Are Lighting Turrets A Good Choice ?????

[Shadoz]

i want to ask you guys who play maybe extrem much :-)
what do you think about the lightning turrets
ok they attack all enemys in a great radius / range ... but their attack is only 1600 fpr MKI and 4800 for MKIII ...
i think in the endgame the lightning turrets are not usefull ... or iam wrong
i mean 1600 damage is like nothing ... the fighter / bomber / missle frigates have around 500k fpr MKIV ...

so what about this turrets ... do i oversee some special power or advantage for this

thanks for answering

[Red Spot]

Placed near gates they hit entire waves with their first volleys. I wouldnt just unlock them, but if you need that extra push countering waves and other big attacks, they sure help.
In my last game, 4 caps of heavy beam turrets -vs- ~½ mk1 cap lightning => killratio 20-1 (cap vs cap that would probably turn out to be somewhere around 5-1).

They are a very good support for the fleet, but need something else to actually finish of the individual targets.
When you get units stuck near the gate, on tractorbeams, you can hurt 1000s of ships with volleys of just lightning turrets, thats quite impressive overall damage (if there isnt some cap in play).

[TechSY730]

Yea, they are only really useful when there are a large number of units near them. If you are against AIs that are using high ship cap ships, or Neinzul ships, they are extremely useful.

The Mk. I lightning turrets sort of give a bad impression of the lightning turret series of turrets, thanks to their absurdly low attack power that would require a ridiculous number of ships near it to be hit at once to start doing appreciable damage. Mk. IIs start doing noticeable harm to incoming fleets, and Mk. IIIs can actually start hurting incoming waves.

If you aren't already, try using them with the tractor beam turrets. A tractor beam turret's ability to keep a large number of units nearby greatly helps the usefulness of lightning turrets.

[Sunshine!]

I don't think I've been giving my lightning turrets enough love.  I should try a game with forcing AI waves (and exogalactic strike forces, if possible) onto a planet with a mk3 military and maxed caps of mk1-mk3 lightning and flak turrets.  nom nom.  Would require an insane amount of knowledge though.

[Weapon Master]

Do flak turrets even have an AOE explosion anymore? I can't tell because there is no obvious explosion effect. If they do then their attack power seems absurdly high (12k on what could be 1000s of ships for MK1?).

[Sunshine!]

They have an AOE, but they're limited in targets hit (I think it's something like 15?) unlike lightning turrets.

[Shrugging Khan]

I've switched to high caps now, mostly because I kept running out of spare turrets (but also because I wanted less bullet-spongey fleet ships).

I'm looking forward to seeing how this interacts with lightning turrets (which I usually forgo). Reports on the subject will follow.

[Fruden]

 Pretty sure i read in some other threads that lightnings hit max 200 targets while flaks hit max 5/7/9 targets. Flaks might also be able to hit aoe immune targets, i can't remember right now.

[Sunshine!]

That's electric shuttles that hit 200 targets max.

I think the high cap actually produces twice as much damage as medium.  You get twice as many turrets, twice as many targets, but half as much damage.  It's also more aesthetically pleasing to watch your giant mob of lightning turrets pwn a giant group of d00ds.

[superking]

lightning turrets are 100% legit, provided you can concentrate them (and incoming waves) onto a single wormhole

[TechSY730]

Those turrets feel underpowered for the cost (power/knowledge). I've always thought it would be good if they had a short paralyze effect (1 second or so) every shot.

I'm not sure if I would say that the higher Marks are not worth it, but it is quite sad to see that the Mk. I lightning turret has way too little DPS for all but the insanely big "blobs" the AI sends at you. However, some people say that the Riot control tazer is near (but not quite) overpowered thanks to its AOE paralysis effect. As such, the paralysis time of the Mk. I Lightning turret would have quite short to prevent being overpowered. Even 1 second for the Mk. I would likely be too much, it would have to be <1 second. Maybe for the Mk. II though, 1 second could work, but I don't really know how to balance that.

Or, you could give lightning turrets a similar hit logic that the electric shuttles currently have. This would limit them to 400 hits per shot, yes, but if you have an incoming force large enough that your group of lightning turrets cannot hit all of them in one salvo, then they probably won't live long enough to get their second shot off. Might as well have them give a greater damage overall, even though its to fewer units , before they die. This would also give them use even with smaller incoming forces, which is that case where lightning turrets are currently under-performing.

[TechSY730]

Or could there be a chance to hit? If they only paralyzed a certain amount of ships that might make them a little more balanced. I could see that in a real battle, some ships getting hit harder then others and scumming to a brief shutdown while other ships just take slight damage.

Paralysis effects becoming less effective with more armor or something, that could work, but the ships that have the most armor are not necessarily the ships you would expect to be resistant to paralysis, so either accept that or introduce a new "paralysis resistance" variable that needs to be balanced.

.5 seconds or less paralysis time for Mk. I lightning turrets could work. Generally speaking, you would want more than one lightning turret defending each point of interest anyways, so those .5 seconds would start adding up. And even .5 seconds is enough to start putting a notable dent in DPS. If you want better paralysis, unlock the higher marks. The Mk. I versions of pretty much anything are not supposed to be all that great anyways.

The <100% chance to inflict paralysis (on ships not immune to paralysis of course) is probably a no go. It seems that the devs want to move away from probabilistic models of things hitting, whether it be damage or status. Either things hit when their are in range (and within their range of radar dampening when applicable), and can't target things outside of that. They made great efforts to move the combat to this new model, and I doubt they want to reintroduce a new probabilistic mechanic in shot effects.

[Ranakastrasz]

Rather than a <100% chance of paralyze, how about a <100% paralyze duration?