Full support. I love your threads now.

Just a simple idea for the 2 types of rails: the AI one has lower range, a larger clip, higher splash damage/larger radius, and lower direct damage. The AV one would have longer range, higher direct damage, a smaller clip, and a smaller, weaker splash.

I don't quite understand what your approach is.
Are you proposing to have variants for all turrets, with different roles or are you proposing to remove AI capability from all large turrets, while changing small turrets into AV?

At the beginning it sounded like the former, but later parts of your post sound more like the latter.

Didn't we have variants pre1.7? I liked my missles cycled and my blasters scattered. If I had to use a rail I liked compressed.

I think the answer is both. I'm not finished yet, there is still a lot of subject matter to cover.

But yes, both, all turrets need variants that help define the given role. Among those variants, you will have some good for AV others good for infantry. Each will have it's own positives and negatives.

Large turrets for the most part, will focus solely on being AV and Infantry support. I think of it this way, if infantry AV are to expose themselves, being somewhat defenseless to normal infantry, then a tank that would want to do the same, needs to limit his capabilities against tanks in favor of better infantry support. Balance

Small turrets should be the opposite, focused on AI but with variants that are more suited to AV.

Sorry man, I know there is a LOT of information in there, I'll clear these things up once I reach my conclusion.

this is stupid lol

The blaster turrets idea is horrible. I never understood the "blaster turrets are OP against infantry, make them useless" thing. All they need is a 20-30%% tracking speed reduction(maybe more if needed, and a 25% ROF reduction, but a damage boost to put the DPS back to what it is now. Therefore, it'll still be viable to hit vehicles (especially if skilled into the prof.), but harder to hit infantry (especially the smart ones who know how to actually dodge them). Now, re-release the tech 2 blasters we had before balanced around that (as well as actually make all of them useful, like making the scattered the infantry killer instead of the everything killer).

Your concept idea of sacrifice for gains is good, just your execution is poor.

I don't think there is a problem with turrets atm they seem fine I'm sure the other variants will be back when they are ready. I think it will be proto lvl tanks that take advantage of the other variants of turrets because they will cost more CPU and PG. Currently even with max skill you cant fit all proto turrets and mods on a tank. For example you cant fit Proto small railguns and Proto heavy shield extender hardener and booster. I think that we will see proto tanks with a bit more CPU/PG which will allow they to fit alternative turrets to compensate for modules and turrets you cant fit and obviously if a mlt tank tried to fit one of these turrets they will be at a significant disadvantage.

That is not a polished idea, and certainly not something I was suggesting for the game. Those are examples of what I meant with my concept idea of sacrifice for gains is good.

And my idea with the variants, coincides with your idea perfectly, why the hate?

You are seeing the small picture, Tanks were stripped of all variants, aside from the standard tier of STD, ADV, PRO basics. They are bringing variants back, and I'm making suggestions on how you could go about doing that.

The example above that you provided is effective against infantry, but no doubt tricky to kill with nonetheless. It shifts the emphasis to being less about outright killing the enemy and more about suppressing. At the same time, you give it a better chance against vehicles.

So it's not great against vehicles, but not bad, and it's not great against infantry, but not bad either. See, a good example of exactly what I said! My execution was perfect, as your points are exactly on par with my thinking, "You can't be great at everything!".

Now what about a variant that is great at AV, but VERY poor against infantry?

message from Godin: The idea you had would either be weaker than a Plasma rifle with a longer range, or a severely nerfed version of the one we had now. Also, how you said it, the tech 1 turret would be removed, leaving us with 2 useless turrets. neither would be used. So no, it's not the same thing. NOw, since you asked nicely, I'll tell you what I think of al the t2 turrets should be:

Stabilized- slightly higher damage, slightly lower ROF (or vice versa), moderately longer optimal/effective range

scattered: moderately lower damage,moderately higher ROF, slightly-moderately lower optimal/effective range

compressed: moderately higher damage, moderately lower ROF, same range as tech 1

In your examples, how does lowering the ROF affect the rest of the system. Same with damage and range. What about things like heat cost, and clip size. How do they affect the overall balance? Changing one number, could mean all other number need to change to maintain balance.

And to me those turrets are stale, they do nothing to define what role you play on the battlefield. One of those is going to be the best at killing infantry and tanks, so the others will be forgotten. No I remember those turrets clearly fella, and it was always the same, Scattered. Those turrets were not balanced with the overall goal tanks are shooting for.

Tanks need roles like dropsuits have roles. These roles are defined by what you drive, and how you fit it. One of the biggest factors being turrets, but my idea is to eliminate the idea that a turret class performs only a specific way among variants.

What I propose is that variants define actual battlefield roles. You can still have your all around blaster, but we add in a blaster geared for AV and one geared for AI.

The idea that less emphasis is placed on what you drive or what turret you use and more on how you are fit. The idea that railguns are ONLY for AV and Blasters are ONLY for infantry is what makes this game so stale, and engagements sooo predictable.

@^ blasters smoke tanks.

Anti Infantry Large Turrets need to go. Racial Parity between Empire Main Battle Cannon Style Turrets need to happen.

Give HAV a role. Make them the top end Anti Vehicle weapons. Put Anti Infantry and Infantry Support in the hands of smaller, more vulnerable vehicles.

E.G- An Apocalypse Class Battleship fires a Large Beam Laser at a frigate...... it does not hit. The frigates signature is to small and the tracking speed is also too slow.

This is what I consider the difference between HAV (Apoc) and Infantry. It should not be easy to hit infantry, and the large calibre weapons of the HAV, while still deadly on hit to infantry, should be primarily designed to hit larger targets like other HAV, MAV, LAV, or Dropships.

message from Godin: You wouldn't know balance if it hit you square on the head, and the "example proves that. How it affects it you ask? simple: lower ROF makes it harder to continuously hit a target unles it's big, and therefore will be able to dodge them easily. higher damage means more alpha, s o therefore, will be able to hit larger targets such as HAV's or otherwise and scare them off or kill them easily. range for blasters on a moving target is horrible unless that person moves in a straight line (in which case that person is a idiot and should die). You won't kill a smart person at range with a blaster (proof is me, as I never do, even at CQ, I hardly ever die to blasters). You could even ad in things like heat costs and tracking speeds, I just wasn't thinking about those. So yes, all of these would have roles, opposed to before, as before, the scattered was the best, simply because it was better than all the rest apart from one thing (stabilized having a slightly longer range, which was barely noticeable due to scattered's ROF and damage, and compressed having more damage, but same thing). None of the turrets would top each other, all would have their purposes. If it's anywhere near your idea, then one would be as strong as a rifle (only way more inaccurate), and one would be outclassed by other turrets and AV. That's not the way at all.

Considering that it's much easier to aim a turret at someone, and the fact that most kills against infantry from blasters are tanked heavily and/or not even moving, the comparison is not really there.

"tanked heavily", see that is the problem, I think if you want to go the AI route, maybe you need to sacrifice that durability to achieve it. Currently, you are immune to infantry (nearly) with the best counter being a tank to yourself. There is no harmony between tanks and infantry.

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I think we can agree that our ideas are pretty much the same. It's how we go about getting there that differs. I simply do not think the changes you proposed are extreme enough one way or another. Let's say we have 5 variables to consider. Increasing 2 slightly means 2 others need to be decreased slightly. What I'm saying, rather than trying to keep all the variants close, we dramatically increase 2 variables, and dramatically decreases 2 others to match.

I just don't see your changes being enough to truly make a noticeable impact on defining roles.

AV needs to hit tanks hard. Enough to scare me when I am rolling around.....

HAV need to have a clearly defined role. Since most HAV constantly say how they are only interested in fighting other HAV there should be no issue changing focus to Anti Vehicle Roles which imo would expand the capacity for other vehicle types to operate on the map....while making the tanks impact on the battle potent but managable to infantry.

message from Godin: Well, If it's anywhere near your ideas, either rifles will outclass it, or the other turrets will. And it won't be a close race, it will be sad. It doesn't need to be extreme to be different; look at the suits (if you think they aren't different, they are; it's just that everybody fits them exactly the same due to a low amount of modules to use and imbalance of some things). That's what I was trying to say, and what you don't get.

So, to make an example, would you be in favor of a large blaster with AI specialization that is bad against infantry? And the small railgun generally being AV? And then you add a large blaster that is intended for CQC against other tanks, while a small railgun variant will have more splash to kill infantry?

Because that's the idea that I'm in favor of. As you said, AV infantry sacrifices strength against other infantry, so an AI tank should absolutely exist but require support to kill other tanks.

In another thread, I proposed that secondary turrets could transform a tank into an allrounder. The idea here is that your main turret can be run solo and is only intended for one role, while your gunner positions can fill the other role. Manning turrets means occupying two additional team members, though, which weakens your team - Just like non-specialized infantry should need a team to take down a tank (e.g. flaylocks or AV grenades).


Personally, I especially like the idea of tank-killing LAVs that simply move so fast that the main turret can't track them.

"tanked heavily", see that is the problem, I think if you want to go the AI route, maybe you need to sacrifice that durability to achieve it. Currently, you are immune to infantry (nearly) with the best counter being a tank to yourself. There is no harmony between tanks and infantry.