Heavy Turret GFX suggestion

[XRsyst]

This will be a nice addition for something that can stop a starship.  Presently it seems that all of the good defensive units are non-reclaimable which causes them not to be unlocked/built as often (Fortresses and Mass Drivers come to mind).  Having some kind of heavy hitter that can be built and reclaimed when necessary would be great.

Also, I *still* play the Krogoth Encounter mission now and again just to prove I can.  When I'm feeling like a sadist I'll do it without building walls...  Also, TA, great game music or greatest game music?

[orzelek]

Can you also consider this heavy turrets to be AI forbidden... after I think 1 hour it has already about 5 mark III's on planet. I think that this cap limiting is not exactly respected by AI and it adds them at will (aka when dice drop ok).

[keith.lamothe]

They don't have caps per se but when picking a turret from the "turret bag" for their planet level (I,II,III,IV,Core,Home, basically) I can have more instances of lesser turrets in the "bag" so the heavies are less likely to be pulled.

The AI *will* be using these against you

But in more sane numbers.

[vonkolberg]

I think it's kind of cool that the AI uses them--it adds some extra danger to flying transports around the map (which had become a little too easy since their speed and health was buffed).  They also pose an extra threat to raid starships (which could also make things a tad too easy at times).

[corfe83]

I just played a game last night with these, and heavy turrets on AI planets are absolutely NASTY! They were cutting through my ships like butter.

I love the challenge these bring, though

[keith.lamothe]

I'm glad you enjoy the challenge, I've toned down the numbers (though each tuning only affects new turret selections, it won't retroactively try to change an existing turret population when loading a game) for 3.083, though in balance with the higher-cap lower-power mk I and II you may actually see more of those.  For what it's worth, the IV will not be used by the AI, at least not as a normal turret selection.

[orzelek]

Pretty please remove them from AI. Looking at anything else it can build caps are really not a problem - and when heavy turrets reach some kind of critical mass they maybe almost untouchable.

[keith.lamothe]

Even in a test with like 15 Mk IIIs in an AI turret ball they were still touchable.  Terribly nasty, but you could still get them.  And I'm trying to tune the numbers so you shouldn't see more than 1 or 2 in a single ball even on a homeworld.

[keith.lamothe]

Ok, the MkIV is in for 3.083.  Thanks for the art!  It's probably somewhat OP, but not by much I'd say considering it's 6000 knowledge for 1 unit.  Not to mention a fortune of metal and crystal, and 20000 energy to run.  Actually, it may need an attack power buff, but I want to see what people think first.

There was a bug inflating the range by 3000 for all marks for some unknown reason, so I reduced them all by 3000.  I may reduce the IV by a fair bit more, dunno.  Right now it kinda makes Ion Cannons look like tinker toys, and shortening the range could help leave the IC with its own role.

I also made it so the AI won't build any new IIIs, just Is and IIs.  I had an evil plan to make all AI Home Command Stations start with a IV nearby, but I think that would just be cruel (may look into it for an AI Type + High Difficulty + Random Chance thing).  Of course, a full cap of all 4 normal bomber marks would probably get through the fire without taking too many losses.  Low health ships just die like flies.

[HellishFiend]

Low health ships already die like flies. I think most of the pre-Zenith special ships need an HP buff in general, actually. The rest of the game has gotten tougher, and most of those units have remained at the same HP.

[Rod Serling]

The biggest problem I see with the IV turret so far is the extremely limiting Knowledge cost factor.

I used them in defense, and they tear through starships and smaller ships with fairly-accurate regard to their costs, except I don't think I can justify spending 6000 K on one turret in a non-cheat game.

Really, the whole Heavy-Turret line is very expensive Knowledge-wise. 15,000 Knowledge in total, that's 8 planets worth of knowledge dedicated to an almost purely defensive structure. In an 80-planet game, that's a little less than 10% of my total knowledge.

For 15,000 Knowledge, I could unlock MK II and MK III ships in two different lines, along with MK II Scouts (560 ships total on non-bonus ships)
For 15,000 Knowledge, I could unlock MK I and MK II Raid and Dreadnought Starships, along with the MK III Raid Starship (19 Mobile, high-powered Starships)
For 14,500 Knowledge, I could unlock MK I - MK III Missile Turrets, MK II + MK III MLRS Turrets, and MK I + MK II Laser Turrets (1190 Stationary, low-powered static defenses)

For 15,000 Knowledge, I could unlock MK I - MK IV Heavy turrets (25 Stationary, high-powered static defenses)

The first three allow a great amount of flexibility in deployment, while maintaining a very large amount of raw power.
The last allows an extremely large amount of raw power, but the flexibility is lost because we only get 25 of them.
After a certain point, firepower no longer has the same amount of importance as before. Knowledge is the only finite resource in the game, and after a certain point, REQUIRES the destruction of enemy sectors to effectively increase. Knowledge is a very important resource, and I really don't think the heavy turrets are THAT justified.

But in any game with "give me k", they'll be among the first turrets I deploy. They rock when I "accidentally" nuke a planet with 5+ Enemy Starships.

[keith.lamothe]

To some degree the IV is more of a role-play/reward unit; I wanted really powerful super-turrets, but most folks here want larger numbers of between-super-and-normal turrets.  So I "spread out" the I and II a bit, left the III as is, and added the IV for me   More seriously, I hope others like it too. 

I think I'll double or even triple the I, II, and III caps for 3.085, drop the power and per-unit costs in proportion, and perhaps drop the K a bit.  I'm curious to know people's desires for cap numbers (well, and the rest of the stats, too, but cap seems to be the driving thing).

As for the IV, the knowledge cost could be dropped a fair bit, or it could be given yet-stupider amounts of power, but I've been hesitant as I don't want to make a "developer's pet unit" that just annihilates everything for too little cost.  Much stronger and you get into "one-shotting-a-spire" territory.

More conceptually, I've been balancing the Beam Cannons against other turrets based on maintaining a roughly equal "((Damage / ReloadTime) * ShipCap) / KnowledgeCost" for each tier with laser and missile turrets (mrls and basics are balanced differently for a few reasons). In 3.083/3.084 they're actually a chunk higher (still within 30% or so).  Perhaps there should be an additional factor on ship cap, like divide by log10(ShipCap)?  So something with 100 ship cap can have half the DPC-at-Cap-per-K of something with 10 ship cap, which in turn can half that of something with 1 ship cap... make sense?  Or too drastic?

[XRsyst]

For defending key systems there are already plenty of turrets to choose from, I don't think we have to shoehorn these turrets perfectly into the mold that all of the other turrets are in. What I'm hoping a MKIV Heavy can do, that I already have some difficulty with, is the Super Terminal.  I usually have to stop by the time there are ~400 core zenith ships per wave, I'm hoping I can get a little further with something like this.

[keith.lamothe]

Hmm, I don't know for sure, but I think the MkIV would be very likely to damage the super terminal by accident (since the beams just hit whatever hostiles are on the line), assuming you're attacking the ships as they emerge.  But I don't recall the mechanics of that scenario.

[triggerman602]

can the lasers be made to shoot at maximum range all the time so the laser keeps in going past the target. from what iv seen mark I-III do this a little bit but the mark IV didn't. its a little disappointing to the thing shoot and hit the closest enemy in the clump but have all the enemies behind not get hit.

also can you put this laser logic on beam frigates too?