Auto firing turret behavior

[Juicy Beefcake]

I finally got around to building some custom turrets at a turret factory. I now have a load of auto fire, seeking rocket launchers. They do pretty spectacular damage at ludicrous range. However I'm confused about auto targeting behavior. Is it broken? My googling returned several very old redit threads presumably from when the independent targeting was first introduced but nothing recent.
Auto-fire: seems to pick targets completely at random, only chooses a single target regardless of how many groups I separate the turrets into, no priority is given to distance of enemies (I would prefer it chose closest first...)
Attack target: seems to be no different than auto fire. Turrets make no attempt to track target when I highlight a new target and instead stay locked on whatever completely random target they started on. This does seem to initiate combat on neutrals though if I switch to it after selecting the neutral target.
Defensive: exactly the same behavior as the first...
Its starting to look like adding independent targeting was a waste of credits...

[LORDSOL]

I use ind chain guns for torpedo defense only unless i have a real powerful cannon thats ind then i mount them on the belly of my ship

[FuryoftheStars]

Auto-fire does randomly pick targets, however I do believe it goes closest first except it's like a pit bull... it won't let go of that target until it's out of range or dead. Closest target is most likely based on distance to your ship as a whole rather than distance from individual turrets.

Attack target attacks your currently selected target until it's dead or you issue new orders. Switching targets will not cause them to switch targets until you re-issue the attack target order (this does allow you to assign different targets to different weapon groups).

Defensive is the same as Auto-fire except that it will prioritize torpedoes over fighters over everything else, in that order. So if a torpedo or fighter comes into play, they will break off from their current target to deal with the new threat. Once all torpedoes/fighters are dead/gone, they will go back to shooting ships/stations.

[Juicy Beefcake]

yeah, those are all bad though...
I want:
Target Weakest
Target Closest
Target My Target
and I want them to dynamically change targets. If I switch my target the turrets should switch targets without me having to re-issue the command. Otherwise what is the point? Select target, hold shift, click turret group, click Attack Target, repeat for every group, every time you switch targets...that isn't convenient, expedient, intuitive, or useful.

[FuryoftheStars]

Ya know, as I think about this, I think autofire does go by the independent turrets. I recall setting up a ship with salvaging lasers all around it and then putting it in the middle of a debris field and all of the lasers picked out different targets and fired on them.

[Valdarious]

I never use independent targeting for offensive guns, cuts down the damage far too much. With Launcher you don't ever want to do that. most of the time with Launchers, just target a ship, fire a volley then switch target repeat. If they are powerful enough, you can lay waste to a lot of ships from range. My last save I had some coaxial seeker shot Launchers that do 17,000 damage. 4 Volleys were enough for pretty much everything except bosses. Raids were quite fun.

[Juicy Beefcake]

Originally posted by Valdarious:

I never use independent targeting for offensive guns, cuts down the damage far too much. With Launcher you don't ever want to do that. most of the time with Launchers, just target a ship, fire a volley then switch target repeat. If they are powerful enough, you can lay waste to a lot of ships from range. My last save I had some coaxial seeker shot Launchers that do 17,000 damage. 4 Volleys were enough for pretty much everything except bosses. Raids were quite fun.

for launchers, it seems to be the seeker trait that cuts their damage though, not the auto fire. auto fire is basically free in this case
if you make them coax, can they fire regardless of your ships heading? and then home on your target from whatever trajectory the coax puts them on? If so, thats kind of what I'm looking for now that I know auto target sucks so bad.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by Juicy Beefcake:

Originally posted by Valdarious:

I never use independent targeting for offensive guns, cuts down the damage far too much. With Launcher you don't ever want to do that. most of the time with Launchers, just target a ship, fire a volley then switch target repeat. If they are powerful enough, you can lay waste to a lot of ships from range. My last save I had some coaxial seeker shot Launchers that do 17,000 damage. 4 Volleys were enough for pretty much everything except bosses. Raids were quite fun.

for launchers, it seems to be the seeker trait that cuts their damage though, not the auto fire. auto fire is basically free in this case
if you make them coax, can they fire regardless of your ships heading? and then home on your target from whatever trajectory the coax puts them on? If so, thats kind of what I'm looking for now that I know auto target sucks so bad.

No, seeker shouldn't be doing that. Just auto target does.

The neat thing about seeker turrets though, is that the missiles will seek whatever your target is, regardless of the direction you fire. So if you just target something and look in whatever direction will fire all turrets at once, the missiles will seek it, going through your own ship if necessary.

Auto targeting is primarily meant for use for turrets you have no intent to control. So if you put guns on the bottom, top, rear, front and sides of your ship, there's no way every turret can fire at the target you're looking at. Independent targeting in that case allows the turrets that cannot see your current target to fire on other things in the meantime.

[Juicy Beefcake]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

No, seeker shouldn't be doing that. Just auto target does.

You're right, it must have been late at night when I made those.
I actually forgot that locking turrets into coax positions was a thing. The main drawback I'm having right now is tracking speed on these launchers (they won't fire until they rotate into the target position and the shots won't track unless you have a target locked), so that is probably the way to go.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by Juicy Beefcake:

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

No, seeker shouldn't be doing that. Just auto target does.

You're right, it must have been late at night when I made those.
I actually forgot that locking turrets into coax positions was a thing. The main drawback I'm having right now is tracking speed on these launchers (they won't fire until they rotate into the target position and the shots won't track unless you have a target locked), so that is probably the way to go.

Yeah, that's the beauty of seeker. Just fire in whatever direction they're already facing and let loose. They'll track regardless of the direction you look. Autofire turrets won't do that.

[FuryoftheStars]

Originally posted by FuryoftheStars:

Auto-fire does randomly pick targets, however I do believe it goes closest first except it's like a pit bull... it won't let go of that target until it's out of range or dead. Closest target is most likely based on distance to your ship as a whole rather than distance from individual turrets.

Attack target attacks your currently selected target until it's dead or you issue new orders. Switching targets will not cause them to switch targets until you re-issue the attack target order (this does allow you to assign different targets to different weapon groups).

Defensive is the same as Auto-fire except that it will prioritize torpedoes over fighters over everything else, in that order. So if a torpedo or fighter comes into play, they will break off from their current target to deal with the new threat. Once all torpedoes/fighters are dead/gone, they will go back to shooting ships/stations.

I was kind of wrong, here.

Auto-fire will pick targets based on their distance from the individual turrets and whether or not the turret can even fire on it (clear LoS). As such, your ship can and will fire upon multiple targets. The only real issue with them is because of turret turn rates and how quickly our ships move and maneuver, they often have trouble keeping on target in combat.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by FuryoftheStars:

Originally posted by FuryoftheStars:

Auto-fire does randomly pick targets, however I do believe it goes closest first except it's like a pit bull... it won't let go of that target until it's out of range or dead. Closest target is most likely based on distance to your ship as a whole rather than distance from individual turrets.

Attack target attacks your currently selected target until it's dead or you issue new orders. Switching targets will not cause them to switch targets until you re-issue the attack target order (this does allow you to assign different targets to different weapon groups).

Defensive is the same as Auto-fire except that it will prioritize torpedoes over fighters over everything else, in that order. So if a torpedo or fighter comes into play, they will break off from their current target to deal with the new threat. Once all torpedoes/fighters are dead/gone, they will go back to shooting ships/stations.

I was kind of wrong, here.

Auto-fire will pick targets based on their distance from the individual turrets and whether or not the turret can even fire on it (clear LoS). As such, your ship can and will fire upon multiple targets. The only real issue with them is because of turret turn rates and how quickly our ships move and maneuver, they often have trouble keeping on target in combat.

Originally posted by FuryoftheStars:

Originally posted by FuryoftheStars:

Auto-fire does randomly pick targets, however I do believe it goes closest first except it's like a pit bull... it won't let go of that target until it's out of range or dead. Closest target is most likely based on distance to your ship as a whole rather than distance from individual turrets.

Attack target attacks your currently selected target until it's dead or you issue new orders. Switching targets will not cause them to switch targets until you re-issue the attack target order (this does allow you to assign different targets to different weapon groups).

Defensive is the same as Auto-fire except that it will prioritize torpedoes over fighters over everything else, in that order. So if a torpedo or fighter comes into play, they will break off from their current target to deal with the new threat. Once all torpedoes/fighters are dead/gone, they will go back to shooting ships/stations.

I was kind of wrong, here.

Auto-fire will pick targets based on their distance from the individual turrets and whether or not the turret can even fire on it (clear LoS). As such, your ship can and will fire upon multiple targets. The only real issue with them is because of turret turn rates and how quickly our ships move and maneuver, they often have trouble keeping on target in combat.

Same concept as PDCs. You either dodge torpedoes with mobility or you shoot them down with PDCs. Shooting them down is really a large, slow ship concept. The same goes for auto targeting turrets, you use them on large ships that can’t just rotate to target mobile ships behind you. It’s generally assumed that you wouldn’t be maneuvering much with these ships, allowing the turrets to perform better.

[Juicy Beefcake]

My initial goal was to have a carrier full of fighters that I just plopped in the middle of a cluster of enemies and just issue fighter commands and let my turrets do whatever...however fighter commands are terrible for personal use (the ai seems to do fine with them) and auto firing turrets are also apparently pretty bad. So I guess I'm just disappointed on all fronts.

[FuryoftheStars]

Originally posted by Juicy Beefcake:

My initial goal was to have a carrier full of fighters that I just plopped in the middle of a cluster of enemies and just issue fighter commands and let my turrets do whatever...however fighter commands are terrible for personal use (the ai seems to do fine with them) and auto firing turrets are also apparently pretty bad. So I guess I'm just disappointed on all fronts.

Well, you could use a mod to remove the damage penalty until 2.0 drops. The devs have already confirmed that they’ll be removing the damage penalty.
Also, if you are ok with mods, look up the carrier commander mods (there’s at least two or three). They improve fighter AI and can even add an option for assigning one squad on loot pickup duty.

[Juicy Beefcake]

Originally posted by FuryoftheStars:

Well, you could use a mod to remove the damage penalty until 2.0 drops. The devs have already confirmed that they’ll be removing the damage penalty.
Also, if you are ok with mods, look up the carrier commander mods (there’s at least two or three). They improve fighter AI and can even add an option for assigning one squad on loot pickup duty.

yeah I have the carrier command mods
they don't do what I want, its closer than the base game though
I want to be able to just hit one button to command all deployed fighters without having a stupid movement disabling window on screen. I don't want to have to click through menus.
It should be as simple as: hit hotkey to deploy all combat fighters, hit hotkey to attack my target, (swarm kills target) repeat step 2
with the carrier command interface open you are unable to move your ship or select new targets...
I had a swarm of railgunners and lighting fighters that did pretty good damage but it was soooo cumbersome to use. Now I have a second immobile, hangar ship that I dock to my main ship and then deploy when I run into enemies. Still pretty micro intensive as I have to undock, go into F9 mode, select ship, attack all targets, then redock it after the battle.

[FuryoftheStars]

I don't know if it'll help any, but there's a mod called Sector Overview or similar, gives you a window with a list of things in sector (similar to when in the F9 mode), without actually having to go into F9 mode. This way you can select your hanger ship from there, then F -> Orders -> Attack Enemies, without having to go in and out of F9 mode. Still work, but maybe a step or two less? Course, if you want to do this with multiple ships, F9 mode may still be the way to go.