Hauler Gameplay idea

[Jon Graham]

Hey CMDRs,

I was thinking as a bought my first Lakon 6 and headed out to be attacked by pirates, it would be pretty cool to have some kind of turret gameplay. Sort of stick the Ship on autopilot and jump in a Millennium Falcon like laser turret.
pew pew pew....
might make a change from the norm.

http://a.dilcdn.com/bl/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2014/02/mom_falcon-300x231.jpg

 

[Rhaedas]

Maybe something for the co-pilot functions once we get that capability, on the larger ships? Would seem an obvious thing on an Anaconda, having two other chairs but no one can manually control turrets?

 

[Clifford]

Maybe something for the co-pilot functions once we get that capability, on the larger ships? Would seem an obvious thing on an Anaconda, having two other chairs but no one can manually control turrets?

In every other game I've ever played that had manual turrets, they are a hassle and they are not worth the trouble.

Think about it: if you are going to have another Player helping you, wouldn't you rather he/she just be flying another ship as fighter escort, rather than working a limited turret for you? It brings more Hit Points into the battle on your side, it brings more maneuverability (a second ship), it splits the attackers attention, etc.
It's Just not worth-it to tie-up a human players attention working a turret, I'd rather have them in a Viper alongside me.

On the other hand, Turrets are great if they are automated, which I think we will have when the gimbal bugs get fixed.

 

[Shorn]

I would agree with Clifford, with one exception - Rise of Flight. This WW1 sim has a great "turret" system, where you can crew a bomber (often 2 man) and man the rear gun. It does a fantastic job, maybe due to the extended flight experience - extended being far more time needed to take off and get anywhere even if you are the pilot, so the whole tone of the game is geared around longer periods of relative inactivity than you may find in other games.

It would seem to me to be possible to do it well in ED, but as ever the trade off is in number of people using the feature (probaby low after an initial interest) against the development time needed to code it in.

 

[Alric]

Yeah I think it would be nice. One of those we could do it in Frontier things. Certainly if we can roam around our ships eventually, I'd also like to man the turrets.

In terms of other players on the same ship, it might not be the most efficient compared to multiple ships (assuming all are good pilots), but I would love to see it. Pretending to be on a spaceship > min-maxing any day of the week for me.

I have RL family for whom piloting a ship and doing everything at once is not something they're going to do. But they'd hop on and man a turret, do some of the power management or other ships functions while I fly. Maybe not for hours a day but enough to be worth buying the game.

It's actually one of my top most wanted features even though I wouldn't be the one doing those jobs most of the time.

 

[Jackie Silver]

I'd cheerfully act as turret gunner from time to time.

Star Citizen has several multi-crew (as in multi player-character crewed) ships and it'll be interesting to see how that dynamic works out.

 

[Jenner]

I'd cheerfully act as turret gunner from time to time.

Star Citizen has several multi-crew (as in multi player-character crewed) ships and it'll be interesting to see how that dynamic works out.

It's one of the aspects of SC that really interests me, although I have to admit I'm usually not online when my friends are so it's of limited utility to me personally.

Still, how awesome would that be to all be manning the same ship? Gunnery, repair, navigation, targeting....

 

[MrShadowfax]

In FE2, anyone else ever leave their Panther clipper on autopilot heading towards the station and hop into the turret view to blow a pirate away, rather than having to change targets (and course)? It was a laugh.

 

[AtomicHorror]

In FE2, anyone else ever leave their Panther clipper on autopilot heading towards the station and hop into the turret view to blow a pirate away, rather than having to change targets (and course)? It was a laugh.

Turret was the easiest way to kill using the Panther wherever you were. Certainly easier than trying to steer that monster to bring the main gun to target.

 

[Ottomic]

I carry two turreted pulses on my Cobra. No the best angles, but they can help out a bunch whittling shields down while lining up mah autocannons.

Only thing I'm missing is turret settings that don't reset at every jump.

 

[Special_Circumstances]

Obviously having an additional pilot in a fighter escort seems like the way forward but those fighters typically have limited range compared to a freight ship.

So unless you can berth a fighter within your ship you may be limited to manned turrets (player or AI) for additional defence.

The game sort of has a turret mode now anyway, of sorts. If you turn flight assist off, boost along your escape vector and then throttle back you can flip the ship over and fire in any direction you choose while travelling at maximum velocity on your chosen vector.

 

[Damoc]

Turret was the easiest way to kill using the Panther wherever you were. Certainly easier than trying to steer that monster to bring the main gun to target.

Best tactic for panther clipper: activate auto pilot and either use the plasma thingys or just ram.