Hephaestus, turrets, and gunners?

[TheMac]

The largest ship I have purposely purchased is a tier 2, though I recently earned the Hephaestus and I found and towed two tier 3 ships which are in my fleet of five. I've also been using the wiki to try and muddle my way through a better understanding of the game. Some things I simply haven't experienced yet, and it doesn't look like I'll have time to play until this weekend. Better ask a question and see if I can make my limited play time more productive.

1. I'm looking for a main ship I can pilot around that either uses all missiles or has some gunners who automatically shoot when red targets are near. The Hephaestus has a couple of gunner slots, though I can't imagine they help that much with manually fired missiles. I've yet to put any gunners in the slot, and all missiles are keyed to the left mouse button currently. Is there a way to put other weapons in the slots, add some gunners, and have them fire at the enemy automatically? I would imagine they would simply target when in range and in the correct arc? All are simply guesses with no way to experiment myself right now.

2. If there is a way to have some guns automated, could I also manually fire some missiles?

3. How do you know if a ship has a turret? Do you have to buy turreted weapons for that ship in order for them to spin around 360 degrees shooting at ships without the ship turning?

4. Do turrets and gunners only work on fleet ships?

Outside of missiles, I guess I could add some drone bays to Hephaestus, though the component section is currently full, and with mostly white quality items (just got the ship and no cash). Adding drone bays would mean I'd have to seriously downgrade the shields, power, or turn rate. I'd prefer not to do so and simply to make it a better weapons platform. Thanks!

[Morphic]

1. I like Hephaestus and think it is a solid choice for a full missile boat or hybrid that you personally use. IMO, you make the side multi-barrel hardpoints your missiles, while your back and center hardpoints are Point Defense. Then you can either make your forward hardpoint for damage (like a large Beam) or whatever else you might need (like a Mining Laser).

1a. Iirc Heph can run 4-5 gunners, which should be enough to cover majority of your hardpoints. Once a gunner is assigned to a specific hardpoint/turret (and the weapon is set to Auto) the gunner will do their best to fire at any hostiles. In the case of PD weapons, they will try to shoot down missiles/drones. There are also hotkeys you can use to have your fleet/gunners focus on whatever target you have currently selected. (I never had a situation where that was useful)

2. Yes. Even when you have gunners assigned to a hardpoint to give boosts the weapons equipped, you can toggle Manual or Auto fire modes. Manual has you controlling it while Auto has the gunner controlling it. In the weapon/equip menu you should notice the "Set Control" setting to the right of the listed/equipped weapons.

3. You can tell by the turret icon. If it is just a solid grey, the turret only shoots straight ahead. If there is a Red Cone by the turret, the barrel can rotate along that cone. If there is a Red Circle surrounding the turret icon, it can rotate 360. Iirc, when you go to buy a ship; you can press shift (or whatever key for "show more") to see the turret locations/icons. EDIT: If you need a visual reference, I can post a screenshot if you want.

4. Not sure what you mean by this question. Turrets and Gunners work for you and fleet ships.

IMO, Heph can make a crazy strong missile boat depending on how you have it kitted out. E.g. I use Venghi Missiles and fill both side multi-barrels with them, have Ziggy for the explosion bonus, then manually fire them. Basically spew massive explosions, which crit for big damage.

[TheMac]

Originally posted by Morphic:

1. I like Hephaestus and think it is a solid choice for a full missile boat or hybrid that you personally use. IMO, you make the side multi-barrel hardpoints your missiles, while your back and center hardpoints are Point Defense. Then you can either make your forward hardpoint for damage (like a large Beam) or whatever else you might need (like a Mining Laser).

1a. Iirc Heph can run 4-5 gunners, which should be enough to cover majority of your hardpoints. Once a gunner is assigned to a specific hardpoint/turret (and the weapon is set to Auto) the gunner will do their best to fire at any hostiles. In the case of PD weapons, they will try to shoot down missiles/drones. There are also hotkeys you can use to have your fleet/gunners focus on whatever target you have currently selected. (I never had a situation where that was useful)

2. Yes. Even when you have gunners assigned to a hardpoint to give boosts the weapons equipped, you can toggle Manual or Auto fire modes. Manual has you controlling it while Auto has the gunner controlling it. In the weapon/equip menu you should notice the "Set Control" setting to the right of the listed/equipped weapons.

3. You can tell by the turret icon. If it is just a solid grey, the turret only shoots straight ahead. If there is a Red Cone by the turret, the barrel can rotate along that cone. If there is a Red Circle surrounding the turret icon, it can rotate 360. Iirc, when you go to buy a ship; you can press shift (or whatever key for "show more") to see the turret locations/icons. EDIT: If you need a visual reference, I can post a screenshot if you want.

4. Not sure what you mean by this question. Turrets and Gunners work for you and fleet ships.

IMO, Heph can make a crazy strong missile boat depending on how you have it kitted out. E.g. I use Venghi Missiles and fill both side multi-barrels with them, have Ziggy for the explosion bonus, then manually fire them. Basically spew massive explosions, which crit for big damage.

Very nice! +award
I took a very brief look at the Hepaestus and I could now easily see the red rings around the weapon mounts. The "auto" or "manual" options also showed up once I put a gunner in place. I haven't tried to put the ship together yet, though I believe from your descriptions that I have a much better handle on things and that I should be able to experiment further this weekend. Thanks again for giving me a head start!

[Morphic]

Originally posted by TheMac:

I took a very brief look at the Hepaestus and I could now easily see the red rings around the weapon mounts. The "auto" or "manual" options also showed up once I put a gunner in place. I haven't tried to put the ship together yet, though I believe from your descriptions that I have a much better handle on things and that I should be able to experiment further this weekend. Thanks again for giving me a head start!

Sure thing! Though don't take what I say as gospel since, despite 100+ hours, I'm still learning new things or ship setups lol.

Perfect example is the Hephaestus, I actually really hated it at first and thought it kinda sucked. However, after reading how some people were kitting it out and their crew choices ... I realized I was just doing a really bad setup for what I wanted to do.

So going wild and experimenting is, IMO, where majority of the fun and replayability in Star Valor comes in.

[TheMac]

Originally posted by Morphic:

Originally posted by TheMac:

I took a very brief look at the Hepaestus and I could now easily see the red rings around the weapon mounts. The "auto" or "manual" options also showed up once I put a gunner in place. I haven't tried to put the ship together yet, though I believe from your descriptions that I have a much better handle on things and that I should be able to experiment further this weekend. Thanks again for giving me a head start!

Sure thing! Though don't take what I say as gospel since, despite 100+ hours, I'm still learning new things or ship setups lol.

Perfect example is the Hephaestus, I actually really hated it at first and thought it kinda sucked. However, after reading how some people were kitting it out and their crew choices ... I realized I was just doing a really bad setup for what I wanted to do.

So going wild and experimenting is, IMO, where majority of the fun and replayability in Star Valor comes in.

[Red Wizard]

Originally posted by TheMac:

The Hephaestus has a couple of gunner slots, though I can't imagine they help that much with manually fired missiles. I've yet to put any gunners in the slot, and all missiles are keyed to the left mouse button currently. Is there a way to put other weapons in the slots, add some gunners, and have them fire at the enemy automatically? I would imagine they would simply target when in range and in the correct arc? All are simply guesses with no way to experiment myself right now.

Hephaestus is a phenomenal missile ship. As Morphic pointed out, build two 4-space missile launchers and put them in those side bays. They have such a narrow turret sweep range that they really aren't good for anything else, but their special is that they fire from 8 barrels for -60% damage. Which is to say you get about 3.2x (8*.4) total damage out of them making those 8-space of missiles act like 25-space of missiles. The swarm is also good because it helps overwhelm PD. As for gunners, their gunner skill won't be of use, but their bonus will. Look for specialist gunners with +damage% or +missile damage%, or better yet balanced with at least two damage increasing bonuses. Missiles are pretty easy to build, because you can buy all of the components at most Syndicate stations.

I put a couple beams in the 360 turrets to take care of small ships, and a PD in the back.

[TheMac]

Originally posted by Red Wizard:

Originally posted by TheMac:

The Hephaestus has a couple of gunner slots, though I can't imagine they help that much with manually fired missiles. I've yet to put any gunners in the slot, and all missiles are keyed to the left mouse button currently. Is there a way to put other weapons in the slots, add some gunners, and have them fire at the enemy automatically? I would imagine they would simply target when in range and in the correct arc? All are simply guesses with no way to experiment myself right now.

Hephaestus is a phenomenal missile ship. As Morphic pointed out, build two 4-space missile launchers and put them in those side bays. They have such a narrow turret sweep range that they really aren't good for anything else, but their special is that they fire from 8 barrels for -60% damage. Which is to say you get about 3.2x (8*.4) total damage out of them making those 8-space of missiles act like 25-space of missiles. The swarm is also good because it helps overwhelm PD. As for gunners, their gunner skill won't be of use, but their bonus will. Look for specialist gunners with +damage% or +missile damage%, or better yet diversified with at least two damage increasing bonuses. Missiles are pretty easy to build, because you can buy all of the components at most Syndicate stations.

I put a couple beams in the 360 turrets to take care of small ships, and a PD in the back.

Sounds like a great fitting. I don't have any of the larger missile launchers yet, though I do have a couple of the 2 slot launchers. I'll put those in the side slots. Thanks for the advice!