[General Battuta]

ere's the "turret firing rate" limit to make the Morning Star utterly useless.

Go play something with Fury AI. Come back and change this statement.

[Qent]

The Fury AI is non-canon.

[Dilmah G]

It removes some issues that prevented turrets from firing at the speeds they were meant to, IIRC. So it's really restoring fire rates to what they canonically should've been. I think. Check with Fury.

[General Battuta]

The Fury AI is non-canon.

Not in MAH CANON

but srsly, so are ship turrets with Morningstars, this is obviously a place for the wisdom of those who know FreeSpace better than its creators! Like Dilmah said, arbitrary random fire delays are siiiiiiiiiiilly, and all that particular flag in the Fury AI does is remove this weird random delay applied to capship turrets.

also putting a ship's AI class up to General will get you closer, esp. if you are on insane

[TrashMan]

I always laugh when people use elements that are needed by gameplay as some sort of canon...

Does that mean that canonicly, ships work perfecty fine until lthey reach 0% hull integrity?
That they can operate normally with 1% hull left? That Apha 1 is immortal and the world re-sets itself to the start of the latest mission?
That there is a pre-programed limit into each missile (human and shivan) as to how many missiles can track a single target? That beam cannons magicly do only a fraction of their damage to friendly targets? That all capships vaporize (the Legion is a LIE!)?


Universe/setting is not equal to gameplay. You first create a setting for a game to take place in. Then you try to fit the game into that setting (approximately. Gameplay requirements take priority over setting)
Setting ALWAYS preceeds gameplay.

[Commander Zane]

I always laugh when people use elements that are needed by gameplay as some sort of canon...

Does that mean that canonicly, ships work perfecty fine until lthey reach 0% hull integrity?
That they can operate normally with 1% hull left? That Apha 1 is immortal and the world re-sets itself to the start of the latest mission?
That there is a pre-programed limit into each missile (human and shivan) as to how many missiles can track a single target? That beam cannons magicly do only a fraction of their damage to friendly targets? That all capships vaporize (the Legion is a LIE!)?


Universe/setting is not equal to gameplay. You first create a setting for a game to take place in. Then you try to fit the game into that setting (approximately. Gameplay requirements take priority over setting)
Setting ALWAYS preceeds gameplay.

YES, it does.

[Qent]

I'm not the one saying guns "should" fire faster. "Should" because why? Because a number's in a table? What's better about that number over that number plus the random refire wait? This has nothing to do with gameplay versus fluff, it's that someone picked an arbitrary number and said it's better than the number observed in-game.

Saying that flak turrets should have no random refire delay is on par with saying that BGreens should have a fire wait of 10s.

EDIT: I just realized I have no idea whether TrashMan was directing that at me or Battuta.

[General Battuta]

I'm not the one saying guns "should" fire faster. "Should" because why? Because a number's in a table? What's better about that number over that number plus the random refire wait? This has nothing to do with gameplay versus fluff, it's that someone picked an arbitrary number and said it's better than the number observed in-game.

Saying that flak turrets should have no random refire delay is on par with saying that BGreens should have a fire wait of 10s.

No, no, it's on par with saying that a BGreen should have a refire delay of 30 seconds. 

[Qent]

I'm not the one saying guns "should" fire faster. "Should" because why? Because a number's in a table? What's better about that number over that number plus the random refire wait? This has nothing to do with gameplay versus fluff, it's that someone picked an arbitrary number and said it's better than the number observed in-game.

Saying that flak turrets should have no random refire delay is on par with saying that BGreens should have a fire wait of 10s.

No, no, it's on par with saying that a BGreen should have a refire delay of 30 seconds. 

No it's noooooooooooooooooooooot!

I mean it's both.

[StarSlayer]

Getting hit by a heavy antiship beam seems to be pretty deadly.  Perhaps not the most effective, but it certainly proves most adept at eliminating strikecraft that stray into the targeting solution.

The hull plating of a Sathanas that is jumping out also is pretty deadly to any craft malingering in front of it at the time...

[Qent]

Getting hit by a heavy antiship beam seems to be pretty deadly.  Perhaps not the most effective, but it certainly proves most adept at eliminating strikecraft that stray into the targeting solution.

Heh, that 30-second delay will make you sad when there're multiple bomber wings closing in.

The hull plating of a Sathanas that is jumping out also is pretty deadly to any craft malingering in front of it at the time...

I want my Sathanas-launcher turret now!

[Nohiki]

i dunno, most of the time the anti capship beam just whacked me away and took only 20% from me. What is really silly is when you fly a bombing run on a demon and the LRed fires to shoot down the warhead. That is damn hard to dodge xD

[ssmit132]

I want my Sathanas-launcher turret now!

 

[Qent]

I want my Sathanas-launcher turret now!

 

Image

Yes!

[TrashMan]

I'm not the one saying guns "should" fire faster. "Should" because why? Because a number's in a table? What's better about that number over that number plus the random refire wait? This has nothing to do with gameplay versus fluff, it's that someone picked an arbitrary number and said it's better than the number observed in-game.

Saying that flak turrets should have no random refire delay is on par with saying that BGreens should have a fire wait of 10s.

EDIT: I just realized I have no idea whether TrashMan was directing that at me or Battuta.

Because gameplay/balance/difficulty changes take second place over setting. (and it is directed at everyone)
You notice the AI, damage done and RoF can change with different difficutly setting. So which is canon?

Why should a weapon have a slower rate of fire if mounted on a ship? What possible sensible reason can there be? There isn't one. There is only balance/gameplay. And that reason doesn't exist in the setting.

I say this because it's self-evident. When someone wants to create a mod or a game, first he has to have an idea. He thinks of various ship, races, weapons..things to populate the world with. The setting exist in the creators head before it becomes a game. And when transitioning from one form (media) to another, changes must be made.

Say a dev had the idea of outfitting a Orion with rapid-fire turrets (look at the into cutscene to FS2 and look at how fast the Orions turrets fire). But, after implementing it like that and testing, it was found out that that made the game too difficult for your average gamer. And the game needs to sell. So, you have to make a change from your initial vision to fit the new format. And this format change affects everything. From how durable capships are to damage, rate of fire, etc..
Hence, the original idea - the setting itself - differs from the gameplay out of necessity to make the game fun and playable. However, cutscenes and background fluff do not fall to that restriction. Which is why in games there can be such difference between cutscenes and background descriptions of things and how these things actually feel in the game.

[esarai]

I vote for a phalanx of BP Slammers with pre-set detonation ranges at about 450m.  A cruiser mounting four of these launchers should surprise buttsex any fighter or bomber formation you send at them.  Given the size of cruisers and frigates, you could see that number creep up towards 6 or 8. 

Enjoy your torment.

[TrashMan]

The greatest anti-fighter weapon...the greatest weapon of all... in the GTVAD Gigant(d)ick .. modeled after my own weapon of mass destruction naturally.

Beaten to death by a giant steel wang...psychological warfare at it's best.

[Qent]

What possible sensible reason can there be?

That all turret-mounted fighter weapons are actually smaller variants of the weapons that you use, because they're designed to be mounted on the Alastor's teensy turrets with a tiny but long-lasting power supply. It's a reason, and it's relatively simple and consistent with gameplay.

My point however was that the fire wait of retail flak (e.g.) really is .15s+random. Sure, you can decide to reduce it four-fold because the table gives the illusion that the +random is a bug. Personally, I believe it was intentional.

EDIT: Typo.

[TrashMan]

Let's not forget that the same weapon are sometimes mounted on larger ships and have the same fire delay. And a large ship should have power to spare.

Let's also not forget that sentry guns have no need for large engines, cockpit or life support and all reactor output is for the guns (no engines and shields). So even if sentry guns are smaller than fighter, their weapons should be just as deadly, if not MORE deadly.

[Qent]

Let's not forget that the same weapon are sometimes mounted on larger ships and have the same fire delay. And a large ship should have power to spare.

Large non-warships like the Poseidon could be considered to have small turrets. The Mentu I dunno, but it's already weird given the tech description. I can't think of any other examples that would support that. Oh, Shivans maybe. But their primaries already have a pretty low ROF IIRC, so the random delay is less significant.

Let's also not forget that sentry guns have no need for large engines, cockpit or life support and all reactor output is for the guns (no engines and shields). So even if sentry guns are smaller than fighter, their weapons should be just as deadly, if not MORE deadly.

Sentry guns need to be cheap because they're disposable mines. Stronger weapons might give them enough survivability to be cost-effective, but I'm guessing not. I still think it's reasonable that sentry guns mount toned-down versions of standard fighter weapons.