guns pointing in different directions?

[Padds01]

Just wondering how you can point say , front turrets one way but keep the rear turrets pointing another , hadnt seen it done before last game and cant see mention of it in controls

[Benser33]

The only way to really do it is to aim the guns in such a way that the front guns are already aimed where you want them but the other guns continue to move.

 

For example if you aim fore, but slight to port, the front guns will be aimed mostly fore and the rear guns will turn all the way to port to try and match it. If you then change to aim slightly to starboard then the front guns will quickly turn say 5° but the rear guns must turn over 180° to aim to starboard. At some point during that turn they will be aimed directly aft of the ship. At this point you have front guns aimed directly fore but rear guns aimed directly port. You could then lock them in that position with ctrl-X if you wanted to fire at one person immediately ahead of you and another immediately behind, unlocking the guns just long enough to aim correctly, but taking advantage of this is cumbersome and managing the guns independently is no easy task, especially since you can only ever turn all guns at once.

 

At the very least, being aware of how your guns behave, including the ones you arent intending to use in any particular moment, can give you an advantage when an opportunity arises to use a gun that was at least correctly trained. For example if you expect someone to appear to port but youre firing on someone ahead of you, inbetween shots you can aim slightly to port so that the rear gun remains trained on your port side and is more readily available when that previously mentioned ship appears. Or even, with my above example, you might even keep the rear gun/s aimed directly behind you by turning your forward aim between slightly port and slightly starboard, but as I mentioned it is no easy task and the required concentration that is often better spent elsewhere.