Turret aim is one critical error. Turret damage is another.

[Vaeo]

So, we all know turret aim right now is abysmal.

But for some reason, in egosoft's "balancing wisdom" they decided to make turret damage disgracefully low. The turrets on a capital ship tickle small fighters.

Turrets in the same weapon class of the same weapon type appear to do only fractions of the damage of their main gun counter part despite being the exact same weapon.

Their effectiveness is nearly for looks. Even if the turrets on M ships and up could hit something they'd merely ticke it. What. The. Hell. Were. People. Thinking? It's so stupidly immersion breaking. On what planet does a turret blast from a damn frigate tickle a fighter?

Egosoft needs to get it's head in the game around turrets not just for aim. But for DAMAGE.

[csaba]

Even NPCs seem to realize this issue. Most of the destroyers and large freighters I fought so far had all their turrets switched out for tracking launchers, seeing as missiles are doing 10000 times more damage than any regular weapon I can understand their choice.

[Vaeo]

Even NPCs seem to realize this issue. Most of the destroyers and large freighters I fought so far had all their turrets switched out for tracking launchers, seeing as missiles are doing 10000 times more damage than any regular weapon I can understand their choice.

Not the NPCs. Egosoft realized their turret damage was overall trash, so as a flavorless way to challenge the player set most AIs preference to tracking launchers and maximum missiles. Because god forbid they rely on the damage of EVERY OTHER TURRET IN GAME or their AIM. Because the turret aim and damage is borderline useless. They balanced turrets too poorly and made them aim too miserably. So most boardable AI are programmed to avoid using them by egosoft.

[csaba]

Even NPCs seem to realize this issue. Most of the destroyers and large freighters I fought so far had all their turrets switched out for tracking launchers, seeing as missiles are doing 10000 times more damage than any regular weapon I can understand their choice.

Not the NPCs. Egosoft realized their turret damage was overall trash, so as a flavorless way to challenge the player set most AIs preference to tracking launchers and maximum missiles. Because god forbid they rely on the damage of EVERY OTHER TURRET IN GAME or their AIM. Because the turret aim and damage is borderline useless. They balanced turrets too poorly and made them aim too miserably. So most boardable AI are programmed to avoid using them by egosoft.

Ofc I was just joking.

Don’t know how hard is to tweak damage numbers but I’m afraid that once they get a damage fix beam weapons will be worse than a destroyer spamming heavy missiles as now. I protested against hit scan weapons before release and I’ll continue doing so.

[Wou]

Agreed. In general the weapon damage is very low and cooldown time very high, making the combat just not very enjoyable.
How long it should take for Osprey turrets to take down a single N? Because I'm able to take a tea break while it lasts. And even if you put an antifighter weapons in the main slots it still takes a while.

[Vaeo]

Even NPCs seem to realize this issue. Most of the destroyers and large freighters I fought so far had all their turrets switched out for tracking launchers, seeing as missiles are doing 10000 times more damage than any regular weapon I can understand their choice.

Not the NPCs. Egosoft realized their turret damage was overall trash, so as a flavorless way to challenge the player set most AIs preference to tracking launchers and maximum missiles. Because god forbid they rely on the damage of EVERY OTHER TURRET IN GAME or their AIM. Because the turret aim and damage is borderline useless. They balanced turrets too poorly and made them aim too miserably. So most boardable AI are programmed to avoid using them by egosoft.

Ofc I was just joking.

Don’t know how hard is to tweak damage numbers but I’m afraid that once they get a damage fix beam weapons will be worse than a destroyer spamming heavy missiles as now. I protested against hit scan weapons before release and I’ll continue doing so.

To each their own in that regard. I'm not sure hitscan weps are required. But the khaak have them and never miss. I don't mind having them either as a reliable fallback for accuracy. Enemy ships can use them and so can I.

Besides. In albion prelude you had to keep a certain distance from more heavily armed ships or they'd obliterate you outright for getting too close. I think it's reasonable to treat beam weapons the same way for M class and up. Unless you got a bigger ship with bigger gunz and more shielding like in Albion Prelude.

[Hamakua]

"Their effectiveness is early for looks."

That's the heart of it. They want the promotional stuff to "look cool" while the actual damage is negligible. It's just for show. Elite Dangerous does the same thing. The turrets on the NPC warp-in capital class ships do dick for damage against the fighters and are there just to look cool. They don't want the game to be difficult for the casuals and want everyone to feel like the hero. So it was either code the turrets to not attack the player or code them for no damage. It's a laser light show and not much else at this point.

[csaba]

"Their effectiveness is early for looks."

That's the heart of it. They want the promotional stuff to "look cool" while the actual damage is negligible. It's just for show. Elite Dangerous does the same thing. The turrets on the NPC warp-in capital class ships do dick for damage against the fighters and are there just to look cool. They don't want the game to be difficult for the casuals and want everyone to feel like the hero. So it was either code the turrets to not attack the player or code them for no damage. It's a laser light show and not much else at this point.

This makes no sense. You can own said ships in this game not like in ED. People don’t want to own these ships cause they do nothing, and are pissed on ES for making them useless.

In XR an enemy Taranis could 1 shot you from 7 km without warning from day one. It made them formidable and people wanted to own them, the issue there was that player owned caps didn’t shoot back and was widely criticized. They wanted those badass ships.

TLDR People want to fear cap ships so when they eventually own them it gives them a lot of satisfaction.

[Jaswolf]

...

In XR an enemy Taranis could 1 shot you from 7 km without warning from day one. It made them formidable and people wanted to own them, the issue there was that player owned caps didn’t shoot back and was widely criticized. They wanted those badass ships.
...

And the Taranis has 44 turrets all with good tracking.
The super low amount of mounted weapons on X4 ships is heartbreaking...

[csaba]

...

In XR an enemy Taranis could 1 shot you from 7 km without warning from day one. It made them formidable and people wanted to own them, the issue there was that player owned caps didn’t shoot back and was widely criticized. They wanted those badass ships.
...

And the Taranis has 44 turrets all with good tracking.
The super low amount of mounted weapons on X4 ships is heartbreaking...

Actually the weapon counts on S,M,L ships are almost identical in both games. X4 destroyers are L sized with about the same number of weapons as the Balor, Light/Heavy Suls, Stromvok, K from XR.

The K itself seems to have identical weapons layout in both games. Stations also seem to have inherited XR's 100s of hardpoints. Only the Carriers are out of order. Those are severly lacking.

Keep also in mind that lot of turrets in XR were the unimpactfull HIT/AM turrets while here we can have plasma in each slot. The same number of weapons slots in X4 should mean much higher damage output than XR ships once the damages get sorted out.

So in short I generally don't mind less weapons on Destroyers and under. What we really miss are the XL sized non carrier combat ships that should have between 25-30 turrets, 4-6 of which are L category. PLus either give carriers logistical options fighter repair/command boost/ammo resupply or give them a bit more weapons, around 20-25, no need for L turrets on those.

As a reference the Xenon I has 40 weapon systems but we all know she's playing in a different league. More of an XXL than an XL.

[Jaswolf]

@csaba

I believe you, I haven't play the game for 3 days and I won't until v2.1 or 2.2.

I recall that my first meeting with the X4 K was totally unimpressive... I saw 2 or 4 big ugly turrets on its flanks and very few projectiles coming my way.
Whereas in XR when the K begins unleashing all its weapons at me, I always experience an adrenaline rush that overrides all my senses

(And I don't even talk about the majestic Xenon I)

[jonesskill]

The good news is: You can mod turret damage.

the bad news: Even with better damage and projectile speed, the still don't hit the target.

[Vaeo]

Be nice if egosoft wasn't asleep at the wheel on this one.

My XL carriers are all mostly for show and tanking shots. They do virtually no damage to other cap ships and almost none to fighters. Unless I load most turret slots with plasma. In which case there's NO hitting fighters.

[silenced]

Agreed. In general the weapon damage is very low and cooldown time very high, making the combat just not very enjoyable.
How long it should take for Osprey turrets to take down a single N? Because I'm able to take a tea break while it lasts. And even if you put an antifighter weapons in the main slots it still takes a while.

I got wrecked in my Cerberus by 3 Xenon N. I could not even hit the N, except the one that flew directly towards me, but still, the 2 main guns were still not enough to take it down, and then it circled around with the others and it was a slow death.

I tried a combination of all turrets now, with Beam being least damage, but they at least took down something after a while, taking into concern to live long enough.


Not sure what I'm doing wrong.



On the other hand, putting Plasma into the front guns and hunting capital ships like K destroyers with the Cerberus is easy money and easy kills. Feels wrong though, totally wrong.


I miss the FLAK from X3, which was the end of all fighters, the Shard ones did not really feel useful.

[Wou]

As an extra thing the weapons not only are weak, they also feel week (apart from the huge plasma balls I guess, but good luck hitting anything)

Beam has like 2 seconds of measly pewpew and then needs to cool down. How is that compared to the mighty BZZZZ of Kyon emmiters obscuring half of the screen we used to have?
And the Bolt Repeater? Not exactly an A10 BRRRRRT I can tell you that.

[Ovni]

No matter how they rebalance this, a fast-moving fighter shouldn't be an easy target for capital ships (unless it's standing still and the only target around). Overpowered anti-fighter weapons just lead to boring gameplay, capital ships should need protection from their own fighters so each ship class has its utility in a battle.

[Vaeo]

No matter how they rebalance this, a fast-moving fighter shouldn't be an easy target for capital ships (unless it's standing still and the only target around). Overpowered anti-fighter weapons just lead to boring gameplay, capital ships should need protection from their own fighters so each ship class has its utility in a battle.

X3 and Albion Prelude disagree. Cap ships could decimate fighters in both games and they were both great. Likewise, fighters loaded up with plasma burst generators were nothing to sneeze at either.

But cap ships should have excellent point defense.

[silenced]

I have to add something to my rant before: After restarting the game and doing the same stuff as before: now my turrets were deadly and my front weapons also hit, and I teared through a couple of P, N, M and a K with my Cerberus, same loadout as before: Pulse Laser MK2 as main armament, and Shard Turrets MK1 in all turrets.

There seems to be some kind of bug after a longer time of continuous gameplay. First your controls don't work correctly anymore, like pressing Shift-1 for travelmode does nothing, or switching control types (shift-space) does nothing, then your weapons don't hit anything or do no damage. After restarting the game everything was as intended.

Strange.

[Vaeo]

I have to add something to my rant before: After restarting the game and doing the same stuff as before: now my turrets were deadly and my front weapons also hit, and I teared through a couple of P, N, M and a K with my Cerberus, same loadout as before: Pulse Laser MK2 as main armament, and Shard Turrets MK1 in all turrets.

There seems to be some kind of bug after a longer time of continuous gameplay. First your controls don't work correctly anymore, like pressing Shift-1 for travelmode does nothing, or switching control types (shift-space) does nothing, then your weapons don't hit anything or do no damage. After restarting the game everything was as intended.

Strange.

Are you using any mods? Are you saying that to get turret functionality we need to totally forgo our saves? : (

[sh1pman]

I have to add something to my rant before: After restarting the game and doing the same stuff as before: now my turrets were deadly and my front weapons also hit, and I teared through a couple of P, N, M and a K with my Cerberus, same loadout as before: Pulse Laser MK2 as main armament, and Shard Turrets MK1 in all turrets.

There seems to be some kind of bug after a longer time of continuous gameplay. First your controls don't work correctly anymore, like pressing Shift-1 for travelmode does nothing, or switching control types (shift-space) does nothing, then your weapons don't hit anything or do no damage. After restarting the game everything was as intended.

Strange.

Are you using any mods? Are you saying that to get turret functionality we need to totally forgo our saves? : (

That would be very bad indeed. I feared it might happen, considering how frequently we get new patches. Really don’t want to redo it from scratch all over again. Would be nice if there was a word from Ego if we actually need to restart the game to see some fixes.