You can't maneuver while in 'Turret Mode' (hit 'h'). Any guns (both 'fixed' and turret guns) will be slaved to your crosshairs. So if you are in turret mode and shooting behind you and above, any turrets that are mounted on top and the sides that can reach the target will fire up there...if the target swings below, as the target comes into the firing arc of other guns, those will automatically start firing. If the target moves to the front, turrets and the fixed guns will fire at the target. This is all controlled manually as your crosshairs move from your mouse movements. Just going into turret mode and firing in all directions will pretty much give you an idea of firing arcs for each gun. Hitting 'v' will give you the same ability but the view is fixed to the rear.

edit: also, yes they are very useful for turret mode firing, but also many turrets can fire forward as part of their firing arc and will increase your general damage in normal dog-fighting.

Bif Powell

Edited by - Bif Powell on 12-03-2003 22:41:33

While you don't have full maneuverability, you're not exactly dead in the water. If you target an object and tap the "goto" key, your ship will autopilot towards it. It's extra-handy in asteroid belts, as your ship will weave it's way around the big rocks; giving you a little evasiveness. If you don't want to use the "goto" method, you can still control your speed manually, and strafe left or right. All of it will help a bit in throwing off the enemys' targeting.

By default, all weapons will automatically fire in any direction they can; fixed or turreted. While you're in turret mode, you simply get to pan around your ship 360° for finer control.

From my observations in a Rhino with 5 turrets, ALL turrets can reach a target when you're in turret mode, doesn't matter if they don't appear to be in the firing arc for your weapons. Its the same as forward facing guns, if you're facing forward and fire at a target on your left, your right guns will still hit, even though the animation doesn't show them turning that far. Turret mode is kinda fun in a freighter, just switch it on and murder the fools that think they're safe behind you. They do a poorer job of evading. Especially effective when you have beefy 2.0 or 4.0 fire rate weapons on the turrets. I was quite happy using 5 lavablade MkII's as turrets. One thing I didnt try was cockpit mode + turret mode, the biggest annoyance in turret mode is the inability to see the enemy ship right behind your oversized freighter when you're in the third person view.

Newt- "One thing I didnt try was cockpit mode + turret mode, the biggest annoyance in turret mode is the inability to see the enemy ship right behind your oversized freighter when you're in the third person view."

The turret view doesnt have cockpit mode only 3rd person.. and if you are in cockpit mode it just puts you into 3rd person anyways.

Thanks for the info, everyone. Turrets sound pretty cool after all; much more useful than what I remember from the Wing Commander-type games. I was also unaware of the goto command - that will be very helpful in the future!

Thanks!

PS - Also, my apologies for this being here in the spoilers forum (and my double post to the general discussion forum). Very strange - I had deliberately switched to gen. disc. forum to post this question, made the post, clicked on "return to forum" (which put me back in general discussion), but my post wasn't there, so after waiting a bit to see if it showed up, I reposted it. I have no idea how this original post ended up here in spoilers.

It's that guy from the New Berlin bar who quickly moves your posts over here to the spoiler forum if deemed inaproppriate for the general discussion one.

The turrets in wing commander fired automatically and also were quite deadly if you used them right.

I like to use that Rhino for it fire power with turrets is great.
I simply use 2 missiles, 1 beam with 5 speeder turrets
you know,that refire rate of 2.5 is very horrible.
You can hardly aim accuratly during fight..
so if the refire rate is high, the probability of hitting target is much higher,agree?

yes thanks every1 i also a newcomer and now only i learned the use of turrets. LOL

fun with turrets in mp: get a teammate with a freighter. i sugest 1 or 2 shieldcracker turrets, the rest rapidfire ( dont think about damage ). the freighter enters formation with one fighter, switches to turretmode and blow everything to shreds that comes in front of his guns. quite a nice view u got there *g*. and rememder to turn off players damage...trust me...when u get between 2 freigters equipped with heavy weapons....my titan survived about...2 seconds?

Just so you know.. I believe the Sabre is the only front firing turret in the very heavy fighter class.. I've seen the eagle and I have a titan and both of those have fairly useless turrets. The sabre however gets used like most it's hardpoints.. so that is a big advantage of that ship..