For those who've never heard of it, StarLancer was an awesome game that released around 2005. It was a space combat simulator with a wide variety of ships available, with similarly wide variety of weapons and utility options. It was the spiritual precursor to freelancer, if you might have heard of that one.
Anyway, one of the features that it had was what we know as gimbled weapon mounting. Similar to elite, gimbled weapons did less DPS than their fixed counterparts, to encourage players to try to use the more powerful fixed alternatives. However, the way they did this was rather inventive; they did not reduce the damage, but rather reduce the fire rate, given the impression of the computer taking time to place slower, more accurate shots. If you wanted more dps, you could actually toggle it off and immediately gain the full fixed damage.
Which leads me back to Elite. Turrented weapons have never seen very much use. The most common usage is on AFK boats, meant to be left unattended overnight, but I can hardly believe that was their intended purpose. While it can be a lot of fun having some of your weapons under the control of a multi-crew gunner, unfortunately, it just isn't worth the sacrifice for most players if they can't find themselves a multi crew Gunner.
So I thought, why not combine these two things?
First, set the damage per second of turreted weapons as equal to their fixed counterparts. When used in the fixed mode, they will do identical damage to fixed weapons, just while being substantially more expensive to buy and rebuy.
However, when used in their ai-controlled turreted mode, they would dramatically reduce their fire rate, to the point where it matches their current turreted and fixed DPS. Basically, their fire rate, and equivalently, their dps, would be cut in half while under AI control.
But lastly, multi-crew Gunners would be able to control them in their turreted mode while retaining their maximum fire rate. This allows players to design ships that function equally well in either Solo or multi crew mode, so multi crew is no longer discouraged. The only price, and I think this is more than enough, is the increased price of the more complicated turreted mounting system. If you really did want to make sure that this was not too good, you can add the additional Proviso of the weapon needing to be powered down in order to swap between fixed and turreted modes. That would prevent players from flipping it on Whenever there is a target directly in front of them, and then turning it off again when they move out of their line of sight. Either that, or you could add a small delay when the AI takes control, maybe doing a quick calibration circle of the turret before being able to fire.
The weakness of turrets has been a large part of why they have gone unused, and why multi-crew has likewise not seen much use. Especially with the upcoming Improvement to the experimental weapon cap, it would be awesome to at the same time open the door to a wider variety of multicrew chicanery!
Anyway, one of the features that it had was what we know as gimbled weapon mounting. Similar to elite, gimbled weapons did less DPS than their fixed counterparts, to encourage players to try to use the more powerful fixed alternatives. However, the way they did this was rather inventive; they did not reduce the damage, but rather reduce the fire rate, given the impression of the computer taking time to place slower, more accurate shots. If you wanted more dps, you could actually toggle it off and immediately gain the full fixed damage.
Which leads me back to Elite. Turrented weapons have never seen very much use. The most common usage is on AFK boats, meant to be left unattended overnight, but I can hardly believe that was their intended purpose. While it can be a lot of fun having some of your weapons under the control of a multi-crew gunner, unfortunately, it just isn't worth the sacrifice for most players if they can't find themselves a multi crew Gunner.
So I thought, why not combine these two things?
First, set the damage per second of turreted weapons as equal to their fixed counterparts. When used in the fixed mode, they will do identical damage to fixed weapons, just while being substantially more expensive to buy and rebuy.
However, when used in their ai-controlled turreted mode, they would dramatically reduce their fire rate, to the point where it matches their current turreted and fixed DPS. Basically, their fire rate, and equivalently, their dps, would be cut in half while under AI control.
But lastly, multi-crew Gunners would be able to control them in their turreted mode while retaining their maximum fire rate. This allows players to design ships that function equally well in either Solo or multi crew mode, so multi crew is no longer discouraged. The only price, and I think this is more than enough, is the increased price of the more complicated turreted mounting system. If you really did want to make sure that this was not too good, you can add the additional Proviso of the weapon needing to be powered down in order to swap between fixed and turreted modes. That would prevent players from flipping it on Whenever there is a target directly in front of them, and then turning it off again when they move out of their line of sight. Either that, or you could add a small delay when the AI takes control, maybe doing a quick calibration circle of the turret before being able to fire.
The weakness of turrets has been a large part of why they have gone unused, and why multi-crew has likewise not seen much use. Especially with the upcoming Improvement to the experimental weapon cap, it would be awesome to at the same time open the door to a wider variety of multicrew chicanery!
I'd love a hierarchy of players being resistant to chaff (since they are aiming 'by eye'), NPC gunners being 100% at Elite but crap at Harmless (with equiv. jammability) and AI for lonesome pilots based on sensor grade (but that AI is penalised re jamming).