[SCR] Smart Turrets v4.7.2 (AP, 05-04-14), v2.6 (TC, 21-08-13)

[Shimrod]

The proxy route is definitely worth a go though.

1. Go to http://hidemyass.com
2. Put this URL in the textbox:
http://www.x1tp.com/root/index.php?opti ... 55&lang=en
3. Push 'Hide My Ass!'

When I did this just now it downloaded the file. In theory the data will be proxied via hidemyass.com and you won't have to deal with x1tp.com directly.

[SS_T]

I have disabled IP blocking on the website (which came with the component I use), try downloading it again. But I have to look at this closer as I don't know why your having problems with it.

[DarthVain]

I have disabled IP blocking on the website (which came with the component I use), try downloading it again. But I have to look at this closer as I don't know why your having problems with it.

Unfortunately that didn't work either.

I tried Shimrod's method and that worked fine and have installed v1.2.

Now how to set it up properly.

[Glimpse]

I've got to say it is a great turret script. Fast and reliable. Great for someone who cleanses Xenon sectors every so often.

However, I hate short range weapons, so I made my own new 20KM range beam cannon of some sort.(A duplicated entry of laser beam of XRM 1.04) Smart ignores it when activated. Is there an entry must I do for each new laser?

Also I must also suggest a stance mod. I had to forcingly declare war on Boron because I kept killing Paranid transporters who were hostile to me. A simple offense and defence option should suffice. Perhaps a missile defence would be needed by some too.

[Shimrod]

Thanks for the feedback

I've split it out into separate offense, defense and attack my target modes in 1.3. Still a work in progress though, about to install SRM for some compatibility testing.

That 20km cannon is first going to be cut out due to the AlertRange limits in the central ship task (glen.turret.smart.coordinator.xml). This performs a simple scan for enemies at fixed ranges (15km m6+, 10km fighter), and if no enemies or missiles are in that range all the turrets just sleep to save cpu. I'll look at sizing those ranges dynamically in 1.3 around longest range laser+5km.

There's another check to avoid shooting fighter size targets at long range (>4km or so) unless they're stationary or their mainguns are in range to shoot us. Even then its usually impossible to hit them due to laser spread at long range.

Are you shooting fighters half a sector away with that thing? Perhaps I could relax that check if bullet speed > 5000 or so, can't otherwise detect beam lasers.

[Glimpse]

Oh after a game restart, turrets now use the newly added weapons, however as you said it doesn't fire or track over 15KM.

My main goal was to get rid of the cramped action that turns the battles into jousting matches and a kamikaze festivals. One could understand 1KM range on a fast and accurate weapon, but why we cannot have weapons that shoots over at 10KM for capital ships? I mainly fight M6 and above fighters usually become a splat on my hull before they become a nuisance.

I'm after long range battles, I hate it when a Xenon Q comes bashing into my hull. I hate it when a fully equipped M3 wants to fire it's 1KM range weapons and becomes a splat on the hull after the first attack run. I'd rather have long weapons equipped on all vessels, so that battles could be fought within a larger area.(Probably Q's headfirst diving mechanic cannot be fixed with weapon range, but hey! I can take him out before he hits me!)

Not sure how AI will react to 20-30KM weaponry installed on their ships, but if that doesn't work out, I can always have my own long range artillery weapons.

[Shimrod]

I'll be giving it a try too at least for checking the script changes

I'd be concerned that some of the builtin commands (is target in firing range of turret, get nearest enemy in range of turret, etc) might have hardcoded range limits, only way to tell is to test.

I suspect the AI will be pretty dumb with target selection. It'll probably just shoot the nearest target single mindedly. MARS works on AI ships, but I don't know how MARS handles customized laser data especially if its a whole new laser rather than an edited one. Smart is player only, at least for now.

Out of interest what version of Smart do you have installed? 1.2 should be detecting changes to TBullets rebuilding its caches. A fresh game start would certainly work with any version. 1.3 will also have an uninstall option should all else fail.

[DarthVain]

Will Smart Turrets actually add weapons if they are not listed as compatible for your ship?

[garrry34]

when you say player only do you mean player ship or player owned ship, as I'm using it on ally my ships. I love the single laser shots for missile's that is totally awesome, does this get picked up by wing turret commands and ADS?

[Glimpse]

I've the 1.2 version and it does detect the changes. I've meant to say restarting the X3TC not starting a new game.(silly me ) I'm using my beam weapon up to 15KM now. It works quite good on fighters, considering their agility.

Vanilla turrets are rather boring to play with. You often have to take over to shoot that little bugger doing moondance around. I'll be doing some testing on weapon range to find out if AI can adapt to long range fights.

Still, turrets really do their jobs efficiently. And it can only be better with stances in 1.3.

[Gazz]

why we cannot have weapons that shoots over at 10KM for capital ships?

Because the instruction, that determines if a target is within the turret range / arc, only works up to 10 km.

A script can tell that the target is 12 km away.
It can not tell if this target is within the turret's firing arc.

[Shimrod]

Will Smart Turrets actually add weapons if they are not listed as compatible for your ship?

No, only lasers compatible with the turret and available in the cargobay will get swapped in.

when you say player only do you mean player ship or player owned ship, as I'm using it on ally my ships. I love the single laser shots for missile's that is totally awesome, does this get picked up by wing turret commands and ADS?

Player owned ship. Glad you like the antimissile, haven't had a lot of feedback on that bit yet

Unfortunately the wing turret command list is hardcoded, and ADS would need edited to add Smart support. Best wait for 1.3 for adding support as it's being split into separate attk/def/attk my target command IDs.

However I added a Smart broadcast option so you can easily roll the command out however you like. You can get there 2 ways:
Wing -> Combat -> Smart -> Broadcast...
Ship -> Combat -> Smart -> Broadcast...

You can choose which command to broadcast (mainguns, turrets, terminate smart), what filter (all, fighter, bigship, freighter), and what scope (all player property, wing, ships in sector, homebased ships, docked ships).

This is context sensitive, so only {wing, all property} are available for wings, and all except wing is available on the ship menu. The wing scope affects the wing the menu was run on. Docked/homebased ships relate to the ship the menu was run on.

Broadcasting from your carrier's Smart menu using the docked or homebased scope, should be equivalent to the ADS turret setting.

[Kadatherion]

I'm testing it on XRM, and so far so good. I was a bit worried that, now that bullet speed is taken into account to choose what weapon to use against fighters, the beam cannons would be used too much (while they have better chances than a PPC to hit an M3, they still are rather inaccurate in the hand of the AI, and they have LONG refire rates), but luckily enough it still usually favours the flak weapons as soon as the fighters are in short enough range.

Extensive testing only on terran weapons though, with some tyrs blockading a Xenon sector, but they should be a rather good example of how weapons in XRM are balanced, and they're working good.

Also great to see collateral damage lasers in an editable list now, as in mods such as XRM most of 'em aren't a major threat to friendlies anymore.

Really good script mate, I've got to admit I always found MARS a bit intimidating (great, but intimidating nevertheless ), while yours is simple, sleek and quite efficient at the same time, exactly the kind of thing I needed

[Gazz]

Really good script mate, I've got to admit I always found MARS a bit intimidating (great, but intimidating nevertheless :P ), while yours is simple, sleek and quite efficient at the same time, exactly the kind of thing I needed :)

*shrug* It's designed to work as a completely generic turret script.
It automatically figures out any (common) mods you may be using.

You start it for a turret. It works.
Using any special controls or even looking at the configuration menu is not required.

So without using any of it's optional features, it's actually easier to use than this one since it automatically deals with AOE lasers.

MARS works on AI ships, but I don't know how MARS handles customized laser data especially if its a whole new laser rather than an edited one.

Lasers are ignored unless registered for use in it's data file.
Few users create completely new lasers, though, so it hasn't yet come up as a problem. =)

[garrry34]

is there anyway that the single shot could be carried across to attacking fighters only at a faster rate?

[Gazz]

Yes. Steer or strafe your ship towards the attacker.

[Mizuchi]

Hey Shim,

Is there any chance that you could add an option to get SmartTurrets running on AI ships as well, if that's possible? It'd be neat to even out the playing field, you know?

I mean, not as an immediate priority, but if you ever get bored of tweaking it.

(Unless it already does run on AI ships and I missed something. I don't mean player-owned AI ships either, natch!)

[Shimrod]

is there anyway that the single shot could be carried across to attacking fighters only at a faster rate?

The antimissile mode is aimed at things that die quickly to one or two shots of a fast refire laser (missile, drone, and 1.3 squash mines), and also excludes them from primary target selection so only a small segment of the turret round is focused on them. Very effective when there's nothing except a missile barrage to focus on, reduced effectiveness when dividing the time between shooting a primary target and doing an anti-missile blitz in between rounds.

I've no plan to include fighters in the category, in fact I don't think it would be very effective. In general I think its better to focus DPS to take down targets faster and lower incoming DPS, than to slowly whittle things down.

I use real refire delays on each turret gun in the antimissile mode:
a. If no antimissile targets remain after a round, delay is applied based on slowest refire delay that got fired.
b. If targets remain it cycles through the guns in order of fastest to slowest refire of the previous gun that occupied the slot, applying delays in turn, subtracting time already waited.

To increase DPS legitimately, more than 1 gun would need fired at a given target. I've been considering firing 2 guns per round for fighter drones since guns find it difficult to land on drones with their small hit boxes.

Cheese can be applied as desired by editing the DPS cache and setting refire delays arbitrarily, so you can fire a given laser as rapidly as you like. Just keep an eye out for integer overflows in the DPS values if setting lasers too fast. Negative DPS values mean the the lasers would be least preferred. 50ms is about as low as I'd go.

Is there any chance that you could add an option to get SmartTurrets running on AI ships as well, if that's possible? It'd be neat to even out the playing field, you know?

I'll add this to the wish list though definitely not a near term priority. Minimally I guess it involves swapping over command to script mappings for enemies, and would likely have significant compatibility issues as things like XTC like to set their own mappings. Would need to peek into MARS to see if there's an elegant solution.

Some code changes also necessary to review the 'friendlies in range' logic, assumptions that [PLAYERSHIP] is friendly etc, but definitely feasible.

[Kadatherion]

*shrug* It's designed to work as a completely generic turret script.
It automatically figures out any (common) mods you may be using.

You start it for a turret. It works.
Using any special controls or even looking at the configuration menu is not required.

So without using any of it's optional features, it's actually easier to use than this one since it automatically deals with AOE lasers.

Don't get me wrong, I've used and loved MARS, but it offers A LOT of features (and hotkeys) I'm not particularly interested in, so it often felt like a bit of an overkill. Of course nobody forces you to use goblins, or particular commands, but if you're not using 'em anyway, a simple alternative without those features becomes definitely interesting (in fact, I often ended up using only the standalone missile defence MK2 script )

[garrry34]

the main reason I asked was purely for looks as it creates the impression of individual turrets as apposed to just the 6, its no biggy I'm very happy with your work as is...