NPC Modular Turrets (Upgrades, Subsystems, etc.)

Modular Turrets​

Upgrades, Subsystems and more​

Turrets shall be build using different modules. They roughly have two big physical components. Mount and Case.


The Mount connects the turrets Case with the world. It is either Fixed or Mobile.

• Fixed mounts are stronger but can not move around.
• Mobile mounts can move along rails or using an "arm" to move the Case around.
• Mounts can not hold Cases with a level higher than their own +5.

The Case holds slots for various uses like weapons, utility, armor, reactor etc.

• Weapon Slot
  • They can hold player weapons of any type with with some penalty in damage or specialized turret weapons.
  • Using weapons consumes energy. Depending on their size, 2handed weapons consume more energy than 1handed weapons. Alternatively equipting 2h weapons takes up two weapon slots instead of one for a 1h weapon.
  • Weapon Slots can not hold weapons with a level higher than the case level +5.
  • Weapon Slots can be equipted with Utility Upgrades to place a Tool into a weapon slot.
    • Since weapon slots are worth 3 Misc Slots and Utility Slots are worth 2 Misc Slots, also because the Fixed Massive case could support max 4 Tools that way, this seems to be balanced.
• Utility Slot
  • Utilities are there to support the turret and/or allied units but dont do damage in any way.
  • Utility Slots can not hold tools with a level higher than the case level + 5.
  • Utility types:
    • Healing Device: Heals organic allies in range, consumes energy per heal. (support/heal)
      • stats: heal done, energy used, uses per second​
    • Repair Tool: Repairs inorganic allies in range, consumes energy per heal. (support/heal)​
      • stats: heal done, energy used, uses per second​
    • Scanner: Reveal valuable informations about enemies around. Let friends see enemies in range on their screen/minimap. Maybe some indicator or warning. (support/reveal)​
      • stats: range​
    • Shield: Block incomming projectiles in an area around the turret. Useful to protect allies behind that turret. (anti-ranged)​
      • stats: range, capacity/health, shield recharge, energy consumption​
    • Knockback generator: Knock enemies away from the turret. (anti-melee)​
      • stats: trigger range, effect range, knockback strength, recharge time, energy consumption​
• Armor Slot:
  • Armor slots reduce incomming damage and/or increase the turrets health.
  • stats: damage reduction, health increase
• Reactor Slot:
  • Reactors generate energy for the turret so the subsystems can work.
  • stats: energy generation
• Capacitor Slot:
  • Capacitors hold the generated energy so the turret can use it for later applications.
  • stats: capacity
• Sensor Slot:
  • Sensors are used to percept the turrets environment. Some sensors work better in cold or hot environments, others better in the dark etc.
  • stats: detection type, range, precision
• Controller Slot:
  • Controllers are used to compute the turrets behaviour.
  • Better controllers process informations faster and more accurately.
  • In controllers you can set the balance between speed and precision. Speed is useful for closed quarter combat using shotguns while precision is useful for ranged applications like snipers.
  • Within controllers you can also set the internal power distribution for the turrets subsystems.
• Misc Slot:
  • Misc slots can be equipted with other items like weapons, tools, reactors, capacitors, armors and sensors but not for controllers.
  • Weapons require 3 misc slots
  • Utilities, Reactors, Armors require 2 misc slots
  • Sensors, Capacitors require 1 misc slot

Here is a table for how many slots each casecan hold.



A Turret without reactor and controller subsystems can not work.

Each subsystem can constantly require energy aswell as require energy to perform an action.
Within the controllers power management subsystems can be prioritizes. The subsystem with the highest priority always gets supplied with energy first. Subsystems can also be deactivated when the capacitors fall under a certain percentage of charge (i.e. healing tools can be deactivated with less than 30% charge).

Maybe there should be different versions per mount+case aswell. So that items are placed within a "grid", like an inventory. So the layout restricts some usages since weapons in example need 3 slots instead of 2 like utilities or 1 like capacitors. This way some cases could be more useful for for offensive and others for defensive applications.

Turrets shall be passable through sneaking and even hackable (change settings with lickelyness to be detected) through hacking devices.



Example turrets:

A mobile turret moving along rails within your base to discover enemies. It shall be able to defend itself against small foes or at least show them they are no alone.

• mobile mount + light case (attached to rails within your base)
  • subsystems
    • 1 weapon slot: 1h shotgun (short range, low energy consumption)
    • no utility slot
    • no armor slot
    • 1 reactor + 1 capacitor + 1 controller (no details needed, they are straight forward)
    • 1 sensor slot: optical long range sensor
      • Even though the long range sensor has less accuracy on short range, we mainly want to detect intruders and thus need sensors for further distances. Also the shotguns spread works well with bad accuracy.
    • 1 misc slot: Utility -> scanner
      • to detect enemies invading your base
  • behaviour
    • patrol along the rails
    • defend self
    • keep distance
  • energy settings
    • priority order: 1. scanner, 2. sensor, 3. weapons

Massive turret defending a base entrance. Fight and shoot until you die, strong damage and heavy survivability.

• fixed mount + massive case
  • subsystems
    • 2 weapon slots: 2h rocket launcher + 2h minigun
    • 2 utility slots: repair tool (for self repair) + shield
    • 3 armor slots: 3x strong front armor
    • 2 reactor + 2 capacitor + 1 controller (straight forward again, no details needed)
    • 2 sensors: short range acustic, medium range optical
    • 4 misc slots: 1x reactor (more regeneration for the shields + subsystems) + 1x armor
  • behaviour
    • attack everything on sight
  • energy settings
    • priority order: 1. short range acustic sensor 2. minigun, 3. shield, 4. medium range optical, 5. repair, 6. rocket laucher

Massive Supporting Turret. This setup shall be based upon the biggest turrets case but sacrifice all offense abilities for supporting skills.

• fixed mount + massive case
  • subsystems
    • 2 weapon slots: 2x utility upgrade (healing tool + repairing tool)
    • 2 utility slots: shield + knockback generator
    • 3 armor slots: 3x strong front armor
    • 2 reactor + 2 capacitor + 1 controller (straight forward again, no details needed)
    • 2 sensors: short range acustic, short range optical
    • 4 misc slots: 1x reactor (more regeneration for the shields + subsystems) + 2x capacitor
  • behaviour
    • heal allies on sight
  • energy settings
    • priority order: 1. heal tool, 2. repair tool, 3. optical short range sensor, 4. knockback generator, 5. shield, 6. acustic short range sensor

 

damn complex sistem
a easyer to add sistem would be just a mount and a "turret module" wich you can mix and mach as you will but with lots of options for both
good idea nevertheless

 

Complete support. I would love something like this.

 

This is excellent, I'd love to be able to get this involved in how I defend my base. That said, probably be difficult to reconfigure and rebuild turrets every time they go kaboom.

 

Excellent modular system allowing customization and specialization of turrets. Design is well thought out and balanced. This is an amazing idea and would be a great addition to the game.

 

Well thanks for the compliments.
Ofc such a system has to be balanced. Like all/most of my suggestions the ultimate goal for me is usually to have balanced PvP for big games like Clan vs Clan so that when servers are capable enough shall run 20v20, 50v50 or more.

Iam still lacking ideas for the Utility slot.
Maybe adding a "cloak tool" and "groupcloak tool" could be an idea. Both cloak the targets (either self or self + area) and give a visibility reduction which increases by the Tools level (area cloaks are weaker than self cloaks for obvious reason) and the constant energy consumption decreases with levels.


Please dont hesitate suggesting tools, upgrades, balances etc youself

 

Possibly some form of an energy link, allowing turrets to transfer excess energy to nearby turrets or players could work.

 

Wow, a very detailed and post. I love the idea so much, as tiring as it is to read. I don't see it fitting under the category 'NPCs and Creatures' though.

 

Please move this thread into "Gear & Weapons" section of the forum, because it does not fit in this one.

 

Based on how turrects would act, they are more a NPC due to its AI than "gear & weapons" which are more equiptable items you use as character.
Think of them as "immobile NPCs" or "NPCs with very limited movability" so they perfectly fit in here IMO.

Anyway i would still like to hear opinions on the idea itself

 

I like the idea, greatly! I was wondering if something like this would pop up! I mean, with space travel and teleportation and cloning and all, you would think we could set up a simple turret to kill on sight at least!

This is one of those things the game almost cant do without! I hope this makes it in, and if not, it should be modded in!

 

yes, i think its a great idea, i think that your base should have elements sorta like minecraft tekkit, that it goes deep in detail and what you can build, like you can build a solar farm or a nucular plant, you have pipe systems to send stuff to other parts of the base, stuff like that. what im saying is that i think bases should be really high tech and modern, or not have much technology at all

 

Although i don't agree with modern or stone age bases (your last point) I do agree with everything else. This has great potential! You should get a pixel artist and see if they can make up some pictures for you!

 

I like the concept that was put forth in this idea. Ideally, it would be as simple as swapping out sprites and replacing weapons/functions...

 

i mean that if you want to throw in a nuclear reactor in the base, you have to put the rest of the technology that came with it

 

I like the idea of maybe having manual turrets too. Increase the damage on them somewhat (so there is an advantage to having people control the turrets), then the player can interact with them and fire, using the energy from the player's armour. Place a "manual base", then a player can pull out their weapon, interact with the turret, then use the cursor to aim and shoot. Maybe make the manual bases non-returnable when you destroy them to stop people abusing them.

 

maby that's how the spaceship fighting will work *shrugs* but then you can have turrets on airships on planet!

 

See, i'd like the idea of a man-able turret, where you can grab onto it and use it yourself and aim in front of your view in a certain angle depending on the type, not just automatic turrets. Like a plain heavy machine gun turret on a tripod or single pole thats bolted to the ground, etc depending on your visual preference, which would have a have an acute angle of somewhere between a 30 to 50 degree angle in whichever face it was going towards. And then maybe specialized seats that rotate on a certain axis so they get 90+ angle and rotate the chair up and down to aim at whatever, or a popular design on old planes, a dome shape that can get 180 degrees horizontally and vertically. and to go into even more extensiveness on view, it would have a sphere upon the same idea as before, a tripod or single pole, and it could rotate 360. Although, that was mainly the machine gun i was focusing on, there could be a lot more done with things such as a rocket turret, or plasma, or some old howitzer artillery sorta spin-off model, in all shapes and sizes. I could only imagine a war styled huge pvp server, where people are charging a turret that could resemble some m60 or SAW and such, or trying to repair a base while its being blown to shreds.
Now then, OP wise, it'd take a large amount of materials and the previous version of the turret to get to the next and such. I'm not good at wording my suggestions, and bad with typing them out more so, so i hope you got the idea.

 

#Yolo Swag Money

 

This kind of system reminds me of EVE for some reason... something I can get behind!