[Raptor]

I seem to recall that someone is (at last!) looking over and  hopefully overhauling the turret code.  If so, I have a few requests in that regard....

1) Fix it so that all turrets that can fire on a target WILL fire, not just three-four of them.  (Think how silly it would look if two 18th century 100 gun ships were along side each other, and only fired 3-4 guns at each other at any time, including the reloading time)  Though this could mess game balance a bit, maybe...   Command flag?

2) Turrets firing through ships hulls.  I know there was a fix for this before, but it was removed due to balance again.  Can this be put back in as launcher flag perhaps?

3) Side multi-parts.  Has to be asked   Even if only on vertical side faces (not funny angles or bow/stern faces) would be wonderful...

4) Maxium number of turrets.  I'm not sure ATM, can the game handle 100+ turrets?  If so, how does the tbl/cob heriacry look?

5) Multi-part FOV+FOF.  Basically I envisage two cones for a MP turret (I'm not a coder, just thinking ideal work around).  One is the FOV, which determines when a target is in arc.  the second is used to determine when the guns fire.  If target is in both, then fire.  If not, turn turret to point at target.  Maybe say second is about 1/10th of FOV?

6) Targeting.  This is more of a 'weapons.tbl' thing, but basically each weapon has a user defined 'weight' and against certain types of targets, that weapon is used in perferance.  May not be needed if (1) is implermented...

[Raptor]

Now that is odd...

I just ran a test mission where the player is in a capship (for a laugh) and it turns out (1) on my request list above is already half in place for a turreted player ship!  Even the weapons with 'small only' fired on the hostile when a is targeted.  When a friendly is targeted the turrets appear to revert to normal.

Now we (as in, you wonderful coders) can get this as the default with turret operations (adjusting for weapon flags) then I'll be a very happy player/modder.  (even if it requires a command flag in the launcher)

[Colonol Dekker]

Did you notice how Turrets on cap-ships cease fire when issuing the Shift + I (ignore my target) command, even caps you're not piloting...

[Mars]

I thought that was fixed a while ago Dekker.

I second 3: could that go under ai_profiles.tbl or some such thing?

[Raptor]

Forget this last time I posted eariler...

(7) Player ship turrets sounds.  I want to hear those turrets fire!  How about a command flag like this:

-player turret sound ##

Where ## is a percentage of how loud the players turrets sound should be played?  So having:

-player turret sound 30

Would have the turrets on a player ship firing with the sounds at 30% volume...

If varible volume not possible, then a simple command flag is fine...

[TrashMan]

Hear, hear..

Side turrets have been in high demand since...well, forever

[Colonol Dekker]

How dare a Deimos have side turrets on the FS2 cd case and box art, only to be LIES!!!!!!

[starfox]

How dare a Deimos have side turrets on the FS2 cd case and box art, only to be LIES!!!!!!

Don't forget the xtremely cool looking "beam piercing", so gracefully performed by Ravana....
 

[Raptor]

Don't forget the xtremely cool looking "beam piercing", so gracefully performed by Ravana....
 

It was a Moloch, BTW.

Here's a question:  can we have a turret that is a submodel of another MP turret?  Since we can have turrets on rotating subobjects, It would kinda make sense if we could...

Consider the M1 tank.  You have it's turret and main gun, and then there's the heavy machinegun on top.  That could be considered a seperate turret...

Cause, when the master turret is destroyed, the slave would have to be too...

[Trivial Psychic]

There would be problems to that arrangement.  You could add a second barrel submodel, then create another turret entry with the same base and different arms, but it would still be slaved into the main turret base's AI.  Both turret barrels would track and fire on the same target.  The only way for the slave turret to target independantly would be to add another base submodel for it and make it a separate turret.  The downside then comes when the larger turret is destroyed, the smaller one is still sitting there in mid air above the wrecked remains of the larger one.  The only way around that effect, would be to give the larger turret, collateral dammage, so when it is destroyed there is sufficient surrounding dammage to take out the smaller turret at the same time.  Unfortunately, a collateral dammage features hasn't been coded yet, though it has been requested from time to time.

[Raptor]

Well, my original idea was having a turret with a missile pod on each side...

I see no sign of the coders even attempting to answer these requests.  Come on coders, lets hear your answers/views!

[TrashMan]

hmm....a Mammoth tank-like turret...several of them...on a big warship...now TAHT Would be ...scary

[CaptJosh]

What about it being a submodel of the other turret somehow. Then it can be destroyed when the parent object is destroyed IIRC, or would that leave it back to being slaved to the parent turret?

[TrashMan]

Here's an easy one - a bottun in FRED that sets all turrets ot the specified AI level..
It's tedious to have to set up every darn turret manually

[StratComm]

Turrets responding to your target has nothing to do with clever forsight and everything to do with another feature of the game.  If you recall, bombers in FS1 had turrets on them, which would fire on their own.  Those turrets have always tracked the player's target on a player ship, that's the point.  That it works with capships is a fringe benefit.

And I could care less about side multiparts.  I want non-bounded rotational axis settings so that turrets can go anywhere