Turreted Everything?

[Silverdrag248]

So I’ve been playing Elite: Dangerous on a PS4 for about a year. About a week in, I discovered turret weapons as opposed to fixed and they’ve helped me so much. It is quite difficult to hit targets, especially fast ones with a PS4 controller. And I realize that fixed to more damage, but what’s the point of a lot damage if you can’t hit anything for your life. Better to do 10 damage a second than 50 damage every 10 seconds. Right? I’m fact it’s probdbly even more damage per second with the turrets for me, but you get the point. So I was wondering, why not just do turreted everything? I think at the max class/level they should do the same damage as a fixed, but they can be up to 2 or 3x as expensive. I would love to put a turreted Plasma Accelerator as my large hardpoint on my federal gunship, and destroy my assassination targets in 3 hits. I just think it should something to think about. And yes, I know your thinking, “after a year of playing you only have a federal gunship?”. It’s because I’ve taken like a 2 month break and just recently started playing again.

 

[JetsonRING]

Turreted weapons do considerably less damage than gimbal or fixed weapons. I started with turret weapons, still use them for certain, limited things like on my AX Krait. But as a CMDRs skill and confidence grows he or she begins to want higher DPS and quicker kills and so switches to gimbal weapons and when the CMDR "gits gud" then he or she will often switch again, to fixed weapons. I would bet that a lot of really experienced CMDRs still use some gimbal and turret weapons, too. o7

 

[PiLhEaD]

Turreted weapons are very helpful on big ships. Whilst they do 'less damage' they keep doing damage from almost any angle.

It depends on the ship as to how helpful they are - on my Python and Anaconda they are (imho) essential, but on my DBS/FAS/FDL they are irrelevant.

 

[Silverdrag248]

I understand this. However, as I said above, the turreted weapons would have the SAME DPS, and just be 2x or 3x as expensive.

Turreted weapons do considerably less damage than gimbal or fixed weapons. I started with turret weapons, still use them for certain, limited things like on my AX Krait. But as a CMDRs skill and confidence grows he or she begins to want higher DPS and quicker kills and so switches to gimbal weapons and when the CMDR "gits gud" then he or she will often switch again, to fixed weapons. I would bet that a lot of really experienced CMDRs still use some gimbal and turret weapons, too. o7

 

[Silverdrag248]

I apologize, I might not have made this post clear. I am suggesting that every weapon should have a turreted variant. Right now, only about 5 or so do, multi cannon, beam laser, etc. Sorry about that.

 

[Imo]

Turrets are immune against the target lock break effect. [hehe]

 

[moorison]

Module prices aren't a good way to discourage specific modules to be used, especially if they are just better.
Since turreted weapons fire as long as the target is within range, some weapons like the plasma accelerators or railguns would overheat your ship or drain your WEP capacitor. It would also remove the timing-challenge on the railgun, I know I still have to work on that myself.

You can be sure that the modules that have a turreted variant are chosen carefully. Some are only useable in this mode if you have a multicrew gunner on board.

 

[Azmuth Divarchchron]

Turrets are immune against the target lock break effect. [hehe]

No, they aren't

Also to the op.

This game is terrible to be played on with a hand controller, you want a keyboard and mouse if not a throttle and joystick.
I have the x56 rhino and use 99% of the inputs on it in game because of how many control inputs the game has for ships.
Instead of blaming the game, get a dedicated throttle and joystick, or use a keyboard and mouse.

Trust me the hand controller that comes with the console is crap for this game with the only exception being the SRV.

Frontier isnt going to make everything turreted for balance reasons. and because of the science behind the game the reasons certain weapons only exist is because of the physical demand on the hardpoint.
Railguns would tear turreted mounts out of the sockets

 

[Azreh Helas]

The best thing about turreted weapons is that it works for multi crew. Even on big ships gimballed are preferred.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

I can hit anything with a knock off Xbox gamepad, with gimballed weapons, and I'm now learning to used fixed quite well.

No need for turrets, except in a tactical sense.

 

[Sylow]

I understand this. However, as I said above, the turreted weapons would have the SAME DPS, and just be 2x or 3x as expensive.

Ah. So there is where the thing turns from "should be in DD" to an actual suggestion. And while i see what you mean, i disagree. Turrets can keep their damage on target during wild maneuvers.

So as you basically already described in your OP, for some ships, setups and pilots turrets provide more damage on target than the other variants of the weapon. With fixed weapons you have to keep your nose on the target. Getting around the target and perhaps hiding on its six is hard. On many ships thrusters are not enough to reliably do that.

Gimbals allow you do do much more already. You can move your nose of target and do some more flexible maneuvers, while still delivering damage. The longer time on target more than compensates for the slightly lower DPS. The same is even more true for turrets. You have maximum flexibility on your maneuvers. You can put a lot of focus on your defensive flying, while the turrets still are able to deal damage.

The increase in survivability while being able to keep up the damage output is valuable. Which of the three options is best for you depends on many things. Your ship and its agility matter just as much as personal preferences.

Would turrets have the same damage as fixed weapons, there'd be limited reason to use anything but turrets. I mean, why forcing yourself to keep your nose pointed at the target and thus giving up some options, if you can instead fully focus on defensive flying and let turrets to the very same damage?

People here are swimming in money. Weapon prices don't matter much. You'd have to scale up the prices insanely to change that. And then it'd be only people like you, who play casually and have limited founds, who would suffer. While veterans would just notice that their ships got a bit more expencive, shrug their shoulders and move on. I wouldn't consider that a step in the right direction.

 

[Cmdr. Numa]

Railguns would tear turreted mounts out of the sockets

That is physically incorrect. A railgun works by using strong magnetic fields to accelerate the projectile along the barrel, recoil is zero, which makes this the ideal space weapon.

Edit: Ok, I refreshed my knowledge and was wrong here. Railguns do have recoil, but a lot less than say cannons. Conservation of momentum means that each force generates a counterforce. In the railgun this happens over time though, the acceleration time of the pellet down the barrel, while a cannon releases all the force in an instant.

 

[Iskariot]

So I’ve been playing Elite: Dangerous on a PS4 for about a year. About a week in, I discovered turret weapons as opposed to fixed and they’ve helped me so much. It is quite difficult to hit targets, especially fast ones with a PS4 controller. And I realize that fixed to more damage, but what’s the point of a lot damage if you can’t hit anything for your life. Better to do 10 damage a second than 50 damage every 10 seconds. Right? I’m fact it’s probdbly even more damage per second with the turrets for me, but you get the point. So I was wondering, why not just do turreted everything? I think at the max class/level they should do the same damage as a fixed, but they can be up to 2 or 3x as expensive. I would love to put a turreted Plasma Accelerator as my large hardpoint on my federal gunship, and destroy my assassination targets in 3 hits. I just think it should something to think about. And yes, I know your thinking, “after a year of playing you only have a federal gunship?”. It’s because I’ve taken like a 2 month break and just recently started playing again.

I have a turreted Python and it works like a charm in PvE. Only the chin weapon on my Python is not a turret.
Yes the turrets do less damage, but the advantage is that you can really put pressure on more agile enemies because there most likely will always be at least a few weapons that keep hitting them. NPC AI doesn't like it and does relatively more evasive maneuvers which means they have less time pointing their guns at you.
And if you do a bit of engineering you might really like a (semi)fully turreted ship.

I would never do a turreted FDL though, but a turreted Python, or perhaps a Cutter can really work.

 

[Screemonster]

Turrets do half the damage per shot of fixed. However, they spend more than twice as long pointed at pretty much any non-stationary opponent. I can pretty much guarantee that my type-9's turrets do considerably more damage than I'd be dishing out with fixed or even gimballed weapons in that whale.

 

[GeneralIdea1964]

I think the mix of weapon types is about right.
The biggest weapons tend to be fixed, middle level ones have a gimballed option and then smaller and faster have turrets as an option.

As others have said, price is no object to some players, their cmdr character has literally billions of credits in the bank.

I think having a dedicated joystick or using a mouse and keyboard give definite advantages.
It can certainly help due to all the button mappings.

HOTA joysticks are very good, but prices have shot up since I bought mine.
A T-Flight X (Thrustmaster) is now £75, I bought one a couple of years ago for £40. ... ouch!
everything else is over £100, or even £200+

 

[Azmuth Divarchchron]

That is physically incorrect. A railgun works by using strong magnetic fields to accelerate the projectile along the barrel, recoil is zero, which makes this the ideal space weapon.

Edit: Ok, I refreshed my knowledge and was wrong here. Railguns do have recoil, but a lot less than say cannons. Conservation of momentum means that each force generates a counterforce. In the railgun this happens over time though, the acceleration time of the pellet down the barrel, while a cannon releases all the force in an instant.

Yeah, i know about the electromagnetic acceleration
But our current generation of rails accelerates them over long distances where the ones in game does it over an extremely short distance.

Think of the thing where you put a magnet down a copper tube.

All the acceleration force is being applied instantly on a railgun projectile in elite.

I guess there would be a case here to which has more force, the cannon or the short rail.

 

[Imo]

Azmuth, the turrets are immune against target lock break indeed. At least my multi-cannon turrets are. Yes, target lock break will make you loose the target, but the turrets will continue fire precisely on that target/s anyway!

 

[Azmuth Divarchchron]

Azmuth, the turrets are immune against target lock break indeed. At least my multi-cannon turrets are. Yes, target lock break will make you loose the target, but the turrets will continue fire precisely on that target/s anyway!

okay so after some research, your statement is only true when turret mode is set to fire at will.

Although I cant imagine why anyone wouldnt want all their turrets focusing on a single target.

 

[Imo]

Ah yes, you are right. Sometimes you may be facing only a very few or a single agressor. Then fire at will may be helpful.

 

[AtotheCtotheG]

I think for certain weapons this would add too much power. My main concerns are target-seeking missile launchers and railguns; giving either of these weapons 360°-tracking capability would make larger ships even more formidable, and leave small ships at an even greater disadvantage. I believe small ships already have too few viable uses in late gameplay; I would not like to see one of their few advantages (maneuverability) be so sharply curbed.