Turrets and Barrels

[Whitecold (OP)]

I was designing the PD armament of my ships and wondered what are the advantages and disadvantages of using multiple turrets vs.  multi barreled weapons, aka using two single laser turrets vs.  one twin turret.  On the same note is there any disadvantage to multiple small gauss cannons? From what I read 10 1/10-size Gauss cannons should preform identically, with the same tonnage/price, but are there other considerations?

[Nightstar]

Turrets with more barrels have a slight reduction on space required for gearing. Of course, they're also less flexible and take more research.

Gauss... Slight differences in research costs. Depending on size, the numbers don't always add up to 100% exactly either. You can actually fit a small GC on a small fighter. Most notably, in some cases it's possible to get hit rates over 100%. In those cases, a small GC has an advantage. (That's really unintentional behavior though. Small GCs have lowered hit rate because the game can't handle fractional damage.) The only disadvantage for small GCs would be the statistical spread. The smaller GCs have a higher chance of missing every single shot, which is generally slightly worse for point defense.

[Paul M]

The real difference is that 2 laser turrets can fire on two targets or two contacts in one target, while a single turret with 2 lasers fires only on one target.

You have a greater chance to hit a single contact with a multibarreled turret but you can only engage 1 inbound contact per turret.

The number of targets you can engage is determined by the number of fire control systems you have.  If a target has multiple contacts then you need multiple turrets to engage each contact in the target.

[Whitecold (OP)]

Thanks for the answers, however I'm unsure how the hit percentages are calculated with the reduced chances.  Also is it applied before or after the tracking bonus?

[Charlie Beeler]

The penalty for the reduced size GC's is applied to the base to-hit. 

The tracking bonus is only applied against a penalty applied for tracking speed being below missile speed. 

[Steve Walmsley]

If you armour your turrets the saving in size per barrel is more significant

[Jorgen_CAB]

I generally build my turrets based on what I intend to use them for. PD turrets such as Gauss canons will usually have 2-4 barrels based on the size of enemy volleys I expect to encounter and the number of shots for each barrel. It is also the case that bigger turrets take more research and are less flexible both for targeting and fitting into ship hulls.

Making your gauss cannons smaller are generally worse than keeping them big since one cannon at 100% are better than two at 50% using pure math as long as you can't increase the to-hit chance above the base-to-hit with experience from the crew and offset the tracking speed using tracking bonuses. You can, however, eventually reduce the size as you get more shots per gun to keep each turret able to shoot down a number of missiles while taking advantage of more barrels per turret and reduced size for larger turrets.

In general I use twin turrets at full size if my gauss cannons fire three shots per barrel. That is perhaps a good middle ground for research cost and flexibility for fitting them into ship hulls with matching fire-controls.
When I get to four shots per barrel I usually reduce the size somewhat and fit three barrels into one turret. It will now be a slightly smaller turret with approximately the same missile killing power and cheaper to research.

[Erik L]

I've personally always limited quad-barrel to PD roles and double/triple to offensive roles.

[Rolepgeek]

I tend to only use size 5 gauss cannons or size 1 gauss cannons, but I don't have much experience. That's because, though, that for the hullspace, they give a slightly better accuracy ratio.