The Gunner Role on Multicrew does not feel very good. It is floaty, disconnected, and weird. Turrets almost always work worse in player control than under their default control. And it can critically hurt an otherwise-good build.
The big problem is this: To take a fighter, you need to sacrifice a hull reinforcement, which costs you about 20% of your hull value. This is rarely an issue, since most fights don't get down to your hull in the first place.
To take a turret, you need to sacrifice half your DPS on that hardpoint. This is a massive problem, because often you need to rely on barely out-damaging a shield cell bank. For example, say you're attacking a ship with a Class 6 Shield Cell Bank and 50% resistances. By default, your ship deals 100 DPS with 5 hardpoints. This means you out-damage that shield cell bank by 8 DPS, you can destroy their shields entirely, and immediately deal permanent damage to their hull. By taking a SINGLE turret, you lower your DPS to 90. Now you cannot out-damage that shield cell bank. Now, instead of needing to deal ~1500 damage to shields and ~3500 to their armor, you need to deal 5100 damage to their shields. Simply by reducing your DPS output by 10%, you have increased their effective durability by 73%.
This is just one example to demonstrate the principle. Yes, there are ways around this, but the fundamental point remains; taking a turret is a far larger disability than it might seem. As it currently stands, there is no case in which taking a turret is a choice without a better alternative.
Fighters are almost perfect, by contrast. They offer a massive bonus of damage output, at relatively little cost save for the necessity of a pilot. Turrets should be more like fighters.
With this in mind, the following changes should be made.
• 1. Turrets should be controlled one at a time. This fixes the floatiness issue. Place the gunner's POV directly above the turret and give them the audio and kinetic feedback of firing the weapon. This will make being a gunner much more satisfying and impactful.
• 2. While under Gunner control, the turret should get a significant improvement in damage output. Having a gunner should be a net benefit, like having a fighter out. A gunner-controlled turret should deal as much damage as a fighter; after all, they are not offering any of the other benefits of a fighter, such as extra shields or distributor capacity. As this is essentially a fixed weapon now, it should also ignore chaff, just like gunners currently do.
• 3. Multiple gunners should be able to be active at once. If there are two turrets, you should be able to have two gunners, one controlling each turret.
• 4. Change the current gunner view to a 'tactical' view, allowing this player to control the utilities, scan hostiles, and make tactical decisions. They should have a 'point' option, similar to Odyssey version on the ground, allowing them to highlight specific enemies on the HUD and radar.
This will make being a copilot on ships actually a viable choice, and will make the entire multicrew experience far more engaging.
The big problem is this: To take a fighter, you need to sacrifice a hull reinforcement, which costs you about 20% of your hull value. This is rarely an issue, since most fights don't get down to your hull in the first place.
To take a turret, you need to sacrifice half your DPS on that hardpoint. This is a massive problem, because often you need to rely on barely out-damaging a shield cell bank. For example, say you're attacking a ship with a Class 6 Shield Cell Bank and 50% resistances. By default, your ship deals 100 DPS with 5 hardpoints. This means you out-damage that shield cell bank by 8 DPS, you can destroy their shields entirely, and immediately deal permanent damage to their hull. By taking a SINGLE turret, you lower your DPS to 90. Now you cannot out-damage that shield cell bank. Now, instead of needing to deal ~1500 damage to shields and ~3500 to their armor, you need to deal 5100 damage to their shields. Simply by reducing your DPS output by 10%, you have increased their effective durability by 73%.
This is just one example to demonstrate the principle. Yes, there are ways around this, but the fundamental point remains; taking a turret is a far larger disability than it might seem. As it currently stands, there is no case in which taking a turret is a choice without a better alternative.
Making turrets more like fighters.
Fighters are almost perfect, by contrast. They offer a massive bonus of damage output, at relatively little cost save for the necessity of a pilot. Turrets should be more like fighters.
With this in mind, the following changes should be made.
• 1. Turrets should be controlled one at a time. This fixes the floatiness issue. Place the gunner's POV directly above the turret and give them the audio and kinetic feedback of firing the weapon. This will make being a gunner much more satisfying and impactful.
• 2. While under Gunner control, the turret should get a significant improvement in damage output. Having a gunner should be a net benefit, like having a fighter out. A gunner-controlled turret should deal as much damage as a fighter; after all, they are not offering any of the other benefits of a fighter, such as extra shields or distributor capacity. As this is essentially a fixed weapon now, it should also ignore chaff, just like gunners currently do.
• 3. Multiple gunners should be able to be active at once. If there are two turrets, you should be able to have two gunners, one controlling each turret.
• 4. Change the current gunner view to a 'tactical' view, allowing this player to control the utilities, scan hostiles, and make tactical decisions. They should have a 'point' option, similar to Odyssey version on the ground, allowing them to highlight specific enemies on the HUD and radar.
This will make being a copilot on ships actually a viable choice, and will make the entire multicrew experience far more engaging.
