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Thread: Disconnect turret POV from maneuvers
Who said anything about auto-aiming turrets? I'm talking about human beings with their hands on a mouse/joystick trying their darndest to lead a faster, more maneuverable target that is intentionally trying to move randomly to avoid being hit. If the enemy pilot isn't some mindless bot that is going to be plenty hard to do effectively even if the ship were sitting MOTIONLESS.
In this case the strategy you suggest is one of the ship moving in a straight line without turning straight towards a target while the gunners defend the rear. First of all, that's practically identical to being motionless in terms of targetting so OF COURSE you were having an easier time aiming. Sadly, that strategy only works in a situation where there are a small number of opponents and/or those opponents are not freakishly faster and more maneuverable than your ship. I have no idea what rebel NPC's are like but I can assure you the quantity, speed, and maneuverability of NPC tie fighters does NOT fit that description. Even at max speed we would get at most 3-4 shots off coming and going within the 500m range as they would zip past us like we were sitting still and the odds of landing a hit were about one shot coming and one shot going if you were VERY on the ball. That didn't even come close to matching the damage that the ships were doing to us in that pass.
And PvP - forget about it. A player-controlled ship would have demolished us in seconds before we ever had a chance of landing a shot.
This again comes down to the obvious. What you guys are telling me is that you think turrets should be HARDER to target with a) than the fixed weapons on other ships and b) that REAL LIFE turrets are. WHY? Why should 6 or 7 people operate 1 MPS ship that will maybe be able to hold itself against another ship piloted by 1 person when they could just as easily pilot 6 or 7 ships working together to MUCH greater effect? Heck it's not even about making up for pilot skill - just the two people with sufficient skills to effectively sit in the front two chairs by themselves would achieve greater effect by getting into a fighter each and working together.
I really don't understand what the mentality is that thinks making turrets more difficult to operate than they need or logically should be is a good thing. What is it you guys have against making the largest and most difficult vehicles in the game to operate also the most powerful? Doesn't that just make good sense? What do you have against making turrets function the way all actual turrets function (so help me don't even start with WWII bombers again - WWII bombers have NOTHING to do with anything in Star Wars)? Doesn't THAT just make good sense? Why do you feel the need to just be contrary about everything for the sake of being contrary????
Multi-player ships in Star Wars : Galaxies are NOT freighters! The YT-1300 may be a freighter by original design, but it was included in this game ONLY because it featured heavily in many space combat scenes in the movies. There is absolutely no function for a freighter in SW:G whatsoever, and even if there were it wouldn't be a ship that holds even less inventory than a person with a backpack on.
These things aren't freighters - they are GUNBOATS intended to be used in combat from the birth of the idea to include them in the game at all. As GUNBOATS, they deserve to be able to ACTUALLY USE THEIR GUNS EFFECTIVELY DON'T YOU THINK???
My point is that if your pilot flies with the proper intent (making an attack run instead of trying to fly a mini-stardestroyer like a fighter) you would have better sucess.
You can't just fly in a straight line, no one suggests that. But you have to be a bit more strategic, use your strengths as a multigunned ship. Rotate the ship to bring the guns to bear instead of trying to pull off some Immelman like manuevor to avoid getting hit. We did fine with this strategy in PvP as well as PvE with multiple boogies. If we can do it so can anyone else with proper practice. Another way of being prepared is to instruct your lower gunner to watch your rear and your upper to watch ahead. If your pilot is manuevoring you will notice most of your targets in gun range.
You're not in a fighter class vehicle, you are in a big, lumbering juggernaut. If they were supposed to be fighters, they would have made them fighters. You can lay down fire better, you can compensate for damage better, and you can repair in-flight. In PvP this is essential, 1 on 1 if you get owned in a Multiship then it's because your crew didn't work well together. You can take out the other guys engines much quicker than he can take out yours. Not too mention you can repair while he can't.
The problem with your idea is that for the guns to remain level no matter what the pilot is doing just doesn't work. If he pulls a roll is your POV supposed to remain constant? If he pulls a dive or climb outside of the guns range then what? You will always have multiple targets at different positions. They are the most powerful btw, in no other type of ship can you run around inside and repair every system in flight except for the armour. Plus the fact that with their mass you can mount guns that no other fighter would allow. Why is it continously compared to a WW2 bomber, because it serves the same role. That is why the pilot only has the torpedos as weapons.
I don't feel the need to be contrary to everything you say for the sake of just argueing. My point is simple. If you can not compensate for the movements of the ship in flight then you miss your target and you get hit. It can be done, it has been done, and people do it all the time. Is it difficult, well of course. It's supposed to be. A multipassenger ship is a lot more difficult to crew than a one man fighter. Thats how it is supposed to be, thats why they are in the master box.
Your point comes off as, I want it to be easier because I have an Ace title and deserve to own people in PvP. Well, that's not valid either. How much more stuff in this game do we have to make easy for people to be happy? Point, shoot, if you miss, you die.
I agree it could be easier, but I don't see why.You actually have the advantage. Why do I keep comparing the 2 well because thats how they designed it. I'm not going to get drawn into an immersion issue because this is SWG not Star Wars, even though I wish it was Star Wars. These are the mechanics they gave us. You and your crew have to work together better that is the first thing. Second is as a pilot you have to know how to get the best position for your gunners. If there's someone on your 6 taking shots at you you need to bring guns to bear. Gunners need to follow the target and pilots need to not make jerkey movements. I'm not saying fly level all the time, I'm saying instead of cranking your joystick and making some hard turns you need to be a little more deliberate. Keep that fighter on your side not your rear, get next to him instead of behind him. If he's low on your slow down and put your guns in the position to fire.
You need to maneuvor in a way that puts the target in range of the gun you want to hit him. Communication is the only way to succeed. Making guns auto-level is a band-aid on a sucking chest wound. especially being lets say this gets implemented. ok, ship starts a climb, your upper is at a 45 degree angle to it's last aimed position, he's not going to be ready to hit someone at your 12 because he's looking in the wrong spot. So the same problem exists.
I'm not so much against this issue as I am trying to get you to realize that implemented or not you have solved nothing. Your targets are not stationary, they move as the pilot moves. If you climb they may spiral to your underside. Your gunner still need to know where they are. Maybe this helps in some of the aiming issues but I don't see how.
I am not trying to tell you that you are right or wrong, thats for you to decide and I respect your opinion. I just don't see how auto-leveling turrets solve the problem of multiple ships attacking you? The ships may be different, and the technology can even be enhanced as proposed by you, but the problem remains just like in any other flight type sim that includes multipassenger ships. Every large ship has a vulnerable spot and generally that is under and behind. Autoleveling does not stop Boom and Zoom tactics. With or without this change someone can still come up and hit you faster than human gunners can react and adjust for.
The multipassenger ships should always go out with at least one fighter for escort. I know that brings it up to 8 people for a full fighting force but it makes all the difference. Your guns are for defense in essence. A multipassenger ship should never be considered strike craft because thats not what they are designed to do.
You make a valid arguement but I must say I doubt it is a solution.
The only problem I see with MPS as implemented is that the amount of effectiveness you get for the effort and number of people required to make one work is inadequate. The primary reason it is inadequate is not for a lack of anything you list as an advantage - it's that all those advantages combined accomplish very little if the turrets cannot be effectively brought to bear and as implemented they cannot.
Your suggestion of technical issues why such a thing might not work flies in the face of the fact that turrets in even modern-tech weapon platforms already do this and it works fine. There is no technical complication here.
I am NOT an ace pilot and this has nothing to do with me thinking I should be able to crush anybody. This is simply a matter of arguing for the game system to make sense. Why should I get at least 2 very skilled pilots (at least one of them a master) and minimum 4 or 5 additional people - ALL with JtL at least so most probably at least partially skilled pilots as well - and stuff them in a platform that offers very little compelling advantage over a solo master pilot in a 5th-tier craft? Wouldn't I be MUCH better off putting all 6-7 of those people into seperate fighters? What is my reward for the HUGE effort required to achieve all this harmonious teamwork you speak of? By stabilizing the turrets you would actually give the gunboats a reasonable chance of being able to effectively defend itself against one or two difficult opponents while the pilot focuses on delivering the heavy ordinance.
I guess my problem here is you all seem to want to make the MPS ships equivalent to a B-17 type WWII bomber - in other words relegate it to bombing runs while the fighters handle all the actual defensive work. That concept just doesn't hold up. A B-17 as a bomber with minimal combat ability was justifiable conceptually ONLY because the amount of damage a bomber can inflict was so much greater than that of a fighter so it deserved to be defended. In this case, the damage capacity of a MPS while larger than that of a solo fighter is not really THAT much higher than a solo fighter. Compare the damage potential of a Nova with 2 guns and 3 lanchers to a B-Wing with 4 guns and 2 launchers - we're not exactly talking about the difference between a B-17 and a P-51 here. The real advantages the Nova has are not firepower, they are the ability to repair in flight and the ability to target multiple enemies at once. In-flight repair is not of great use in PvP since the damage levels are so high you won't be able to keep up anyway if you get in the crosshairs, so for PvP at least the only real advantage of an MPS is that you theoretically have a much greater chance of getting your enemy in your crosshairs first with the turrets since you can actively target without having to maneuver the ship into correct position. Locking the motion of the turrets to the motion of the ship negates that advantage almost entirely since even though you don't have to maneuver the ship in order to target, you instead have to compensate for the maneuvers of the ship while targetting which is nearly impossible to consistently do. Net effect is that you leave the MPS with virtually no substantial advantage to show for the combined efforts of over half a dozen teammates working their butts off to smoothly coordinate their efforts. How is that good?
TheJusticar wrote:
The way the turrets operate now seems to refect reality.
It's up to the pilot to fly straight and level.
I'm not sure how you would get around this issue?
huh? ...
How does it reflect reality?
Like he said we usestabilizing technology today.
When an M1 is engaging a target and the pilot turns right, the gunner does not have to manually compensate by turning the turret left, it is automatically stabilized. One of the big advantages to the M1 is it's ability to engage targets on the run, bouncing up and down sand dunes etc. The cannon remains level and on target no matter how severe the tanks manuvers UNLESS the manuver pushes past the turrets maximum deflection/inclination angles.
In the case of these ships, the turrets should also be stabilized in the same manner when they are manned.
And as far as actual gameplay goes it is needed, unless these ships are givin massive shield/armor increases to be able to fly "straight and level" to allow turret gunners a shot.
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Yes, with skill you can work around many of the problems with the MPS and survive, but for the cost/effort/time required to operate these things they ought to be able to do more than survive. In order to justify all of that they need to be a force to be feared when operated well, and while turret stabilization alone won't do that I just don't see it happening without it.
Interesting question on the auto-level. As you say, worth a shot.
CaseytheHutt wrote:
I fully agree with you - teamwork and skill are the determining factor. But when you've got to fight the mechanics so hard that teamwork and skill can barely compensate then something is very wrong. We also did quite well eventually, once we got the hang of things, and with strong fighter escort. But over and over again the point was driven home that the Nova was both defenseless and offensively useless against fighters and really only valuable when all firepower was concentrated on a single, mostly stationary target. That would be fine if the thing was armored and shielded like a Star Destroyer but it's not. Yes, the armor and shields are heavier hence stronger than what you can put on a fighter but that buys you what in PvP - one more shot?
Yes, with skill you can work around many of the problems with the MPS and survive, but for the cost/effort/time required to operate these things they ought to be able to do more than survive. In order to justify all of that they need to be a force to be feared when operated well, and while turret stabilization alone won't do that I just don't see it happening without it.
Interesting question on the auto-level. As you say, worth a shot.