I usually play coop with my sons so now you know my style of play. I dont do PVP and only PVE. We like to raid bases a lot. The combat has improved a lot over the years but the one thing that still needs some major tweaking are the turret defenses. Im not talking about the small sentry turrets rather those large turrets the bases have. As my sons say: "They have aim bot". In general fighting those turrets on foot is very frustrating and breaks the immersion of the game. Yes I can dig up to their bases, and we do and is fun, and then I can try and find a way inside before I get sniped by a missile turret or some other turret but in general the turrets ruin the fun in the game for several reasons. We have no proper weapons to destroy them. Yes I can shoot around 30 rockets at one turret to destroy it but this is not fun. The reason why it is not fun is because I expect the turret to die after unloading 6 rockets at it and still the turret takes another 20 or so rockets to be destroyed. We need a way to destroy these turrets by foot that makes more sense. The turrets spin around too fast and lock on to your body almost instantly. These are massive structures. We should be able to hear gears and machines as the turret slowly turns. Doesn't have to be that slow either but at least not almost instantly. They look super unnatural. It feels extremely unnatural for these giant massive turrets to lock on to the player character. It would make sense for these massive turrets to be way less accurate against the player character on foot vs the player inside of a vehicle. The worst thing of all is those heat seeking rocket artillery turrets that lock on to you and one shot you as soon as you peek a corner, even when you are playing in easy mode. This experience is extremely frustrating and breaks the immersion of the game. And like I said on point 1, it takes so many rockets or explosives to destroy one of these things, it is unreal. In general Im not really complaining about the game being hard and challenging. I appreciate a challenge especially with the amount of loot you can get inside these bases. But the issue is the lack of a natural feel for these turrets. They are by far the major turn off in the game for me. If we want the raiding to be more of a challenge it should be done a different way. More foot soldiers, more traps. Larger squads of soldiers that counter attack you instead of these ungodly turrets.
I have no problem with people digging tunnels up to a POI and placing explosives on the side, or bottom of it, to gain entrance. It's a perfectly valid tactics that I have used in the past. As for the speed of the turrets, I don't imagine that these turrets are gear driven. In my imagination they are magnetically driven, so are quiet and quick. This is set in the future after all. I'm presuming that sensors in the future are quite good at picking up movement, so should be good at targeting. Enemy characters should not have the aim bot. The game would benefit a couple more difficulty settings. I'm sure someone will mention that you can change the number of hits a turret can take in the files, but the average player should not need to do this.
if you control the turrets yourself you can hear the gears moving. The turret also doesnt spin around instantly. This is the balance I would like to see in the enemy turrets. No instant auto-locking on an enemy and less accuracy for when they shoot at the player on foot vs when they lock on to a vehicle. Yeah your explanation makes sense but it still doesnt solve the fact that it is not very fun and seems way off balance. Granted Im sure there is that one rare person who finds it fun but I doubt this is the intended game mechanic. You can just peek around a corner and be instantly shot dead by a huge missile turret. You cant even hear the turrets rotating. It seems way off balance and unnatural. EDIT: There is no way that I can find that you can edit the health of turrets. You'd have to edit the damage of all your weapons and then that would affect all the other aspects of the game. I dont see an actual "Health" property in the config for the turrets. Such a bummer. I would have liked to make a mod that changes all the combat with turrets in the game.
The turrets should have 'Hitpoints'. It's been a bit since I've edited the files and forgot where to look, as I would have a look to see if I can help more. There are people on here who edit the files on a regular basis and they should be able to tell you where to look and what to change.
In general turrets are not meant to be fought on foot, they are base installations and should be fought with equivalent firepower, we do not have any equivalent to them in real life, the closest would be the missile defense system Phalanx CIWS and if it was meant to shoot soldiers, they'd be dead long before they could even see it so yeah, no way they could get close enough to fire a rocket at it Turrets are meant to fight ships and tanks so their hitpoints need to be in accordance to that, you would not try and destroy a warship cannon on foot either On the other hand sentries are meant to fight soldiers and those you can destroy easy, as for the speed of the turrets, there are countless other people complaining they are not fast enough as is That said, there are in fact easy ways to counter turrets on foot, just use a bike to ride fast towards the turret avoiding being hit, just don't drive in a straight line, once under it you can place explosive charges undisturbed
For turret's health you can check for this line in the BlocksConfig.ecf : HitPoints: 3450, type: int, display: true "Hitpoints" is a common term used in RPGs and dates back to the first Dungeons & Dragons game. It means "total of points that we subtract damage from when getting hit". For turret rotation speed check for this line : RotSpeed: 150, type: int, display: true Not all turrets have all parameters, because some of them use the same as the turret category they are derived from. When you see this line : { +Block Id: 283, Name: TurretMSMinigunRetract, Ref: TurretTemplate The "Ref:" part shows the "parent" turret where the missing parameters can be adjusted. Then we can also adjust the speed of (some) projectiles, and also damage, range, etc. To access all parameters that can be edited for any turret, we have to also look in the ItemsConfig.ecf. As an example, for the following turret in BlocksConfig.ecf : { +Block Id: 701, Name: TurretBasePlasma ... if we look down in the various parameters, we can see this line : WeaponItem: TurretBasePlasmaWeapon This is the name of the "weapon" part of the turret which can be found in the ItensConfig.ecf file. This is where we can find the other adjustable parameters and what ammunition that turret uses, so we can also adjust this in the same ItemsConfig.ecf file. .
I understand your argument though I still think this is a not a good experience. For example, I can fly near a base and be one shot out of the sky by a missile turret. That same turret I can fire 4 rockets at it, and only tickle it's life. With your phalanx example, a soldier approaching it from a concealed area could hit the phalanx from a good distance with a rocket. It would be a lot of fun if the player had the tools to take out the "anti-air" while on foot and then signal for an airstrike. Problem is that the turret ai is so basic it has no way to distinguish between what is flying and has a very large signal on the radar, vs the smallest bacteria on the ground. The rotation on the turrets is buggy too. Sometimes the turret will rotate as expected but other times the turrets just snap and lock on instantly without even rotating. I have seen turrets tracking me while I move behind cover only to immediately one shot me the moment my pinky toe nail passes the corner. The player controlled turrets make sound when rotating. I can hear the gears turning. Meanwhile the ai controlled turrets are completely silent. It is terrible guys. This game mechanic needs refinement if not some reworking. sigh...
