So, about turrets....

[dazhat]

As far as I can tell turrets do not help defend colonies very effectively. The way they explode means that they are a liability in a fight. Also they are not really very powerful compared to an armed colonist after the early game. When using turrets before my colony is fully established I find I have to have a few on each side meaning often less than half of them actually see combat. I find the ones that do get in fights get destroyed easily and become a big drain on metal.

They one thing I have found them good for is killing animals which have gone mad or even for food.

As they are 'improvised' can I suggest that to create a turret requires destroying a weapon which the colony owns to incorporate it into the turret. So early on a pistol would provide a slow firing short range turret but later it could be upgraded to an R4 charge turret of death.

Just a thought I had.

Edit: I just noticed I put this in the wrong part of the forum, sorry!

[Halinder]

Explosions can actually be used to make turrets very good for first lines of defense in close-quarter areas, or for zombies/melee tribes-people, though the latter usually gets shot by their ranged counterparts. I've even seen strategies where raiders detonate the turret, collapsing roof supports and sending rocks tumbling onto the raid. The realistic weapons modpack makes it to where improvised turrets fire larger volleys at infinite range, each shot doing 20 damage. This is, of course, countered by the fact all other weapons are much deadlier in various ways. Turrets are also good distractions when coupled with snipers, since they'll usually get attention before anything else.

[H_D]

Turrets are actually pretty effective if you use them right. The most popular use is of course killbox, which is closed area, not bigger than range of turret, with entrance to colony on one side and exit on the other side, filled with turrets and sandbags. Due to stupid AI, every assault goes through killbox and gets slauthered by overwhelming amount of bullets. Another way you can place turrets is to use them as explosive charges, you build small room with one entrance (so every attacker has to get close to turret to destroy it) and look how big group of enemies attacks turret and dies in explosion. Both methods are useful only against big waves of enemies. Now comes the biggest problem with turrets - they generate enormous amount of wealth, and since wealth attracts bandits, the more turrets you build, the biggest assaults you get.

There are plenty of turret and defence mods, one of them (I don't remember which one) has turrets that are made of colonist weapons, like you suggested.

[Wex]

As far as I can tell turrets do not help defend colonies very effectively. The way they explode means that they are a liability in a fight. Also they are not really very powerful compared to an armed colonist after the early game. When using turrets before my colony is fully established I find I have to have a few on each side meaning often less than half of them actually see combat. I find the ones that do get in fights get destroyed easily and become a big drain on metal.

They one thing I have found them good for is killing animals which have gone mad or even for food.

As they are 'improvised' can I suggest that to create a turret requires destroying a weapon which the colony owns to incorporate it into the turret. So early on a pistol would provide a slow firing short range turret but later it could be upgraded to an R4 charge turret of death.

Just a thought I had.

Edit: I just noticed I put this in the wrong part of the forum, sorry!

Yes, suggestions would have been better.
But there's already a mod to incorporate weapons in turrets.
It works wonders.
It would be nice to see it as a vanilla feature though.

[Japzzi]

To me turrets work fine and are helpfull ^^ I think its just all about being able to position them right.

[fraz]

It would be nice to see it as a vanilla feature though.

When I first began playing Rimworld a few months ago, I felt strongly that the game needed more turrets. As discussed in this thread, the vanilla turrets are rather weak unless used in an exploitative manner.

However, I have since seen Tynan make a few statements explaining his reluctance to add more turrets (and, in fact, his consideration of removing the existing turrets), and I have to admit I agree with his reasoning. At its heart, Rimworld is a story about your colonists' struggle to survive on a hostile world, and emphasizes the interaction between your colonists and their environment. Turrets are contrary to this vision, creating separation between your colonists and their challenges, as they reduce the need for colonist involvement in the defense of the colony. Turrets that can be constructed with all the same weapons as colonists would hugely exacerbate this issue, allowing for the construction of a fully automated defenses that don't require colonist involvement at all.

That said, I do believe the game would benefit from more defensive options. Given that our colonies are often faced with superior hostile forces, we need to have more effective force-multipliers (so that we aren't forced to resort to cheesy/exploitative tactics). This could include things like embrasures, trenches, barbed wire, fixed heavy weapons (that need to be manned), etc.