THE space combat solution: radiation based "auto turrets" This thread is obsolete and to be ignored.

[Aha]

Attention!
This is an outdated and overall bad presentation of my idea about the radiation based auto turrets thus to be ignored! I have made a new in-depth presentation with pictures and all. I advise you to read that instead as this one here is obsolete.
The new presentation:
https://forum.starbasegame.com/thre...ore-mechanics-too-in-depth-presentation.2032/








Understandably auto turrets like in space engineers for example is a bad idea considering how the game is designed to be. It is lazy.
However there is a huge downside to not having auto turrets. It doesnt really allow people to go big. Especially solo players, they are stuck with fighters, which you might say is fair, "if you want big, team up!"
But then again lets be honest, having weaponry being THIS MUCH forced to be manual is just as lame and boring as auto turrets considering the players themselves are fully automated robots and simply it is just not a WW2 enviroment, its space "age"!
It is a tragedy that you could design spaceships with all the awesome modularity and depth, but as for combat you are literaly in WW2 and there is really not much to come up with. There is a reason why the thread "Space combat is primitive?" in the Game discussion is so active.
It is a tough question and honestly i personaly want both auto turrets to be and not to be.
I truly believe i just have the perfect solution to make everyone happy, EVERYONE! The idea fits perfectly into the game as it is based on radiation!

So there would be a device the radiation detector (similar to the radar or it could even be the same), which would do the targeting -or better said- the report of the relative where-about, direction and speed of the detected target. From this you have to yolol out whatever you are capable of coming up with.

-The key thing that is making everyone happy is that the detection "range" is determined by the target's radiation level. Huge radiation output -> auto turrets will see and target you from kilometers. Little to no radiation -> you can close on the ship without auto turrets being able to target you up to 100-200 meter (or something). A bare minimum ship that is only to transport troops and maybe even operate only by batteries could be completely stealth to the auto turret detectors making it possible to send boarding troops onto the powerful big ship.
-You can combat auto turrets with either not being big of a ship with lot of radiation or by using dense plating masking your radiation (even only the reactor as the biggest "radiator") but making you heavier thus slower.
-Radiation comes not only by nuclear radiation but every heat, or electricity source and whatever else.
-The detector itself uses TONS of electricity and creates lot of radiation, no pain no gain.
-It could be that firing guns would generate a radiation spike enough to be picked up by the detector (if you are just close enough for that) to make things even spicier.

Like this, you could go "big", even as a solo, but still a ship of only auto turrets would be so much inferior compared to a same class ship with extra manual manned turrets as you would need them to combat small fighters or boarding foot soldiers. Still you would need to play in team to be most effective, auto turrets wouldnt do all the job for you.
This gives a lot more meaning of being stealth. The meta wouldnt be just top speed 999 thruster fighters, but isntead a whole fleet of different class of ships as 999 thrusters would generate tons of detectable radiation.
You could have them powerful ships effective againts other big ships and stations AND fighters to combat/defend them. Let me shout this out: SMALL FIGHTERS WOULD BE A COUNTER TO THE AUTO TURRETS RATHER THAN BEING A FRUSTRATING VICTIM! Space combat wouldnt be that primitive anymore and most importantly its based on radiation which is already a thing in the game!

Isnt it beautiful? I hope i have a good undersanding of how you want your game to be as i try to make game suggestions according to that, and unfortunatelly i dont have alpha access so i cant have a proper feeling of your awesome game.

Let me present a comment that summed it up perfectly:

 

[mrchip]

just aim lmao

 

[mrchip]

Ok, serious now.
I'm not that convinced. For a bunch of reasons.

- Starbase is totally meant to be ww2 in space. Should this be changed? Idk, but that would mean changing what the game is at a deep level.

- You won't use these turrets to cover any angles that aren't directly in front of you. Why? Because any ship could just not be trackable. You just can't afford to suddently be weaponless because someone brought a small / stealth ship. So the only viable thing, is to make forward facing turrets, that you can also set to fixed aim, and shoot normally. Which already kinda ruins the whole point of turrets for a solo large ship: since huge ships can't turn to aim effectively, they need turrets on the sides / rear, so that there is no "blind spot" you can maneuver to with a smaller ship.

- (Right now) medium ships eat huge ships for breakfast. Fighters are NOT the victim. They are the apex predator.

- Stealth still sounds like a sketchy option: you have to either reduce power generation, or have lots of radiation shielding. Turrets come into play in direct combat. What would you want in a ship that should do direct combat well? Firepower ,armor, maneuverability. But you reduced your power generation, so you have subpar firepower and maneuvering/speed. And you have radiation shielding, which means you either took a massive hit in weight adding both shielding and regular armor (sacrificing maneuverability), or exchanged some armor for shielding (sacrificing armor). And the payoff for achieving stealth during direct combat isn't amazing: IF by any chance you're going against opponents that rely on auto turrets, they won't be able to target you. And because ship designers have brains, that doesnt mean they can't shoot at you: they just can't use auto aim. They're still going to shoot at you, just by aiming manually instead.

- "Don't worry, <device being suggested> will be balanced, because <consumes lots of power / costs a lot of money / weighs a lot>" is kind of a lazy way of balancing the overall power level of something, game wide, causing unknown side effects. i just never think that's a good idea and see it very often in suggestions. but hey, there would probably be other better ways of balancing anyways, so this shoudln't affect judgement on the core idea here.

And here's the really big one:
This is radiation based. What emits more radiation ? Bigger targets. You can also use shielding to mitigate it.
So, big ships can be tracked, and small ships can't.
You don't need auto aim for a thing the size of a building, slow like a bike, and maneuvering like construction equipment.
You can just yeet missiles in their general direction, and they'll eat it.
You don't need to avoid blindspots, because that huge dump truck won't have the time maneuver behind you before you both have to close the game to go eat.
If you're going against a large ship using a large ship, you can just rely on forward facing fixed weapons to maximize firepower and protection. Point in their direction, fire, what are they going to do about it? Evasive maneuvers?
a single person could do that today.

Why do undercrewed big ships suffer? Because of smaller ships. And these turrets don't help with that at all.

--- rant concluded ---
More weapon options are always cool, diverse ship roles are cool, i just dont think this really helps...
And remember, "cool" is temporary. Any good game's objective is "fun", in the long term. It doesn't matter if a team of yolol nerds had a fun arms race to develop the best tracking software, if 99% of players that are just going to use that system experience it the same way as if the devs gave you the SE turret as a prebuilt part.

About stealth: that should already be a thing when radiation stuff arrives. Just like IRL, you go for stealth when the stealth lets you avoid direct combat. Stealth logistic ships / carriers, stealth support ships, stealth miners, stealth pirate ships that can sneak up to targets silently.

 

[XenoCow]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the only reason beyond "auto-turrets are cooler than manual ones" to want auto-turrets is to be able to fight more than one opponent at once.

If this is the case, then it sounds like those who want auto-turrets want to be able to win against multiple opponents at once. Since this is a game, and meant to be fair to some degree, one should think that the only way to defeat more than one opponent is through piloting / engineering / tactics skill, not gizmos (even if those gizmos have to be properly integrated into the ship via engineering/programming).

For me, if I go up against two opponents, I expect to lose unless they are really really bad pilots or I'm a really really good one (I'm not). Even if I have the fanciest ship on the market, chances are I will lose since I can only engage one opponent at a time. Similarly, if I have a wingman and am engaging a single opponent (single player, crewed ships could be considered multiple opponents), I expect to win since while one of us is being shot at the other can attack.

Should individuals be able to, without oodles more skill, defeat more than one opponent at once? If the auto-turrets couldn't do this, then they would not be worth having since manual weapons would stand just as good, if not a better, chance.

 

[Aha]

Thank you mrchip for your response to my idea, it is appreciated! You gave valid points and i probably failed to properly express my idea as i feel like you didnt quite catch my vision. I might be wrong tho. Let me address your concerns.

- Starbase is totally meant to be ww2 in space. Should this be changed? Idk, but that would mean changing what the game is at a deep level.

-Well, i sure try to avoid being arrogant and single minded but this is just a NO. If Starbase means to be ww2 in space and means to deliver only dogfights then Starbase means to fail. This is 100%
As a bonus let me quote Neva from "Space combat is primitive?" in Game discussions: "Some people compare it to WW2 doghfights.. In WW2 dogfight you care about altitude advantage, your max speed, dive speed, turn time, maneuvering choices and a ton of other factors."
See most of these things arent even relevant in Starbase. All that ship building depth becomes very very very shallow. Shouldthis be changed you ask but its not a question.

- You won't use these turrets to cover any angles that aren't directly in front of you. Why? Because any ship could just not be trackable. You just can't afford to suddently be weaponless because someone brought a small / stealth ship. So the only viable thing, is to make forward facing turrets, that you can also set to fixed aim, and shoot normally. Which already kinda ruins the whole point of turrets for a solo large ship: since huge ships can't turn to aim effectively, they need turrets on the sides / rear, so that there is no "blind spot" you can maneuver to with a smaller ship.

-Everything you say here are supporting my idea actually. This is where i feel like you didnt quite catch my vision. I meant the auto turrets to be a medium to large ship feature, for large ships to be able to defend themselves againts other large ships and medium ships, plus the overpowered fighters. (it all comes down in balancing the values of radiation level to target lock ratios) I specificaly didnt want to ultimately remove fighters as predators, as i understood and you expressed yourself, this is "what the game is at deep level"
Still! If the feature properly excecuted, even fighters will have harder time and as i suggested, firing weapons could give a radiation spike that makes you target locked. This idea is just the concept after all, not the final product if there would ever be one.

- Stealth still sounds like a sketchy option: you have to either reduce power generation, or have lots of radiation shielding. Turrets come into play in direct combat. What would you want in a ship that should do direct combat well? Firepower ,armor, maneuverability. But you reduced your power generation, so you have subpar firepower and maneuvering/speed. And you have radiation shielding, which means you either took a massive hit in weight adding both shielding and regular armor (sacrificing maneuverability), or exchanged some armor for shielding (sacrificing armor). And the payoff for achieving stealth during direct combat isn't amazing: IF by any chance you're going against opponents that rely on auto turrets, they won't be able to target you. And because ship designers have brains, that doesnt mean they can't shoot at you: they just can't use auto aim. They're still going to shoot at you, just by aiming manually instead.

-There is no problem with any of this at all, i meant it to be so. I meant it to be an extra to unlock large ship battles mostly.

- "Don't worry, <device being suggested> will be balanced, because <consumes lots of power / costs a lot of money / weighs a lot>" is kind of a lazy way of balancing the overall power level of something, game wide, causing unknown side effects. i just never think that's a good idea and see it very often in suggestions. but hey, there would probably be other better ways of balancing anyways, so this shoudln't affect judgement on the core idea here.

-The balance isnt really in this, the balance is the core idea itself that the range is based on radiation. The power level and radiation is to prevent fighters using them, auto turrets are big ship thing! (and anyway its intuitive that it would need lot of power, at least i think so)

This is radiation based. What emits more radiation ? Bigger targets. You can also use shielding to mitigate it.

-This is very open to debate and must be considered during balancing it out. Not necessarily only bigger targets. But targets with a lot of power consumption because of lot of weapons and thrusters and what not. And not just the power consumption itself -speaking of thrusters for example- but the thrust itself additionaly! Edit: Heat as well, like RADIATORS

So, big ships can be tracked, and small ships can't.
You don't need auto aim for a thing the size of a building, slow like a bike, and maneuvering like construction equipment.
You can just yeet missiles in their general direction, and they'll eat it.
You don't need to avoid blindspots, because that huge dump truck won't have the time maneuver behind you before you both have to close the game to go eat.
If you're going against a large ship using a large ship, you can just rely on forward facing fixed weapons to maximize firepower and protection. Point in their direction, fire, what are they going to do about it? Evasive maneuvers?
a single person could do that today.

-In the sense you understood my idea you are 100% right, again it was my mistake to properly express. So once again, i mean to be able to target fighters too, its just that they can get closer and the more basic they are the closest they can get, the more precise shots they can deliver. (but upon shooting can totaly expect to get auto turreted so better start doing evasive manovers, flee and reengage.)

I hope it makes more sense now, it is definitely not perfect, it would need to be perfected.

 

[Aha]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the only reason beyond "auto-turrets are cooler than manual ones" to want auto-turrets is to be able to fight more than one opponent at once. (...)

It is not wrong to be able to fight more than one opponent at once if your ship is that "big" of a category. As i envisioned my idea, fighters, like true, agile fast fighters wont be able to use auto turrets as i intended to keep the dog fighting element alive hence i said "making everyone happy"
My idea is to make things waaay more diverse. Since you wont be able to effectively attack medium to large ships with overpowered fighters as they just emmit too much radiation. You will need really basic ships againts the larger auto turret capable ships, given that you wanna close up on it for precise shots. Still, overpowered fighters will be good to hunt down those weaker fighters and if effectively piloted even evade auto turret fire, so your piloting skill actually still do matter a lot! Must distinguish fighters from larger ships! Larger ships shouldnt be able to beat you with better piloting skills, not as for dog fight measurements at least but rather positioning. if i understood you correctly you were talking about dog fight situations therefor fighter vs fighter situation. My idea has nothing to do with fighter vs fighter situations at all, simply not applicable!

 

[Cavilier210]

You realize that the combat is supposed to be WW2-esque, right?

 

[Aha]

You realize that the combat is supposed to be WW2-esque, right?

But why not have both the WW2 style AND more, to have a much much richer and fun to play game. Not trying to remove the ww2 style from it, just trying to make it more. People will be disappointed if all they get is ww2-ish dogfight in a Massive Multiplayer and civilization building. It is simply not a walkable road for this game to be succesful. Why insist failure when there is huge potential to be successful!? Only ever fighters!? Is that fun to play for years?
Edit: What my suggestion offers (WHILE KEEPING THE WW2 STYLE TOO!!!) is fleet composition tactics, fleets to be "modular" and to be engineered what compositions are best. Isnt this something worth to consider?

 

[Cavilier210]

Or, ya know, you could play with other players in the multiplayer game.

 

[mrchip]

But why not have both the WW2 style AND more

because the "and more" either overpowers the old style (and becomes the only viable thing), or it's nerfed and using it reduces your potential (becoming unviable)

More power = more radiation. Why would you build bigger? To carry more cargo, maybe. Not in a fight. There the only reason is to carry more firepower. And what do you need to have more firepower? More power generation, AKA more radiation. So bigger ships = more radiation, unless you make a big ship with the firepower of a small fighter, which is just pointless. And stealthy ships (radiation shielding) won't be a factor because like i explained before it's not viable for a ship meant for combat.

I understand now the way it's "balanced" is a bit more fancy than i initially thought: fighters don't use them because that would make them lockable, which is a vulnerability.

Also everything in this game was literally designed to specifically hinder the creation of automatic turrets. How yolol works, the sensors we have, the slow turntables that randomly overshoot their target angle. Remeber the big picture! Once we have capital ships and player stations, what's stopping you from spamming automated defences everywhere? In a game about spaceships, why would you make the only targets worth fighting over (stations, cities, capitals), have a big sphere where ships can't enter if they dont want to be blasted by 30 turrets ?

"Some people compare it to WW2 doghfights.. In WW2 dogfight you care about altitude advantage, your max speed, dive speed, turn time, maneuvering choices and a ton of other factors."

So, you want more advanced and skillfull combat, but also automated turrets? I don't get it. Yes, the initial development phase of tracking systems would be fun for the ship designers and yolol programmers, but everyone else doesn't care about that.

 

[ChaosRifle]

As long as the automated turrets are restricted to large vessels and their aimpoints are something of a random chance, with innacuracy, making them not very good against fighters, I don't see a problem with auto turrets. I hope FrozenByte remain open to the idea as a way of helping promote use of larger ships in combat should they fall out of favor, rather than some cop-out like shields.

Spoiler

as far as I am concerned, the only shields that belong in starbase are whipple-shields.

Hope to get my hands on it to try and make competitive large ships soon.



My worry is that starbase will suffer from a lack of players to do all roles (or want to). Look at real life for example: THE sexy job in the airforce is the fighter pilot, but most pilots are logistics, rotary wing, bombers, and other various support airframes like AWACS. Now, those roles are cool (like a cargo plane land with thrust reversers on a runway barely big enough for its stopping distance, or bush pilots landing aid on mountains and jungles) but I just don't see enough players wanting to man a turret or two (left/right sides) when they could man a fighter, because numbers of fighters are just not limited.

 

[Lionard Freezer]

I dont really see who you want to help fight who.
Right now fighters dominate the market. (Btw i dont have the game yet so tell me if i say something wrong)
Im pretty sure that that is the case because we dont have a good way to protect us from the fighters. There is no flack, autolocked missiles or turrets that autolock, and i dont think they will add them nor do i want them to (exept maybe the flack). There is no reason to make a bigger ship thats less manuverable and only has 1 person flying it, when you want to kill others. They will be able to kill you easily since you cant move as fast or even aim at them becourse of your mobility, and this WONT CHANGE even with autoturrets.
Now if you have a big beffy ship with 1 pilot and 3 gunners, the ship doesnt really need to be manouvreable. Since, thanks to your gunners, you can fire in every direction and not just forwards, you can fight fighters even if you dont move. However 1 ship thats not moving a lot is still a lot easyer target then 3 fighters that have high mobility, which is why i would consider flack as an option to damage thrusters to reduce the mobility of fighters slowly over the during of a fight. (but this isnt what we are discussing rn)
Now you add those autoturrets. They wont be much use against fighters. They wont be much use against a ship thats the same size and has more crew and manual turrets. They wont be better for big ships becourse big means a crew between 10-20 people and then probably 3 fighters or more escorting it. And as said above... Big ship = slow big target = manual shots will hit just aswell as autoturrets.
Wars will involve sometimes a few houndred players (or so i hope). So that will also be no place for singleplayer action.
So who do you want to help with these autoturrets?

 

[Venombrew]

Especially solo players, they are stuck with fighters, which you might say is fair, "if you want big, team up!"

game is meant to be a social game with crews not devised to cater to only solo players. majority should not have to cater to the few.

But then again lets be honest, having weaponry being THIS MUCH forced to be manual is just as lame and boring as auto turrets considering the players themselves are fully automated robots and simply it is just not a WW2 enviroment, its space "age"!

so again less real players.

Like this, you could go "big", even as a solo, but still a ship of only auto turrets would be so much inferior compared to a same class ship with extra manual manned turrets as you would need them to combat small fighters or boarding foot soldiers.

this is wrong on many levels first one being that is an opinion on an aspect with no actual use of, because its an opinion for the fact it is not been tested in any way to pull a conclusion from it. theory at best, but one that also surrounds solo players which this game is not designed for. solo players can make it in this game, but a solo player shouldn't wipe a fleet. these kind of mechanics is limiting the use of needed players with automation in combat, thats a stupid idea. and if you put these auto turrets on small fast ships, no one can hit them that aren't moving at their speeds, so all they have to do is let their autocannons wipe our medium, large and even small ships by just flying under and over, around and behind engaging in zero combat on the players side. you say this is skill? i call it a broken mechanic that reverses the need of other players, which is the heart and soul of a game like this. and thinking a manual shot is going to be as effective as a auto hit needing nothing more than just flying next to its object is insane. the only meta ship to ever use would be small, fast, with auto turrets, making solo players elite with no skill required and reducing the need for other players, how does that help a game that progression depends on more players? and all shots are pretty much the same no matter if it comes from a player using a turret or auto turret, a hits a hit, damage is the same, so even large ships will be loaded down just to slow to do fly by damage like smaller ships. difference is, you no longer need more players which will be a big problem for the game if you keep reducing that feature.

 

[Aha]

small, fast, with auto turrets

No this is not possible in my suggestion.
This alone shows that you have no clue what so ever of my suggestion at all, not at all. I feel like you are trolling me. I am sorry.

 

[Venombrew]

No this is not possible in my suggestion.
This alone shows that you have no clue what so ever of my suggestion at all, not at all. I feel like you are trolling me. I am sorry.

okay so now this is the 3rd time you have told me how wrong i am and how i dont understand but won't tell me how i am wrong or explain that isn't exactly what im already saying. now you say im trolling when everytime ive placed information to why it wont work and your response each time is, "you don't get it". so tell me how im not getting it. in the other topic you even said that your probably not explaining it right, so which is it?

 

[XenoCow]

It is not wrong to be able to fight more than one opponent at once if your ship is that "big" of a category

I agree, but I think it would only be fair if the big ship has an equal crew number to those multiple opponents that it is fighting. Players are the most valuable resource in this game, If one large ship can do the work of more than one player, then why have crewed ships any more? Only small radiation limited fighters that can sneak around or large ships with auto-turrets would seem viable to me. Everything else would be easily destroyed by the auto-turrets or wasteful of players.

Larger ships shouldnt be able to beat you with better piloting skills, not as for dog fight measurements at least but rather positioning.

I consider positioning and piloting synonymous. One large ship versus 2 large ships (if all are of a similar size), has the same dynamics as a fight with all fighters, just bigger. In such a case, the single ship should likely lose if it is not properly piloted. These auto-turrets reduce the skill needed to properly pilot your ship since they aim for you.

if i understood you correctly you were talking about dog fight situations therefor fighter vs fighter situation. My idea has nothing to do with fighter vs fighter situations at all, simply not applicable!

I don't want to make any size distinction. I think that the dynamics of a fight stay just about the same regardless of the scale of the ships.

I ask again, why do you want auto-turrets besides thinking that manual / direct weapons are boring?


On another note, I was thinking about how single crew large ships could be effective using what's already in the game. Once the swarmer missiles are added, I think that large ships could be constructed with weapons on three sides. You could then engage via broadsides for larger targets, or with your forward guns when precision is required. You could even have the captain's chair on a pivot to make aiming the broadsides easier. Once rails are added, something more exotic like sliding around the ship to different gunner positions could be possible.

 

[Venombrew]

@XenoCow i dont know man you put what i said in much better words, since were thinking on the same page they already said,

I advise you to read it again. Just like XenoCow you too focus on fighter vs fighter situation of which my suggestion doesnt touch at all.

i dont know how they figure this mechanic doesn't touch down in this area from their original post but okay.

 

[Aha]

I dont really see who you want to help fight who.
Right now fighters dominate the market. (Btw i dont have the game yet so tell me if i say something wrong)
Im pretty sure that that is the case because we dont have a good way to protect us from the fighters. There is no flack, autolocked missiles or turrets that autolock, and i dont think they will add them nor do i want them to (exept maybe the flack). There is no reason to make a bigger ship thats less manuverable and only has 1 person flying it, when you want to kill others. They will be able to kill you easily since you cant move as fast or even aim at them becourse of your mobility, and this WONT CHANGE even with autoturrets.
Now if you have a big beffy ship with 1 pilot and 3 gunners, the ship doesnt really need to be manouvreable. Since, thanks to your gunners, you can fire in every direction and not just forwards, you can fight fighters even if you dont move. However 1 ship thats not moving a lot is still a lot easyer target then 3 fighters that have high mobility, which is why i would consider flack as an option to damage thrusters to reduce the mobility of fighters slowly over the during of a fight. (but this isnt what we are discussing rn)
Now you add those autoturrets. They wont be much use against fighters. They wont be much use against a ship thats the same size and has more crew and manual turrets. They wont be better for big ships becourse big means a crew between 10-20 people and then probably 3 fighters or more escorting it. And as said above... Big ship = slow big target = manual shots will hit just aswell as autoturrets.
Wars will involve sometimes a few houndred players (or so i hope). So that will also be no place for singleplayer action.
So who do you want to help with these autoturrets?

That is a good question, thank you!
The auto turrets are to bring dinamic into the field of engineering ships. Let me put it this way: bare minimum (or close to) fighter would be key to fight againts large ships capable of auto turrets. These light fighters can be hunted down with more advanced bigger fire power but still same or similar manouverability. However these heavier fighters would emmit large enough radiation to be able to effectively be hunted with corvettes/destroyers (as in the navy they were "torpedo boat destroyers" originaly) These ships you would call them medium sized ships. Still somewhat agile, deadly to heavy fighters. Then the bigger battleships, those can easily tear apart the medium vessels as they should. It creates a rock paper scissor and that means the effective TEAM meta is to have all kinds of, especially considering station siege. (must also mention low radiation level troop transports those now are very vital and effective too in attacking large ships.
Who do i want to help with these autoturrets? The audience who likes to think in bigger scales as this game deserve to be.

 

[Aha]

Everything else would be easily destroyed by the auto-turrets or wasteful of players.

Now here is the thing, the thing to grasp and this is very important that everything else would NOT be easily destroyed. It is not that black and white and this is one of the biggest beauty of it. The RANGE depends on the radiation level, not just the target lock, but the range itself too! A heavier, more advanced more radiation emitting ship can still be effective againts the auto turret it just cant get THAT CLOSE to it like a "bare minimum" ship. It is dynamic!

These auto-turrets reduce the skill needed to properly pilot your ship since they aim for you.

This isnt that straightforward by the way. Yes it reduces the skill required to be effective as a dog fight-fighter (of where it isnt even applicable once again) On the other hand it does INCREASE the skill required negating it as the opposing player by either good engineering that can include simply low radiative ship, push a button to temporary turn off systems to reduce radiation and lose auto-turret target lock, good manouverability that brings us to dodging the bullets that is totaly doable by constantly accelerating and braking and changing directions (as you can totaly do that in space engineers too).

I don't want to make any size distinction. I think that the dynamics of a fight stay just about the same regardless of the scale of the ships.

There is no option of not making size distinction. You consider destroyers and fighter carriers the same? Or even just destroyers and battleships? There is huge difference between fighter dog fight piloting and large vessel piloting. The dynamics are nowhere to be same not even similar.

I ask again, why do you want auto-turrets besides thinking that manual / direct weapons are boring?

Because this isnt real life where you as a marine live your life day and night anytime ready to get to your battle stations therefor it is too difficult to get proper crew.
Because it just doesnt make sense to have spaceships and no automation in weaponry at all. It breaks the immersion and because of that (and because people cant really unleash their creativity) the game loses on audience.
I get the first person shooter element of the game, its awesome, but as a space game its not enough. Just look at how many people are complaining for the exact same matter.
Remember, no player base -> no crew to fill up ships (especially as people mostly want to pilot their own ships)
Because i would like to see a diverse space combat mechanic.
And dont forget, my suggestion is designed in a way that auto turrets dont take over manned turrets, absolutely not, it is just extra, hence it is so beautiful.

 

[Verbatos]

Chipping in here.
How does not having something to aim for you break your immersion?

And boiling down the points made by the others:
- Autoturrets as you suggest them would not change the meta, fighters will still dominate and larger ships would be even harder to use.
- Fighters will just attach auto-turrets to their own ships, further stomping down larger ships.
- It undermines the role of gunner and makes combat a dodging contest.

People will find a way to make small ships with autoturrets, power limits are a lazy copout of a balancing choice. There are already ships which are basically just a cockpit, two railguns and some thrusters, and if railguns, which take a heap of power to use, can be mounted on small ships, auto-turrets should be able to as well.

Most people do not want, or do not care about auto-turrets, they would not add anything to combat, as a single item they won't add anything of value to the engineering experience, and they would make people's lives miserable if you are not flying anything smaller than an asteroid.

Also I don't think we have any hitscan, so auto-turrets might not even work if implemented in the first place.