Turrets Idea thread

[Silv3r Shadow]

One big suggestion seems to be to include a turret. Turrets are part of the light frame, but for the demo it doesn't matter much. I might look into that one if we have the time.

Heyy all, just gonna dive strait into it. Turrets have always been been a topic for the engineer in faufau. I'll highlight some of the prime experiences of the bastion first.
the Bastion had different iterations as we all know with different number of turrets to on different updates and heavy + upagradeable versions, bastion also had sentinel pods, etc... Holding positions, defence missions, thumping in Antarctica etc. Also Having certain downloaded mods made the experience even better too:

Just a few cons about the bastion/turrets was the immobility, I know, its how it was designed but, keeping suggestions open with mobile turrets:

Who didnt want these cool little guys? another question is how to get them to work, i know of a way to overcome this is with a movement radius, i'll use the engineer class from Torchlight 2 as example, the mobile turret/heal pods for the Engineer moves quite fast, all bots it will move with the player and randomly move around, but, it will always be in around about a 4 meter radius of the player but can move freely.

Hopfully there will be a variety of turrets for em-8er than the traditional afk turret pawnage

One thing faufau I didnt like is how you repair the turrets, as much as i'd like to be shooting the enemy in the face, i feel the pencil beam that repairs the turrets was bad, it of could also use an ability or a passive that heals al turrets in a close radius etc, like the dragonfly's HKM would to players.

would love to hear what kind of bots everyone has in mind for suggestions like the weapon thread, a swarm of hacking bots, hovering support bots, tactical bots, shield bots that mimic the player, hotkeys that command bots to change formation and whereabouts by a laserpointer like the spidermines in UT2004. mobile turrets that walk sideways and upside down on walls and ceilings like bugs, even abilities like EMP's

 

[EvilKitten]

Anything that is automated is going to remove from the skill requirement, so I would focus on turrets that still require player input. I think at one point early on I made the suggestion of having the ability for an engineer type spec where the turret was your main weapon, it would float around you and fire at your targeting reticle as if it was your main gun, but being a turret you would have special mods and such for it. Like you can have 3 or 4 weaker turrets and combine different attack types together. Couple that with having abilities requiring a turret as a main weapon, such as the ability to have them pop up and fire over cover to flush out enemies etc.

Another suggestion I made was to be able to place howitzer type turrets well back from a combat area which would give you a special bombardment ability. Put down a couple of them and unlock a devastating time on target ability. As long as it had a reasonably long reload/cooldown time it could provide a huge tactical benefit for a player/group.

I also like the idea of having turrets as abilities, the idea of having a heal be the act of launching small drones from your frame which would repair some damage or such.

Anyways that is my two cents, keep turrets are main weapon functions or use them to activate abilities or be part of an abilities visuals, avoid auto-firing weapon placements. #AllSkillMatters!

 

[Silv3r Shadow]

I definitely see your point, i guess balancing will be finetuned a few times. I was also thinking for example, 1 turret take 1 ability slot and 3 turrets take 3 ability slots, using up your slots. When you press the key: If the turret is not deployed, it will deploy it. If it is already deployed, it will activate its ability, but, this will make you as the player less effective if you want as many turrets as you can get, if you put all abilities as turrets as it is the light frame. I'm thinking of it as what Mark will be implemented if the Omniframe was fully customizable as there is 3 classes with light having the turrets.

A turret build of the light frame may be quite different as we would normally think a turret variant may be (being slow/immobile), as a light it 'could' be quite a fast build, as it is a light frame. (that's if light is fast) and turrets will have to keep up the pace if they are mobile. It may reduce skill, but it would no doubt be fun

 

[Wyntyr]

With this being a PvE focused game, I wouldn't mind less skill having builds here and there. There are some folks who, for whatever reason, aren't that skilled but want to play, don't wanna play the "skilled" game, or don't wanna play the "skilled" game right now. I like choices. Also Team Em-8ER HAS to have the mobile turret we didn't get to use in FF. Just sayin...

 

[Drakin5]

https://forums.em8er.com/threads/official-firefall-esque-ability-requests-thread.904/post-28858
There’s some ideas about heavy turrets from my posts there. Whether or not they’re automated, manual or mobile, it’s up to you.

Though the AP turret HKM from faufau was a godsend; full duration modules yield 40+ seconds and can hold down a choke point long enough for a regroup, flanking or bombardment.

 

[Wyntyr]

Though the AP turret HKM from faufau was a godsend; full duration modules yield 40+ seconds and can hold down a choke point long enough for a regroup, flanking or bombardment.

Loved it! Plus you could jump out, someone else could jump in, and you could repair it to keep it up for a good bit longer.

 

[Silv3r Shadow]

Loved it! Plus you could jump out, someone else could jump in, and you could repair it to keep it up for a good bit longer.

I just wished it had a spawn animation, but, it was so fun and funny manning a big as turret XD

 

[Pandagnome]

What if there are different turret types e.g

Non-lethal turrets would fire concussion rounds or some form of sleep rounds
What if there was a turret that could pull incapacitated pilots away from danger or pull an enemy closer.
It could have low damage electricity going through the grappler line!

What if turrets could be given commands like

A) Mobile Cover - the turret would support with suppressive fire on the go until timer or distance has exceeded.
B) Stationary Defense - Set to defend a perimeter and able to sit in and control manually if needed like the super turret in firefall
C) Non lethal - For events that need capturing or to help a fellow pilot who is incapacitated

 

[PIghead Elderberry]

I guess it would not be a turret exactly, but the Gnome's idea of a bot to retrieve a human out of their damaged frame and rescue them is rather interesting.

I could see that I am on my last legs getting smashed to a pulp and get downed in some kind of equivalent to 'bleeding out' and another player has to come into danger range to construct/release some kind of turret bot (cluster?) that can extract me from my smashed frame and escort me out of combat.

It would pose some kind of danger to the player doing the saving, of course, so it is not risk free.

 

[SomeUnregPunk]

What if turrets could be given commands like

A) Mobile Cover - the turret would support with suppressive fire on the go until timer or distance has exceeded.
B) Stationary Defense - Set to defend a perimeter and able to sit in and control manually if needed like the super turret in firefall
C) Non lethal - For events that need capturing or to help a fellow pilot who is incapacitated

This reminds me of "The division."
There are three defensive abilities that you can get {a turret (set it down or throw it ), a riot shield and a power that strengthens cover} all of which has various upgrades that alters gameplay enough that game becomes less of cover shooter especially if you play aggressively.

In firefall being able to drop a turret that others can use or turrets that create choke points or using the multi-turrets to stick them to the ceiling/walls, or dropping a deployable to act mainly as cover for players to revive others gave the Engineer class more gameplay options than camping a spot and building a fort.

Options are cool.

 

[MattHunX]

Anything that is automated is going to remove from the skill requirement, so I would focus on turrets that still require player input. I think at one point early on I made the suggestion of having the ability for an engineer type spec where the turret was your main weapon, it would float around you and fire at your targeting reticle as if it was your main gun, but being a turret you would have special mods and such for it. Like you can have 3 or 4 weaker turrets and combine different attack types together. Couple that with having abilities requiring a turret as a main weapon, such as the ability to have them pop up and fire over cover to flush out enemies etc.

Another suggestion I made was to be able to place howitzer type turrets well back from a combat area which would give you a special bombardment ability. Put down a couple of them and unlock a devastating time on target ability. As long as it had a reasonably long reload/cooldown time it could provide a huge tactical benefit for a player/group.

I also like the idea of having turrets as abilities, the idea of having a heal be the act of launching small drones from your frame which would repair some damage or such.

Anyways that is my two cents, keep turrets are main weapon functions or use them to activate abilities or be part of an abilities visuals, avoid auto-firing weapon placements. #AllSkillMatters!

Usually not a fan of turrets, but I like all of the above. Adding to all that, I think there could also be a neat little option to swap view-points between yourself and your turrets and drones and see through them, whether it would be for exploration, recon or their iron-sight mod as you'd assume control of a specific one to utilize its maneuverability and fire-power to its full potential. There could be limitations, of course. You could be allowed just one, more sophisticated, turret/drone that you could have fine-control over and it could detach from your omni-frame as a separate entity. The omni-frames, like the thumpers, would possess some rudimentary AI of their own, to begin with. And the same would go for the turret/drone that could be upgraded to be a controllable unit by engineer builds and whatever sub-types would develop from them.

I would actually like the idea of a deployable, either stationary or fully mobile (ground or air), downsized rail-gun, for sniper builds (or sniper+engineer mix) that the player could use to fire on targets and to help watch over an area. The player could deploy it at one end of a cliff, stand on the other, periodically swap between their viewpoint and the turret's/drone's or it could even give a warning, but not necessarily fire, when it would detect hostiles, as an early warning system that could be a great help in point-defense battles, in particular. It could hold-fire to remain hidden for an ambush. Enemies wouldn't necessarily break formation, unless they'd be actively searching for immediate threats, giving opportunities for the player(s) to use the element of surprise and thin their numbers before they would scatter as they'd advance on the defender(s)'s location.

 

[Omnires]

Can my turret just be a small personal orbital satellite that follows me around from outer space? That when I can use it call down orbital strikes. For energy weapons like lasers and plasma it would have cool down / recharge times on the attack. And for ballistic rounds there is only a set number of them it would hold at once going by the type of ammo and the caliber (remember the caliber doesn't tell you how powerful a gun is. It only tells you how large a diameter the rounds have. The power of the round comes from its shape, mass, and speed on impact.) and so I would have to send up resupply satellites refill the ammo I use. That way it would keep some people from using them all the time.

 

[Wyntyr]

Per the Vision Book, as long as a base has an Orbital Comm Tower players can call down orbital strikes of some sort.

 

[Pandagnome]

be a neat little option to swap view-points between yourself and your turrets and drones and see through them, whether it would be for exploration, recon or their iron-sight mod as you'd assume control of a specific one to utilize its maneuverability and fire-power to its full potential.

I really like this then it got me thinking say if there were enemies that had energy draining abilities so if the drones/turrets were at range it would be ineffective. The enemy would bring darkness as they move closer so the visual clue could be that you start noticing lights going off at a distance or hearing generators turning off then followed by the darkness that creeps closer .

Snipers could be the ideal solution with special ammo type and visors to see them to bleed their energy out, because firing at them normally would just feed them. Otherwise overloading them with a full force orbital strike could work but what if the enemy was huge it could absorb that energy and disperse it to the little shadowlings closeby making the mob even stronger!

 

[W.cheff]

So what if the turret was a way to give shelter to a frameless pilot? You slap a turret down and it's got passable but not good accuracy. Then one of you squad takes too big a hit and their frame goes down. Their back up frame is still 30 seconds out because of an earlier ambush, and enemy fire is just pouring in.

They run through the hail of bullets and exotic energy and take control of your turret providing them better firepower and protection till they can get back in the frame. This fight is still way to much for you anyway and the squad still wipes.

Back in town you're going over what went wrong, and how to better when Morgan pipes up "Anyone else see Francis make that dash for the turret? That shit was pretty tight."

Agreements all round.

 

[SomeUnregPunk]

So what if the turret was a way to give shelter to a frameless pilot? You slap a turret down and it's got passable but not good accuracy. Then one of you squad takes too big a hit and their frame goes down. Their back up frame is still 30 seconds out because of an earlier ambush, and enemy fire is just pouring in.

They run through the hail of bullets and exotic energy and take control of your turret providing them better firepower and protection till they can get back in the frame. This fight is still way to much for you anyway and the squad still wipes.

Back in town you're going over what went wrong, and how to better when Morgan pipes up "Anyone else see Francis make that dash for the turret? That shit was pretty tight."

Agreements all round.

oh, so not just a automated turret but a bunker as well for stranded pilots. Good idea.

Titanfall 2 kinda of has that. If you lose your mech, you can use the enviroment to hide out while also taking shots at the enemies/big mecha.
This actually makes the combat feel better.

Really great idea.

 

[MattHunX]

oh, so not just a automated turret but a bunker as well for stranded pilots. Good idea.

Titanfall 2 kinda of has that. If you lose your mech, you can use the enviroment to hide out while also taking shots at the enemies/big mecha.
This actually makes the combat feel better.

Really great idea.

One specific heavy-build could have a turret latched onto the frame itself, giving it extra armor while it is on it. But, it could detach, be on 3-4-5-6-7-8 legs, or float around, act either autonomously (with the ability to follow basic orders, like attack, follow, reposition, guard...etc.) or control could be switched between it and ourselves. It could have such an arsenal of weaponry and abilities that it would effectively be another player. The heavy-frame it would detach from would still have considerable armor, perhaps not as strong as the average heavy-frame build. With it's main (and secondary) weapon still functional. It would have/need some limitations placed on its abilities and power-usage...etc. for balance's sake.

 

[Zoroastrian]

I love engineer classes. bastion was my favorite class in firefall because you could just put the turrets in wacky places and it would protect you. But I really love base building, so an engineer class that could, I don't know provide barriers like a Winston and Orisa, or walls like in Fortnite. I'd really love that. In my opinion, an engineer should also have traps, since the class usually revolves around defense, so just give an engineer a lot of utility. or like sub classes, maybe one has a symmetra shield generator/slows, maybe another one gives armor like torbjorn. I don't know, I just think overwatch did a great job with the abilities of their heroes that's why i'm quoting it so much lol

 

[MattHunX]

I love engineer classes. bastion was my favorite class in firefall because you could just put the turrets in wacky places and it would protect you. But I really love base building, so an engineer class that could, I don't know provide barriers like a Winston and Orisa, or walls like in Fortnite. I'd really love that. In my opinion, an engineer should also have traps, since the class usually revolves around defense, so just give an engineer a lot of utility. or like sub classes, maybe one has a symmetra shield generator/slows, maybe another one gives armor like torbjorn. I don't know, I just think overwatch did a great job with the abilities of their heroes that's why i'm quoting it so much lol

There should definitely be many branches/specialization the three basic frames and their roles could be developed towards. One light or medium frame could focus exclusively on traps and deployables that would turn the battlefield into a hazard-zone for the enemy. Also, some specialized builds could have the ability to call down - not an orbital strike - but a dispersal of mines (like in the old Command and Conquer Generals games), showering a designated area with landmines (which could have different properties - incendiary, cryogenic, acidic...etc.) that the enemy could run over, decimating their numbers or just heavily damaging, especially larger and slower ones, reducing all of their mobility for the remainder of the battle.

 

[Rocket]

Who didnt want these cool little guys? Another question is how to get them to work, i know of a way to overcome this is with a movement radius, i'll use the engineer class from Torchlight 2 as example, the mobile turret/heal pods for the Engineer moves quite fast, all bots it will move with the player and randomly move around, but, it will always be in around about a 4 meter radius of the player but can move freely.

Hopfully there will be a variety of turrets for em-8er than the traditional afk turret pawnage.

One thing faufau I didnt like is how you repair the turrets, as much as i'd like to be shooting the enemy in the face, i feel the pencil beam that repairs the turrets was bad, it of could also use an ability or a passive that heals al turrets in a close radius etc, like the dragonfly's HKM would to players.

The option of mobile turrets that surround and move with the player sounds good, at least in theory, but there would need to be a compromise in comparison to stationary turrets. Like much less health and/or damage. And stationary turrets would still need to be an option. Remember that the Bastion was an area denial frame. A fixed area. This was the compromise. Fixed, on a timer, and relatively soft. We had other frames for mobile area denial, like the Recluse Lingering Death Cloud, and other means for an Engineer to do active mobile area denial, like the sticky grenade launcher.

AFK turret pawnage however was never a thing. Show me an AFK video of anything better than a P1 Thumper, that didn't involve a location based platter of cheese or a squad of Bastions, and I'll eat my words. For anything involving real game-play, you had to be an active player. I mained a thumping orientated Bastion btw.

On your objection to repairing, I will take issue. It was the one thing that made turrets a non-passive play style. Yes, some people like to proclaim that they shouldn't exist because they play the game for you. Except that they don't if you don't look after them. You sure as hell couldn't AFK turret pawn with them. What did we have? Oh yes. Passives.

We had the Engineers Repairing Nanites that repaired 1% of health per second. Not that it really did much, as it existed more to define the intended archtype playstyle than add real substance. Better replaced by the Bastions 30% Damage Reduction (which they later switched IIRC) anyway. And we had Fortify, a non-passive HKM that repaired and supercharged turrets. Assuming you didn't choose the calldown heavy turret for a HKM. Beyond that, you repaired them. They didn't have to be your own turrets, just the nearest ones to you when the current wave subsided. Or you let them die and replaced them as they did.

Once again, passive repair abilities should be something that can be built into the turrets themselves as a world level earned upgrade. Beyond that, turret monkeys should need to actively maintain their turrets, because deployable turrets are as active a play-style as any other.

With this being a PvE focused game, I wouldn't mind less skill having builds here and there. There are some folks who, for whatever reason, aren't that skilled but want to play, don't wanna play the "skilled" game, or don't wanna play the "skilled" game right now. I like choices. Also Team Em-8ER HAS to have the mobile turret we didn't get to use in FF. Just sayin...

If we don't end up getting latency equalization, this won't even be a game of skill. It will be a game of ping first, youth second, skill third. A distant third unless they are going to have servers in all of the worlds quadrants. In which case deployable orientated frames will become an absolute necessity. And like you said, necessary anyway thanks to the need for inclusion of the widest possible player base.