X3TC Turrets with two gun ranges/speeds installed?

[Druitt]

After reading about how terrible turret AI is, I hesitate to ask, but...

If you have, say, an EBC and a PBE installed in a two-gun turret, does it work at all? The EBC has 3x the range of the PBE and its projectile is 1/3 as fast.

I would hope that beyond the range of the PBE, the turret aims and fires the EBC with proper lead, but once the target's within PBE range, which gun does it lead for?

(I was reading about MARS last night and once I've spent enough time in vanilla, I'm going to try it out... if it works with a Mac.)

[stealthhammer]

Id hesitate to do that, mainly because you would run out of energy before the mark was in range of the PBE as the EBC would begin to fire.

Also big guns have a slower turret rotation then smaller so watch out for that one to. course the EBC and PBE are small.
Anyone wanna check me? sorry just woke up...

[Druitt]

Id hesitate to do that, mainly because you would run out of energy before the mark was in range of the PBE as the EBC would begin to fire.

Actually, you raise another point, can guns fire individually, or do turrets fire? (Not talking about independent aim, just independent fire.)

The only reason it came up is that I finally found my first PBE and wanted to mount it, but didn't want to have just a one-gun turret.

[Killjaeden]

the turret fires if the gun with the biggest range is in range (up to a limit of ~4-5km iirc -> turretAI-limitation)
can't say anything about lead because i don't use vanilla turretcommands anymore since X3R ^^

[Alan Phipps]

You might want to see this post: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=262233

[Gazz]

It works. It's just that you waste a boatload of energy for no particular reason.

Oh, and turrets can track targets up to 10 km (from the ship) but can aim far farther.

[Druitt]

You might want to see this post: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=262233

Excellent, thanks!

Not sure how to factor different releases into the equation (things may have changed from X2 to X3:R to X3:TC). And it looks like the answers vary from:

Pro: Turret starts tracking target at the max range of the farthest-firing gun. Guns (according to one user) fire independently and can both hit the target, even at different speeds.

Con: Guns (according to others) don't fire independently, so one type will hit and the other miss.
Both guns fire and if one doesn't have the range, it's wasting shots.

So I'm not sure. I'll see how my EBC/PBE combination works?

[Alan Phipps]

Clarification:

While both guns will fire at the same time at the longer max range, thus potentially wasting energy/ammo for the shorter range gun for a while, when in range of both guns, the different speed bullets will use different paths to hit their own projected target location for when they will arrive.

Pros: Turrets may align earlier using the longer range available. All weapons in a turret when in range can hit their predicted target location. You can finely optimise the weapon loadout to meet the weapon energy available. Combined area weapons and direct fire weapons of similar ranges are potentially lethal to all types of target (eg flak+PRG or PBG+PBE). Slow and low-agility targets are very prone to multiple weapon loadouts.

Cons: Turrets may turn only at the rate of the slowest gun fitted. Short range weapons firing at over-range will waste ammo/energy. Hits from fast bullets may cause an agile target to evade such that slower bullets already on the way then miss.

Hope this helps.

[Druitt]

OK, thanks, that clears things up.

The other consideration is that the turret evidently pivots at the speed of the slowest-pivoting weapon, which might put my EBC/PBE combo at a disadvantage on small fighters, depending on how much more slowly EBC's pivot than PBE's. (DOn't have the spreadsheet in front of me.)

I DO like my trusty PRG's (fast pivot, fast traveling, reasonable range), but unfortunately the Paranid don't.

One last question: do turrets honor firing groups? At one point (in my Skate Prototype) I thought that I'd have my turrets and main battery ID's in group 1, my turrets and main battery EBCs in group 2, and my main battery IDs only in group 3, figuring that if I thought a pilot would bail, I'd hit "3" and the turrets would stop firing. As I remember, it didn't work.

[Alan Phipps]

Yes I mentioned the turret turning issue under Cons. EBC, PRG and PBE are light weapons so it shouldn't entail a noticable turning speed issue but you will waste a lot a PBE energy (which is high) as the EBC has nearly 3 times its range.

The weapon groups only apply to the weapons you are directly controlling and if you are firing main battery then the group selected won't affect any turrets. (Think about it - if you select a weapon group other than 1 in a fighter, it doesn't turn off your rear turret laser.) If you are in a turret, the group selected won't affect the main battery or other turrets. I think how you set a turret weapon group will apply after you leave the turret though. It is better to control turrets with turret commands like missile only or attack capitals etc rather than messing around with groups as you may inadvertently leave your ship vulnerable or with blind spots.

[DDM_Reaper20]

After reading about how terrible turret AI is, I hesitate to ask, but...

If you have, say, an EBC and a PBE installed in a two-gun turret, does it work at all? The EBC has 3x the range of the PBE and its projectile is 1/3 as fast.

I would hope that beyond the range of the PBE, the turret aims and fires the EBC with proper lead, but once the target's within PBE range, which gun does it lead for?

(I was reading about MARS last night and once I've spent enough time in vanilla, I'm going to try it out... if it works with a Mac.)

If you use MARS, you won't have to worry about choosing turret loadouts. MARS does that for you. Gazz's splendid script decides which weapon works best for which purpose, swapping guns when applicable.

Frankly, I can't imagine playing without MARS.

One caveat, however: if you dream of laying the universe to waste with an M7M, do not engage MARS for the AI. MARS is dastardly good at killing missiles. An M7M loses about 90% of its lethality when MARS is switched on for enemy capships -- torpedoes and flails alike are intercepted with uncanny precision.

Of course, the same is true for your own vessels -- in sector, a cap ship equipped with MARS (and a certain amount of fighter drones) need not fear any missile attack.

Cheers!

[Kriszo]

If we are at the question, I don't want to open a new thread just for this:

I am equipping my new Paranid Deimos M7, and wondering what an ideal loadout should be, what to place in each turret. First, I was thinking about mixing a heavy gun with a flak gun in one turret.
Then luckily, I found this thread
So, I shouldn't do that now, should I?
And what about PSGs?

Oh, and if someone could give me tips how to assign weapons to turrets even if not mixed, would be welcome Should I use flak in up and down, and heavies in right and left? Or the other way around? Something else?

[Druitt]

If you use MARS, you won't have to worry about choosing turret loadouts. MARS does that for you. Gazz's splendid script decides which weapon works best for which purpose, swapping guns when applicable.

Frankly, I can't imagine playing without MARS.

I'm quite excited about the turret control of MARS. And if it can be applied on a Mac, I will do so after playing a bit longer in Vanilla X3TC. (I'll also apply it to AI ships, to even out the playing field.)

From reading about it, the defensive Gremlins (or whatever they're called) sound overpowered, though. They're overpowered to some degree in Vanilla, so I'd turn off MARS drone abilities if that's possible.

Not a big missile fan to begin with, so that'll make the universe a better place as far as I'm concerned.

[Druitt]

Frankly, I can't imagine playing without MARS.

Just installed it on my Mac and it works fine... Mac version is 2.1.2 or something like that, so hope there's not a big problem with using the latest MARS.

One question: there are 3 settings that appear to turn on MARS for the opposition, which seems fair to me. I assume they are in increasing order of CPU load, but am not sure how it works in terms of me fighting in my M6 against other M6's now. I turned on the first 2 options and left the last one off.