So, I'm fairly new to Flyout. I noticed there wasn't a guide for how to make a turret, and I recently made a few on a bomber I built. It's not a perfect system, but it works and there are ways I assume someone more experienced than me can make it look nicer.





(Here's the bomber.)

There's two types of turrets I've figured out, those being Dorsal Turrets & Something like a Nose/Tail Gunner. I'll go over them in the guide below.

But first of all, thanks for reading.

The basic principle is simple. Joints. Joints are the backbone of this system, more importantly their ability to change on input. Just sorta whack a hinge onto the thing, another hinge on that, gun to top it off, done!

Not quite that simple, but that's the gist of it, anyways.

Okay, I'll start with the first one I made. It consists of only 3 parts, really: an Azimuth Joint, an Elevation Hinge, & Armament.. For the bomber I made, I used the Hinge Joint as the base, so we'll start with that.



Place down a Hinge Joint. See the green line? That's the "front", you'll want to line the gun up with that for proper aim. Feel free to resize it, I haven't really noticed a change in performance with it. Not like you're lifting that much with it.

On top of that, place a Swing Joint. Make sure their 'fronts' (green lines) are facing the same way. Again, feel free to resize if needed.



(I recommend aligning them on all axes except whichever one makes them clip through each other.)
Anyways, what you want to do next is rotate the Swing joint 90 degrees like this:



All we have to do now is put a gun on it, wire it up to aim, and it's working. Let's do that.

So, I didn't really make my bomber's dorsal turret very flashy or remarkable in any way, but hey, it works.


(That's an ammo drum, not a sideways hinge.)

Basically, same principle as the other turret, you just also connect a hemisphere to the Azimuth hinge, position it so the Azimuth hinge is hidden (optional), and set the hemisphere to the 'Glass' material. I personally copy the texture settings from a canopy front piece. If you want to add a gunner, just attach a cockpit to the Azimuth hinge, much like the Elevation hinge. After that, just rig the controls up and it should be good to go.

Doing this is pretty straightforward. Ever notice how if you add steering to a landing gear wheel, how it has those weird input numbers?



This. We'll be using this. Basically- and I have no idea if this is actually how it works, but basically the two numbers in "Range" are just how far something can rotate. (I don't personally touch the top two values, but you're welcome to figure it out and let me know, I'll add it in with credits!) The value labeled 'Yaw' has one of those two numbers in it, too. (If you change the limit values, I'd change that to match as well.)

But oh dear, our hinges look a little different.



There's no input! Fortunately, it's easy to add one- click the drop-down menu, choose one you think works well, and add it in.



This is what I did for the Azimuth. I use flaps because it gets 5 possible values (0-4), and none of my planes' flaps work properly anyway. Feel free to use whatever, though. Just type over the default number, and enter one of the two values under 'Range'. if it's backwards, either add or remove a minus to the front of it. Repeat these steps with another input type for the Elevation (I used Collective), and give it a test! Play with values until it works well enough to not bother dealing with it more (Like I did.)

Hope this guide helps, really do. If you have any comments, suggestions, inputs, or anything of the sort, feel free. I'll probably add helpful info from comments I see (I'll credit you.)

Oh, also, you don't have to put ammo in the turret or on the hinges, just put it beside. You totally can put it so it moves with the gun, but you don't have to. Also, double-check the gun is on the Elevation hinge, not the Azimuth hinge. Other than that, enjoy your new turrets and please inform me of any typos or errors!

Thanks again for reading!