I guess the biggest problem will always be the cost of Robotics factory. No matter how much it costs, it's always a risk to build it, since you don't know if you'll ever use turrets during the round. You can't really plan ahead to use turrets, because it depends so much on what you need. While upgrades and phasegates you'll pretty much always need.
If you could build turrets without robotics, then we might start seeing 'em.
P.S. Just to clarify, I don't think turrets are in a good place. You just never see them.
EDIT: Like, if I could build turrets anytime, and I'd see like a marine sneaking to a hive, I could just toss him a battery and some turrets. Veil-Cargo hive, in the corner. Yup, that would be a tasty spot. But planning it ahead? Nooope.
The robotics factory does give you the power surge option too, which is really nice to have in emergencies. Lost the power once in our second tech point base, was able to power surge the obs and beacon everyone back there. Was brilliant to see. Every marine got slaughtered, but still, brilliant.
Anywho, I think turrets are ok-ish at the moment. They can be useful to some extent without being really annoying, which is good enough for me.
I feel like the turret triangle is the wrong strat. It is treating them like they can defend themselves, which ultimately they can't. One Lerk, or Gorge can take down the battery easily. I prefer to focus their fire on one area (entry way, Phase Gate, Power Node, etc.) This maximizes the damage they do while the enemy is traversing the cone of fire. It should be assumed that without marine presence Aliens can both easily avoid the turrets and or make short work of them. They are a force augmentation not a force on their own.
Another thing I like to do in small games is use them to keep infestation contained. Deploying them in System Waypointing for example allows defending marines to focus on life forms and the turrets effectively stop cyst expansion to Nano. This is the only situation where I would spread out the cone of fire of the Turrets.
The other thing you need to make sure to emphasize with Rookies is that you can and SHOULD stand in front of the turrets. I see a lot of rookies treating them like you would IRL staying safely behind the cone of fire. It seems obvious when you have played the game a lot but it is worth pointing out to Rookies IMHO.
1 per cc, perhaps with a hard cap
mega powerful
25-35 FOV
With such low FOV they would be useless in rooms, or at least balanced that way. So they would only find good use in corridors, and thus easily flanked.
Combine this with a high cost and you would see teams placing them strategically and tactically both in pubs and comp matches.
It would also boost the pvp side of the game, and I think make it a hell of a lot more interesting.
As I said, I really like it on paper. But just take veil. If you put one sentry on one passageway out of the marine base, all marines can carelessly move the other way around. This would lead to terrible turtles. And this is only the most obvious flaw. I bet you could find some passageways, where 1 well placed sentry could cut of the aliens completely only allowing them to take one single path, where all marines are sitting and fighting the aliens frontal on long range.
NS2 maps simply have to little of alternative ways from one room to another. There will be no flanking possible! (If marines place them right and defend the other route.) There are so many rooms with only 2 ways leading to them. Exactly these will get abused with such sentries.
I don't know how to improve turrets, but the current iteration is horrible: A stupid gimmicky 3 turret triangle, pointing at each other like idiots, a battery standing in the middle like a moron. That's just BAD. :P
P.S. I have not seen a single turret triangle I couldn't take down solo as Skulk. The best one took me a minute to figure out, rest you usually find the dead angle in 5 seconds.
That's because triangles are bad. Let all 3 face in the direction you want to defend. And don't let them alone. Sentries are not mines!
just played a game where I went 13-0 turret spam. one guy made it to pipe from turbine. there the turrets into a corner, and he held it. then lava, thre it on the bridge with 2 pointing down and one up. held. smelting was next with triangle formation. eventually pushed into falls approach, and again, line of turrets pointed down. next line of turrets pointed at hive. with armories and phase placed and researched eventually. turrets aren't amazing, but they do let one marine hold a position against almost any number of skulks if places properly. again, turrets shouldn't be able to hold a room by themselves, but as long as one marineis there, they are pretty damn powerful.
Comments
The robotics factory does give you the power surge option too, which is really nice to have in emergencies. Lost the power once in our second tech point base, was able to power surge the obs and beacon everyone back there. Was brilliant to see. Every marine got slaughtered, but still, brilliant.
Anywho, I think turrets are ok-ish at the moment. They can be useful to some extent without being really annoying, which is good enough for me.
Another thing I like to do in small games is use them to keep infestation contained. Deploying them in System Waypointing for example allows defending marines to focus on life forms and the turrets effectively stop cyst expansion to Nano. This is the only situation where I would spread out the cone of fire of the Turrets.
The other thing you need to make sure to emphasize with Rookies is that you can and SHOULD stand in front of the turrets. I see a lot of rookies treating them like you would IRL staying safely behind the cone of fire. It seems obvious when you have played the game a lot but it is worth pointing out to Rookies IMHO.
As I said, I really like it on paper. But just take veil. If you put one sentry on one passageway out of the marine base, all marines can carelessly move the other way around. This would lead to terrible turtles. And this is only the most obvious flaw. I bet you could find some passageways, where 1 well placed sentry could cut of the aliens completely only allowing them to take one single path, where all marines are sitting and fighting the aliens frontal on long range.
NS2 maps simply have to little of alternative ways from one room to another. There will be no flanking possible! (If marines place them right and defend the other route.) There are so many rooms with only 2 ways leading to them. Exactly these will get abused with such sentries.
That's because triangles are bad. Let all 3 face in the direction you want to defend. And don't let them alone. Sentries are not mines!