Underwhelming Artillery?

[Skunktaur]

I thought I had a good solution to the "Rados Defense" outposts that have three plasma turrets: Build a sturdy HV with an artillery turret. That ought to be able to close to just within range and take out the turrets from one side, right?

What really happened was that the plasma AA guns had almost exactly the same range as my supposedly top-tier weapon that's specifically designed for ranged ground-to-ground attacks. So I got to within range, started taking heavy fire, found out that artillery is only capable of direct fire (no arc), and its shots apparently stop existing after a certain range. So that was kinda useless.

My replacement strategy is just to go after them with a SV using missiles. Or is there a better way?

[Sabaithal]

SVs with direct-fire weapons are more efficient with regards to taking down emplacements. However HVs can potentially withstand more damage due to them having access to combat steel.

I would pay close attention to your turret firing parameters. Generally if you want them to be effective in a firefight, tune them to only fire at enemy weapon emplacements. This goes double for artillery.

Artillery are just that, artillery. They do a lot of damage, but have a very low rate of fire. They should be treated as a secondary weapon. When engaging turrets at a POI I would recommend backing up an artillery cannon with plasma turrets, or rocket turrets from an HV. They both do a lot of damage and have a high rate of fire.

[VulcanTourist]

I just said to hell with it and gave myself ranged superiority.

[GlassDeviant]

Artillery HVs used to be worthwhile in this game, before they totally gimped the range. HVs now are almost completely useless, except as a mobile turret to guard you as you manually mine (since HV mining sucks).

Lately I've been using either HV or SV to get close enough to a base to make using the motorbike to charge in and take them out commando style feasible. There are almost always terrain features to keep you alive most of the way, plus I have the epic heavy armor in case my bike gets blown out from under me (you get it from a Pol mission).

[Boomer]

I either use a small nimble SV or as zombielord mentions.. Run in fast with the bike and take them out.

[WorldEater]

Or use a tier 1 SV and top attack plasma turrets with 2 gatlings. This even works for laser turrets since laser dps isn't that high.

[Boomer]

Yeah. Am a fan of the 1a SV prefab with 4 gatlings. Does a decent job

[Iren!cus]

There is no range property in the turret blocks of the Config.ecf, right? The range calculation is silly hardcoded again? No base range value per turret to tweak? Am I right? -.-

[VulcanTourist]

Originally posted by Preston:

There is no range property in the turret blocks of the Config.ecf, right? The range calculation is silly hardcoded again? No base range value per turret to tweak? Am I right? -.-

No, you're not right:

Originally posted by VulcanTourist:

I just said to hell with it and gave myself ranged superiority.

How could I do that if it wasn't moddable? I'd guess you just don't understand the structure: turrets themselves don't have a Range property because turrets themselves are not weapons. The WeaponItem property defines the weapon itself, which is a separate defined object. That does have a Range.

[Iren!cus]

Originally posted by VulcanTourist:

Originally posted by Preston:

There is no range property in the turret blocks of the Config.ecf, right? The range calculation is silly hardcoded again? No base range value per turret to tweak? Am I right? -.-

No, you're not right:

Originally posted by VulcanTourist:

I just said to hell with it and gave myself ranged superiority.

How could I do that if it wasn't moddable? I'd guess you just don't understand the structure: turrets themselves don't have a Range property because turrets themselves are not weapons. The WeaponItem property defines the weapon itself, which is a separate defined object. That does have a Range.

You are right. I found a ton of turret items in the Config.ecf without a range property and without a reference tag to another definiton block....and stopped searching....item references inherit properties, too. Nice to know.
After your reply I looked further down at another place in the file and found another bunch of turret items with range property....wierd structure and item naming.....

[jacobellinger]

Originally posted by Skunktaur:

I thought I had a good solution to the "Rados Defense" outposts that have three plasma turrets: Build a sturdy HV with an artillery turret. That ought to be able to close to just within range and take out the turrets from one side, right?

What really happened was that the plasma AA guns had almost exactly the same range as my supposedly top-tier weapon that's specifically designed for ranged ground-to-ground attacks. So I got to within range, started taking heavy fire, found out that artillery is only capable of direct fire (no arc), and its shots apparently stop existing after a certain range. So that was kinda useless.

My replacement strategy is just to go after them with a SV using missiles. Or is there a better way?

I usially use sv to take out guns but then land with CV after. The current problem is that by the time you unlock enugh hv tech to take a well fortified poi you've already unlocked better stuff for sv's.

point is hv to take a hostile poi can be done with a few rocket turrets set to prioritize personel and gun placements and I supose if you really wanted it you could keep your large gun but set it to ONLY shoot gun placemnts.

[VulcanTourist]

Starting point?

{ Block Id: 282, Name: TurretTemplate
  Zoom: 20, type: float						# 5
}
{ Block Id: 320, Name: TurretDrillTemplate
  Zoom: 20, type: float						# 5
}
{ Block Id: 648, Name: TurretGVMinigun
  Zoom: 20, type: float						# 5
}
{ Block Id: 649, Name: TurretGVRocket
  Zoom: 20, type: float						# 5
}
{ Block Id: 650, Name: TurretGVPlasma
  Zoom: 20, type: float						# 5
}
{ Block Id: 700, Name: TurretBaseFlak
  Zoom: 20, type: float						# 5
}
{ Block Id: 701, Name: TurretBasePlasma
  Zoom: 20, type: float						# 5
}
{ Block Id: 702, Name: TurretMSPlasma
  Zoom: 20, type: float						# 5
}
{ Block Id: 716, Name: TurretGVArtillery
  Zoom: 20, type: float						# 5
}
{ Block Id: 1142, Name: TurretMSPulseLaser
  Zoom: 20, type: float						# 5
}
{ Block Id: 1143, Name: TurretBaseCannon
  Zoom: 20, type: float						# 5
}
{ Block Id: 1144, Name: TurretBaseRocket
  Zoom: 20, type: float						# 5
}
{ Block Id: 1145, Name: TurretMSCannon
  Zoom: 20, type: float						# 5
}
{ Block Id: 1146, Name: TurretMSFlak
  Zoom: 20, type: float						# 5
}
{ Block Id: 1147, Name: TurretBaseMinigun
  Zoom: 20, type: float						# 5
}
{ Block Id: 1148, Name: TurretBasePulseLaser
  Zoom: 20, type: float						# 5
}
{ Block Id: 1149, Name: TurretBaseArtillery
  Zoom: 20, type: float						# 5
}
{ Item Id: 2151, Name: TurretMSArtilleryWeapon
  { 
    AllowAt: "Space,Planet"					# Space
    Range: 863, display: false					# 575
    RangeSpace: 1425, display: false			# 950
  }
}
{ Item Id: 2153, Name: TurretBaseFlakWeapon
  { 
    Range: 1028, display: false					# 685
    RangeSpace: 1703, display: false			# 1135
  }
}
{ Item Id: 2154, Name: TurretBaseRocketWeapon
  { 
    Range: 1035, display:false					# 690
    RangeSpace: 1725, display: false			# 1150
  }
}
{ Item Id: 2157, Name: TurretMSMinigunWeapon
  { 
    Range: 728, display: false					# 485
    RangeSpace: 1178, display: false			# 785
  }
}
{ Item Id: 2162, Name: TurretGVMinigunWeapon
  { 
    AllowAt: "Space,Planet"					# ADDED
    Range: 638, display: false					# 425
    RangeSpace: 900, display: false			# 600
  }
}
{ Item Id: 2163, Name: TurretGVRocketWeapon
  { 
    AllowAt: "Space,Planet"					# ADDED
    Range: 705, display: false					# 470
    RangeSpace: 1103, display: false			# 735
  }
}
{ Item Id: 2164, Name: TurretGVPlasmaWeapon
  { 
    AllowAt: "Space,Planet"					# ADDED
    Range: 675, display: false					# 450
    RangeSpace: 1050, display: false			# 700
  }
}
{ Item Id: 2165, Name: TurretBaseCannonWeapon
  { 
    Range: 840, display: false					# 560
    RangeSpace: 1388, display: false			# 925
  }
}
{ Item Id: 2166, Name: TurretMSPlasmaWeapon
  { 
    AllowAt: "Space,Planet"					# Space
    Range: 953, display: false					# 635
    RangeSpace: 1575, display: false			# 1050
  }
}
{ Item Id: 2167, Name: TurretBasePlasmaWeapon
  { 
    Range: 1073, display: false					# 715
    RangeSpace: 1800, display: false			# 1200
  }
}
{ Item Id: 2168, Name: TurretGVArtilleryWeapon
  { 
    AllowAt: "Space,Planet"					# ADDED
    Range: 810, display: false					# 540
    RangeSpace: 1275, display: false			# 850
  }
}
{ Item Id: 2170, Name: TurretMSCannonWeapon
  { 
    Range: 795, display: false					# 530
    RangeSpace: 1313, display: false			# 875
  }
}
{ Item Id: 2171, Name: TurretMSPulseLaserWeapon
  { 
    AllowAt: "Space,Planet"					# Space
    Range: 840, display: false					# 560
    RangeSpace: 1388, display: false			# 925
  }
}
{ Item Id: 2172, Name: TurretBasePulseLaserWeapon
  { 
    Range: 953, display: false					# 635
    RangeSpace: 1628, display: false			# 1085
  }
}
{ Item Id: 2173, Name: TurretMSFlakWeapon
  { 
    AllowAt: "Space,Planet"					# Space
    Range: 878, display: false					# 585
    RangeSpace: 1463, display: false			# 975
  }
}
{ Item Id: 2174, Name: TurretMSRocketWeapon
  { 
    AllowAt: "Space,Planet"					# Space
    Range: 900, display: false					# 600
    RangeSpace: 1500, display: false			# 1000
  }
}
{ Item Id: 2175, Name: TurretBaseMinigunWeapon
  { 
    Range: 750, display: false					# 500
    RangeSpace: 1275, display: false			# 850
  }
}
{ Item Id: 2176, Name: TurretBaseArtilleryWeapon
  { 
    Range: 975, display: false					# 650
    RangeSpace: 1650, display: false			# 1100
  }
}
{ Item Id: 2208, Name: TurretGVPlasmaCharge
  { 
    Speed: 770								# 385
    Range: 675								# 450
    SpeedSpace: 870						# 435
    RangeSpace: 1125						# 750
  }
}
{ Item Id: 2209, Name: FlakRocket
  { 
    Range: 1028							# 685
    RangeSpace: 1703						# 1135
  }
}
{ Item Id: 2210, Name: TurretMSPlasmaCharge
  { 
    Speed: 800								# 400
    Range: 863								# 575
    SpeedSpace: 950						# 475
    RangeSpace: 1425						# 950
  }
}
{ Item Id: 2211, Name: ArtilleryRocket
  { 
    Range: 810								# 540
    RangeSpace: 1350						# 900
    Ballistic: True							# False
  }
}
{ Item Id: 2213, Name: FastRocketHoming, Ref: FastRocket
  { 
    Range: 705								# 470
    RangeSpace: 1178						# 785
  }
}
{ Item Id: 2214, Name: FlakRocketMS, Ref: FlakRocket
  { 
    Range: 878								# 585
    RangeSpace: 1463						# 975
  }
}
{ Item Id: 2215, Name: LargeRocketMS, Ref: LargeRocket
  { 
    Range: 953								# 635
    RangeSpace: 1575						# 1050
    Ballistic: True							# False
  }
}
{ Item Id: 2216, Name: PulseLaserChargeBA, Ref: PulseLaserChargeMS
  { 
    Speed: 1500							# 750
    Range: 953								# 635
    SpeedSpace: 1620						# 810
    RangeSpace: 1628						# 1085
    Ballistic: False
  }
}
{ Item Id: 2217, Name: FastRocketBA, Ref: FastRocketMS
  { 
    Range: 953								# 635
    RangeSpace: 1628						# 1085
  }
}
{ Item Id: 2218, Name: TurretBAPlasmaCharge, Ref: TurretMSPlasmaCharge
  { 
    Speed: 800								# 400
    Range: 900								# 600
    SpeedSpace: 970						# 485
    RangeSpace: 1500						# 1000
  }
}
{ Item Id: 2222, Name: FastRocketGV, Ref: FlakRocket
  { 
    Range: 638								# 425
    RangeSpace: 1088						# 725
  }
}

[Alandrea]

This game is horrible with turrets aiming and firing. Lost 3 space bases 3 cv against one cv which just kept spinning in space, no shots were landing everything including homing missiles which should lock on to a target just went past. Also fixed rocket turrets shoot sideways if you are too close. good bye Empyrion, realistic hardly this game is a joke with battles, might as well play space invader.

[NimrodX]

Note that the devs for this game don't really seem to be weapon experts and "Artillery" doesn't actually mean artillery. Guided missiles are often called "Rockets" at random, "minigun" isn't used to refer to the same sort of weapon in real life in many cases, etc.

Artillery is a bigger gun that has a very slow fire rate and a slow moving unguided projectile. As a result, it won't do crap against anything but a non-moving target and the fire rate is so slow you'll take lots of damage while waiting for it to cycle.

There's no indirect fire weapon in the game.

[VulcanTourist]

Originally posted by NimrodX:

There's no indirect fire weapon in the game.

Have you tried modifying the Ballistic property? It exists but it's false for EVERYTHING including artillery.

[NimrodX]

No... have you? What does it actually do and why is there no weapon that has that property?