Emplacement Effectiveness and Use

[yllamana]

I thought it'd be good to discuss a topic dear to my heart: turrets.

Has anyone found any way to use turrets? So far I've established two main uses for turrets:

- annoying the enemy by restricting drop area for a short time before the turret is destroyed;

- adding a limited amount of automated defence to the inside of a fort.

Anytime they're used outside those roles, they seem to just get killed by long-ranged fire of pretty much anything. AA guns are great, but their range is very limited. AG guns have great range, but they're totally ineffective at actually hitting anything beyond about 100m. Even slow-moving vehicles they miss every time, and weapon impacts don't usually seem to be catastrophic.

I've tried hiding them in holes and tried covering them with sensor jammers, but they just get killed by direct fire from tanks. Tried hiding them behind hills, same deal, except with the hiding you're likely to get gaps in AA coverage that the AI will exploit ruthlessly to get a dozen points from turret kills.

Also, they're quite vulnerable to indirect fire when anyone bothers with that.

So has anyone managed to use these successfully before? If so, what for? So far my experience of them is that they're mild nuisances at best, and not worth deploying because they're worth just as much as an enemy tank if killed.

Maybe the AG ones would be worth a little more in the objective scenario, where the fort is more important, but I still can't see them lasting in the face of indirect fire on the fort at all.

Sensors and jammers seem to suffer from a similar problem. If they're placed, they just get killed and become a free point with very little coming from their use. The best use for jammers that I've found is to drop them in the middle of a fort, since they cover the whole thing from there. Apart from that, though, their tiny range combined with gigantic size makes them easy pickings for enemies. I haven't really found a use for sensors as their range is so small and they're so obvious to the eye.

The Cutter is fun (and taking the forts is very, very useful especially on ice map) but I'm having trouble seeing the digging as very useful simply because of the huge amount of time it takes to dig. By the time you've made any kind of useful fortification, probably 8 minutes of the map are gone, and you could have been doing something more meaningful in that time instead.

Does anyone have any observations of these things? Maybe some of the developers could shed some light on it.

[Sgt.GIJOE]

its official to me. the gun towers are the most annoying thing I had came across. All I have to say is try hitting a tank that under an active Anti-Air tower

[weasello]

I love/hate turrets.

AA turrets are perfect, I think. Range is just right, quantity available just right, power and effectiveness just right. They force people to land away from them, but they're still easily destroyed by lasers and shells. (the effectively disable all artillery and missles, which RULES) I also like how it can force your opponents to land at a certain area of the map - at least, in the early stages, before they can destroy some of the others.

The ground turrets, though, need something like homing plasma balls to be effective. They simply don't hit anything. I used to freak out and blow them up as soon as I saw them, but even when driving my slow EMV van I just ignore them nowadays.

[PseudoSimonds]

Originally posted by Sgt.GIJOE:

its official to me. the gun towers are the most annoying thing I had came across. All I have to say is try hitting a tank that under an active Anti-Air tower

It can be done with some coordination. I was camping like a bastard (with a Hurricane) next to a tower with a few extra AA and ground turrets for protection. I was having fun until 4 AI players dropped in at a distance and started blazing away at me. I died pretty quickly.

[yllamana]

Originally posted by Sgt.GIJOE:

its official to me. the gun towers are the most annoying thing I had came across. All I have to say is try hitting a tank that under an active Anti-Air tower

Unless I'm mistaken, only the prebuilt AA installations do this (and then it's only the prebuilt beam AA installation, but that's okay because the missile installation is a lot better at actually shooting things down). As far as I can see the others don't do this at all (and as they drop like flies to ATGMs that seems to be supported).

Can someone clear this up? I'm pretty sure I'm right in this case. Would write more but I have to go.

[RIPper_SVK]

when i played the "ice" map, at least one ground turret was amazingly good at shooting down dropships. one bot insisted on droping on the same spot again and again, and the ground turret killed it again and again....i don't know how did the other turrets fare, though i placed a lot of ground turrets in the map.

[yllamana]

Originally posted by weasello:

AA turrets are perfect, I think. Range is just right, quantity available just right, power and effectiveness just right. They force people to land away from them, but they're still easily destroyed by lasers and shells. (the effectively disable all artillery and missles, which RULES) I also like how it can force your opponents to land at a certain area of the map - at least, in the early stages, before they can destroy some of the others.

They're okay as throw-away AA cover, in my experience, but they give a full point when killed. If you have a close game between a turret-happy team and one that doesn't deploy turrets at all, the one without turrets wins, simply because they get free points from the throw-away turrets.

Also, I'm talking about the dropped AA turrets, not the AA ion beam emplacements, which are much more useful. No problem at all with those things.

Originally posted by RIPper_SVK:

when i played the "ice" map, at least one ground turret was amazingly good at shooting down dropships. one bot insisted on droping on the same spot again and again, and the ground turret killed it again and again....i don't know how did the other turrets fare, though i placed a lot of ground turrets in the map.

Usually the bots will avoid deploying in the AA cover area, though sometimes they get stupid and you get a kill. The problem is, that kill is bought at the price of the other dozen AA guns you have on the map, which probably won't kill anything but are very easy to kill themselves.

Also, the bots love deploying at the edge of the air cover and going on a turret killing spree.

I'm not saying the turrets are totally useless in all circumstances. I'm just saying that in my experience they're about a quarter the effectiveness they'd need to be worth that point they give when they die. I was wondering if anyone else had better ideas for using them.

One thing I do sometimes is drop turrets around the enemy flag area if our team takes it. That can help a bit, though the turrets usually die in short order anyway.

It's occurred to me to try and dig very substantial trenches so that the turrets can't be hit by direct fire from more than 300m or so, but that would take a fair while and seems like more bother than they're even worth (why not just put whoever is driving the Cutter in an AAA/EWV paladin instead?).

[Netherby]

Deployable AA turrets do NOT shoot ATGMs or Mortar shells, they will not target them.. ATGMs and Mortars are the main things that kill them!

You must be thinking of the Ion Beam emplacements that can be captured..

[RIPper_SVK]

Originally posted by yllamana:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by RIPper_SVK:

when i played the "ice" map, at least one ground turret was amazingly good at shooting down dropships. one bot insisted on droping on the same spot again and again, and the ground turret killed it again and again....i don't know how did the other turrets fare, though i placed a lot of ground turrets in the map.

Usually the bots will avoid deploying in the AA cover area, though sometimes they get stupid and you get a kill. The problem is, that kill is bought at the price of the other dozen AA guns you have on the map, which probably won't kill anything but are very easy to kill themselves.

[/QB]</font>

[Drusus]

Might it be that somebody gave the AI an order to drop inside the red area? If the AI continues to drop in the danger zone after being killed multiple times, it might be considered a bug...

[RIPper_SVK]

no it wasn't in the red area, in was in the NW part of the icy map. only my turret was shooting at the dropship

[Grappler]

The AI does in fact avoid AA, unless like you say, someone directs an AI to drop at a specific location.

[yllamana]

Having fought against turrets a bit more now, a few more thoughts on them:

AA turrets can back up an assault by preventing enemies from dropping in nearby during the fight (e.g. reinforcements from destroyed vehicles). With jammers as backup their positions aren't obvious when scattered around a fortification. They can be easily destroyed by enemy forces who get LoS on them, but they may make a difference in the meantime.

AG turret fire, significantly, makes the views of vehicles they pass shake strongly (sensor distortion?). It occurs that, while they can't hit anything worth beans, the view shaking could easily be the deciding factor in a battle between two tanks.

Obvious problem with this is the turret requires babysitting to be effective at all in this scenario (as friendly armour is relied on to do the damage while the turret suppresses the enemy) and the turret can be easily killed before its shots arrive at the target and start disrupting their fire.

It also turns out that 10mm ion beam is an unstoppable destructive force against turrets from any range and regardless of any point defence available.

Suggestion: are the bots suppressed effectively by passing turret plasma bolts? If not then this would be a good feature to add, as it seems to be the main danger of the AG turrets at present (and where it works, it's definitely potent - AG turrets should probably be priority targets for anyone).

Another use could be dropping them around the objective to support an advance, like the AA turrets, though this requires the enemy to be heavily suppressed (to prevent untimely dropship death) and lacking any AA assets of their own.

Also noted was that EMP appears not to affect turrets or prebuilt emplacement towers. They seem to fire as normal while in the effect. Unsure if this is a bug or a feature. (thought: what's EMP do to dropships?)

Interesting stuff though.

[Netherby]

Originally posted by Grappler:

The AI does in fact avoid AA, unless like you say, someone directs an AI to drop at a specific location.

I believe the problem is that drop orders given on previous maps are still followed on the next map, but without any way points shown or the bot actually displaying those orders if you select them..

So if that location happens to be inside AA radius on the next map, the bot will continue to drop in that location until the supply of that vehicle type is exhausted or they are given new orders..

They will most certainly drop over and over and over into AA fire with no visible orders, we have seen it lots of times and I think this could be the cause!

[Battlefront.com]

Some suggestions...

You have a lot more control of turret placement during Deployment prior to the start of the game. Use this time wisely to make your most crafty placements. During the game you will not have the same opportunities since DropShips aren't assured to put it EXACTLY where you want it.

Place turrets "behind" something, not on top. It is tempting to place them on the crests of hills and what not, but they can be easily picked off at long range without doing any damage to the enemy.

On the icefield map there are lots of cracks. Place AA turrets in there during the Deployment phase. Later on with shell craters, put them in there. This protects them from direct ground fire and somewhat from indirect fire, yet still allows them good opportunities to nail dropships.

Limit the target range for ground turrets. As you all have noted, the speed of the shots is slow and fairly easy to dodge. Not so if the range is 50m!! This is why you guys have found them to be so effective in forts. It's the lack of reaction time that makes them so tough.

If you know the enemy is likely to come from a particular direction, place a ground turret on the opposite side of a hill or something. The enemy will then drive PAST the turret and get shot at from behind, usually resulting in a one hit kill. The enemy won't even know what hit him!

Protect crafty locations like I just mentioned with an AA turret. This way if the enemy tries to drop nearby to take out the turret from another angle, he'll find his dropship knocked out. In other words... boobytraps Works like a champ.

Understand that ALL turrets will die, however a turret's main job is to delay, confuse, or otherwise cause pain to the attacker. If it can do this then it doesn't matter if it gets blown up. Taking out enemy stuff is, IMHO, a bonus. Kinda like modern day machineguns and mines... their primary purpose is to denny the enemy certain things, not to cause him casualties.

One tip about the AA Towers... use Ion cannons to take out enemy stuff protected by the tower OR have a buddy pepper the crap out of the area with 20mm shots. The AA Towers can only shoot at so many things at once, so if it is busy going after 20mm shots then it is far less likely to nail a 120mm or ATGM. Not for sure, just less likely.

Steve

[Drusus]

While doing some testing playing single player against AI, trying to grab their flag, I noticed that AA turrets covering the corners of the map are really, really effective. This severly limits your opponents attack avenues. Also, I noticed that teamplay with the AI rocks. Give him Thor and make him advance, you take the Paladin with 20mm and blow up all those nasty Thors defending the enemy flag. Or if the enemy decides to go after you, then your bot friend will take out the enemy...

Also noticed something funny going on with the AI when it tried to follow my move commands. The fortification structure seemed to make it do stupid things. Also when I had the flag with me and I was using the EWV vehicle, the AI dropped atleast 5, propably closer to 10 ships right on top of me. Not wise.

BTW is it ok to run private servers? Or should all servers be public during the beta?

[yllamana]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Some suggestions...

You have a lot more control of turret placement during Deployment prior to the start of the game. Use this time wisely to make your most crafty placements. During the game you will not have the same opportunities since DropShips aren't assured to put it EXACTLY where you want it.

[Drusus]

I happen to think that the flag game is more fun. But only if you have a nice team to work with. The only thing I would like to be fixed is that there should be some points for getting the flag out of the enemy base, maybe based on distance taken from the base. Linear 20 points to the other base. And 80 points for the grab. The problem is that as it is now, it is _really_ hard to get a grab, as the enemy can see where you are going -> drop equipment in your way. Or maybe I just suck...

Yes, the points system might need a little tweaking. But I think they are already working on that...

[weasello]

ice level has lots of cracks

OH...

MY...

GAAAAAWD

I just logged into a server (judia ranch? maybe?) that had 5 people playing Raid. The ice level started up, and I spent the first 3 minutes placing combo Sensor Jammers/AA Turrets in several places on the map, all deep in crevasses and a few behind mountains and the ship wreckage.

As soon as the round started, holy cow it was like the fourth of July. Humans and bots alike trashed about 30 dropships worth of metal in a shower of sparks. I guess they couldn't see the AA radius on the map?

After a bit they found a clear patch and all started spawning in there.

Throughout the entire game, I had only lost the most obvious turrets, and I did not lose a single turret placed in a crevass!

Towards the end I started placing more turrets in the crater holes my hurricane was leaving. I guess a lot of good equipment was wasted in the initial launches and my following hurricane onslaught, as there was only 1 AFK human player at the end of the match.

I was excited, so I tried the same setup on the non-ice level playing CTF. I had the bottom left corner; I took a command vehicle this time and did a proper job of devoted defense. Instead of my regular "spam every square foot with a turret of some type," I did the exact same thing as the ice level - behind hills only, non-obvious positioning, first drop was always a sensor jammer. Defense was so good in my corner I told all my bots to rush the enemy flag, which eventually led to a counter-rush of about 5 or 6 human (!) players. Thankfully I was able to emp/strike/smoke my way through them and my returning bots flanked them with the flag in hand!

I even got a few kills in my command vehicle, and a few spars with a human or two that tried to sneak up around the west side of the mountain there.

I only lost one set of (seriously placed) turrets in this map, the most open set I created. I was even able to hold the center base (without capturing it) by strategically placing some turrets inside it. Those ground turrets really lay waste to people at close range!

It really truly is about smart placement and I no longer have any qualms with them.

My only real complaint is how the viewpoint in free-floating mode resets back to your command vehicle after you ctrl-d place an item.

[TallyHo]

greetings weasel. i cannot log in at the moment, so it has come to this.

t-ho.

woop.

[yllamana]

Originally posted by weasello:

My only real complaint is how the viewpoint in free-floating mode resets back to your command vehicle after you ctrl-d place an item.

I'm sure I'll run into your turret craziness sometime and see if it makes me reevaluate the turrets. I definitely agree with this line though. I'd love to see it changed so that the view didn't snap back when you place a turret (it's only a Tab away if I decide I want that view).