Pilot Override of the Turret

[Spinward Scout]

I was thinking about this a little at work. Shouldn't the Pilot be able to override the turret and lock the turret in place, then firing from the bridge? I'm thinking locking the turret forward could be used for strafing runs. Locking the turret aft deters pursuers. With the automation on the Scout/Courier, I'd think this should be an option.

Thoughts and opinions?

 

[McPerth]

I was thinking about this a little at work. Shouldn't the Pilot be able to override the turret and lock the turret in place, then firing from the bridge? I'm thinking locking the turret forward could be used for strafing runs. Locking the turret aft deters pursuers. With the automation on the Scout/Courier, I'd think this should be an option.

Thoughts and opinions?

Central control for the weapons from the bridge is someting I've always assumed to be posible in Traveller ships (and ITTR there are references to it in MT at least), so locking them from the bridge would be posible, though my guess is that just controling them from there, without locking them, would give better arc of fire.

And for the situation you call, a strafing scout, all the pictures I've seen about it show the turet dorsal, so to attack directly ahead of the ship with an strafing run it should fly inverted (head-down).

While at first glance this seem not to be a problem for the crew, as it has artificial gravity inside it, another question arises to my mind: can its gravitics "push up" to keep it flying so inverted?

In fact, can any gravitic craft fly inverted, or the gravitics push only "down", so being nullified (or at very reduced power) if pointed to another direction (as would be pushing "up" (akin of a helicpter)?

 

[whulorigan]

I was thinking about this a little at work. Shouldn't the Pilot be able to override the turret and lock the turret in place, then firing from the bridge? I'm thinking locking the turret forward could be used for strafing runs. Locking the turret aft deters pursuers. With the automation on the Scout/Courier, I'd think this should be an option.

Thoughts and opinions?

I wouldn't think that locking the turret aft would deter pursuers. In a 3D space environment (at space combat distances), you do not need to get in precisely behind a vessel in order to pursue and attack it like an atmospheric craft maneuvering aerodynamically in an atmosphere. A hostile could easily enough attack a target from an oblique angle, rotating the attacking vessel about its axes and rotating its turrets to bring its weapons to bear. That would require the target vessel to rotate itself to bring its "locked" sternchaser back on target, which is defeating the purpose of the locked turret in the first place.

 

[salochin999]

I was thinking about this a little at work. Shouldn't the Pilot be able to override the turret and lock the turret in place, then firing from the bridge? I'm thinking locking the turret forward could be used for strafing runs. Locking the turret aft deters pursuers. With the automation on the Scout/Courier, I'd think this should be an option.

Thoughts and opinions?

I may be missing something but as far as I can see given the distances, the speeds being traveled, the sensors always taking time so only ever showing where the target was not where it is and assuming ships are constantly firing off lateral thrusters to jink their course then it seems to me hitting anything at all is *extremely* unlikely.

The only believable picture I can come up with is the targeting system calculating a box of space the target ship might be in and then firing randomly at that box so the only way I can imagine something actually being hit is through a shotgun effect i.e. a firing ship has a lot of turrets and the targeting computer slices up the targeting box into different smaller boxes and each weapon fires at a more or less randomly selected location within its allocated box.

For example a ship with 64 lasers might have the targeting box split into a 4 x 4 x 4 grid and each laser fires at one box in the grid (even then each box might still be 100s of km across).

Based on that I can't see any reason why laser turrets at least aren't fully automated by default. However given the rules say there are human gunners I make it that live gunners have a statistically better chance of making that final guess than the computer - as as far as I can see it is going to be 99% guess - for some latent psionicky reason. So the computer derives the targeting box and slices it up if there are multiple weapons but the gunners actually guess where to fire within their allocated box of space.

So yeah I'd have turrets able to be automated to follow a designated target by the pilot but with no gunnery DMs. Personally I don't think it would need to be locked, just automated targeting.

 

[CosmicGamer]

In Mongoose, a pilot can dodge and weave to evade enemy fire
and/or position the ship for a better attack.

Personally I don't think it would need to be locked.

Me too. In fact I would apply a -DM if the turret was somehow damaged/seized/frozen/locked in position.

I'm not familiar with all the different versions of Traveller rules, but don't most include the option of predict and targeting software? Mongoose ships can have Fire Control software. The Captain need just "Computer, lock on target Bravo One and fire at will. I want it destroyed! Pilot, make sure those laser turrets stay on target."

 

[WistfulD]

Given that the weapons of choice for Traveller are lasers (which can be aimed with mirrors and lenses) and missiles (why are these things in turrets again?), I don't think that a physically rotating turret is actually part of equation unless you want it for flavor purposes.

 

[McPerth]

Given that the weapons of choice for Traveller are lasers (which can be aimed with mirrors and lenses) and missiles (why are these things in turrets again?), I don't think that a physically rotating turret is actually part of equation unless you want it for flavor purposes.

This is versión dependent, but in some Traveller versions other weapons also have good users (mainly plasma/fusion ones) for fighters and other small vehicles/crafts or to be used as ortillery (the main user in the OP, as I understood it).

 

[salochin999]

In Mongoose, a pilot can dodge and weave to evade enemy fire
and/or position the ship for a better attack.Me too. In fact I would apply a -DM if the turret was somehow damaged/seized/frozen/locked in position.

I'm not familiar with all the different versions of Traveller rules, but don't most include the option of predict and targeting software? Mongoose ships can have Fire Control software. The Captain need just "Computer, lock on target Bravo One and fire at will. I want it destroyed! Pilot, make sure those laser turrets stay on target."

Yeah, when I said no gunnery DMs I meant no gunnery DM from the gunner if there isn't a gunner - although there is that rule about doing two jobs at once so I guess that could apply. I don't recall the details on that.

 

[salochin999]

Given that the weapons of choice for Traveller are lasers (which can be aimed with mirrors and lenses) and missiles (why are these things in turrets again?), I don't think that a physically rotating turret is actually part of equation unless you want it for flavor purposes.

So you'd have a lense / mirror turret.