Mounting turrets onto a vehicle is extremely fun. However, bullets are not always easy to come by. My suggestion is to add a weaker electrically powered crossbow-turret as an alternative.
You still need to load it, it still requires power, and it lacks the range and stopping force of gun-turrets. It also probably won’t be as useful for dealing with metal or chitin coated targets.
In exchange, you get slightly a easier to create turret, that uses a kind of ammunition that even fairly early-game archers can reliably acquire (though they still need to have the knowledge, tools, and skills to make turrets, so it shouldn’t hurt game balance). Also, you get a turret that turns zeds into pincushions, and a use for all the spare crossbows that are so helpfully set up in trap form in fields all across the map.
perhaps have an upgraded XL version that fires specially made “heavy” bolts. essentially an automated ballista. Slow firing, but incredible stopping power.
Is it feasible to build such a thing? I think so. Self-cocking crossbows are a thing, as are magazine fed crossbows. Combine the two, add in the same tech used to automated the other turrets, and you’re done.
I’ve considered the same thing. Making a repeating-crossbow hopper fed (rather than magazine) wouldn’t be trivial but I think the idea bears talking out.
Ninja, is there a particular message you’re trying to send? I’d guess the … is disapproval, but if that’s the case, I’d like to know why you disapprove. If it’s not the case, let us know what you’re thinking?
Well repeating crossbows are something we have in real life so it wouldn’t be hard to rig one up. However, it would be insanely inaccurate as even the slightest wobble would send a bolt way off, and even the best repeating crossbows are very weak.
How much realism needs to go into it I don’t know, but it would have to be significantly worse than a gun turret to justify near infinite ammo.
[quote=“Binky, post:6, topic:5511”]Well repeating crossbows are something we have in real life so it wouldn’t be hard to rig one up. However, it would be insanely inaccurate as even the slightest wobble would send a bolt way off, and even the best repeating crossbows are very weak.
How much realism needs to go into it I don’t know, but it would have to be significantly worse than a gun turret to justify near infinite ammo.[/quote]
I spent a while watching the M249 turrets on a (parked) armored car today. Those are horribly inaccurate. Automating a repeating crossbow would do less damage, true, but I think they’d be accurate enough if you’re holding still. Might have the mounting require more parts and better skill, say you’ve got it on gimbals or something.