Turret Controllers

[MaxAstro]

One thing I really like about core turrets right now is that there is absolutely no reason not to use them to build a disposable beachhead on every AI planet adjacent to one of your planets, assuming you can afford the energy.  It's like having ablative armor against exo-waves and threat. 

I will say, having core turrets cross-interfere with normal turrets will result in me probably just not bothering with them, since it seems like it would make them mostly useless until I have several controllers.  For example, if the only controller in easy grabbing range is the Flak or Lightning controller, why bother?  I can't defend a world with ~nothing but~ flak turrets, so it's only useful on planets I wasn't going to put any turrets on anyway.  The AI beachhead use I mention above becomes the ~only~ thing worth doing with them.

[keith.lamothe]

One thing I really like about core turrets right now is that there is absolutely no reason not to use them to build a disposable beachhead on every AI planet adjacent to one of your planets, assuming you can afford the energy.  It's like having ablative armor against exo-waves and threat. 

I will say, having core turrets cross-interfere with normal turrets will result in me probably just not bothering with them, since it seems like it would make them mostly useless until I have several controllers.

It seems like 2 (and often even just 1) controllers would be plenty to enable the multi-beach-heading use you mention in your first paragraph.  Sure, Flak+Lightning wouldn't do as well, but if the relatively low chance of those being the only grabbable ones is enough to make the entire feature no longer botherable, I don't know what to say

[Tridus]

One thing I really like about core turrets right now is that there is absolutely no reason not to use them to build a disposable beachhead on every AI planet adjacent to one of your planets, assuming you can afford the energy.  It's like having ablative armor against exo-waves and threat. 

I will say, having core turrets cross-interfere with normal turrets will result in me probably just not bothering with them, since it seems like it would make them mostly useless until I have several controllers.

It seems like 2 (and often even just 1) controllers would be plenty to enable the multi-beach-heading use you mention in your first paragraph.  Sure, Flak+Lightning wouldn't do as well, but if the relatively low chance of those being the only grabbable ones is enough to make the entire feature no longer botherable, I don't know what to say

You'd mentioned this earlier, which I think is what he was responding to: "can't build any core turret on same planet as any non-core turret (that has a core variant, so leaving grav/tractor/etc out of this)"

In that case, building a Flak V would shut down every other turret you don't have a controller for, and if Flak V is the first one you get then it's basically useless.

I don't mean to come across as a pain in the neck on this issue, but the turret controllers are sticking out as the lone thing that's gone down on the "fun" scale as development has progressed. Trying to make something that can be used everywhere except a chokepoint just doesn't seem very workable.

[relmz32]

Guys, you *do* realize that Core turret controllers are no downside as it is. I don't understand how you would willingly "not bother with them"

[MaxAstro]

They have no downside, but their upside isn't very exciting.

I want to love core turrets, I really do.  They were one of the features I was most excited about.  But I can't get behind the idea of having to choose between what few core turrets I have, and every other turret I have.  I am the kind of person who drops a few of each kind of turret on every planet because each turret is useful for different things; I'm not going to give that up for a pile of one type of turret.  Even if they are stronger, it's less fun and interesting.  I don't want to go from "Okay, I'm gonna drop my missile turrets back here to cover cmd and the wormholes, then we'll build a nice little tractor/ff/flak trap on the wormhole, and here's some more turrets HERE in case they go after THAT..." to "Meh, giant pile of MkV needle turrets.  Defenses done."

I also think if you want to encourage distributed defense, the way to do that is to make all turrets distributed defense.  Trying to shoehorn MkV turrets into "absolutely must be distributed defense, and absolutely must not be used to chokepoint" feels very... jury-rigged.

EDIT: Clarification to the above: I am NOT suggesting removing chokepoints, or even really nerfing them.  I'm just more and more thinking it would be awesome if turrets weren't the sole thing that defined a chokepoint.  I really, really like Orzelek's idea, basically.

[keith.lamothe]

You'd mentioned this earlier, which I think is what he was responding to: "can't build any core turret on same planet as any non-core turret (that has a core variant, so leaving grav/tractor/etc out of this)"

In that case, building a Flak V would shut down every other turret you don't have a controller for, and if Flak V is the first one you get then it's basically useless.

I don't think it would be basically useless, but yes I understood that he was talking about the cross-exclusion thing.  For now I'm just not doing that particular change, in any event.

I don't mean to come across as a pain in the neck on this issue, but the turret controllers are sticking out as the lone thing that's gone down on the "fun" scale as development has progressed. Trying to make something that can be used everywhere except a chokepoint just doesn't seem very workable.

And I don't mean to come across as insensitive, but there are two factors here that prevent me from really give you what you want:

1) I'm simply not willing to buff chokepoints that much (adding 120 mk*caps or 60 mk*caps or whatever of fleet-ship-equivalent power to the max chokepoint potential).

2) Player feedback is highly divided, and sometimes simply incoherent, on this feature.  Some players insist that core turret controllers should not buff chokepoints more than distributed defense (and that they were doing so even in the original implementation), while others insist that core turret controllers should buff chokepoints.  Some players insist that core turret controllers should not require distributed defense, while others think that "requires distributed defense" is not an adequate balance against overshadowing lower-mark turrets and/or their overall power.  And so on.  What this means to me is that I just have to look at the various feedback angles and pick the approach I think is better for the game.  The picture may become clearer later.

[LaughingThesaurus]

^ The downside really is the AIP required to get them. They have to be worth the 20 AIP, and when you do have an impenetrable chokepoint it's a bit hard to swallow that cost.
What if core turrets could intermingle with I/II/III turrets... but there's a little unique quirk to it. If there are lower mark turrets present, the mark V turrets have a significantly reduced damage, or significantly longer reload times. Effectively, it would turn the Turret Vs into Turret IIs or something instead. Controllers always give you a little defensive bonus, but only really work to their full potential when they're doing their job alone. Somebody else could surely help work out the numbers to balance it more finely than that, though. It's just arbitrary feeling the way that it is, and an arbitrary feeling to a game mechanic is worse than a balance issue. Arbitrary game mechanics and game rules can make a player feel as though the world and the rules just don't make sense, and that cuts down on the enjoyment of a game pretty drastically.

[MaxAstro]

Keith, is an overhaul of the entire turret system like some of us are suggesting simply not in the cards at the moment due to coding/time/etc constraints?

I ask because I don't want to keep pushing for something that's not feasible; I'd rather come up with a different idea that can work.

OTOH, if you are open to the idea but need more convincing, I will keep on course. 

[orzelek]

Lets try with something like this:

1. All turrets get per planet cap of around 1/4th (to be balanced) of what they have now.
2. Player gets ability to build turret controllers that allow more turrets of given type to be built on their planet. They would need to be turret specific (per each turret type) and maybe mark specific (thats not needed I think).
3. Each turret controller would have a global cap of 3 and would add additional 1/4th of turret cap on planet it's built.
4. Capturable turret controllers would give you 1/4th of core turret cap per planet. Player turret controllers would interfere with them and would cancel their added cap on planets they are built. This effect could also work per turret type or globally (any controller cancels core ones or only their type of controller).

This solution should have no impact on choke point strength compared to now (you build all turret controllers on choke point and you have full caps of everything).
It also balances capturable turret controllers - they would buff planets on which you don't use your own turret controllers. So they will help with distributed defense but won't allow you to significantly buff choke point due to interference.

[keith.lamothe]

Keith, is an overhaul of the entire turret system like some of us are suggesting simply not in the cards at the moment due to coding/time/etc constraints?

I ask because I don't want to keep pushing for something that's not feasible; I'd rather come up with a different idea that can work.

OTOH, if you are open to the idea but need more convincing, I will keep on course. 

Some things like making turret attack/rof/etc conditional on the presence of other units are infeasible code-wise.  I mean, it's not like it's physically impossible but it'd be a heaping helping of pain for me and the engine so I'm just not likely to do it.

Other stuff like what orzelek just suggested (which is almost identical to what I'd been thinking about 30 minutes ago: 1/4 turret caps, per-planet turret caps, low-cap buildable structure to give normal caps on that planet, but interferes with core turrets) is feasible in the code and would actually only take me an hour or two to implement but there's simply not enough time for proper player testing of it before 7.0.  7.0 is next week, guys   And I honestly don't think the core turret controllers are in that bad a state right now (I am halving the core turret caps for next release to bring them down from hilariously-OP, but that's it for 7.0 unless there's further balance issues) so I don't feel compelled to try a last-ditch reworking of the entire base-game turret system to make those feel better to a subset of the community.  I'm guessing that makes sense

[Tridus]

Some things like making turret attack/rof/etc conditional on the presence of other units are infeasible code-wise.  I mean, it's not like it's physically impossible but it'd be a heaping helping of pain for me and the engine so I'm just not likely to do it.

Other stuff like what orzelek just suggested (which is almost identical to what I'd been thinking about 30 minutes ago: 1/4 turret caps, per-planet turret caps, low-cap buildable structure to give normal caps on that planet, but interferes with core turrets) is feasible in the code and would actually only take me an hour or two to implement but there's simply not enough time for proper player testing of it before 7.0.  7.0 is next week, guys   And I honestly don't think the core turret controllers are in that bad a state right now (I am halving the core turret caps for next release to bring them down from hilariously-OP, but that's it for 7.0 unless there's further balance issues) so I don't feel compelled to try a last-ditch reworking of the entire base-game turret system to make those feel better to a subset of the community.  I'm guessing that makes sense

Something like that is the best way to really achieve a distributed defense goal, yeah.  That'd also let unlocking mk II turrets contribute to a distributed defense. You wouldn't need to make core turrets interfere though - just make core turrets unaffected by the turret cap booster.

Anyway, shame it can't be done in time, but the release is pretty close for that kind of upheaval. Maybe for 8.0!

[keith.lamothe]

You wouldn't need to make core turrets interfere though - just make core turrets unaffected by the turret cap booster.

That would still make core turrets a buff on top of the existing chokepoint power level; the rule would need to be that core turrets could not be built on the same planet as the new "chokepoint controller" structure, and vice versa.

Anyway, shame it can't be done in time, but the release is pretty close for that kind of upheaval. Maybe for 8.0!

Oh I certainly intend to try it within a month or so after 7.0.  The tricky part will be finding something that actually makes people happy

[Tridus]

That would still make core turrets a buff on top of the existing chokepoint power level; the rule would need to be that core turrets could not be built on the same planet as the new "chokepoint controller" structure, and vice versa.

Not a very big one though. 20 mk V turrets are very little compared to 50+ of each mk I-III. It just makes it consistent across the board that you take a controller and everywhere gets X turrets, which is pretty straightforward.

(This one is a preference and not a sticking point for me, the change is good either way.)

Oh I certainly intend to try it within a month or so after 7.0.  The tricky part will be finding something that actually makes people happy

Great!

[orzelek]

I posted it here for clarity:
http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=11815

I'm looking forward to after 7.0 

[keith.lamothe]

I'm looking forward to after 7.0 

As am I, have a bunch of crazy stuff I'd like to try.  But good to have the cleanup involved in a new official done too, as that's generally when the more important polish-type issues get dealt with.