The turret can get you a few kills in the right situation. The default gun is great for ambush attacks and the turret gives you long range versatility (assuming you find a good location). It makes a nice distraction. You can put a few down in a row and give infantry moving from rock A to rock B some cover.
Now I have had some good times with this and I agree that it is all about time and place. Dump it down on the front line and expect to be a shielded death machine and you will be decimated. As I tend to stay just behind where the main action is, I find the turret useful. There was an instance where we were assaulting a biolab. Of course there was a battle going on up above, but there was also a battle for spawn outside. A centralised spawn was being contested and I had a perfect view of it from the one I was sitting at. Setting up my turret, I managed to repel people attacking the place our guys were trying to hold, getting kills and assists. The attackers were too focused on going on the offensive and dealing with the threat in front of them rather than being able to tackle me. Also I was well defended as nobody was going to be coming in from the rear to deliver a nasty surprise.
You forgot the other essential use - blocking that doorway from the warpgate spawn out to the vehicle terminals.
Turret design is still miles better than deployment mechanics that never let u build it where u need it!
The turret is extremely situational, but in the right place at the right time, it can be pretty awesome. In the rare occasion that you can put it at a good vantage point over a good choke point, you're golden. But given that bases are basically gazebos, and using a turret outdoors is basically asking for a headshot, that doesn't happen a lot. One of the funny side effects of turrets being useless most of the time is that attackers often ignore the turret in favor of firing on other targets first. Apparently most people don't view it as a threat. So sometimes you can get a few kills in just because you're the least prioritized target.
I find it pretty good for defending biolabs landing pads and chockepoints inside bases in general. On a side note, the further away from the enemy the better, if you are too close a smart enemy will just sprint behind you and kill you. At distance the Mana turret has some surprising accuracy with burst fire. Otherwise, complete rubbish, yes.
If the turret had a slightly bigger rotational distance I'd be much happier. Usually you can cover one door and leave yourself completely open to be flanked by the other. In point camping situations with two engineers is pretty good.
I used the turret at The Crown to defend the solar panel array thingy on the north side, I placed two ammo packages (one ammp package and a secondary turret one). Waited for CD and placed the turret to shoot int he open fields. Just firing over the hilltops getting information about where cloaked Infis waited to shoot. Quickly get our of the turret run for cover shoot at the spots where I remembered getting hits with the turret shooting with the AC-X11 getting some more hits. Repeat. Got me 3 kills, 4 assists and LOTS of ammo resupply exp. I like the turret. It is situational, but if you know where to place it and how to use it it is quite nice. Lots of Infis will try to get you while sitting behind the turret. BUT sitting close to the turret shooting at Snipers the moment they try to shoot is quite nice.
Compare the turret to the other classes abilities and you'll see why people feel it needs some sort of change.
It's good for spawn camping (though not when the enemy can shoot you from their spawn room), good as a door blocker and a step stool. An AA mana turret (with wider movement ofc) would be much more useful for the class though.
The turret actually has quite high DPS. He must have had terrible aim, it can shred people up close. We also have ammo and repair, not to mention mines, which I guess you could argue aren't an ability. I personally like the turret. It's very accurate if you don't just hold down the trigger and point it in the general direction of your enemies, and even then it slaughters people indoors. I don't know what people are thinking, the shield gives a lot of protection, making enemies shoot at your head so they have to burst to keep their sights on you. If you can aim decently, you can outshoot most people who attack you from the front, and at least scare them back into cover, which is what the turret really excels at. It's also good where people don't expect it. I particularly like how in some biolabs, you can jump onto a teleporter room next to one of the pads, and set up the turret to fire down on the people rushing in, oblivious to your position.
Number 3. They can't be directly compared because Engineer is a support class and everything else, bar Combat Medics, is anti-infantry. The ammunition pack alone would get the Engineer in to squads, let alone all the other stuff we can do. And if you cert up properly you can be quite the little infantry killer practically speaking. Engineer is the only class that has access to an ammunition pack 24/7 such that they can reload a underbarrel grenade launcher (1 shot most people if it doesn't bug), underbarrel shotgun (1 shot a heavy through shield if HS), underbarrel smoke grenade launcher (effective in a squad when using NV scopes) and Pandora (fastest killing shotgun). Furthermore, Engineers are the only class that can be decent at short to mid range and carry AP mines. Not to mention they are the only class that can carry 3 AP mines.
seeking kills only with an Engineer sounds like: "My lvl 42 Def-Paladin just doesn't deal enough DMG to burst down a lvl 44 Elite-Mob... Def-Pala needs a DMG buff!"
There is one thing the MANA turret is GREAT at. Once you figure it out, your like. Ahh so thats how I counter that in there. Only hint i'll give is, robot suits are people too.
Actually, it has really horrible DPS. I have gotten shot pointblank while walking in without knowing there is a turret there, then still have enough time to back up to a cover, then bounce a grenade in to kill the guy. The Turret kill speed, even in best case scenario (except some kind of unreal triple head shot), is still slower than most infantry weapons. And the virtue of it being stationary (and often deployed at the far end of the room to keep your back from being exposed, puts a good bit of distance between you and the target--enough distance that you cannot follow up behind the enemy's cover once he retreat. Anyone that tries to stare down the turret will die--you can't outshoot it, as the turret's hit will throw off your aim. But the turret isn't sufficient to shoot someone before they back up into a cover, then grenade/rocket you to death half a second later. The key here is that anyone with a bit of experience and not massive lag can easily dispatch any turret engy, no matter how awesome your hidey-hole is. This is most evident if you try out a war or two--there are no turrets in sight, and anyone inexperienced enough to set one up will die a very quick death due to presence of organized Outfits and experienced players. Easy for you to say, Mr. NC. Try being on the receiving end of the Hacksaw and you won't be thinking that MANA turret is that powerful against MAXes. In all honesty though...Sprint = dead engy. Personally as a VS MAX, I play AT-AI combo instead of dual AI. That means I can wreck the turret very quickly and reliably.
i rarely use it to actually kill things because being stationary in this game is asking to die i use it as 1) a distraction. poor players will shoot at the big purple/blue/red thing from range hping it's an enemy. 2) a shield for me to strafe around 3) when i run into an nc/tr max in the open field i drop one quickly, then get on it and destroy the max. provided of course i was not in range of those nasty guns at the outset
My gripe with the turret is that if I deploy indoors, and not facing down a long flight of stairs/hallway, the enemy just sprints past where I can turn to and unloads before I can get off the turret. That, and I'm completely unprotected from the sides. . . I've managed to get a few kills with it, but only in specific situations. (such as an entire squad sprinting around the corner into my cof and getting shredded one-by-one... Still not sure why they didn't go back around the corner...) Also, maybe a higher fire-rate with a larger cof would make it more useful?
turret is situational, but very good in those situations, and the only way to get a feel for that is experience really. The DPS is mediocre but it has no recoil so the effective dps is pretty good. in a good turret spot basically only explosives can dig you out, but its easy to explosives (incl. rockets) coming. hopping off is really easy and puts the turret between youand them and you should be using flak armor on the engineer anyway there are also some great interior spots to use it, the shield is an unfathomably good advantage in a close quarters fight. The other thing about turrets is, use claymore to cover alternative entrances. ^_^
I think I have seen my turret being used as a distraction and infiltrator bait. I was defending at the Crown on the cliffside with several MAXes and infiltrators when once in a while a damage indicator would pop up on my HUD while I was moving the turret around. So, take notice of location of hit, scan quickly with Q in the general location and snap turret away before a follow-up round actually does headshot me. My usual cry of "Enemy infiltrator" usually drew an ally infiltrator to look and fire at whoever just took a shot at me. Happened a few times during that fight. It's an odd feeling when the engineer on a turret who usually dies quickly just engages in rapid turret movement to flush out the sniper for the allies.
