Watchtower turrets inside of base walls?

[Davin]

I've been having trouble getting a working defense network set up east of The Hub. (atop the cliffs that neighbor the valley west of the Dust King's tower)

When my base was tiny with minimal walls, I used a Bughouse with mounted harpoons for defense and that worked great. As my base expanded, I decided that I'd try a Watchtower positioned at the intersection of two walls so that it could fire down on the gates *and* the neighboring cliff valley. Either I'm doing something wrong or the firing arcs for Watchtowers are wonky, because my turrets are accomplishing neither. At first I assumed that this was because the angle of the wall was preventing the tower from firing over the gate, but even after rebuilding the wall+gate with sight lines in mind the turrets refuse to fire on the other side of the wall.

Fast forward a bit. I redo my base design to be less greedy on the amount of land contained in my walls, build a new Watchtower and try to learn from the lessons of the prior one...only now I seem to have a Watchtower that not only won't fire down in front of the gate, it seems that it won't fire down behind it either. It seems to be effectively useless for defense. I tried Ctrl-F11 immediately prior to some starving bandits rushing the gates, but no dice.

Am I doing something wrong, or is the AI for Watchtower turrets wonky when used at high elevations? It's a major pain to recover from bad placements of these. Less so from time investment and turret materials atop several flights of stairs, more because cliff neighboring towers have a bad habit of embedding materials in unreachable locations within the cliff itself when dismantled.

Screenshots

The first image focusus on turret line of sight. It would not fire on either side of the gate. (red circles)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1624361057

The other images show the watchtower and the neighboring gate from multiple angles.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1624361092
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1624361150
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1624361187

[Teralitha]

What kind of turrets are you using? They have different ranges. A mounted crossbow likely wont have enough range to shoot that far, but a decked out harpoon would.

[Davin]

Originally posted by Teralitha:

What kind of turrets are you using? They have different ranges. A mounted crossbow likely wont have enough range to shoot that far, but a decked out harpoon would.

Harpoon MkII. Working on screenshots, they'll be attached shortly.

[Tempest]

I dont know what the issue is ,but i had one tower setup in one of my last bases and im pretty sure it fired on foes by my gate.The tower was right next to the gate on the inside.

Is the guy manning it not firing at all ? Ive seen turrets fire at foes they cant hit ,due to range and obstacles in the line of sight. you used to be able to use blocked line of sight foes for turret training. the turrets would fire on them continually,but the wall would be in the way and block the bolt ,but the manner would still get skill for each shot.

[Davin]

Originally posted by Tempest:

Is the guy manning it not firing at all ? Ive seen turrets fire at foes they cant hit ,due to range and obstacles in the line of sight. you used to be able to use blocked line of sight foes for turret training. the turrets would fire on them continually,but the wall would be in the way and block the bolt ,but the manner would still get skill for the shot.

Screenshots of the placements are now posted. The gunners won't fire at all. Their listed activity will be "Aiming", but shots are never fired. (i.e. they never change their activity to reloading, etc.)

[Tempest]

Are you sure the "gunners" are properly aligned to the turrets ? Did you try removing them from the job and re-asigning them to it a couple of times ?

i know that sometimes the chars can line up "wrong" ,and not be able to fire the weapon even though it says they are using it. Ive had that happen to turrets on walls a few times. Its rare , but one of my last bases had like 13 turrets to protect the gate,and sometimes after making a food run they'd "line up wrong" and not fire the turret til i reset them.

Dont think ive ever seen it happen with 2 at once though.

[Davin]

It seems to be a pretty persistent issue with this tower, so unless the gunners are always lining up incorrectly due to how they path from the stairs I don't think that's the problem. I'll try nudging one of them out of the seat and back into it during the next attack.

[Tempest]

https://steamcommunity.com/app/233860/discussions/1/1694914736014427029/

This explain it a little better.basically when the problem was occuring,you had to put the char right on the turret before assigning him to it. If the char had to take a few steps,he would align wrong.

[Teralitha]

I do not see your screenshots.

[Davin]

Originally posted by Teralitha:

I do not see your screenshots.

Not sure what to tell you. They're showing up when I view this page in a web browser without being signed in. Maybe a browser extension is blocking them?

[Teralitha]

Originally posted by Davin:

Originally posted by Tempest:

Is the guy manning it not firing at all ? Ive seen turrets fire at foes they cant hit ,due to range and obstacles in the line of sight. you used to be able to use blocked line of sight foes for turret training. the turrets would fire on them continually,but the wall would be in the way and block the bolt ,but the manner would still get skill for the shot.

Screenshots of the placements are now posted. The gunners won't fire at all. Their listed activity will be "Aiming", but shots are never fired. (i.e. they never change their activity to reloading, etc.)

i see this post, saying you have posted them, but i see no screenshots in this topic after that post. I am viewing it while logged into steam client

[Teralitha]

Oh i see, you added them to the OP

[Teralitha]

I bet the reason is because the tower is tilted away from the gate and therefore the downward arch cannot reach it. But thats just a theory. Im not sure how far down a turret can aim.

[Neorro]

Not sure if late but looks to me from the screenshots your lacking power. The harpoon turrets needs power to work the crossbow however wont unless you upgrade it with light.

That is one steeeep base, where is this? If you had the base the otherway around and make the enemy run up the height bonus could be very deadly. im guessing the fertile ground and resource are down there tho. feel your pain when building on terrain near cliffs and having to deconstruct, bugged out my builder cause they were determined to get the materials inside the ground even if few steps away thers a full storage with it. had to take everyone out and unload the base to remove the materials on ground to fix the AI.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by Davin:

...Screenshots of the placements are now posted. The gunners won't fire at all. Their listed activity will be "Aiming", but shots are never fired. (i.e. they never change their activity to reloading, etc.)

I just wanted to say that I probably can't solve the problem, but I have to thank you for going through the trouble of posting screenshots! OUTSTANDING! So many posters ask questions that would require a screenshot to answer, but don't want to bother with taking the time to do that.

Good for you!

On your issue - I thought I had read that turrets don't require power unless they have searchlights on them. I could be wrong, but you definitely want to check. Sometimes, with some things, characters don't know they can't currently work the machine for some logic reason, but will still report doing so.

On that note, can the gunners "see" the targets? Maybe some regular spotlights on the walls/gate would help?

I remember reading that spotlight-equipped turrets had some bugginess to them. That could have been a very old comment, but it's worth examining - Try some regular Mk1 basic turrets and see if they work, then upgrade to MkII, etc.

Collision and navmesh issue abound. As said above, solving for their positioning before assigning. Also, use CTRL SHIFT F11, always. Sometimes, dipping into the FCS, but don't save, and then dipping back out can reset some issues.

Side note: If something isn't hostile, and they aren't toggled to "Shoot First, Ask Later" in options, they won't engage it. ie: An at-first-non-hostile group shows up and issues demands may not get fired upon until they start attacking. Maybe... Sometimes, AI behavior is strange.