Turrets

Shadow Reaper

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This is a good reason to post the spviewer link. Note that this fit out calculator gives the actual size of various turrets. So the manned turrets in the Hammerhead are the same S5 turret size found on the Vanguard.

Theoretically, right now you could place the 4S4 manned turret from a Hammerhead onto your Vanguard. I’ll believe it when I see it, but I would buy an HH just to salvage the turrets off it for a wing of Sentinel based stealth bombers.

So, one thing people don’t get when they view stats in Erkul is, that erkul does not give you the ability to stick Void Armor on a ship. It will do the calculation for stealth armor if it comes stock, like on the Eclipse or Sabre, but it will not tell you what the signature would be if you put Void Armor on it because we cannot yet select armor.

So just saying, you should eventually be able to select Void Armor for the Sentinel and reduce its signatures to about 8k. Now add the Harby module, an HH turret, and two stage trigger your pilot guns to Attrition 5 chin and CVSA nose. 4 Rhinos on the turret. 16 Rattlers for knife fights. 1 Sukoran to stop ballistics, one FR-76 for high refresh. 1 Eclipse for running stealth. 1 Genoa for running hot. 2 Snowpacks to regain stealth most quickly. 1 Hemera to stretch your already impressive range.

(Rattlers get a bad rep. S2 missiles are all 1-10km range except the Rattler; which is 0.5-5km, but with about 30% greater damage and they are fast. They’re a good choice if you intend to use them inside 5km. S5 Stalker Vs have a 3-30km range and will kill anything S3 like the Vanguard, Cutty, Lancer, C1, Zeus from as far away as you can spot it, unless it has a turret to shoot down the torp. Stalkers do 17k damage and you have 3. 4 Rattlers do 16k damage and you have 4 salvos. For comparison, all S3 missiles like on the Firebird do less damage than Rattlers, but they have a 25km range.)

That’s a death machine, though a bit glass cannon. I like it. The REO would be super busy choosing between great guns, missile salvos varying between 2, 3 and 4 Rattlers depending upon target, and S5 torps.

The Sentinel does need 6k of its hull back. Just three hits from a Hornet will kill it and that is too easy for a medium fighter, unless it’s dodging missiles.

Two smart guys in a ship like this can win lots of different kinds of fights. Engaging you have firstblood against most opponents and with only 1 primary your capacitor will last. Passing you have quad ballistic cannons tearing holes. Splashing up 2, 3 or 4 missiles can change the game at any time. Disengaging your turret gunner is still pouring on heat. You can disappear from S1 radar in just a few seconds and circle, and choose when and where to reengage, and force an opponent off plan with missiles. In Mechwarrior this is called “fighting from the whole field.” Not as flashy as Alpha striking always from the same position but more difficult to predict, and more effective in the long run.

I can’t help it. After all the nerfs I’m still in love with this bird.

 
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Sky Captain

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Good to see some positivity on turret game play. Given the number of backers, number of ships owned, and number of total available turrets to be manned in game on any given day, I still have doubts about there being enough players interested in manning others' turrets as their go-to game play when they have their own ships fly. But we'll see if the alleged NPC and board system offset this.

Sometimes I wonder if CIG might consider an alternative business model to drive a gaming audience into 'secondary roles' like turret gunner on ships. For example, what if CIG offered a 'free to play' option for players with no ships to join others' ships as their turret gunners. Imagine logging in as a new player, seeing a list of players/ships advertising for turret gunners, choosing one, and being transported into the turret gunner seat on that ship to experience turret game play firsthand very easily. That would help ship captains looking for gunners, new players wanting to check out the game before buying in, and CIG to market the game. That's a win-win-win situation. I'm not saying that this model is not without its own massive problems, just that it seems like there is an opportunity for CIG to 'sponsor' secondary ship roles like turret gameplay a little differently to find win-win-win situations like this to help 'seed' the multi-seat ship model they have created.
 
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NaffNaffBobFace

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This is a good reason to post the spviewer link. Note that this fit out calculator gives the actual size of various turrets. So the manned turrets in the Hammerhead are the same S5 turret size found on the Vanguard.

Theoretically, right now you could place the 4S4 manned turret from a Hammerhead onto your Vanguard. I’ll believe it when I see it, but I would buy an HH just to salvage the turrets off it for a wing of Sentinel based stealth bombers.

So, one thing people don’t get when they view stats in Erkul is, that erkul does not give you the ability to stick Void Armor on a ship. It will do the calculation for stealth armor if it comes stock, like on the Eclipse or Sabre, but it will not tell you what the signature would be if you put Void Armor on it because we cannot yet select armor.

So just saying, you should eventually be able to select Void Armor for the Sentinel and reduce its signatures to about 8k. Now add the Harby module, an HH turret, and two stage trigger your pilot guns to Attrition 5 chin and CVSA nose. 4 Rhinos on the turret. 16 Rattlers for knife fights. 1 Sukoran to stop ballistics, one FR-76 for high refresh. 1 Eclipse for running stealth. 1 Genoa for running hot. 2 Snowpacks to regain stealth most quickly. 1 Hemera to stretch your already impressive range.

(Rattlers get a bad rep. S2 missiles are all 1-10km range except the Rattler; which is 0.5-5km, but with about 30% greater damage and they are fast. They’re a good choice if you intend to use them inside 5km. S5 Stalker Vs have a 3-30km range and will kill anything S3 like the Vanguard, Cutty, Lancer, C1, Zeus from as far away as you can spot it, unless it has a turret to shoot down the torp. Stalkers do 17k damage and you have 3. 4 Rattlers do 16k damage and you have 4 salvos. For comparison, all S3 missiles like on the Firebird do less damage than Rattlers, but they have a 25km range.)

That’s a death machine, though a bit glass cannon. I like it. The REO would be super busy choosing between great guns, missile salvos varying between 2, 3 and 4 Rattlers depending upon target, and S5 torps.

The Sentinel does need 6k of its hull back. Just three hits from a Hornet will kill it and that is too easy for a medium fighter, unless it’s dodging missiles.

Two smart guys in a ship like this can win lots of different kinds of fights. Engaging you have firstblood against most opponents and with only 1 primary your capacitor will last. Passing you have quad ballistic cannons tearing holes. Splashing up 2, 3 or 4 missiles can change the game at any time. Disengaging your turret gunner is still pouring on heat. You can disappear from S1 radar in just a few seconds and circle, and choose when and where to reengage, and force an opponent off plan with missiles. In Mechwarrior this is called “fighting from the whole field.” Not as flashy as Alpha striking always from the same position but more difficult to predict, and more effective in the long run.

I can’t help it. After all the nerfs I’m still in love with this bird.

Interesting information, thanks for the share - it'll be interesting to see how all this pans out :like:
 
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Shadow Reaper

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Sometimes I wonder if CIG might consider an alternative business model to drive a gaming audience into 'secondary roles' like turret gunner on ships.
I think ultimately, getting players to man turrets is getting players to play together. If two guys enjoy playing side by side, well now the turret gunner has real guns compared to the pair of S2 that made him wonder why he wasn’t in another ship. They gave turrets better capacitors and made it so you need to exit other functions to manage missiles. Now you have better turrets and literally too much to do. If you want to be there at all, you should be thrilled by the options.

I’m reminded of this chick (Kate) who does vids of her exploits with several guys: training, ground assaults, personal weapons evaluations, and “life aboard a _________” vids with 4-5 players on a Corsair, or Carrack, or Redeemer. The vids are always about the players playing together. I have never once heard a complaint that someone was bored. They just like playing as a group, and the by-product is they’re more effective than playing solo.

People don’t get it. The power is not in the weapons. It’s in the players.
 
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Shadow Reaper

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Shadow Reaper
So continuing to tinker with the spviewer, turns out the twin S5 gun turrets on the Redeemer are also S5 turrets. So according to this unverified story, you can currently put the biggest, baddest turrets on the top of the Vanguard. The twin AD5B guns do much more damage than the HH turrets— over 1,000 dps more, plus they get big ballistic penetration and crazy long run times.

I’ll believe it when I see it. If true what this also means is we can likely put quad S5 turrets on the S6 mounts of the Polaris.

I don’t believe this story the calculators are telling. They say the Vanguard manned turrets are larger than the turrets on the Hurricane, the Carrack and the 890 Jump when in fact they’re loaded as if they’re smaller, like the S3 turrets on the Tally.
 
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BUTUZ

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Dont forget back in the day CIG didn't really know what they were doing with turret sizes versus hardpoint sizes etc. so you cant really compare ships that were made in drastically different time periods.
 
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