Revisiting Turret Pods

[Nuc_Temeron]

The recent discussion of Space Platforms, I think, had one standout idea: Turret Pods.

Currently, most of the time, I just blob my max of a single type of turret on a spot. All my snipers go in a blob at the back of the gravity well, my other turrets blobbed so each type has it's range extend just behind my base's force field. Sometimes I'll place half, maybe a third or a quarter, at 2-3-4 different spots on the planet. Never do I place turrets in 48 different places.

Using Turret Pods, which is a single structure that holds 1-48(max) of a single type of turret, would provide essentially the same gameplay (that's good!) while also giving the devs their maths.

When I place a turret, have it popup a slider (default max?) that I can slide left to place closer to one turret or right to place closer to max. Click, slide, click. DON'T let me put multiple turret types in it. It's a Sniper Turret Pod, or a Needler Turret Pod etc. That way, it retains the icon. Perhaps you could put "x48" underneath the pod when zoomed in.

Also, if I want to scrap turrets (which I often do!), let me just select the Turret Pod and slide the slider left, with a confirmation box. Click, slide, click.

This implementation is easier to click through, provides delicious maths, and gives exactly the same flexibility to the player for turret placement.

[chemical_art]

If easy to implement I could see the value in this, it would give a minor performance boost to boot.

[Tridus]

This is kind of a piece of the space platform idea. It makes sense, although I'm not sure if it'll happen in 1.0 for that reason. An upside is that you can easily drop all your turrets of type X in a sector, they can share distance calculations and such (for CPU reduction), and without having to worry about slots or power, they're relatively straightforward to work with.

[tadrinth]

Can you think of a good way to incorporate force fields into the turret pod?

Forcefields are one of the other big performance issues, due to having to calculate which ships are covered by them, and then that affecting autotargetting.  One advantage of space platforms was that FF modules could protect just the space platform, or even just particular parts of it.

Close range turrets are traditionally placed under forcefields, if you have enough forcefields available to spare.  So, ideally you'd want to incorporate a forcefield into the pod. 

You could do that either by just having close-range turrets automatically include a forcefield module, or by having variants that have a forcefield along, or by having some kind of support module slot (like a mod fort) that can mount protective modules.

[Tridus]

Can you think of a good way to incorporate force fields into the turret pod?

Forcefields are one of the other big performance issues, due to having to calculate which ships are covered by them, and then that affecting autotargetting.  One advantage of space platforms was that FF modules could protect just the space platform, or even just particular parts of it.

Close range turrets are traditionally placed under forcefields, if you have enough forcefields available to spare.  So, ideally you'd want to incorporate a forcefield into the pod. 

You could do that either by just having close-range turrets automatically include a forcefield module, or by having variants that have a forcefield along, or by having some kind of support module slot (like a mod fort) that can mount protective modules.

If the proposed tech system sticks around, a tech upgrade on the turret of that type that adds a shield of X*<Turrets mounted on the pod> to the pod? You don't have to build the shield then, you just get it if you buy the upgrade. Subsequent upgrades could make the shield stronger.

[Nuc_Temeron]

I think having more than one of anything on a Turret Pod would be a mistake. Just put a force field by it, like you do now. The Pod should have _ONE_ gun type in it, no variables, no options. Just click, slide, click.

[x4000]

Note: the bulk of this discussion is out of scope until we get to space platforms.  Doing the parts of this prior to space platforms would be just as bad as doing space platforms, in most respects.

THAT said, turrets will be built as part of "squads," so to speak, so you don't have to plunk down so many all at once.  The "place 5x" multiplier is now like "place 15x" in the old system if it's 3 per squad.

[Pumpkin]

Even I don't personally believe in squads yet (I'll need to see them implemented and test them), I'm pretty enthusiast with turret squads. A keybind and one click to build a full cap squad of one kind of turret in one spot: that would be awesome!