Currently the placement of turrets on the Trident makes them fairly useless. It creates two massive blind spots where an enemy can just glide in and fire at their leisure. I would suggest one n the front and one in the while placing the remaining two turrets to the upper and lower mid ship sections.

I suggested something similar to this once, except that I proposed that they ought to be mounted on the Engine Nacelles to get a wider field of fire...

You know, the Trident is really under-gunned to begin with. Its kind-of understandable with the convoy escorts, since they'd be optimized for cargo and a fore/aft weapons load-out. The militarized ones in Hive/Border Skirmish? Not so much. I say that those ones ought to have at least eight turrets, if only to stay even remotely competitive with the other Capital Ship designs (the Teradon has, what, 32?).

I'm opposed to this idea. Giving the Trident blind spots means that there are still massive roles to be played by fighter escorts.

I'm opposed to this idea. Giving the Trident blind spots means that there are still massive roles to be played by fighter escorts.

True. Would be even more true if ordinance were destructible (so you could destroy incoming fire BSG style).

Shank, Atice: Defending a slow-moving or stationary target is *hard*.

Yes to the better turret positioning on the Trident. Otherwise we're already creating, or rather, perpetuating the deisgn of, a capship that won't be flown.

+1!!

Except that instead of moving the turrets, ADD 2 more.

I'm also opposed, killing trdents is difficult enough.

"killing trdents is difficult enough."

Really? I kill Tridents nearly every time I'm in game... and I don't take advantage of the blind spots. The blind spots don't so much affect players attacking, guass and swarms are some of the easiest things out there to dodge.

Besides, if a persons idea of taking out a Trident consists of trailing along in the blind spot and spamming it to death...

It's pretty annoying when they're moving at 90m/s so you have to turbo to catch up, not to mention take down it's shields.. etc etc.. It better have a blind spot, I don't like the fact that something can have no weaknesses.

No weaknesses? It's as big as a barn, moves at 90 m/s, and has fewer weapons to turn on you at a given time (even if turrets were put on the nacelles) than a Valk, if you don't deliberately fly into its main fields of fire.

The turrets sure as hell affect players attacking the Behemoths it's escorting. A big part of taking out enemy convoys in a fighter is trying to keep your orientation in space with the Trident correct, without actually facing it, while dodging smaller ordinance. You seem to be taking into account only the straight "single bomber taking out a Trident" gameplay without thinking of its other roles.

I think adding two smaller neut/agt turrets to either side of the dock, one on each side, and one on the front of each nacelle would improve things a bit. The trident needs some forward firepower, too, like a queen. Megaposis?

Blind spots or not, tridents should have the ability to defend their rear.

+1
perhaps add 2-3 turrets to the trident, if not, then just reposition the ones already there...

sometimes in crit skirmishes i'll hop in the trident after i've dumped my 2chaos 3gems on the queen and rather than dock-undock-dock-undock-dock with a trident thats usually moving, i'll direct a turret to fire at the queen, which is a major pain with how the turrets currently are.

this also leaves blind spots in the tridents more defensive weaponry, which shouldnt be the case.

(its not like its firing 1200m/s rails at you.. they're gauss and swarms lol)

Guys, arguing that Tridents should be weak by design as a holy scrap.

"Commander Astar! Sir, we have new prototype of light support vessel for your mighty army"
"Great, show me! ... Hmm, it has only four turrets, and weak rear, so defending dock would be difficult. Is it okay?"
"Commander, we need work for our pilots. There is nothing worse, than bored soldier, sir! This support vessel should be protected by fighters!"
"Oh, I see. And how can fighters dock and repair, when they cannot be covered by support fire from the rear?"
"Fighters are supposed to protect the vessel, not to dock in it! Up to last man flying, sir!"

C'mon. See how its absurd? Heck, give it support turrets to the rear, and more on appropriate places.
And give it weapons against quick ships, not that slow-rate gausses, which can hit asteroids only, not any clever pilot.
If you would feel it could be unbalanced then, lower the shields.

A bit of realism, please! Give it a reason to live. What is the purpose of it? Supporting voys? By whom voys are attacked usually? By fighters, or Teradons?
So 6 turrets with double AAPs should be nice, on strategic places on the ship. And some lovely targeting flares.

VO needs interesting, and useful ships. Trident is very nice ship, it deserves a bit more of care.
There should be definitely more variants of it, tho.

-Astar

+1 to OP.

Again, one more time, another +1 to giving another pair of turrets to Tridents. They are escort ships, and just like escort destroyers were no match to real battleships but perfect convoy defenses against u-boats and airplanes.

Remember, as now, a trident have only one turret (and shields) more that a Moth !

+1 to already requested Flare Turret. This is the closest we have to a FLAK gun.

I think we need this before or very soon after we get capital ship access.

I think we need light energy weapons there in the turrets, or at least some high velocity weapons. Dock should be protected by string of fire, and flares, especially the proximity ones are not good when skirmish is outside the ship.
To be more generic, there should be more kinds of defending weapons, as they are useful in different situations.
To be honest, I would welcome two guns in one turret. One light and one heavy. For example a flare + AAP.

Trident should be able to sustain quite heavy attack of ~5 player fighters, while still effective in defense.
Best approach should be attack of 4 fighters plus some big gun carrier, maybe Ragnarok.

Game deserve some more small capitals, to fill the room between turreted ships already available and a bit capital-ish Trident class.
I suggest to design some "Heavy Ragnarok". "Heavy Centaur" and "Battlemoth". And perhaps even more, which could be equipped with small capacity energy shield and more potent turrets.
Those ships should not be undocked by single player, tho.

-Astar

In skirmishes I occasionally got hit by the bottom turret when it shoots at a bot that's chasing me... so I'm not a fan of adding another one near the docking bay.