How do side weapons work?

[jumbo shrimp]

I am confused how side and back turrets / heavy weapons (especially) work. Are they purely defensive on your ship? i.e: Do they fire automatically in battle? Or is there some way to switch through and use them manually?

[Pythagoras]

Thanks for question zombieturtle01, first you must understand that turrets or lightweapons and heavy weapons do not work the same way.
Turrets usually fire with your right mouse button or any other assigned buton following your mouse and the pointer. OR you can switch to Fire At Will or FAW. Then the computer and your officers take charge of the shooting for you. How you possition your ship is essential as those weapons do not shoot magically through the ship.

Heavy weapons really depend on a few factors. Do you have enough missiles or torpedos? Very important, is the ship's misile launcher pointing in the direction of the target? Many launcher have very small window to be able to shoot their weapon. And this depends on the ship you got. Ah, and Heavies need the target to be locked, clicked, on. Turrets just keep firing, but heavies will not fire unless target is locked (and at the right distance!).

There is a bit more, but let others tell you more. Have fun!!

By the way, on FAW, Heavys still need manual fire.

[Bunkerkind Annihilator]

i wonder why so many are confused with the side/back weapon slots. they are mostly shooting... into the direction they are mounted. aka the turrets on the back are shooting backwards.

if your in manual targeting, you will never be able to fire anything but the front turret if your not using the turret camera, or alternatively zooming so far out so you can click on targets behind or left/right of your ship.

[jumbo shrimp]

Let me rephrase my question, because I still don't understand-

I have a Prowess that is completely armed. If I target an enemy and the enemy ship goes to my side or behind me and I hit manual fire, will my side/back weapons shoot the targeted enemy? Or does this only work in Automatic fire?

[fivemilesmile]

Originally posted by zombieturtle01:

Let me rephrase my question, because I still don't understand-

I have a Prowess that is completely armed. If I target an enemy and the enemy ship goes to my side or behind me and I hit manual fire, will my side/back weapons shoot the targeted enemy? Or does this only work in Automatic fire?

Greetings Captain!

As Klonicus said, every weapon has a firing angle, very important to factor that in when you engage in battle. On the destroyer Prowess you have max 5 turrets facing more or less forward, two-two on the sides and one aft. The 5 bow turrets are not able to shoot forward directly - they have a blind spot in the centerline plus on the wide sides, the side turrets cannot shoot directly forward, the bow turret cannot shoot forward at all.

So when you engage an enemy, do not try to "dogfight" aka follow the enemy with your bow, because you won't be able to use all of your turrets. Instead try rotate your ship according to the battery level of your guns, plus - in my experience - the best result you can achieve with the turret view (mouse aim) and WSAD+QE keyboard maneuvering.

Alternatively you can use FaW - Fire at Will, which is the autoaim, but you still have to rotate your ship in order to bear al your weapons to the enemy.

Hope this helps?

[Zenoslaf]

Well, longstar explained it pretty nice.

It's a big ship, not a fighter, so you have to turn different sides of the ship to fire different weapons. They can't shoot all at once cause turrets have a firing angle.