Usefulness of turrets

I am busy trying to create an Engineer class, and one of the abilities is to be able to spawn turrets.

Now turrets come in two forms really - the sentinel (automatic) ones that just fire on their own, and the rest that you have to man. Sentinels are working great, and do make a difference. However, when I try to use turrets, I find I get wasted pretty quickly.

Thinking back to ONS maps like Primeval, there are link turrets there but nobody ever uses them. Why not?

My feeling is that being a static target is very bad. You get hit alot. The turret quickly loses it's armor, and you die. Is that the general experience of everyone?

So, how can we make turrets useful for Engineers? My initial suggestions would be:

Add an armor regen skill, and an armor vampire skill, that replenish turret and vehicle armor the same way Vampire and Regeneration do for player health

If possible, make it so when the turret gets destroyed, the player gets ejected rather than killed

Perhaps add a Turret Damage Reduction ability, that works like DR but only on turrets (and perhaps vehicles?)

Any other suggestions? Or would we prefer that turrets don't work?

I'd say a good amount of damage reduction (something to up the hp) is a must. Ejection is also something that would be good, although maybe adding a chance that it doesnt eject you >

Having a shield as a 2nd weapon would also be usefull, you couldnt fire while using a shield, maybe also have it drain so you couldnt just sit there and take no damage.

I can simply givea generaly answer, upping the defensive capabilities and upping the offensive capabilities imo. You are a static target as you say and the amount of damage you can do from the turret simply isn't worth staying in even if you don't get wasted right away.

I'll have to agree with Mach. To me it seems like a neat idea, but maybe it would make more sense if instead engineers have more options and upgrades for the automated sentinals. For instance, would it be possible to have a sentinal target players and shoot them with a healing weapon?
hmmm. Maybe that would be encroaching on medic territory.

ECHO wrote:

I'll have to agree with Mach. To me it seems like a neat idea, but maybe it would make more sense if instead engineers have more options and upgrades for the automated sentinals. For instance, would it be possible to have a sentinal target players and shoot them with a healing weapon?
hmmm. Maybe that would be encroaching on medic territory.

That may be in medic territory, but why not make it co-op? an engineer and a medic band together to create the thing with a combining of the endineers sentinal skill and a medics healing weapon skill? Or throw a wm in the mix and have them toss a sweet weapon into the sentinal and it takes on those properties (shock of knockback 5 tossed into it makes it a knockback 5 sentinal), or an LA could boost it's modifier by using their max skill.

emetakleze wrote:

....That may be in medic territory, but why not make it co-op? an engineer and a medic band together to create the thing with a combining of the endineers sentinal skill and a medics healing weapon skill? Or throw a wm in the mix and have them toss a sweet weapon into the sentinal and it takes on those properties (shock of knockback 5 tossed into it makes it a knockback 5 sentinal), or an LA could boost it's modifier by using their max skill.

Wow. Lots of good ideas there.

Is the simplest way of doing this to let the turret (or vehicle) take on the RPGWeapon properties of the weapon the driver last had?
So if a medic with a healing weapon gets into a turret, the turret acts as a healing turret. If a LA with a knockback+5 gets in, the turret acts as a knockback+5. These attributes would go with the player when he left the turret.

Or are we thinking of a more permanent approach of a LA getting into a turret, running the mwm and say the turret becomes a poison weapon. The LA then maxes it, and exits the turret, but the turret stops as a maxed poison turret for whoever next gets in?
(I think Druid may be against medics being able to set turrets as super healing weapons, then exiting and leaving the turret as a super healer - especially if the medic also has a super healing weapon themselves.)

I am not sure how to get the "wm throwing a weapon in" bit working. I suppose it would have to be done by the wm "dropping" the weapon whilst in the turret.

Or do we just want to allow turrets to randomly pick up RPGWeapon types on spawning, just like normal weapons do? Then just allow mwm and max to affect them?

I don't know which would be easiest to implement. Or even if they are possible. But it sounds fun.

As the idea is appealing, leaving the turrets ability up to who occupies it may not be such a hot idea.
1) which weapon would it take function of in a WM arsonal? The current active one?
2) every AM who has a +11 vorpal will hop in and devistate everything, potentially.

Of course, we all know turrets are death traps if you dont fend the monsters off. First rock takes you out when your not looking.

I think possibly, if we feel that a turret should/can obtain magical properties, that they should be random as the hand weapons are. And maybe a Engineer can use an MWM on it to give it such properties. Who knows. But it seems to be the easiest solution.

Should a turret be able to be cursed or negative?

supertoast wrote:

Should a turret be able to be cursed or negative?

YES! And you wouldn't be able to get out of it!

Nice! Super glue on the seat! Hahahahahaa