Laser Towers in the Hub?

arnak · Post by **arnak** » Thu, 29. Jul 10, 10:55

Hi,

My laser towers that I put in the hub space do not appear to be firing on enemy ships despite the setting having Xenon, Khaak etc set to enemies.

Is this normal behaviour?

Arnak

Post by **Alan Phipps** » Thu, 29. Jul 10, 15:01

Hi Arnak, Just for further info:
Are you IS or OOS? (LTs apparently do relatively little OOS.)
Are they set to 'Show enemy if enemy to me' and do their orders show 'Default - Combat'.?
Are they homebased to the Hub? In which case perhaps they may not attack anything unless the Hub is being attacked first, but I'm not at all sure on that.
Are you sure the enemy ships actually get in range of the LTs, given their respective locations in 3D?
Do the LTs fire back when/if fired upon?

Post by **Nanook** » Thu, 29. Jul 10, 20:26

This does not sound like a Tech Support issue, so moving to the main forum for now.

arnak · Post by **arnak** » Fri, 30. Jul 10, 00:18

Hi Alan

Are you IS or OOS? (LTs apparently do relatively little OOS.)

OOS.

Are they set to 'Show enemy if enemy to me' and do their orders show 'Default - Combat'.?

Yes they are.

Are they homebased to the Hub? In which case perhaps they may not attack anything unless the Hub is being attacked first, but I'm not at all sure on that.

Never needed to do that before, shouldn't need it as there are ships in the area anyway that will be attacked.

Are you sure the enemy ships actually get in range of the LTs, given their respective locations in 3D?

Yep, nice and near the gate where they come in.

Do the LTs fire back when/if fired upon?

I don't know, I'd need to be in sector to check, in fact I haven't even seen them fire when I have been in sector that's why I wondered if they had a problem in the Hub sector?

Nanook,

It could be tech support issue if the TL's don't work in the Hub sector.

I'll do some more testing and get back to you.

Thanks to both of you.

Arnak

Post by **Alan Phipps** » Fri, 30. Jul 10, 16:35

Thanks for the info, one thing I forgot to ask then. Do you get a good/better response when OOS from LTs in sectors other than the hub, or is it more a case of LTs just not working well anywhere while you are OOS?

Anyway, my first theory if it is a hub sector only issue. I wonder if the LTs are close enough to the hub gate that the surrounding hub walls are also in range (something which you don't have with 'normal' sectors and gates). That might be making them avoid firing if they are likely to hit the walls. Would having them out of range of the walls make any difference?

Post by **Nanook** » Fri, 30. Jul 10, 19:31

arnak wrote:....
It could be tech support issue if the TL's don't work in the Hub sector....

Bug report perhaps, and that should really go in the L3+ Beta Testing forum. There you can find out if it's intentional design or not. Often these so-called 'bug's are just that.

Tech Support is generally for helping players get their game working properly due to problems with hardware issues, codecs, etc. You know, 'Technical' stuff.

Palladin888 · Post by **Palladin888** » Fri, 30. Jul 10, 22:41

do the LTs have ammo, guns loaded? I think they are like ships you have to arm them after placing them right?

aladonahill · Post by **aladonahill** » Fri, 30. Jul 10, 23:37

arnak wrote:Hi,

My laser towers that I put in the hub space do not appear to be firing on enemy ships despite the setting having Xenon, Khaak etc set to enemies.

Is this normal behaviour?

Arnak

Is it normal? Nope, at least not by what my experience has been. Mind you, I've always homebased my lasertowers.

Not sure what the range of a lasertower's weapons are, but maybe the enemies in your hub are wisely sitting just outside that range. Clever of them.

Post by **Nanook** » Sat, 31. Jul 10, 00:02

I just did a test with two LT's, one set with a homebase, one without. The one with a homebase had the command "protect 'homebase'" in its info window. The one without a homebase had command 'none'. When enemies were spawned near the LT's, the one with the homebase attacked them, the one without just sat there. Moral of the story, give your LT's something to protect or they're just lumps.

Now, I didn't check but I think the homebase can be anywhere, even a ship, just as long as it has something it's supposed to protect. So you could theoretically put LT's in an empty sector and have them attack enemies even if it's 'homebase' was on the other side of the Universe.

MegaJohnny · Post by **MegaJohnny** » Sat, 31. Jul 10, 02:59

Nanook wrote:I just did a test with two LT's, one set with a homebase, one without. The one with a homebase had the command "protect 'homebase'" in its info window. The one without a homebase had command 'none'. When enemies were spawned near the LT's, the one with the homebase attacked them, the one without just sat there. Moral of the story, give your LT's something to protect or they're just lumps.

Now, I didn't check but I think the homebase can be anywhere, even a ship, just as long as it has something it's supposed to protect. So you could theoretically put LT's in an empty sector and have them attack enemies even if it's 'homebase' was on the other side of the Universe.

Was this an OOS test? I always thought it was something to do with how OOS handles lasers that makes laser towers more or less useless.

Also shouldn't that un-based tower have default combat as the order? I think that's what it gets when you eject it from the cargo bay.

Chris0132 · Post by **Chris0132** » Sat, 31. Jul 10, 03:53

Nanook wrote:I just did a test with two LT's, one set with a homebase, one without. The one with a homebase had the command "protect 'homebase'" in its info window. The one without a homebase had command 'none'. When enemies were spawned near the LT's, the one with the homebase attacked them, the one without just sat there. Moral of the story, give your LT's something to protect or they're just lumps.

Now, I didn't check but I think the homebase can be anywhere, even a ship, just as long as it has something it's supposed to protect. So you could theoretically put LT's in an empty sector and have them attack enemies even if it's 'homebase' was on the other side of the Universe.

That shouldn't be the case, I've used lasertowers without homebasing them before and they work fine.

There must be some way to set the commands so they just shoot everything in range, in fact I generally don't homebase them because doing so usually makes them disinclined to attack unless the homebase is under attack.

Post by **Alan Phipps** » Sat, 31. Jul 10, 22:00

I agree that when you drop a LT, it has (or should have) the command 'default - combat' and fires at anything enemy in range (IS at least). I suppose that if you ever homebase it, then unbase it or give it some other stop-firing command then you might end up in a command 'none' situation. Confusing, isn't it?

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