Turreted beam lazers... suck?

[Kordred]

Something I learned from the forums is that sensor strength [class/rating] seem to make no difference on accuracy of gumball or turret weapons.

Can't find the post right now but I believe Sandro posted that this is not true.

What he said is true, I think you read too quickly.

 

[Arsen Cross]

I just dip or raise the nose a bit so the target goes briefly out of the turrets' targeting hemisphere. They re-acquire immediately and have 100% accuracy then. Turret drift isn't a problem when facing big ships but you'll really start to notice if you're chasing down small ships. If you keep the aim on them for more than a few seconds they start to miss way more often than they hit. I don't bother with any turrets except beam lasers on ships big enough to fire them constantly, and even then it's not the firing arc that attracts me, but the immunity to chaff. Most times my ship pitches too fast for the turrets to track something passing under me anyway.

As a devoted user of turrets I can confirm what's being said here by Loskene. I use two C3 beam turrets on the top side of my Python and they are absolutely fantastic. You have to take into account resetting their aim though as described. I believe that target tracking decay is an intended feature. It makes turret DPS high when the turrets have a valid lock but it drops off after a short while preventing the weapon from requiring absolutely no skill to use effectively. Turrets I find are for players with slower, bulkier ships who have the play style to benefit from planned maneuvers and tactical positioning.

Edit: I noticed on my C3 beams, a significant impact on how much distance my turrets retained their accuracy at. The diminishing lock strength effect however does not lengthen which may be giving people the impression that there is no effect by higher grade sensors.

 

[Ancipital]

Edit: I noticed on my C3 beams, a significant impact on how much distance my turrets retained their accuracy at. The diminishing lock strength effect however does not lengthen which may be giving people the impression that there is no effect by higher grade sensors.

You know that FD themselves have repeatedly told us that higher grade sensors add no accuracy, right?

 

[FiddenUK]

Turrets work fine. Not knowing how to use them sucks ; )

Like chasing down a ship that flies in front of the space station you mean? That one nearly cost me 17M, all for a bounty of 15k ;P


I find turret beams work very well, so much so, that I have several fitted to my ship (see signature). Knowing how to position yourself with your enemy really helps their effectiveness.

 

[kirkkh]

Hey all. For the last week or so I've been shooting wanted ships in a resource extraction site to get money for an explorer Asp (I have the Asp, now I need a few more millions to buy all the modules). I'm flying a Viper - lovely ship, powerful too for its low price! I had two gimballed pulse lazers (about 36,000cr each) and 2 gimballed autocannons (about 17,000cr each) and coupled with my A-rated power capacitor and power distributor, with 4 pips in weapons I could fire those pulse lazers for about 45 seconds solid, chewing through shields and about 30% of the armour on even an Anaconda (NPC flown).

But today I saw the station I was in was selling turreted beam lazers for 500,000cr each, so I replaced my pulse lazers with those. The info panel said they did more damage and everything and I had plenty of money so I thought "why not?".

Well, I am horrified. I went to the RES as usual and found a wanted Cobra Mk. III, targeted it, kill warrant scan, deploy hardpoints. Beam lazers start firing automatically. "What!? Turret weapons fire automatically!?" I think. Fine, I can live with it I guess. But then I notice two more problems. First of all, these two weapons that cost me a million credits, had barely chewed through one shield ring of the Cobra after 10 seconds of firing, as opposed to my cheap old pulse lazers which would've chewed through its shields in less than 5. When I finally get through his shields I notice his armour isn't budging at all. Like maybe 1% every 20 seconds.

Second problem is... they're all over the place. I'm very close to my target, maybe 1km give or take, and they're wobbling all over the place so bad that they're not even hitting anymore. And he hasn't deployed chaff either.

So before I go and replace my 1,000,000cr weapons with my old 60,000cr weapons (which have better accuracy and damage), would anybody like to tell me if I'm doing something horribly wrong... or do beam lazers really suck this bad?

With a c1-turrent-beam-top, on an eagle it's pretty sick (just stay close).

 

[Zplintz]

I, for one, have had no luck with class2 pulse turrets on my python, they just won't fire.
Tried them as part of a fire group, as not part of a fire group, fire at will, my target only, combinations of fire groups included.
Sitting in a RES with pirate wings who are very angry with me, and shoot on site at me. Those damned C2 T pulses did nothing.

Did nothing as in missed or did nothing as in did not fire?

I just dip or raise the nose a bit so the target goes briefly out of the turrets' targeting hemisphere. They re-acquire immediately and have 100% accuracy then. Turret drift isn't a problem when facing big ships but you'll really start to notice if you're chasing down small ships. If you keep the aim on them for more than a few seconds they start to miss way more often than they hit. I don't bother with any turrets except beam lasers on ships big enough to fire them constantly, and even then it's not the firing arc that attracts me, but the immunity to chaff. Most times my ship pitches too fast for the turrets to track something passing under me anyway.

This +1

Like chasing down a ship that flies in front of the space station you mean? That one nearly cost me 17M, all for a bounty of 15k ;P

That's a pilot error not the turrets. You should have set turrets to forward fire (if you have them on a group) or turned them off.

 

[FiddenUK]

That's a pilot error not the turrets. You should have set turrets to forward fire (if you have them on a group) or turned them off.

Well aware this was an error on my part, mate

 

[Deleted member 38366]

-- Deleted --

 

[CmdrDaymian]

True the game doesn't tell you much but it doesn't take much to politely ask how others use them (you will get many different answers to most questions). Certainly a better way to find out than create a whine thread about how they suck shirley?

I always do ask polite. This thread wasn't whiney, it was a legitimate question. Do they suck or am I doing something wrong? I can't help it if text is interpreted differently by different people. Text is cold and emotionless, man.