Forums » Suggestions
AI rear turret
I have to disagree, an Advanced gat coupled with a swarm launcher and a rail gun make a very good defense for a centaur. all you have to do is learn to fly backwards. Bombers are meant to evade fighter craft, not charge them. when you get jumped, switch to physics, start to backpedal, pop out a swarm(maybe 2), fire of a half a dozen gat rounds, if the attacker tries to turbo away fromt eh swarm, peg him with the rail. (ok it takes a bit of practice. i'll give it that but it can be done). if he charges in close, he's just a target for the gat.
it works even better in the rag, link a pair of gemini's to that swarm for added beep annoyance.
it works even better in the rag, link a pair of gemini's to that swarm for added beep annoyance.
spellcast: you can do almost absolutely nothing if your adversary uses homers against you. of course, homers are the natural enemy of a slow-moving target.
i agree that backpedaling helps a bomber/trader, but only to an extent. if the opponent uses rails or tachyons, you're pretty much screwed.
i agree that backpedaling helps a bomber/trader, but only to an extent. if the opponent uses rails or tachyons, you're pretty much screwed.
"""--i agree that backpedaling helps a bomber/trader, but only to an extent. if the opponent uses rails or tachyons, you're pretty much screwed.--"""
i'll duel you in a rag vs any ship you like, equip it with anything but swarms. (swarms are the only weapon that is really undodgable in a heavy right now, mainly because of the spread they gather as they maneuver around the sector. perhaps lowering the prox radius on them bt 5 m would help a bit, but thats for a different thread)
you are right, homers are deadly to slow moving ships, but with the exception of swarms, they can be dodged even in a rag. and as far as that goes, adding an AI turret wouldn't help against swarms anyway, since you cant shoot missiles down.
i'll duel you in a rag vs any ship you like, equip it with anything but swarms. (swarms are the only weapon that is really undodgable in a heavy right now, mainly because of the spread they gather as they maneuver around the sector. perhaps lowering the prox radius on them bt 5 m would help a bit, but thats for a different thread)
you are right, homers are deadly to slow moving ships, but with the exception of swarms, they can be dodged even in a rag. and as far as that goes, adding an AI turret wouldn't help against swarms anyway, since you cant shoot missiles down.
Spell, we need to do some more duels. A dual-rail Vult or tri-rail (or even gauss) Valk will own a rag every time.
Celebrim:
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And in any event, at present the point is mute, because an interface for configuring and giving commands to an AI turret does not exist at present.
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Don't you mean "moot?" :P
My take on it: I fall into the camp that thinks the Rag and Centuar need a turret. Of all the examples listed, no one entertains the possibility of a ship out-turning the slow ship and shooting up its engine. This is the problem we're dealing with.
I would like to see a weapon akin to the gauss (although speed about 25% faster) mounted on the top and bottom of heavy ships. I'll use the rag for an example. Say you mount a turret on the top of the ship, and one on the bottom. You could have various settings for it.
For instance:
Turret 1 (top) and Turret 2 (bottom)
Use no more than 50% of available battery charge. (any variable works)
Target any hostile in range/target all hostiles in range.
Concentrate on one target until it is destroyed or out of range/use suppressive fire and switch between targets every five seconds.
These are just some variables. Like someone said, most of the heavy weapons are useless. Plasma is a joke. The gatling cannon is as well--you're better off buying swarms and taking the ammunition gamble. The only good large weapons are the adv. gatling and the swarms. All the other weapons are really "medium slot" weapons (but with the exception of avalons, they were an excellent heavy vs capital weapon). For heavy ships, we need a very, very fast and fast firing weapon. Because the direction of the ship cannot be depended on, the only option is to create homing weapons or turreted ones (turreted uber-sunflares? Maybe have the same stats as the s-port ones but fire every .4 seconds at 75 m/s?).
Another homing weapon is akin to the little plasma energy thing in EVO. The name escapes me at the moment, possibly SAE's. Basically, they're guided, explosive energy bursts that fly erratically (like YK's or SR's) at high speeds (~120). They have a prox fuse and are excellent heavy vs anything weapon. They also have longer range. Just a thought....
Celebrim:
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And in any event, at present the point is mute, because an interface for configuring and giving commands to an AI turret does not exist at present.
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Don't you mean "moot?" :P
My take on it: I fall into the camp that thinks the Rag and Centuar need a turret. Of all the examples listed, no one entertains the possibility of a ship out-turning the slow ship and shooting up its engine. This is the problem we're dealing with.
I would like to see a weapon akin to the gauss (although speed about 25% faster) mounted on the top and bottom of heavy ships. I'll use the rag for an example. Say you mount a turret on the top of the ship, and one on the bottom. You could have various settings for it.
For instance:
Turret 1 (top) and Turret 2 (bottom)
Use no more than 50% of available battery charge. (any variable works)
Target any hostile in range/target all hostiles in range.
Concentrate on one target until it is destroyed or out of range/use suppressive fire and switch between targets every five seconds.
These are just some variables. Like someone said, most of the heavy weapons are useless. Plasma is a joke. The gatling cannon is as well--you're better off buying swarms and taking the ammunition gamble. The only good large weapons are the adv. gatling and the swarms. All the other weapons are really "medium slot" weapons (but with the exception of avalons, they were an excellent heavy vs capital weapon). For heavy ships, we need a very, very fast and fast firing weapon. Because the direction of the ship cannot be depended on, the only option is to create homing weapons or turreted ones (turreted uber-sunflares? Maybe have the same stats as the s-port ones but fire every .4 seconds at 75 m/s?).
Another homing weapon is akin to the little plasma energy thing in EVO. The name escapes me at the moment, possibly SAE's. Basically, they're guided, explosive energy bursts that fly erratically (like YK's or SR's) at high speeds (~120). They have a prox fuse and are excellent heavy vs anything weapon. They also have longer range. Just a thought....
Camp's, i never said I'd win. :) (tho I can almost assure you that you are gonna take some damage
However, I believe that if i know you are coming and you don't catch me while I'm parked and typing (not that YOU type kill, but there are some), I can Live for long enough that in a team battle there would be time for help to arrive, and If i'm trading, I can make it too bothersome to Pirate me regularly.
Personally, I don't believe that the ships we have now are really large enough for a turreted aux weapon. On a side note, there would have to be a way to tell the turreted weapon to hold it's fire, otherwise no-one would ever get out of S17 in a ship that has one.
However, I believe that if i know you are coming and you don't catch me while I'm parked and typing (not that YOU type kill, but there are some), I can Live for long enough that in a team battle there would be time for help to arrive, and If i'm trading, I can make it too bothersome to Pirate me regularly.
Personally, I don't believe that the ships we have now are really large enough for a turreted aux weapon. On a side note, there would have to be a way to tell the turreted weapon to hold it's fire, otherwise no-one would ever get out of S17 in a ship that has one.
if someone gets a good run at you by the time it takes to bring a centaur around and stablize the heading it could already be killed and it usually is. Pirates dont yell charge!!!! when they decide to feast.
"""--if someone gets a good run at you by the time it takes to bring a centaur around and stablize the heading it could already be killed and it usually is. Pirates dont yell charge!!!! when they decide to feast.--"""
the x key, press it, press it often. I tap it all but constantly when i am trading, anyone who is less than 500m from me, I strafe away from. anyone who flying directly at me that i dont know(or anyone who i do know who has a piracy rep), i begin random dodges even as I turn to face them. It's all about being aware of your surroundings and just a little paranoid. Besides which, the LAST thing you want to do is have a stable heading. that just makes you a target for rockets and rails.
the x key, press it, press it often. I tap it all but constantly when i am trading, anyone who is less than 500m from me, I strafe away from. anyone who flying directly at me that i dont know(or anyone who i do know who has a piracy rep), i begin random dodges even as I turn to face them. It's all about being aware of your surroundings and just a little paranoid. Besides which, the LAST thing you want to do is have a stable heading. that just makes you a target for rockets and rails.
i agree with you, spellcast on most of the things you say. especially the team combat thing, as it is the logical consequence of a pragmatically thinking mind to call for help when he sees himself overwhelmed, be it by skill, hull, agility or effective firepower.
about the duels: you are more skilled than i am, i would stand little chance against you in any fight (this has been proven already).
about the turrets: i suppose you know the games wing commander?
pretty much every installment of the game series has at least one ship per faction that sports turrets. e.g. WCIII: the Thunderbolt. closely resembling the hornet, it has a turret. or the longbow. more like the ragnarok, it has a turret as well.
they covered a cone-shaped area with the axis convergent with that of the ship. they were offline as long as you didn't use them. maybe we should make the turrets user-operated instead of ai-operated.
about the duels: you are more skilled than i am, i would stand little chance against you in any fight (this has been proven already).
about the turrets: i suppose you know the games wing commander?
pretty much every installment of the game series has at least one ship per faction that sports turrets. e.g. WCIII: the Thunderbolt. closely resembling the hornet, it has a turret. or the longbow. more like the ragnarok, it has a turret as well.
they covered a cone-shaped area with the axis convergent with that of the ship. they were offline as long as you didn't use them. maybe we should make the turrets user-operated instead of ai-operated.
Spellcast, your style does work for a subset of 1vs1 combat, but in group situations heavies are even more vulnerable. If a heavy pilot backpedals to face one target, another enemy can easily move along one of the five major directions uncovered by your strategy and brutalize the heavy with energy and/or rockets while the first target wanders away to shake the swarms/homers. A single stream of energy can take a heavy down. Most pilots can stablize themselves long enough to take down a heavy even while pursued. The chances of the heavy destroying one target are slim, and the chances of it destroying two or more are negligable. Minimum bang for maximum bucks.
Ok Martinet, You have a point, but on the other glove, while I'm backing up in my heavy, and you are trying to get around to my side (which i will gaurnetee is going to be harder than you think, since any pilot worth his wings doesn't fly in any form of straight line) you aren't paying attention to MY teamate. (who if He's competent, is now behind YOUR ship, lining up a rail shot, or a flare attack, or setting up a tri gauss shot in a valk)
Besides, you will have to turbo to get around to one side or the other, audio clues will tell me where you are at, and I can adjust accordingly. Now, in a team battle if 3 or 4 ships all go after the same heavy, it is dead regardless, and not even an AI turret could help that. However, that means that those 3 or 4 ships are busy for a few minutes, and maybe, the other members of the heavy's team who arent being engaged by those ships are free to gang up on the rest of the opponents.
Besides, you will have to turbo to get around to one side or the other, audio clues will tell me where you are at, and I can adjust accordingly. Now, in a team battle if 3 or 4 ships all go after the same heavy, it is dead regardless, and not even an AI turret could help that. However, that means that those 3 or 4 ships are busy for a few minutes, and maybe, the other members of the heavy's team who arent being engaged by those ships are free to gang up on the rest of the opponents.
Actually, in my experience, heavies are vulnerable to agile fighters sure, but they don't really come into thier own until you get into a team battle. In a large engagement, swarms and lightning mines are really valuable terrain which can disperse enemy formations allowing your teammates to pickoff stragglers. In a one one one, mines and swarms are just going to be avoided until they are no longer relevant.
Granted, this takes more teamwork than you usually see at present, but I've seen it work in the past.
And back when we had a sample capital ship, where would an attacking force be without its hammer blow of Ragnaroks emptying dual Avalons into the hull?
Yes, the heavies need better and more diverse large weapons. But frankly don't expect them to be winning dogfights against comparable skilled foes in more agile ships.
Besides which, there is a huge HUGE HUUUGGGGEEE gap between the biggest player controlled ship at present, and the biggest ship in the game. This implies to me that there is alot of room to be filled between what we have now and the biggest player controlled ship in the long run. Don't limit your imagination to the handful of ships we have at present. Lets start worring about turrets when we start having ships that come closer to filling the new size of docking bay.
If they could fix the lightning mine code so that its no longer exploitable with lag, I'd love to see a) lightning mines go up to 6 on a rack, and b) Capital ships be equipped with 'proximity defense fields' which are basically permanent lightning mines. The latter solves a huge problem caused by the gap between 'artistic' and 'functional' in cap ship design.
Granted, this takes more teamwork than you usually see at present, but I've seen it work in the past.
And back when we had a sample capital ship, where would an attacking force be without its hammer blow of Ragnaroks emptying dual Avalons into the hull?
Yes, the heavies need better and more diverse large weapons. But frankly don't expect them to be winning dogfights against comparable skilled foes in more agile ships.
Besides which, there is a huge HUGE HUUUGGGGEEE gap between the biggest player controlled ship at present, and the biggest ship in the game. This implies to me that there is alot of room to be filled between what we have now and the biggest player controlled ship in the long run. Don't limit your imagination to the handful of ships we have at present. Lets start worring about turrets when we start having ships that come closer to filling the new size of docking bay.
If they could fix the lightning mine code so that its no longer exploitable with lag, I'd love to see a) lightning mines go up to 6 on a rack, and b) Capital ships be equipped with 'proximity defense fields' which are basically permanent lightning mines. The latter solves a huge problem caused by the gap between 'artistic' and 'functional' in cap ship design.
teamwork would be greatly facilitated if there were a handy way to communicate things. think chatrooms (channels). think target info cummunication. think tactical displays.
One of the problems that Vendetta has had (since 3.x anyways) is that there are plenty of weapons perfect for destroying heavies but none for protecting them. Experienced pilots know to look out for mines, homers are useless, swarms make lights run away at best, heavy rockets are largely useless on a slow firing platform, and heavy energy weapons require a head on firing arc. I think a turret that can at least protect a hemisphere would be an appropriate incremental step to making heavies worth their price. Since there won't be anything exciting for "bombers" to bomb for quite a while, the Ragnarok and Centaur would make good testbeds for turreting. Perhaps they could mount something analagous to the frigate turrets: a separate "ship" attached to the player ship.
it would be a nice feature to see a buyable AI controlled rear turret for the heavier slow turning ships like the centaur or ragnorak, mainly the centaur as it is used alot for trading it would help traders being chased escape and make their deliveries on time!
it would have a simple weapon like a phase blaster or gravitron but it would be enough to keep people tailing them on the move.
it would have a simple weapon like a phase blaster or gravitron but it would be enough to keep people tailing them on the move.
I like this idea, as an alternative, the rear turret could be human-controlled, i.e., we have a button for rear view (could be tied into ship handling as well, but that's a topic for another time) and the player uses the rear view to pilot the ship and/or control the turret at the same time.
I've not piloted any of the slow-turning vehicles yet (except the bus) so I don't know how bad the attack from the rear problem is.
I've not piloted any of the slow-turning vehicles yet (except the bus) so I don't know how bad the attack from the rear problem is.
This is another discussion we've had so many times I have a hard time getting up alot of enthusiasm for it.
Suffice to say, "Yes, most of us would like there to be for some ship a AI controlled rear turret, but we disagree over the exact details."
For instance, I consider 'turret' to be a slot on a ship similar to 'small' or 'large', and don't think that any of the ships we have now are really large enough to need 'turret slots'. I think this because first, the model should show a weapon buldge equivalent to a turret if it is mounting a true turret. Second, that large slots aren't always 'rear' mounted on current ships, which could result in the turret being rather more than a defensive weapon on what I basically consider small relatively agile ships. Third, that turrets are relatively powerful things which should be restricted to ships that are playtested for them. The smallest ship I envision with a turret on has about twice the total cross sectional area of a Centaur, so imagine if you can 4 Centaurs stacked on top of each other. About that big. Fourth, anywhere that a turret is mounted, there should be a pre-defined 'facing' defining what arc the turret can shoot into. This implies that all the large slots would need extra data appended to them solely for the case of a single weapon if the 'turrret' was a large slot.
Others think that none of that is a problem, that the Centaur and the Ragnarok are sluggish enough to need a turret, and therefore that there should be a turret which fits the 'large' slot.
And in any event, at present the point is mute, because an interface for configuring and giving commands to an AI turret does not exist at present.
Maybe I'll get up the energy to post the details of some of my preferences if this conversation actually goes anywhere.
Suffice to say, "Yes, most of us would like there to be for some ship a AI controlled rear turret, but we disagree over the exact details."
For instance, I consider 'turret' to be a slot on a ship similar to 'small' or 'large', and don't think that any of the ships we have now are really large enough to need 'turret slots'. I think this because first, the model should show a weapon buldge equivalent to a turret if it is mounting a true turret. Second, that large slots aren't always 'rear' mounted on current ships, which could result in the turret being rather more than a defensive weapon on what I basically consider small relatively agile ships. Third, that turrets are relatively powerful things which should be restricted to ships that are playtested for them. The smallest ship I envision with a turret on has about twice the total cross sectional area of a Centaur, so imagine if you can 4 Centaurs stacked on top of each other. About that big. Fourth, anywhere that a turret is mounted, there should be a pre-defined 'facing' defining what arc the turret can shoot into. This implies that all the large slots would need extra data appended to them solely for the case of a single weapon if the 'turrret' was a large slot.
Others think that none of that is a problem, that the Centaur and the Ragnarok are sluggish enough to need a turret, and therefore that there should be a turret which fits the 'large' slot.
And in any event, at present the point is mute, because an interface for configuring and giving commands to an AI turret does not exist at present.
Maybe I'll get up the energy to post the details of some of my preferences if this conversation actually goes anywhere.
It would be interesting if heavies had some sort of countermeasure against swarms and guided missiles, while fighters didn't. It seems to me that swarms and missiles were meant more for bomber-to-fighter combat than bomber-to-bomber combat. That way two Rags wouldn't be able to swarm and kill each other every single frickin' time, but instead would have to get up close and duke it out. That would be more fun.
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