Turret Command Configuration

Board Index » X3: Albion Prelude » Turret Command Configuration

Instruguey (13)

Posted 11 years ago.

Hello everyone,

It's good to talk about one of the most powerful combat tactics in the X-Universe ever, turret command and the new "Turret Command Configuration" advanced feature in X3-AP, that can improve combat capabilities much more than ever before! For previous games, flying capital ships wasn't as much fun as it is now in AP.

First you can enable Automatic Laser Switching for different turret commands. This is extremely useful especially for capital ships, since most of capital ship turrets can support a number of different lasers while having a large number of laser bays, so its not reasonable to manually install/uninstall or change installed weapons for many turrets every time we should do for better combat advantage. This is a wonderful new feature in the game.

And also we can configure each turret command for our preference, plus we can set up some additional custom turret commands. Below is some useful info.

Together with the powerful "Missile Defence Mosquito" feature (found in Bonus Pack), all this could indeed influence the overall power and efficiency of our fighters, wings, fleets and capital ships and also enhance the safety of our many freighters and transporters.

I shall also say, the new enhanced missile characteristics and efficiency is also a wonderful improvement.

Note: To configure turret command configurations: [Options > Gameplay > Turret Command Configuration (Advanced Gameplay Settings section)]

Now let me show some of which I've spent some time thinking (and testing) what could be a very effective turret configurations (I hope its useful):

Turret: Attack My Target
    1. Attack my cockpit target
        Only turrets on my personal ship will do this
    2. Attack any enemies while the ship is using an attack command

    Automatic Laser Switching: All ships may switch lasers
    Allow area effect lasers: Yes

Turret: Attack Fighters
    1. Attack fighters
    2. Protect the ship. Attack anything that attacks it.
    3. Turret attacks what the ship is attacking

    Automatic Laser Switching: Disabled

Turret: Attack Capitals
    1. Attack capital ships (M6 and bigger)
    2. Turret attacks what the ship is attacking
    3. Protect the ship. Attack anything that attacks it.
    4. Attack fighters

    Automatic Laser Switching: Capital ships may switch lasers
    Allow area effect lasers: Yes

Turret: Attack Enemies
    1. Protect the ship. Attack anything that attacks it.
    2. Missile defence
    3. Turret attacks what the ship is attacking
    4. Attack any enemies

    Automatic Laser Switching: All ships may switch lasers
    Allow area effect lasers: Yes

Turret: Missile Defence
    1. Missile defence
    2. Protect the ship. Attack anything that attacks it.
    2. Attack any enemies while the ship is using an attack command

    Automatic Laser Switching: Disabled

Turret: Missiles Only
    1. Missile defence

    Automatic Laser Switching: Disabled

Turret: Protect Ship
    1. Protect the ship. Attack anything that attacks it.
    2. Turret attacks what the ship is attacking

    Automatic Laser Switching: Disabled

Turret Command Alpha
    1. Missile defence
    2. Attack fighters
    3. Protect the ship. Attack anything that attacks it.
    4. Turret attacks what the ship is attacking

    Automatic Laser Switching: All ships may switch lasers
    Allow area effect lasers: Yes

Turret Command Beta =~ (Attack Capitals + Missile Defence rather than Fighter Defence)
    1. Missile defence
    2. Attack capital ships (M6 and bigger)
    3. Protect the ship. Attack anything that attacks it.
    4. Turret attacks what the ship is attacking

    Automatic Laser Switching: Capital ships may switch lasers
    Allow area effect lasers: No

Turret Command Gamma =~ (Attack Capitals + Show Enemies the true meaning of firepower Angry

)
    1. Attack capital ships (M7 and bigger)
    2. Attack capital ships (M6 and bigger)
    3. Attack fighters

    Automatic Laser Switching: Capital ships may switch lasers
    Allow area effect lasers: Yes

Not sure about what are the "Area Effect Lasers", but i think they are:
    Flak Artillery Array
    Cluster Flak Array
    Starburst Shockwave Cannon
    Phased Shockwave Generator
    Plasma Burst Generator

Note that I didn't use "Missile defence" Priority in every single turret command for some reasons, not always the best to do so, some turret commands should be optimized some other way (e.g focus on specific targets and let the missile defense for the other turrets in addition to the Missile Defence Mosquito) for better effectiveness.

Also note that the Missile Defence version of, for example, "Turret: Attack Fighters" (i.e Turret Command Alpha) in this post, is not always the best choice in all situations, we can rather combine between the two versions (command some turrets one command version, command the other turrets the other version if that could be better) for best results, also the 2nd one in this example enables Automatic Laser Switching.

If anyone could help me share his helpful comments regarding turrets, lasers and missiles, I'd be grateful, any ideas, thanks.

And thanks Roguey for this nice site, and by the way I'm a new user and this is my first post, I also wish to upload (but can't promise) some nice videos (mostly Combat-Boarding ones) but the problem now is I can't record my gameplay (don't have a suitable program for that), any tips, thanks again...

It does not matter what we were in the past but what we are now, what we do and what we are going to be, our destiny.

Roguey

Trueguey (22)

Posted 11 years ago.

Note that i didn't use "Missile defence" Priority in every single turret command for some reasons, not always the best to do so, some turret commands should be optimized some other way (e.g focus on specific targets) for better effectiveness, not to mention the "Missile Defence Mosquito".

If you dont use the bonus pack (kind-of strange its not included part of the game) then you pretty much need to assign Missile defence to most turret configs, due to the amount of missile in X3AP. Missiles have become more of a problem than actual laser fire now Confused

Inc..Inc.... Incom.. I.. Inc... Incoming... Inc. Incoming missile

Doesnt help that this volley of missiles effects both the little ships and large ships. If a M7M turns up, there isnt much a ship can do without Missile Defence Mosquito. A M1/2 cant simply tank the missiles either. This missile stuff really put me off the combat of X3AP, its not fun having hundreds of missiles thrown at you: it can make a M2 seem weak. All you need to do is get a M7M fill-it with couple of hundred missiles, then go wipe-out a sector... okay.. maybe a M7M cant hold a 400/500 hundred missiles, but you could always have a few TS's/Aran acting as missile re-filler.

at one point the M8's were firing so many missiles, my Megalodon couldnt survive (here), although this was patched some-what.

I really think that ego should of given capital ships some better counter-measures against missiles.

---

ps. welcome to the site Wave

Raptor

Instruguey (13)

Posted 11 years ago.

Let me give an example:

Lets say you have an M7 Cerberus, using the above turret configurations, you can (for example) set the up and down turrets to "Turret Command Alpha", and the right and left turrets to "Turret Command Beta" and the back turret to "Turret: Attack Enemies". Yes its somewhat complicated, and that's why I have tried to post such a topic to help save time.

And as you said, ships like M7Ms indeed should use Missile Defence Mosquito (plus the Hit and Run tactics, activate the Jumpdrive/Unfocused-JD and once your shields have recharged return back (if you insist) and strike again!, but for Boarding, you should rather have some Escorts as a backup).

And for M1 and M2, let me give another example:

Lets say you have an M2+ Megalodon, then you may need to set (using the above turret configurations) the front turret to "Turret: Attack My Target", right and left turrets to "Turret Command Beta", up and down turrets to "Turret Command Alpha" and the back turret to "Turret: Attack Enemies".

I hope this is somewhat useful.

I've also saw the link you provided, as you talk about "Fix needed for M8's" i shall say,

The reason why that M8 (in your post) is so aggressive, is that, first, it may be a Rapid Response ship and usually Rapid Response ships, you know, is the most aggressive ships (fully equipped, upgraded, loaded ...etc). In addition to that, the M8, you know, is one of the ships that can barrage missiles (in this case, the deadly Tomahawk Heavy Missile).

However, I have one solution for this problem:
Use "Area Effect Lasers" (as mentioned above), they are perfect choice for dealing with missile defences. In addition to the techniques in the previous examples.

It does not matter what we were in the past but what we are now, what we do and what we are going to be, our destiny.

Roguey

Trueguey (22)

Posted 11 years ago.

The reason why that M8 (in your post) is so aggressive, is that, first, it is a Rapid Response ship (as it seems to be) and usually Rapid Response ships is the most aggressive ships (fully equipped, upgraded, loaded ...etc) the races have, simply because they have to protect their own race at all costs!
- Raptor

True, but when a 7 million credit ship can easily wipe out a 128 million ship, something isnt right. All the big ship could do is run scared.

Use "Area Effect Lasers" (as mentioned above), they are perfect choice for dealing with missile defences. In addition to the techniques in the previous examples.

I guess, but it seems odd - mixing a short range with a long range weapons. Your get a short-ranged weapon firing every time a long range weapon fires (plus the turret will move very slowly). I guess if capitals had more than 6 turrets things would be much better. I guess this is the biggest problem in the x-games now. Since there are so many missiles, capitals need better counter-measures. Normally a capital ship would have lots of turrets (say like 50-100+), so 6 is kind-of low. Its not enough.

However for smaller ships, things are much better like the M6/7 etc. The 1-4 turrets makes sense and with some good planning these ships can be rather good. Turret command can make good use of those turrets.

I dont mean to be argumentative; im just pointing out that capital ships have a rough time. Turret command can help a bit, but there isnt an ideal solution for them. Basically 6 turrets isnt enough.

Raptor

Instruguey (13)

Posted 11 years ago.

True, but when a 7 million credit ship can easily wipe out a 128 million ship, something isnt right. All the big ship could do is run scared.
- Roguey

You want to put M8 vs. M2 ?!! Gladiator vs. Megalodon?! Lets see:
The Gladiator can barrage Tomahawks on the Megalodon yes, but this does not threaten the Megalodon that much... Let me show how:

You know that the Megalodon can support the "Flak Artillery Array" in four powerful turrets! and/or "Cluster Flak Array" in two turrets (and that's more than enough for a powerful missile defence system), along with the "Automatic Laser Switching", so the Megalodon can defend itself against such threats, am i right?

And also note (by the way) that the ATF-USC capital ships (as one of the most powerful ships) can support the "Starburst Shockwave Cannon" for what?... of course you know, for missile defence and fighter defence.

I guess, but it seems odd - mixing a short range with a long range weapons. Your get a short-ranged weapon firing every time a long range weapon fires (plus the turret will move very slowly).

If you allow me..., you don't mix lasers manually for this type of turrets (this is exactly what I'm talking about in this topic), you let the turret do that automatically for you by assigning a "Turret Command" that include "Automatic Laser Switching" (and "Allow area effect lasers" for missile and fighter defences).

That means that the turret will automatically switch 'temporarily' to "Flak Artillery Arrays" (for example) to deal with the incoming missiles and then switch to another laser to deal with another target and so on... That's why I said before that "Automatic Laser Switching" is a wonderful new feature in the game.

Turret command can help a bit, but there isnt an ideal solution for them.

Yes, the list above is just "Save your time and try these...", it helps the ones who don't want to think so much of them, as I said I've spent some time to suggest just a version of these Turret Command Configurations and I wanted to help.

It does not matter what we were in the past but what we are now, what we do and what we are going to be, our destiny.

Roguey

Trueguey (22)

Posted 11 years ago.

Ah, I never tried 'Automatic Laser switching' as I was a bit worried it picking the wrong weapon, at the wrong time. The autopilot AI isnt exactly showcasing AI intelligence. However it does suggest it can switch correctly and maybe its something I should of tried more. I could just imagine it switching to a AOF weapon and flaming an ally by mistake. Does that happen every often?

Hopefully these questions will help someone else Smile

I still think its a bit messy (switching weapons in mid-combat) - I guess its ego's way of trying to get more guns into a pre-set limited of turrets/gun mounts. Hopefully things like this are 'temporary' fixes and wont appear in Rebirth.

Raptor

Instruguey (13)

Posted 11 years ago.

Yeah you are right, yes, I agree. So it seems that AI might not work well with the Player but it works better with the NPCs! (maybe because NPCs have something like automatic command switching in addition to automatic laser switching) read below:

Today, I tried to attack a Pirate Brigantine using a Gladiator (60 Tomahawk Heavy Missiles in the cargo), I barraged the Brigantine with all the 60 Missiles! efficiently and guess what...? no any missile hit the target!!

If you wish to try this yourself you will see. However, I tried to attack another target, a Yaki Akuma, and this time it didn't survive the barrages but most of the missiles... didn't hit the target.

What these NPC ships do is that they do use their turrets more effectively than the Player!

Anyway I'm very pleased for your replies Roguey thanks... Smile

It does not matter what we were in the past but what we are now, what we do and what we are going to be, our destiny.

Roguey

Trueguey (22)

Posted 11 years ago.

I guess it depends on which lasers the script picks. If it gets it wrong then missiles get through, but another time they may not. I think this is what I meant about laser-switching: its taking one thing out-of the player's hand. Which can lead to random results (due to the AI).

However being so limited by turret numbers, I guess we need to rely on switching to get more from a ship, otherwise we cant counter missiles as well (like AI ships). I hope your guide helps people with that.

I guess to do it without switching, we would need each laser in a turret, as a single turret on its own. I personally dont like a game taking away control from me, so why I normally disable it.

I guess what egso could have done was to give each ship missile slots (like the M7M but being separate, and not taking away from laser turrets). This would make sense, has many ship simply fire a missile from the middle of the ship. However if each ship had missile slots, then they could vary the missile launchers for each ship. Some could fire from the rear, some from the front etc. However if these were 'missile turrets' then I guess we could setup them up as missile defence and not need weapon switching as much. However this could give us like 12 turrets then (6 laser, 6 missile).

XeNoN

Instruguey (13)

Posted 11 years ago.

Raptor@
You can install Smart Turrent's. Its a script based turret command which is awesome, also it doesnt require of you to set your game to modified at Cycrows Plugin menager Smile

.
EDIT: If you want to record your gameplay, try using Fraps, also for video editing try:
Either Sony Vegas or Adobe After Effects.

In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him.

-Andrew Ender Wiggin

Raptor

Instruguey (13)

Posted 11 years ago.

Oh..XeNoN! thanks a lot for your help, I should try those. Smile

It does not matter what we were in the past but what we are now, what we do and what we are going to be, our destiny.

Morcain

Fightguey (6)

Posted 10 years ago.

True, but when a 7 million credit ship can easily wipe out a 128 million ship, something isnt right. All the big ship could do is run scared.

- Roguey

True, although that's not really that unusual when talking about war/fighting, 10 little guys can almost always take down 1 big guy, 3 guys with 1000$ (no actual idea of how much a RPG+ammo cost) RPG's can almost always at least disable a 20M Tank. same with stingers vs planes, economical nightmare for the strategists >=)

Sorry about ress'ing this kinda old thread.

I did have some questions though, I wondered if you had the original turrent set-ups handy for copy/pasting Raptor, (at work right now so can't look, Shhhh!) I mean, are the regular turrent commands also divided into 'jobs' like that? I remember reading that the protect ship turrent command tended to cause the turrent to obsess about one target to the exclusion of every other target.

Nice post, I'm going to play around with it some when I get home, oh, right...hmms..no never mind..prolly going to need MARS for that and I'm playing un-modified until I can get the DID plot achiev

Raptor

Instruguey (13)

Posted 10 years ago.

Hi Morcain, first... these turret command configurations I provided above aren't perfect, but since they took time from me to set them up so as to perform efficiently, I thought it could be quite useful for those who don't bother wasting time configuring those turret commands, themselves.

I wondered if you had the original turret set-ups handy for copy/pasting Raptor... I mean, are the regular turret commands also divided into 'jobs' like that? I remember reading that the protect ship turret command tended to cause the turret to obsess about one target to the exclusion of every other target

Sorry but I don't know how to copy/paste these configurations for quick use, I'm no expert at scripting. But you can set them up manually, it could take maybe 5-10 minutes. Configuring the commands alters the default behavior of the turrets and you can reset them to the default settings if you wish.

For using scripts, I just installed the 'Smart Turrets' script yesterday, what a coincidence. Smart Turrets is very wonderful indeed, and as XeNoN said it can be used without modifying the game though I didn't tested if it modifies the game or not as I'm already playing a modified game. This script also provides the ability to enable automatic laser switching for the main guns! very handy. Nod

Also Smart Turrets adds to the vanilla turret commands, so using those turret configurations in addition to the Smart Turrets is an ultimate control over turrets. Smile

I can't comment on MARS, I simply haven't tried it. But I can tell, Smart Turrets are so nice choice. Smile

It does not matter what we were in the past but what we are now, what we do and what we are going to be, our destiny.

RandomTank

RandomTank avatar

Assoguey (17)

Posted 10 years ago.

Smart turrets is very useful, as how it chooses the weapon is very clever (prioritising high bullet speed weapons for fast ships, highest DPS weapons for that range bracket and low energy usage weapons for when the reactor is low); one great thing it does is on M2s it will use PPCs to deplete shields with the higher DPS, and then switch to GCs for depleting the hull as they have much higher hull DPS!

Another great thing with Smart Turrets is the Smart: Main Guns command, which is great for your fighters as they will use HEPTs against the big stuff, and then switch to PBGs for tackling M4s and such, and then switch to MDs when the Gen is low! It's fantastic, I've used that mod for ages!!!

I will be the one to take you down!

Morcain

Fightguey (6)

Posted 10 years ago.

thanks =)

On another note, loaded a 'found' Viper with 60 Tomahawks last night, went down to Duke citadel and found me a ..big ship..umm...Odyssevs or some such, thought I'd check out two theories at once, the shoot and scoot theory (no rep loss if you transfer to another ship and jump out the barrager), and the overpowered missile thing, sooo...ohh btw, why does the viper barrage 2 missiles when I choose barrage all? (tomahawks was choosen, number of barrages, All) ahem, after that hickup i managed to barrage the other 58 missiles in short order, thinking right..it'll probably destroy the ares I got to obsess about, too but hey, I can always reload....waiting for the booms..then...boom...1 boom..60 tomahawks, 1 -one- got through../sulk/disbelief/

Now, the whole shoot and scoot thing dropped totally from my mind, this p'nid wasn't going to diss my Viper like dat! Reload, call in Angel Descending (cheesy yes...my marine dispenser who also carries a rather lot of fighting drones) and offload 40 fighting drones, 60 tomahawks on the way and send in the drones (20k away from target) waaaait...wait wait..wth? there's no drones left? This time no tomahawks got through. hrms...ok, a timing problem..aaaanyway..lessons learned..NPC warships do practice turrent swapping, you can get through with sufficient distractions, in this case me in my Hyp, 10 mk2 drones, 20 mk1 drones 20 tomahawks barraged, enough of them hit that the p'nid had 13% shields left. (not for long >=)

Got my Ares, had to launch marines myself, still having some teething problems with the piracy command on the Angel, it tend to drop only 8 marines for some reason, and usually behind the target (and I seriously suck at pulling the target through the marine cloud.

Phew..sorry bout the wallotext

RandomTank

RandomTank avatar

Assoguey (17)

Posted 10 years ago.

Was the Odysseus/Zeus using PSGs? They are known to use them often and I'm surprised as many as 1 Tomohawk got through if it was...

Yeah, you'll find that some ships are a helluva lot better at shooting missiles down than others, M1s tend to be quite good as they mount very few Anti-Capitol weapons (which are pretty bad at popping missiles), meaning they just fill the air with PRG or CIG fire to knock out most/all missiles locked onto them. Terran ships are generally worse at shooting missiles down as their weapons are lower ROF and their turret coverage is sometimes very bad (looking at you Kyoto), meaning that a well stocked Auster will easily take on 3 Osakas if it stays out of range! Also, it's a good idea to use the method I said in another post: on bombers it's best to use the Attack: Capitol Ships command on the missile turret, as the bomber will automatically launch the exact amount of missiles to kill its target + a couple of extras, and will not shoot any more until all the previous warheads have detonated (whether it was a hit or it was shot down), which saves an awful lot of missiles and means you don't have to keep giving it orders; I've tested this up to about 30km, meaning it works at very longe range, but I don't know the maximum...

For knocking out most Capitol ships, send a few swarm missiles (wasps or flails are great for this) along with the missiles or (as you did) a few fighter drones, 5-10 Mk1s will suffice; this just distracts their turrets allowing the slower missiles to get through. Against a target with PSGs... I wouldn't even bother using missiles or drones against it, as it will kill 99% without breaking a sweat. Just sit about 4-5km away from them with IBLs or PPCs and you'll pop them when they can't even return fire (PSGs are 1.4km range!).

Boarding from TPs is painful and unrefined, so as soon as you get a M7M, I wouldn't even bother doing it. Boarding an M7M from a TP isn't too difficult because they don't have any/many guns and you can keep shooting the missiles down, but anything else I think there is too much risk of you or your marines getting shot down...

I will be the one to take you down!

Morcain

Fightguey (6)

Posted 10 years ago.

No PSGs, thank whichever creator you subscribe to, but he kept switching from IBL to energy bilt guns to flak as the range betwen us changed, it wound up being necessary to hold position directly on top or below him (I`m having a hard time differating between the two on the Oddy) I stayed about 3km away switched to energy bolt guns and held the button (is it normal for ships to behave a bit oddly when you get in certain positions relating to them? Had this happen twice now, get in close or in what appeara to be some kind ob blind spot, well not entirely blind as it kept spewing what I assume was ISG fire at me, easily dodgeable, but it slowed right down and seemed to fly in a straight line). Umm, where was I, ah, weaponry, you know it never occurred to me to check, talk about potentially fatal over-confidence (the hyperion complex!!!) , and big yes to the clumsyness of TPs, although I did manage to take an ariadne, 3 hours worth of reloads, not so much because i had to have, but, you know, training. Again though it wound up being me popping into the angel and dispensing marines. Got Ares now though, going to get me another m7m first thing tonight, sell ares and start looking fo a place to set up a missile plex, gr excuse the poor spelling, I'm choosing to blame the tablet keythingie.

Thanks for the input and sorry to the OP for hijackimg (kinda) his topic

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