Hidden ground turrets / bunkers?

[combatplus2]

Great game DT folks!

Some thoughts on the state of turrets and fixed defenses in general....

The subject of questionable ground turret effectiveness has come up a few times in this forum (e.g. low rate of fire and slow projectiles). I also think other main problems are that turrets are just too visible and vulnerable. Even when jammed, the're easy to spot by eye, and fairly easy to destroy (by AP rounds of any caliber, by artillery, or infantry). One of the first things a player learns is how to search-and-destroy them, to pick them off one by one.

The best use I can make of ground turrets is to line them up along a defensive ridgeline, and place them in radius of jammers on my side of the ridge. This gives them good concentration of fire, while not being too clustered and subject to wipeout by a single artillery strike. This can be coupled with an EMP strike on attacking AFVs, rendering them sitting ducks. But this seems to be the only effective application for ground turrets as they exist right now.

I'm imagining one or more of the following, which could spice up our fixed defense options:

1. "low-profile turrets": deployable turrets that keep the gun low, until an enemy AFV is vulnerable (say, either nearby or presenting an attractive side-shot opportunity). They rise, take a shot, and lower back to ground level, perhaps concealed by any grass / foliage. If they're also jammed, they could be wonderfully frustrating to try to defeat.

2. Fixed pillboxes: (for some scenarios) Maybe set into a hillside or otherwise well concealed, hardened and nearly impervious to mortars. You'd have to fire an ion or well-placed shell into the firing slit, or get infantry to flank it or drop in from above to take it out.

3. Hidden bunkers: containing infantry ready to ambush?

These are admittedly WW2 inspired, hardly sci-fi, but would open up more devious defense strategies for the defender. I'm not suggesting tunnels or actual below-ground movement, just tougher and more ambush-capable fixed defenses.

I'm not so worried about toughening AA turrets, for the sake of game balance.

Finally, just wanted to complement the developers, Clay and all, on an impressive game - especially on their receptiveness to feedback and very frequent updates! Keep up the fine work...

[Alexander SquidLord Williams]

I find its really hard to deploy ground turrets and to keep them anything like concealed. You'd think they'd be the ultimate exemplars of "hull-down," but no ... they pop like candy in the microwave from anything that wants to reach out and touch them.

Maybe Ground Turrets, when dropped from drop pods as they will now, should "dig in" a bit harder, throwing up a ring of crater wall and peeking just slightly over it. This would certainly make them effective from a defensive point of view, but also provides hollows for firing positions for infantry, Shrikes, and maybe Paladins, tucked just so.

[Jack Carr]

If you keep in mind the game's time element, then the relative ease with which these bot guns can be destroyed makes sense. The opposing team will lose vehicles to these guns during the early going, but over time, the nuisance guns will be targeted and destroyed, taking up valuable time and firepower resources to do so. This process usually eats up the first five minutes of the game clock, and in this game, time is precious, so the guns minor impact is not that minor after all, considering that most of the scenarios on the server run for about 23-25 minutes after the deployment phase has ended.

In my opinion, what these scenarios would benefit from would be a longer deployment phase. This way players would have more time to figure out where to place the guns for maximum effect. Well placed bot guns and minefields can eat up so much of an opposing teams time, that they end up being the difference between whether a team wins or loses the game. I think I'm stating the obvious here.

[combatplus2]

Well, point taken that plasma turrets are "nuisance guns" which mainly serve to burn up some of the attacker's precious time. And that even makes some sense if deployable turrets are truly "cheap" in the DT universe. It just seems to me that if a defender had some WW2 German 88's in their arsenal, they wouldn't bother much with plasma turrets. The 88 would be more concealable, serve AA, AP and AT roles, and would fire faster and more deadly projectiles.

Yes the current plasma turrets do _some_ good for the defender, but it would be still cool to have fixed defenses that enable you to set a proper ambush!

[Jack Carr]

I often select the 76mm armed Paladin in CTF games for its speed. I find that it's one of the best vehicles for dashing in, grabbing the flag, and dashing out before getting hit by the defender's Thors and bot guns. But anyone who has tried this type of a "mad dash" early in the game knows how hard it is. Almost without fail, this tactic results in a few dead Paladins.

Early on, I am often hit by those slow moving pink plasma balls shot from the ground turrets because I am too preoccupied trying to avoid the 120mm AP rounds from the Thors.

You would think that shots that move that slow would be easy to avoid, but when you add everything else into the mix, suddenly it's not so easy. I think it's neat the way those guns lead a fast moving target. It forces the "mad dasher" to swerve and potentially lose control of their fast-moving vehicle. Everyone knows that holding a fast turn for too long with the odd gravity results in a flipped and damaged vehicle. And when your surrounded by Thors in an enemy flag zone, a flipped and damaged vehicle soon becomes a dead vehicle.