Shield Turret Experiment

[gosteonerr]

so i got a simple idea, instead of having 50 shields on a constructable, have 1 larger shield that always points at the enemy my craft is targeting. simple enough but for some reason it doesnt work.

the shield works fine while testing it manually, so theres nothing its getting stuck against. its on the correct channel. the only thing i was thinking was the turret doesnt "know" its a turret because theres nothing fireable on it, so i built a small gun so the turret would try to aim, and nothing. this was all inside the hull, so i but it on top in the open, clear sight of the target, and it still just sits there. the really bizarre thing is it will attemt to turn towards lazer attacks and kind of glitch back to its original forwards facing setting, but only after the attack has already started.

also interesting, i keep searching for anybody thats attempted this simple idea, and i cant find anybody whos said anything about it yet.

[capnguts]

Your shield turret must have a firing piece controlled by a LWC with connection to a mainframe with detection. You need all the weapon components up to the firing piece. The firing piece does not have to fire anything. Use a laser combiner as the firing piece to make the turret point directly and not lead the target. Also, be sure you are using a turret block and not just a spin block.

[gosteonerr]

also i should add, i can put the shield on the main gun itself, but the idea was to have a small subobject i can easily retrofit onto my older designs

[david.pearson]

I've done it before and had it working. It doesn't work as well as you think it might. I found that weapons found a way past all too often, and against multiple enemies it's useless. It also relies on tracking, detection, and as said having something of a weapon on the turret. Your best bet is to have shields on your turrets if you want to do it that way. You can get real clever too and write a script to get them to turn on and off when needed, and if you are REALLY clever, you can get them to only turn on when there is incoming fire (you need missile / shell warning systems for that and know how to code).

But, if you put shields on turrets with weapons, don't project them too far away from the turret... You don't wanna go bouncing shells off your own shields hahaha!

[gosteonerr]

:) yes works perfectly and is compact with just a Combiner and the shield projecter, thank you.

[gosteonerr]

david most of my guns are large and move very slowly, so the shield will be aiming at empty air as the enemy breaks down my gun piece by piece. i know it isnt a bulletproof design but really for the price it is more effective than either nothing or having many expensive power hungry shields

[david.pearson]

Ah I see. Might I ask why the heavy slow turrets? though smaller gauge guns may not be as satisfying, they amount of firepower they can deliver in the time it takes your big guns to turn may be worth looking at? Or mount on more manourveable ships. In the events I require a heavy, bunker busting weapon I tend to hard mount these rather than turret for that very reason. With a well desgined ship, a vessel can turn much more quickly than a heavy turret. Not practical for all situations I admit. But, if you are happy and get the results you need from shield turrets, then brilliant!

[Zourin]

Since shields excel in high-velocity shells (typically Advanced AP sniper rounds), it's probably better to concentrate their defenses around your ammo stores and AI for an inner defense, and rely on anti-missile and anti-munition defenses to intercept the slower damage.

Sadly, I suck when it comes to lasers, so I can never really get them set up right.

[Matt]

I've had this idea working several ways. I think my favorite so far was using a spin block and an advanced controler to angle sheilds for targets. When I used a turret it felt like it would protect from the wrong target a good deal of the time no matter how I programmed it, though that worked great at long ranges.

one bit of advice, use 2 sheild projectors on it. as it turns it can glitch fire through the shield (one of the reasons I like the manual rotation the most)

[gosteonerr]

David, the large gun is my latest attempt for territory defence. i keep having to sacrafice my forces just to defend my base when i would much rather have stationary defences in place so the other ships can focus on moving foward on the map. also i do have small AA turrets and theyre awesome but i would need like 50 of them to defend against some of the larger more heavily armored ships in the game. but placed randomly at the foot of mountains with a large gun on the mountiantop, they creats a devastatingly effecting defense allowing me to attack right back.

Zourin, the bottoms of almost all my serious crafts have like an entire level of just laser pumps and cavities to destroy most incomming missiles. the anti missile lasers are about as simple to set up as a missile system and certainly worth it (and destroys larger CRAM shells)

Sano, actually i did put 2 shields, one for lasers and right behind it one for disrupting (i dont imagine Disrupt stops lasers) but these are at the end of the turret and provide a moderate defence of incomming fire especially near the vulnerable barrel. also i believe the shields arent supposed to block 100% of everything, i heard it somewhere that even the best shields are supposed to have some slip through every now and then.

[david.pearson]

Ah. You and I play very differently. I don't use bases. I use fleets, drain a resource and move on. Where there's an infinite resource, I leave a small fleet (I use resource gathering ships), and then use spy satellites to keep an eye on the enemy. Also if you attack your enemy hard enough, they don't have time to hit back, they are too busy defending against you.

[An Ning]

Originally posted by nathenchretien:

i keep searching for anybody thats attempted this simple idea, and i cant find anybody whos said anything about it yet.

Sorry to take away your "I did it first" medal, but the Rapier, before the engine overhaul (which, along with the fact that it was a very lethal craft for a starter campaign vessel, mandated a redesign wherein it lost the turret along with much of its lethality), had a shield on the barrel of its main gun, as did many others back then.

It hasn't been popular since the introduction of CRAMs and the ability of HE to pierce shields and destroy exposed generators.
Most people have been using protected generators ever since.

[Red Striped Socks]

Originally posted by An Ning:

Sorry to take away your "I did it first" medal, but . . .

You didn'tn't need to be an arss about it. And he was talking about it being separated from the main turret.

[An Ning]

There have beena number of designs that have had this over the years.
It's decent against a single opponent, provided you can shield the entirety of the longest side of your ship.

However, it is problematic against multiple enemies, and since no turret can truly turn 360 degrees in all directions, there will always be shield blind spots, and they will always be where your enemy manages to hit.