How do turrets work?

[DKay47]

I've installed some pulse turrets on my ship, but they don't do anything.

On the top middle part of my screen, there's 4 icons related to my turrets.

I understand what the blue icons do (defend, attack all, etc), but the greyed ones at the bottom seem to tell me that my turrets don't work. When I click on them, I can only cycle between what looks like 2 different variants of an offline symbol. The greyed out gun is already the offline symbol for normal guns, whereas the crossed out circle seems to convey the same meaning.

There's no key related to turrets in the keybind menu. There's no explanation in the encyclopedia entry on turrets, or any tutorial on turrets for that matter. I have all my crew working as service. Could someone help me figure this out? I can't tell if they're bugged, I don't have enough energy to power them on, or I'm just missing something.

[Wilson1133]

Having this same issue. Anyone know?

[Wilson1133]

Using an Xbox controller messing with the D-pag eventually got them firing. Still not sure what did it though. There were a lot of Beeps and Boops...the icons at the top you mentioned turned blue and they fired at attacking enemies. I had a rear turret, it never did anything. It was a plasma though while the fronts were pulse lasers? Maybe that’s why?

[gatekeeper8]

i am having the same issue. i have legit spent more time on google looking for how to solve this then i have playing the game and i even got so desperate i gave bing a shot. so far from what i can tell a few people have this issue but nobody has been able to solve it. also when you get the bigger ships like the carriers they no longer even have those turret icons so i am hoping that whatever ends up fixing this issue also makes it so those turrets work. overall i have tried crewing my ship, editing the behavior, changing through all the weapon groups, going through as many menus as i could find looking for anything that might turn them on, and even clicking all the buttons on my keyboard once. i am at the point where i am going to start clicking all my keys in combination once. so like hold ctl and click every key then hold shift and click every key and so on and so forth. this is absolutely ridiculous!

[Phoynix]

Just messed with it...

Not tried it out in combat but the icons at the top are clickable the aim icons change when you click on them and the shield I assume means it will only fire back on things that shoot the ship, the aim icon with a missile I assume means the turrets will target missiles.

Just below them is another clickable icon, it seems to turn the turret off/on
I assume circle with a line through it is off, while the normal gun energy icon is on.

[Ukendt]

Seems like adding marines will place them in the respective seats and man the guns. I've had luck hiring 2 for each turret for them all to be manned.

[aftokinito]

Click on the icons for turrets on the top centre of your hud to change the turret's stance. By default they are set to defence and only fire back to ships that actually shot you (they don't shoot anything other than what shots you, regardless of how many reds you have around).
I suppose that what you want is to set them to "Attack my target", which should be the reticle with a square around.

[Phoynix]

Icons don't do jack apparently... turrets just don't work even with full marines.

Assuming its not a bug, Its likely some obtuse command or requirement...

Honestly its almost like the developers decided they wanted to over complicate things that should just work nice and simple like, then not bother explaining it...

[instants]

my turrets are working just fine im using 2 beam turrest and the command attack my target

[Wilson1133]

Icons don't do jack apparently... turrets just don't work even with full marines.

Assuming its not a bug, Its likely some obtuse command or requirement...

Honestly its almost like the developers decided they wanted to over complicate things that should just work nice and simple like, then not bother explaining it...

They seem to work fine for me now. I haven’t worked out exactly what all of the fire modes are but the shield is return fire only and one of the others will attack enemies on sight. I haven’t tested the anti-middle setting but it seems that’s what the circle with a misspelled is meant to be.

So since it works for some and not all maybe it’s the ship? I’m using a Cerberus Vanguard. I also have a Drill vanguard mining ship that has one turret that works. What ships are you all trying it on? I noticed that if I have a small ship docked on my Cerberus the main guns try to target it and you just can’t fight at all. This is due to the placement of the dock front and center of the screen. Could be a bug like that?

[NightlinerSGS]

There seems to be a bug specific to the Minotaur (which is the one in the picture). The turrets on it simply don't fire at all. Other turreted ships work fine.

Can anyone confirm if their Minotaurs work fine or not? I've only tried the Minotaur Raider, which only has two turret slots instead of four.

[battou]

I have drill vanguard with two mining turrets, and they both do not fire. Tried every combination of icons. Do I need marines on the miner to mine? 0_o

[Kadatherion]

I've also read reports that turrets don't work on ships you have capped, probably because of some friend or foe issue. Basically, what was being said, is that they do fire against xenon and khaaks, but not against other criminal enemies (as if there's some coded friend or foe for races, that doesn't have the old "show as enemy if enemy to me" command for the actual turret scripts). Can't confirm though, it was from a couple people chatting on Twitch, but it sounded plausible.

[NightlinerSGS]

I have drill vanguard with two mining turrets, and they both do not fire. Tried every combination of icons. Do I need marines on the miner to mine? 0_o

Someone or Reddit suggested that this might be the case. You can try and reassign your crewmembers to be marines, you can just switch them from service crew to marines in the ship information screen.

Could you try this and tell us if it works or not?

[linolafett]

To clear some confusion here:

There are two icons in the HUD to show the status of the turret and to set the turret mode.

The lower icon (we are in the top center of the screen) is the turret type, the icon looks like the usual weapon icons known from the forward facing normal weapons.
You can click on the icon to deactivate a turret.
The deactivated icon looks like an "O" with a line through it.
In this configuration, the turret will stay inactive, no matter the mode set.

This icon can also be greyed out or coloured light blue.
Light blue= turret deployed and ready to fire
Grey = turret inactive until fitting targets are in range, will then switch to active state again.

The upper icon is showing the mode the turret is in.
Shield = defend; Turret will only attack things which are attacking the ship (and actually hit the ship once)
Crosshair = attack all enemies; All enemies in range will be shot at
Crosshair with missile = Missile defense; Only shoot at incoming missiles, all other targets will be ignored
Asteroid = mining mode; Currently no clue what the turrets will do here, fire at neary targetet asteroids?
Crosshair with brackets = attack my enemy target; Attacks the currently selected enemy target.

[Horun]

To clear some confusion here...

can we control them remotely on another ship?

[Dexhii]

I think I've figured it out.

I flown a Cerberus Sentinel (which I've since sold due to docking problems and turret problems but eh). I've tested this on station criminals and a mission where I had to destroy laser towers belonging to the scale plate pact.

The turrets are either greyed out or blue based on their status, retracted or deployed. (if they deploy you hear a little mechanical type noise). The rest of the icons mean what the mods said.


BUT here's the kicker:

If your enemy is not an actual enemy to you, like the scale plate pact for me... They don't deploy and or fire. They simply stay retracted and you're left with whatever your manually operated arms are. In X3AP for instance you can right click on a target and say "autopilot:attack" to get the turrets to budge. But you can't do that here.If it is an enemy (red icon) and the turrets don't fire, usually locking and unlocking the target a couple times does the trick. The turrets deploy (become blue) and start firing. (without marines, only a backup captain).

But when they do fire at their target they are highly inaccurate, to point I have to adjust the entire ship to compensate... at which point they still miss. And due to the random pattern of it it even hit the station around me causing me to be flagged and killed. The "bug" here is that if it isn't an enemy to you it won't fire. At all. And the fact that it fires very inaccurately, I don't know whether this is due to it being a small target though.

[GrahamSimmons]

I've also read reports that turrets don't work on ships you have capped, probably because of some friend or foe issue. Basically, what was being said, is that they do fire against xenon and khaaks, but not against other criminal enemies (as if there's some coded friend or foe for races, that doesn't have the old "show as enemy if enemy to me" command for the actual turret scripts). Can't confirm though, it was from a couple people chatting on Twitch, but it sounded plausible.

I'm having this issue. Two caps, no turrets.

[Neferdias]

To clear some confusion here:

There are two icons in the HUD to show the status of the turret and to set the turret mode.

The lower icon (we are in the top center of the screen) is the turret type, the icon looks like the usual weapon icons known from the forward facing normal weapons.
You can click on the icon to deactivate a turret.
The deactivated icon looks like an "O" with a line through it.
In this configuration, the turret will stay inactive, no matter the mode set.

This icon can also be greyed out or coloured light blue.
Light blue= turret deployed and ready to fire
Grey = turret inactive until fitting targets are in range, will then switch to active state again.

The upper icon is showing the mode the turret is in.
Shield = defend; Turret will only attack things which are attacking the ship (and actually hit the ship once)
Crosshair = attack all enemies; All enemies in range will be shot at
Crosshair with missile = Missile defense; Only shoot at incoming missiles, all other targets will be ignored
Asteroid = mining mode; Currently no clue what the turrets will do here, fire at neary targetet asteroids?
Crosshair with brackets = attack my enemy target; Attacks the currently selected enemy target.

This needs to be in a tutorial. Or in the encyclopedia. So far I've been unable to discern from any menu in the game what those icons do.

[darkneon2002]

To clear some confusion here:

There are two icons in the HUD to show the status of the turret and to set the turret mode.

The lower icon (we are in the top center of the screen) is the turret type, the icon looks like the usual weapon icons known from the forward facing normal weapons.
You can click on the icon to deactivate a turret.
The deactivated icon looks like an "O" with a line through it.
In this configuration, the turret will stay inactive, no matter the mode set.

This icon can also be greyed out or coloured light blue.
Light blue= turret deployed and ready to fire
Grey = turret inactive until fitting targets are in range, will then switch to active state again.

The upper icon is showing the mode the turret is in.
Shield = defend; Turret will only attack things which are attacking the ship (and actually hit the ship once)
Crosshair = attack all enemies; All enemies in range will be shot at
Crosshair with missile = Missile defense; Only shoot at incoming missiles, all other targets will be ignored
Asteroid = mining mode; Currently no clue what the turrets will do here, fire at neary targetet asteroids?
Crosshair with brackets = attack my enemy target; Attacks the currently selected enemy target.

could you please tell us the minimum requirements for 1 turret to work? Like marines, service crew ?