Is there an Engineer/Turretmancer class mod?

[The Opposite]

Hey folks! I'm new here to the forums. I just got into the modding scene a couple of days ago, I'd be quite surprised if one didn't exist by now. I'd love to be an engineer and place/summon a bunch of turrets to fight alongside me! I'm using tModLoader if that matters. The only thing that I've found so far is this but it's really out of date.

 

[Hiccup251]

There is not, as far as I'm aware, but I've been toying with a turret-based playstyle for a while. Reading this motivated me to try writing some preliminary code today, and I have something that might be called a functioning turret (using placeholder sprites). Here's a basic rundown of how they work so far:

Using a consumable throwing item, you toss an inactive turret (maybe a capsule or something? Just using the handgun sprite for everything right now).
When this hits a tile, it activates, creating a turret at that position. The turret lasts for 30 seconds, and when it times out it turns back into the item you threw.
When there are no nearby targets it can see, the turret slowly rotates as if searching (this is working, but it looks awkward without a good sprite). The base of the turret remains still.
When a target enters its range/LoS, the turret aims at the target and fires bullets at a given rate. These bullets are taken from the player's inventory. This allows the turret to use all kinds of bullets, just like the player with any gun. For the sake of flexibility, the turrets use ammo starting from the bottom ammo slot first, allowing you to, say, have turrets firing from an endless pouch while you use more expensive ammo for your gun. If no ammo is available, the turret will not fire, and will simply track the target.
If the target leaves its range/LoS or dies, it finds a new target.
The bullets fired by turrets use (turret base damage + ammo base damage) * player ranged damage as the damage formula.

And that's all I have done so far. Since it's not balanced to have a limitless number of turrets out at once, I'll probably tie them to minion slots or a separate custom parameter. The framework will easily allow for turrets that use different ammo, like rockets, arrows, and darts, as well as different firing styles (shotgun, burst, etc.)

What do you think? Anything seem weird, or anything it's missing? Once I have this polished up, get a full progression of turrets, and have sprites done (if I ever get someone to sprite for me ), the plan is to add this into the loot pool for my mod.

Edit: Forgot to mention that I have a simple target-leading system in place, where the turret calculates its firing angle based on the distance of the target, its velocity, and the speed at which the turret shoots. If an enemy moves at a constant velocity it should always hit dead center.

 

[The Opposite]

This sounds absolutely amazing! I squealed internally. I like the idea of "deploying" them by tossing the item. I'm glad you're going to tie them to minions slots, it'd be an interesting twist on summoning. Hell, this could become an alternative summoner class! I'm honestly stoked for this project of yours.

Although there isn't much I can offer other than ideas I want you to know that you have my full support. I think this is an excellent idea and it shows tons of potential. If it's possible, you should try to had a little laser sight to it to add effect! Perhaps there could also either be a variety of sentries/turrets that you can place or maybe there's a way to upgrade them a la TF2 Engineer. You could have it lob out grenades or something while it's shooting rounds. Oh! Perhaps you could even make use of gels and can make "sticky" sentries, allowing you to place them on walls or ceilings. I can't wait to have a little camp of turrets mowing things down.

Edit: Perhaps you could even whip up an armor set tailored to turrets. Whether it's turret damage, duration, etc. It could consist of things like jumpsuits, hard hats, steam punk gear, whatever. Be as creative as you want with this. I'm just happy to hear that there's somebody willing to work on something like this.

Edit Edit: I just thought of something crazy. What if you could make it so you could wire them to your base, allowing you to turn them in in a 'tower defense' style?

 

[Hiccup251]

Glad you like it!

If it's possible, you should try to had a little laser sight to it to add effect!

If I can figure out how to simply draw a line between two points, this would be a great idea. It sounds easy, but I've never seen an example of such a thing that didn't use an actual entity tied to a sprite.

Perhaps there could also either be a variety of sentries/turrets that you can place or maybe there's a way to upgrade them a la TF2 Engineer.

Variety is the plan. My mod splits its loot pool into 6 tiers, so I'd have at least one or two turrets at each tier that use different ammo.

You could have it lob out grenades or something while it's shooting rounds.

I'd have to rewrite my framework to have one turret able to consume more than one ammo type, but there's nothing stopping me from having secondary fire as a bonus. Say, every 5th shot a given turret fires might be a grenade (without requiring you have any), or alternatively it might fire a grenade as well as its standard fire. Lots of ways to implement this, and secondary fire is a great way to make this even more interesting.

Oh! Perhaps you could even make use of gels and can make "sticky" sentries

This is actually the default state, though it's been giving more trouble than I expected. It's surprisingly hard to detect what tile it collides with, so it's hard to know which way the stand should face. In cases where the turret lands near a corner, I need to be able to decide whether it hit the wall or the floor (or ceiling). It would be a lot easier to have it just drop to the floor when it spawns, so the stand always faces the same way. I'll keep tinkering with it to see if I can get it working, though.

 

[The Opposite]

Sweet dude, keep up the excellent work! Also, your mod is an instant download. You had me at gunblades. I like you. Question: Is it possible to install a mod and get things generated/working without a new world? It'd be a shame to have to restart. However, I would just for you/this mod.

 

[Hiccup251]

Since most mods, including mine, don't have any worldgen aspects to them, you don't need to worry about starting a new world. If a mod adds ores or generated structures, you'd need a new world, but otherwise everything will work fine.

You'll have to let me know what you think about the gunblades when you get them, as I've gotten surprisingly little feedback other than that the idea is cool.

 

[The Opposite]

I most definitely can! It's pretty neat that I can just install it and have things set up without a world. What are the rarities on these items?

 

[Hiccup251]

Loot is integrated into the prefix system: 1/100 enemies will spawn with the "Rare" prefix (very easy to spot), and they will always drop a token on death. The tokens are divided into 6 progression tiers, such that as you get further into the game the tokens dropped will be of higher level. Using a token will give you a random loot drop for its tier.

Since this isn't on the topic of this thread, let's keep any further discussion of my mod to its own thread or PMs.

 

[Yaraniel]

I dont know much about modding, but shouldnt the code of the frost hydra staff be similar to what you're looking for?

 

[Thisguy Here]

I’ve actually been brainstorming more ‘Engineer’ themed items myself; for the less magically inclined, more mechanically minded Terrarians (And to go with our newest vanity item too ).

Problem is I know very little about making sprites and modding Terraria. The majority of my modding experience is limited to altering stats in Bethesda mods and a single character I created for Don’t Starve. I've got the ideas, the general mechanics and even direction on the recipes- just no idea how to get them in-game lol! For just a sample of my ideas:

Sentry Gun: It would work similar to the “turret summons”, like the frost hydra or spider queen. You could craft a weak in the early pre-hardmode and then continue upgrading it as more materials become unlocked. With the turret summoning mechanic you'd only have the one- A constant companion of your engineer as it were, and to make it less magic and more mechanical maybe make them do ranged damage instead of summon damage or something.
-Lvl 1: made with Iron, minishark, radar
-Lvl2: hellstone, wire (And Lvl1 turret of course)
-Lvl3: Strange Plating, MegaShark, (Lvl2)
-Lvl4: Shroomite and a (Lvl3)
-Lvl5: Chaingun and a (lvl4)
-Lvl6 Final: Luminite, Vortex fragments, maybe S.D.M.G. or Vortex Beater

Rocket Turret: Separate to the Sentry Gun, shoots rockets.
-Lvl1: Shroomite, Rocket Launcher, Wire, Radar
-Lvl2: Luminite, Celebration, Lvl1 rocket turret

Dispenser: Works like a Heart Statue on an X second timer without having to set everything up separately (instead of statue, then timer, then wires, then activate, you just plop it down). X becoming more frequent the more it’s upgraded. Maybe adding a regen buff or also mana stars at higher upgrades too.

And I have more... I've been considering offering them to the Thorium mod (they seem the most capable, but to be fair I just haven't seen many others works yet, fairly new to Terraria modding) but it seems to steer away from Easter Eggs and Reference items... Maybe Tremor but they don't update too often and well, to be honest I don't care for the mod- Please don't mistake me, It's very nice work- many aspect just aren't for me.