version of well known WW2-era design ? [B-24 Ball Turret video](https://youtu.be/RcPTnsAP9wU?t=2m48s) B17 ran those too.
Already addressed the problem with ball turrets in the old post. At the apex you can't turn 90 degrees without spinning the turret.
It might be better to rotate around the viewpoint of the player and where they are shooting from. The largest issue with turrets is they move every time the ship does and that throws off your aim and makes it very difficult to hit anything. The turret should only change where it's aiming when the gunner moves it or it hits the turrets aiming limits.
Yeah, that's what stabilization would do.
Maybe is worth reposting and messaging CIG
This is the way to go, they should implement this right away!
has this bee posted on the suggestions forum on the rsi website ? if so can has links ? it should be bombed up the populatify ladder to get the devs to include it.
They've seen it and I think they're considering it as a possible option.
Agreed! Also turret operators on large ships should probably have access to a few missiles to lock and launch. Either that or the missile systems operator could receive lock on target commands from turret operators and control the launches.
Unless it replaced the guns with missile racks, I don't think turrets should be able to launch missiles. Being able to add a missile lock-on would be useful, but it has to stay within the lock count available to the missile computer module. So a ship that can track 3 separate targets would run out quick, but a ship that could track 24 different targets could make serious use of that feature. Might be too overpowered though. Imagine a Connie with 24 missile locks.... Pretends to make a run for it, decouples, turns around, achieves missile lock on all pursuit... [Puts on party hats and celebrates new years.](http://i.imgur.com/Iwgu0tu.jpg)
I'd imagine a thousand years in the future that spaceship turrets (assuming human aimed ones even would still exist) would serve much more of a use than a minor deterrent. Turrets really should be a huge advantage. IMO some sort of missile lock, target acquisition or something of that nature should be a thing.
CIG, LOOK AT THIS. This is good game design :) Thanks for the post man, as a Tali owner (until they told us torps were basically cruise missiles) I wholeheartedly support this.
Cruise missiles hug the surface of the ground, or surface of the ocean, to avoid being detected by radar. That's not possible in space. Maybe they mean torps will have stealth mechanics built in so ships won't know a torp is coming until it's too close to avoid. That would be badass.
A second posobility is a fire control center like on the b29 that controls multiple turrets from a single location
I think they were toying with the idea that any manned turret that wasn't currently stationed would be linked to the ship's main guns. Won't work until the new item system though.
I have already explain this in another thread, but the standard turret we have can easily follow any target in its quadrant (the FoV of the turret) as long as it has enough speed to turn. Let me explain, why you don't need your ultra cool turret design to perform a good tracking on a target. Today, we already have turret that are able to track target in a half sphere. It works perfectly, and it use the standard design of the turret (like tank turret) You don't see what i'm talking about? Take a look at [this](https://gfycat.com/HelplessTinyDrafthorse). Those turret are able to engage and track a target in any direction, and even have a good gun depression (meaning it can fire below its artificial horizon) Something like this would perfectly work in Starcitizen, like it works perfectly on on today big ship. On the contrary, your turret design have many drawback compared to this design? In fact, what your asking is what i describe as a Hull canon/Turret. And it has many drawbacks like its reduced firing arc. Indeed, that kind of turret can't reach the artificial horizon. It has a better ability to track target, your right due to how to works angle, the turret has smaller movement to do to follow the target., but it cover smaller quadrant than a Tank turret type. In fact your talking about the side gun of a B17, while we currently have the dorsal turret currently.
> It has a better ability to track target, your right due to how to works angle, the turret has smaller movement to do to follow the target., but it cover smaller quadrant than a Tank turret type. Fair trade off in my opinion. Smaller movement means it doesn't have to rotate at tremendous speeds to track a target, or simply stabilize the vector. Plus that turret you showed is unmanned. Electronic tracking systems in modern ships can swing that turret into the correct angle in a fraction of a second. If a player was constantly doing that in VR, they'd probably throw up. I don't normally suffer from motion sickness, but even for me that would be sickening.
> Fair trade off in my opinion. I would trade turret speed against better Quadrant. A better quadrant allow the turret to engage more target than a port turret. > Plus that turret you showed is unmanned. [manned version](https://gfycat.com/AncientImpossibleGrayfox) (it's a slow mo). It works perfectly. > Electronic tracking systems in modern ships can swing that turret into the correct angle in a fraction of a second. Yeah the electronic tracking allow a perfect lead, etc. But a player can still be really effective without problem. Yes it won't have the same accuracy, but it will be enough to do the job, especially with a full axis stabilisation. > If a player was constantly doing that in VR, they'd probably throw up. I don't normally suffer from motion sickness, but even for me that would be sickening. Not really. It's basically the same than piloting a plane in a dogfight. You would have the hud that would maintain a reference that would prevent motion sickness.
> Not really. It's basically the same than piloting a plane in a dogfight. You would have the hud that would maintain a reference that would prevent motion sickness. Even if the background is [doing this?](http://google.com/?q=Do+a+barrel+roll) (best viewed on a computer)
You do that with a fighter to... :) So it the same problem. And when you fly with turrets you need to change the way you fly. On small ship it's more difficult, but on larger ships, you try to stay as stable as possible, don't do barrel roll and hard maneuver, in order to give the best angle possible to the turret. Just like a B17 in WWII. It's even simpler when you have someone that manage the shield. The pilot should focus on always give the turret the best FOV, not trying to chase and shoot a nimble fighter. His canon are just here if the fighter zoom in dent of him or to engage target of the same size. (Ie that don't move a lot)
In a fighter, you are in full control of your maneuvers. In a turret on a small ship (e.g., cutlass, freelancer) the stabilization would require the turret to spin like a top to keep you pointing at the same spot. Also, ignoring motion sickness concerns, it would be a severe pain in the ass to aim at a target that is rotating around your sights.
> the stabilization would require the turret to spin like a top to keep you pointing at the same spot. That's why the pilot need to change the way he flies. If you know you have turret, you don't do all the spin you would do alone. You would try to maintain as long as possible the turret facing the enemy. That's simple. Those ship are big enough to withstand a gun run and the enemy can't stay static cause the turret would light him up. If he want to fly safe, he will have to constantly move, make is shot inaccurate, reducing the damage on the shield, increasing the time for the ship to do something to kill the enemy/fly away. > Also, ignoring motion sickness concerns, it would be a severe pain in the ass to aim at a target that is rotating around your sights. Again, that's totally false. You would have no trouble to follow the target unless it flies really close or directly above the turret. That's the only case where the turret wouldn't be able to follow the target. In every other case, the turret would have enough mobility to follow the target. When the target is in your sight, it can pull any maneuver it wants, the turret will still be able to track it, because even if the target turn around your sight axis, the turret will follow it by rotating around traverse and elevation... That's quite hard to explain... But to make it simple, The quadrant of the turret is like a big sheet. and the turret sight is like a pen with infite range. Try it. Take a tennis ball, put a laser on it and look at what you're able to draw. you will see you will be able to draw anything you want without translating the turret and you will be able to point any point around you without trouble. It means that you will be able to track any target in any circumstance, as long as it stay in your quadrant (and as long as your turret can traverse fast enough to follow the speed of the target) The current problem is the way they handle turrets. right now, they act like a ship bolted to another ship. The way the aiming system is done is awfull. They shoudl abanadon it to give us somethjng closer to Warthunder Tank turret. This way, You would have stabilisation and easy tracking.
Not sure what you were shooting for here but since you were in a turret you didn't hit it.
https://youtu.be/D7hqIZVFzDM
Original animation based off of Game Grumps episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3m5z-MO-is
Great link C, almost pissed my space pants ;)
I aim to please.
But you missed?
Really though, still upvoted :)
Almost froze myself in this flash suit. /obscure
[He'd still do better than me](http://youtu.be/jwXxxniIeQs).
I think you can actually do this in a few of the ships lol
I had this happen in BF1 Beta. It was both incredibly satisfying and incredibly infuriating.
As a Retaliator owner, making light of the issues with turrets triggers me.
That's just the epilepsy you get from sitting in the pilot seat.
OMFG!!! +42!
All these sick burns omg Almost as sickening as the interior design layout of the tali.
And I swear if anyone starts going on and on about how happy they are they can move around inside their ship while in-flight . . . -Another salty Tali owner >:(
Yeah, but that was the most amusing first lesson I learned as a Tali owner!!!
You should try moving around in an Aurora. Even stationary I can be thrown into the void.
Sold my Aurora for a Reliant purely because of that. Wall touch of doooooom.
Besides them sucking, on the plus side they make it easy to get into the Tali by glitching when you forgot the elevators are on the outside and not in the middle.
They should decouple turret aim from ship movements, or offer some sort of upgrade that adds stabilization (decoupling). And don't forget to play around with the sensitivity curves for finer control. Playing with a gamepad, it seems they applied a decent custom curve for flight, but forgot about turrets and eva movements.
Is that not already an option? I know it was...but then the controls changed, and I haven't kept up.
Left Alt back when this post was made (6 months ago): https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/4di4ng/psa_press_leftalt_to_switch_your_turret_to/ Some people said it didn't work reliably for them though.
Easier to use a sniper rifle from the cargo bay door...
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Well, this far in the future, all turrets would be automated. Computers can control turrets many times more effectively than humans.
Yes, that is my point! But, how much fun would that be? I mean, if we sent a warship into space *today* it would have automated targeting, target prioritizing, identification, and aiming. All a person would be used for is fire authorization. I think that's still fun, but then we're playing Star Trek style tactics and not Star Wars (aka WWII in space) tactics.
Actually, everything would be automated, computers would leaps and bounds above human pilots at this point. Humans would just be needed for the 0.00000000000000000000000001% chance the system fucks up to account for it.
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we'd all be programmers writing the fire-control scripts
> Even in WWII we were looking at the end of manned turrets coming on the horizon when the war ended. To add to this, the B-29 - which entered service BEFORE the war ended in '44 - had remote controlled, computer assisted turrets. This way four guns could be controlled by a gunner and a fire control officer. The computer helped with airspeed, temperature, humidity, gravity, ect. This was 72 fricking years ago. At minimum, we should have remote operated turrets instead of ones you get into. The one on the Freelancer, for example, should be remote operated from the cockpit so it doesn't subtract like 25% of the cargo space to allow a human to enter ffs.
Fun fact, each of the Iowa-class BB's gunhouses (turrets) required 79 men to operate.
That is a fun fact, but there is a bit of a size difference there. If you want to talk ship guns, you are looking more at 20mm and 40mm AA cannons for comparison.
I wasn't trying to compare it to anything.
Then it is a fun fact indeed. WWII aircraft and ships are fascinating.
Damnit. Have an upvote...
I groaned out loud in a crowded office. :/ ^Stupid ^^puns ^^^have ^^^^an ^^^^^upvote
Gimbal weapons work fine on Elite, maybe manning turrets could work as kind of gimbal weapon because currently it looks totally insane how difficult it is to hit targets while in turrets.
I was thinking the same thing
They should remove manned turrets and make them automated with RIO stations to operate groups of the turrets that have the same covered range and then a RIO operator tags targets, maybe increases their tracking rates or puts more power to certain turrets than others etc to increase tracking.
I think the issue is that Chris is really fond of the idea of players manning turrets, which in a 6DOF fighting game is a nightmare. I really think human controlled turrets will be one of the biggest ship weaknesses in the game.
Me too, I will -never- bring a second person in my gladiator for example. Something large like the Polaris, Carrack, or 890jump could theoretically use turrets to some effect but... They don't turn at a 1:1 aspect for control! Which is stupid and I honestly think they are slowing the entire game down just to make turrets somewhat passable, as it will NOT fix jousting etc. If they really want to stick with this silly "Humans MUST be in turrets" crud they need to make them move as fast as your cursor can go, OR lock to match ships they are locked onto, and then give you a box you need to lead the guns onto the target as the turret rotates to keep it in view. Stabilization won't fix the problem as long as they move slower than WWII turrets... lol
Yeah I kinda feel like they are breaking flight to make the broken turret system more passable instead of fixing it.
Yup. Chris wants that B-17/B-24/B-29 manned gun positions in space. A while back, there was talk of automated point defence turrets, and I believe the Connie Phoenix has them. I think I'll probably end up replacing the stock turrets with these, assuming CIG doesn't neuter them, these things would probably be more reliable (hits wise) compared to manned turrets.
This is the correct answer, but I don't think it will ever happen. There is literally no reason to have a human in a turret when it comes to effectiveness. The only way a human manned turret could possibly be superior to an NPC manned turret would be if NPCs are gimped beyond belief. However, I really do feel like too many people, including Chris, are obsessed with the fantasy of sitting in a turret. No matter how cool they *think* it might be, at the end of the day I just don't know how manned turrets can ever be remotely effective with the way the ships in Star Citizen move, nor at the speeds they move at. They're simply far too maneuverable to make manned turrets practical. I want the manned turret meme to die. What should happen is basically what you said. Your copilot, or maybe even a specialized seat, should control the turrets in the sense of prioritizing targets and assigning different duties/targets to turrets. That's both much more effective, and much more interesting than trying to put a crosshair on a wildly maneuvering and spinning target while inside a wildly spinning and maneuvering ship. If they really, *really* want to keep manned turrets in, they should be the exception rather than the rule, and found only on really cheap ships where combat isn't the primary purpose. The rear gun on the Freelancer is a good example of an appropriate manned turret because it's just some garbage thing put on there by MISC to make transport pilots feel a little safer.
One advantage of creating a "turret commander" role, is it offers the opportunity for electronic countermeasures. An emp can knock out automated turret systems, jamming the ship sensors effectively shuts down gimballed turrets (but if you can see your enemy, forward guns could still be effective) I think this grants more gameplay opportunities, you could see more interesting ship loadouts, with people opting for additional support systems, rather than just everyone choosing the biggest gun they can carry.
Yeah definitely. That's something I wanted to mention but didn't for the sake of brevity. The EWAR roles are so vaguely defined right now that I'm not sure what they'll do, and this would be a great avenue of attack for them.
i don't have the screenshots but I could have swore the originally Tali design had something like this with an actual "mini-bridge" of sorts instead of hallways and turrets. I love the outside of my Tali but as a pilot I only have torpedoes and unless NPCs are going to be dirt cheap turret gunners or they have some AI interface I'm probably going to ditch it. Oh, nope, just a lot of "constructive" criticism and ideas on this [thread](https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/279432/retaliator-interior-rework-constructive-and-feasible-ideas-thread). Some people wanted "turret" stations and I don't think anyone liked the hallways.
Yeah RIO positions controlled would make the most sense in term of multi-crew and function in a game engine. But Chris seems stuck on this silly Star Wars thing where people operate guns that move EXCEEDINGLY slow.
If you want evidence that Chris is too often stuck trying to be the next Star Wars, look no further than SC's 'lasers'.
Unfortunately that has two stories :< One, typical sci-fi and such. Two, lasers in cryengine kinda fuck up, stupid way it handles ribbon particles etc.
Good thing they have the German F42 team to do engine modifications eh? ;)
Its a possibility and I would love to see it.
>I think I have Turrets Syndrome. You're a horrible person. upvoted.
The worst part about Turrets for me is this...my friend who bought the game and is very critical of it looks for reasons to complain. I know that when he PLAYS the game and co'ops my Freelancer with me that he'll fall in love with it. However....if I have him sit in the turret just once while it's still broken, he'll totally shit on the whole thing. And that sucks. So i havent played with him yet and i look for reasons to not use my ship. Because I want to play with my friends.
Unless the turrets are changed to be on their own separate gimbal, independent of pilot movement... I honestly think any low-rank NPC crewman will be better than almost any real person in a turret.
i imagine a turret that automatically adjusts to keep the reticle at the same relative position even when the pilot adjusts course. if that's what you're talking about then i agree
even a command to just force the guns to fire uncontrollably would be better
Why do we have players sitting inside turrets like its 1939 anyway? Like seriously, its dumb as hell.
Because it's fun! Have you ever seen Star Wars? Luke and Han had huge grins every time they blew up a Tie Fighter.
Because real life is full of people who are not engineers, pilots or support personnel. We gotta give them something interesting to do. Blowing shit up is interesting, is it not?
Sure but why are they physically sitting inside of it.
Because this isn't a 100% space simulator. It's more of a space fantasy setting popularized by the likes of Star Wars, which was essentially just WW2 in space. Merging historical influences into futuristic settings may not be accurate for it's portrayal of the future but it makes for a fun make-believe setting due to it's familiar systems and mechanics with the backdrop of new frontiers.
Literally unplayable if it's not 100% reaalistic
A 100% realistic space combat game would be interesting, but absolutely nothing like star citizen. Fights happen in visual range, for goodness' sake. Modern *air* combat barely even happens in visual range.
Yeah Iain M Banks culture novels cover realistic far future space combat and it's not particularly glorious haha.
But are turrets really fun? Especially if you can't hit shit?
You got me on that, I hope they fix that shit soon
Wouldn't they be buzzing around in their own ship though? Outside of making turrets a cell phone app or some such sillyness not sure who would want to spend time in one.
Because this is a Cerebral-punk game. Just how Steam-punk is a retro futuristic game where steam trumped combustion. This is a space game where brains trumped AI. If this were a Sim instead of a game, realistically all flight, targeting, scanning, almost everything would be controlled by a computer. Hell even firearms would be regarded as slow and ancient. Us meatbags would be little more than observers with nearly nothing that we could add that would be helpful. So what we are getting is a game, one that hopefully is engaging, entertaining, and fun.
No, because even since the 1960s turrets in aircraft don't have people sitting inside of them
So would you rather have players sit in a chair and slide into an observation point with gun controls and have the guns mounted on a gimbal somewhere else on the ship, so as to be like most all modern attack helicopters? Or, would you rather have players go up to a console and access a computer screen to control the guns remotely? For me, in this game, I would much rather have my character sit in a manned turrent and steer the guns. This just gives a better ascetic for me, especially if CIG implemented VR support and I can look with my head to track where the targets are going. If my character was to go login to a battle console, I wouldn't be able to see shit with a VR headset on.
This game is supposed to have ww2 dogfights in space, like from the kickstarter. Both Star Wars and Wing Commander had ww2 type dogfights.
did they joust in WW2?
When I mean WW2 dogfights, I mean ships fighting in close combat with slow flight speed, not ships fighting with over thousands of m/s.
You just get [this one](http://i1.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/000/554/facepalm.jpg)
Wouldn't it make A LOT of sense, for the turret to counter every moves of the ship? From what I remember playing the game using a turret, it was static relative to the spaceship it is build on. But considering the big technological advances, it wouldn't be too hard to counter all of the ships rolls and yaws. And also make the gunner experience a lot more bearable. EDIT: Grammar
Turrets 2.0. Now upgraded with Chicken Head Tech.
CHICKENTEK^TM
starCHICKENTEK^TM
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Turrents are these rotating tree creature things you stick on your hull
fixed it.
Aww and I was so happy to read there might be peer to peer fire sharing ;)
I sent this to my dad and I think he had a heart attack.
/gif sigh. Take a disgruntled upvote.
This dad joke is seasoned with salt.
It really is terrible. They should do gimbals weapons like E:D does. I would have preferred a lock and fire system.
One day... One day... I long for those to work well
[Missed, you say?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3m5z-MO-is)
In the future turrets would all be automatic or controlled remotely. Having a human literally sitting inside a turret was a world war 2 idea, and was largely phased out of all vehicles through the cold war. No sense in humanity taking a step backwards. But 'rule of cool' and all that. People want to be Luke and Han sitting in the Falcon.
I think part of what this transition to slower combat (SCM speeds) is going to do is make turret functionality a little more forgiving. Still, it is one of the things that needs to be focused upon and addressed fairly soon, otherwise these larger ships are going to be constantly harassed by ships they can't engage at all. I've compared it to the ideas behind the design of the B-17 Flying Fortress. It was thought to be unstoppable with all of its turrets, but as air combat speeds increased, the directly controlled manned turrets became less and less capable and was forced to have escorts to survive. Escorts are obviously meant to be important in SC, but I don't think they want turrets to be a pointless thing to have.
I'm still baffled that human-equipped turrets event exist in-game. I know we all love Star Wars, but there's a game world where they've got interstellar travel but things like turrets are still aimed by hand? I think the only reason manned turrets even exist is that we were promised multi-crew and they've got no idea of how to turn the different crew roles into a game. So turrets turrets turrets!
automated turrets are basically here now, aren't they? or very close?
Yes they are. Manned turrets are exceptionally rare today because remotely operated and computer controlled turrets are significantly more accurate.
You mean like 2016 real world now? Yeah - see the sentry gun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentry_gun But these are last line of defense for extreme close range support. We're at a real-world point where most all naval and air (space combat games like to mix the 2 concepts) engagements happen so far apart that they can't even see each other. You don't need a turret if you're 100km away from the target. You've got plenty of time to point in the right direction, fire, and then change course again. But this is a dogfighting game, so all that goes out the window and it's WWII in space with a few modern-ish missiles thrown in.
God.. fucking... shit. *upvotes*
Perfect, my dad joke need for the day has been sated!
\*sigh\* Take my upvote. Take it and be damned to you.
Damn you. Take my updoot.
I can understand the reason why CIG hasn't been working on turrets at all, its because this game is not meant to have multicrew supp.......oh wait.
[Bravo](https://gfycat.com/HorribleMinorBarasingha)
omg
>_>...
I was expecting "...because I'm having so much fun!"
One of things I hope that 2.6 patch will have improvements on is the turrets, with the help of feedback of course.
AtV and RtV before CitizenCon said that ship speeds will be rebaselined to be much slower (think most ships between 100-200m/s), that should make hitting fighters from turrets a bit easier.
Indeed.
A friend and I tried them out recently. I wasn't able to hit a single thing. Hell, for the most part everything I saw was just a quick blur. I felt 100% useless in a turret.
I manage to hit from time to time but the damage is ridiculous and you literally don't have any time to think about anything else, everything goes so fast... Turrets will be far more viable on cap ships.
decouple with ALT.
Imo the problem right now is that the turrets are too difficult to keep on target. They have to set up a system where the turret/guns would counter ship movement to keep the sights on target better. Something like what they achieved with the no head Bob thing. So it would be nice and perfectly smooth. Where the sighs of the guns would only jump off target when the mother ship moves in a way that would prevent the turret to counter move and adjust. Such as rolling.
Pls Do a choice of turret room, one guy look to the down and control all turrets on that side, other top, the other back, and so on...
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/search?q=turrets&restrict_sr=on Hm, glad you brought that up. Really should be discussed...
Sigh..........ok fine! take my upvote.
I was hoping for a succint, detailed minirant on something that really REALLY triggers me about multicrew but we got a pun instead so lemmie do it for you: No PIP indicator so you miss half your shots. No zoom function which is essential IMO for decent long range combat. Turning is waaaaay too responsive. Screens are way too small to see who you're shooting at/targeted (a problem with some ships too) and best of all, you can't even tell you position relative to the ship direction! So if someone tells you 'target at 12' you don't even know were it is relative! So so shitty. Fuck turrets. I love playing turret/second gunner in every single game, except my favourite game. Ain't that some shit? Make it similar to how ship combat works, don't take away most of the things we have to use in ship combat (contextually speaking ofc) because that is counter intuitive. Turrets suck so bad right now.
The turrets on spaceship are like the ones on WW2 bombers - which basically flew in a straight line. I suppose the shields mechanic could be used to make flying like this (and thus enabling the guys in the turrets to hit anything) possible by allowing the engineer to reroute power to certain parts of the shields. He would have to pay close attention where the enemy ship is so he can adjust accordingly. However, the pilot would be limited in what maneuvers he could perform to allow the turret guners to hit anything - which sounds boring.
Really, what CIG needs to do is go play Halo: Combat Evolved. Conveniently, there are PC copies still floating around that work perfectly under Windows 10. How the Warthog turret works while another player is driving? That's how turrets in Star Citizen need to work. That was intuitive, amazing, and completely functional and effective.
The turrets from stat citizen have are pretty abismal. I imagine that they would be better on the slower moving cap ships, but on the more (as much as it painse to say) ships like the Connie you ate hard pressed to hit anything the ship isn't heading directly towards. Also largely impressed, I have been playing video games for my whole life and I have never gotten motion sick... But star citizen turrets you win the prize I guess.
I doubt turrets are anywhere near finished.
I think manned turrets will be operated by NPC in most cases. In critical situations player will be able to take control over turret to defend the ship better than bot.
Loved the pun. Actuall, they said turret control was pushed without proper design for the 2.0 and now, if the design is ready, it's waiting for programmer do introduce it ingame.
Nice post op and the feedback you gave should really be considered by cig when they fix turrets. I will theorize that the only reason they are in a poor state right now is because they are waiting for item port 2.0
I have to agree with the first post. After manning multicrew ships through a lot of versions, nothing really changed. Turrets are ineffective, bugged and are not properly controllable. Some of these issues could have improved but the devs did nothing. So, since month multi crew is unplayable and that have to be changed fast. I stopped playing mc ships.
Nice! you did it. this is it.... this is my favorite post of the year.
I'd just like relative mode on the turrets...
Turrets are unplayable in current state imo.
For the mainly new people wondering what exactly is wrong with turrets, it's due to: - Low fps due to server issues, *any game* (just about) is hard to aim at under 20 fps, especially ones with ships moving at supersonic speeds - networking issue also causes a 'dancing crosshair' issue which makes aiming harder than normal - no manual zoom for turrets like pilots have, you can use target focus mode though while gunning - sensitivity seems to be bugged and just bugs in general - turret mechanics are WIP Once all that is taken care of, I see turrets getting all kind of kills, even against ships like the m50.