Is there a way to get turrets to focus fire?

[user1679]

I've been trying out various options with turrets but I can't seem to get them to all fire on the same ship. The problem I run into is that they often pick
a different target if there are, for example, a swarm of Xenon fighters. When this happens, their individual DPS is not strong enough to destroy the
fighters before they rip my ship apart because the fighters are focused on it.

What I'm trying to achieve is to have all or some of my turrets target a single ship in the swarm to increase DPS against that ship. Once it's dead, move
on to the next. So far I've tried "attack my current enemy" which makes most of my turrets stop attacking anything, "attack fighters" and "defend" but
both the latter options do as described above.

[Alan Phipps]

The problem you may have with this is probably the same situation as with 'attack my current target', only the turrets with the range, arc, expected bullet hit probability, and no obstructions will attack that target while the rest do nothing to defend the ship while the original target is still alive somewhere.

Perhaps a better ordered solution might for turrets to attack the valid target they can engage that has the least hull points at the time their engagement starts, and to disengage and acquire the next lowest hull points that is valid when the current one is no longer valid. I suspect though that this might lead to a lot of targeting of drones and not the fighters that might also be in the melee.

[user1679]

The problem you may have with this is probably the same situation as with 'attack my current target', only the turrets with the range, arc, expected bullet hit probability, and no obstructions will attack that target while the rest do nothing to defend the ship while the original target is still alive somewhere.

Perhaps a better ordered solution might for turrets to attack the valid target they can engage that has the least hull points at the time their engagement starts, and to disengage and acquire the next lowest hull points that is valid when the current one is no longer valid. I suspect though that this might lead to a lot of targeting of drones and not the fighters that might also be in the melee.

I did try to use the same turret all around because I thought the range might be a factor but I did go with a couple different ones for missile defence. I think switching targets when one goes out of range is a good idea but it would also lead to many more cpu cycles in large battles.

[Zloth2]

I just use the 'attack my target' option. It does mean several turrets will not fire, but they will be TRYING to target what I've selected, so they start firing very quickly when they get a firing solution. I never timed it to see if the enemies are defeated quicker, but at least it gives you something to do when you Syn gets swarmed by defense drones.

[KextV8]

Using attack my target will effectively do what you're asking. It kills ships much faster since the S ships will usually die instead of being able to retreat and reshield. Its very noticeable on a Syn when you get swarmed by S ships.

[jlehtone]

... at least it gives you something to do when you Syn gets swarmed by defense drones.

The last time I tried "Attack my target" was when I did fly Pegasos. Every turret in the fleet that had that order, did shoot at the target of my Peggy (if in range, etc). Yes, I could concentrate the fire of every turret even when my ship had none.

But, what do the turrets do when I don't have a target?
Can I have a target, when I don't fly a ship?
What if I target ship the The Void and my fleet is in Scale Plate Green? That is very much "out of range", while SPG can be swarmed with shootable targets.

So yes, you can focus fire of personal fleet with "Attack my target". I just can't use that order on turrets that patrol "somewhere".

[user1679]

"Attack My Target" doesn't seem to work well with AI pilots. But it's also not a very good solution anyway. If my L ship has a forward weapon with longer range than my turrets, they will never be able to attack my target if it also has a long range weapon and we are at a standoff. Also, they will not fall back to attacking the 10 S ships that are in turret range and beating the crap out of my shields. So basically you end up with an AI pilot shooting one weapon while several turrets gather space dust.

[LameFox]

I remember in AP I used to have one of the highest turret priorities be 'attacks what the ship is attacking', which was pretty good for this. Sadly the options in X4 are pretty lacking, and because they are so completely specific with no lower priorities, they tend to waste firepower.

[jojorne]

IMO if you have a big ship, you don't want all its turret focusing the same target but instead shooting what they can would work best. Leave that for the ships escorting the big ship because they can move more freely. You should work in a team like a RPG where we have the tanker, healer, buffer and DPS.

[user1679]

IMO if you have a big ship, you don't want all its turret focusing the same target but instead shooting what they can would work best. Leave that for the ships escorting the big ship because they can move more freely. You should work in a team like a RPG where we have the tanker, healer, buffer and DPS.

That's what I thought the purpose of the L ship was. It could tank the damage of 6 or 7 small Xenon ships while holding aggro using the turrets. Maybe I made the rookie mistake of buying a L ship without enough support. I have a couple M ships with it but no S fighters because I thought all the turrets on my L and M ships would be enough DPS but since they don't focus fire, a single turret doesn't seem to be enough to destroy a Xenon fighter.

[jojorne]

Take a look at Syn vs Osaka. One can survive some M attacks while the other cannot despite having more fire power. One can obliterate stations with easy while the other usually dies.

[Mightysword]

That's what I thought the purpose of the L ship was. It could tank the damage of 6 or 7 small Xenon ships while holding aggro using the turrets. Maybe I made the rookie mistake of buying a L ship without enough support. I have a couple M ships with it but no S fighters because I thought all the turrets on my L and M ships would be enough DPS but since they don't focus fire, a single turret doesn't seem to be enough to destroy a Xenon fighter.

Probably because it's not equipped probably for the role. A destroyer can delete several squadrons of S/M ship "by itself" if it's equipped with anti-fighter weaponry (Flak, Pulse laser), but even a syn would still go down to just a couple or even just one squadron of fighter if all it has is anti-capital (like Plasma, Meson .etc.).



I think the best way to get around this issue is configure the turrets to match their role, specifically into Anti-capital and Anti-fighter group.

- Set the anti-capital turret to "attack my target", 'cause I would assume that's your #1 priority. It doesn't matter if these turret stand idle if they can't fire at a large target, because they won't be able to hit other target of opportunity anyway due to their slow speed. For me this usually the 4 front heavy turrets.

- Set the anti-fighter turret to "Attack fighter", 'cause a turret that can effective fight of small target won't be too much of a loss if they don't fire on a larger target any how.

[user1679]

Thanks everyone for the tips. I think I will reconfigure my turrets to have some dedicated anti-fighter ones and start working on getting enough credits for one of those Syn ships (I haven't seen any Terran sectors yet).

[jojorne]

Thanks everyone for the tips. I think I will reconfigure my turrets to have some dedicated anti-fighter ones and start working on getting enough credits for one of those Syn ships (I haven't seen any Terran sectors yet).

Not trying to spoil the game. I know that the type of turret affects the performance of how well the ship can kill a specific type of enemy like Plasma can't kill fighters because it's too slow but it's like I said before. If you want a Syn for a specific task you might be better with an Osaka instead. Keep that in mind. For instance a Raptor is a really powerful ship as well but it's a paper, can die really fast too. Tip - You can use the ingame Wiki to compare up to 3 ships side by side. Check their number of turrets, and forward weapon, number of shield, hull strength, etc. To kill small and medium ships like a patrol ship you probably want number of turrets while to kill station you probably want forward guns. A station killer is very vulnerable to a small ships attack because they can strip their turret and guns quite easily so it needs the protection of an escort fleet. And you can use a ship with a great number of turrets equipped with plasma to kill other capital ships, it will do amazingly well too but remember plasma can't kill fighters so the ship will need an escort fleet.