Turrets: What do you think of them?

[superspeck]

Furball of turrets around warp points -- spider & sniper around the command station in a system with > 5 wormholes that I don't control.

[wyvern83]

I actualy tend to use spiders without tractor beams, you can place one on non important planets, which will stop a line of enemy ships when they pass through the system, and 5-20 in more important systems.  The spiders job is engine damage, and when something gets engine damage and stops, there is not a huge use for tractors as they are still stationary (though in important systems you still use tractors to hold the initial group for the regular turrets).  A ship frozen were it is out of range of your stuff is as good as being destroyed.

And yes, sniper/spider turrets never miss.  Chance to hit is based on range to the target, weapons max range, and targets sheilds.  As snipers have essential infinate max range, they will always have 100% to hit.

Thanks for the tip Frosty, your advice is working nicely for me thus far though I got attacked by my first (light) starship so I will need some tighter on-wormhole defenses, and maybe some heavier turrets about that world's command center as well. I had a group of 20 MLRS turrets with 3 mk.I tractors on each wormhole so it may be time for an upgrade to something. The spider turrets (3 with 5 snipers) were very effective; the command center was destroyed, but Light starship limped away with 33% Engines giving my small attack group from the next system over plenty of time to catch up with it before it got away. 

[AdamK]

One use I found for the otherwise-mostly-pointless sniper turret is for beachheads when you are trying to kill something nasty under a level L3 or core force field, but you can't assemble enough firepower to clear it in one go (spec ops under a force field for example).

The trickle damage caused by the snipers prevents the forcefield from recharging, giving you enough time to rebuild your attacking forces.

Snipers also seem to be useful if you are being plagued with raptors... 10-20 clean them up at a fairly reasonable pace.