Why do mounted crossbows take forever to fire?+Suggestion

[DeathDealer42]

I'm not talking about the firerate about them, let me explain.

I had a small cannibal war party at my gate yesterday; due to diplomacy being buggy atm
they just stood in front of my gates while some of them spinned in circles while clipping inside of eachother. Anyway I had about 4 mounted crossbows on my walls which I decided to man with workers.

Since it was a small party I slipped my guards outside the gate to have the dialogue that triggers them to become hostile. my intention was to have them preoccupy the cannibals while my workers fired bolts from the mounted crossbows at them.

HOWEVER

When the plan went into motion I watched my workers just sit there on their turrets for about 30+ seconds while my guards were fighting the savages. After everything was over, I sent my guards inside to heal them up. A few seconds later one of the cannibals decided to get up from K.O and FINALLY the turrets decided to open fire, pretty much killing him instantly.

This is not the first time it's occured and it brings up the question if its just me or do other people have the same issue?

On a side note: Why not implement a command that tells the person operating the turret to fire on someone/something so we don't have to walk out our gates and talk to or attack in melee a war party just to make them valid/attackable targets?

[Hatsune_Neko]

firing a crossbow, one that's big enough to be a turret on a wall is rather cumbersome to reload and slow.

the command though is a awesome idea. would love to have that option as well

[swillo]

love the idea of a command, currently I tell my gunner to attack target, they leave their position and become hostile to the target, then I tell them to man their turret and they will start firing. Once they start then everyone will start.
But it doesn't always work, if the target is far enough away from the gunner they will not become hostile. So Yeah I like the idea to just tell them to open fire.

[DeathDealer42]

firing a crossbow, one that's big enough to be a turret on a wall is rather cumbersome to reload and slow.

This is true but when the first shot is loaded, there seems to be a massive nonsensical delay before its even fired. I wonder if this is some sort of warmup phase or perhaps the AI is choosing a first target to shoot at a very slow rate. Which results in the people on the turrets just sitting there before even firing the first shot while hostiles be smacking my guards in front of them for 30+ seconds give or take.

Simply put, the first shot is loaded and ready to fire then they just sit there on the turret staring at the guy I want them to shoot who is marked as hostile who is taking swings at my guards.

The shots after that work as intended though it seems. I'd also like to bring up that it don't matter if the person operating it is trained or not, it still happens the same way.

love the idea of a command, currently I tell my gunner to attack target, they leave their position and become hostile to the target.

Yeah, you think they would just sit on the turret and fire but nope, they'll run off to smack the guy you targeted in melee instead hence why I made the suggestion.

[Yanderechan]

Harpoon turrets don't seem to share this. I love watching a horde of enemies get shreaded under the hail of Harpoon fire. Never actually used mounted crossbows. Got Harpoon research before I could do anything with Crossbows (I did have some, but I was new to the whole game and so they had terrible placement and when the enemy attackd, I couldn't man them)

But, being able to target units with the turrets would be awesome. Right now, it's just cross-you-fingers.

[DeathDealer42]

Harpoon turrets don't seem to share this.

I was hoping that was true but unfortunately its not.

Yesterday I had some dust bandits come up to my gate with diplomatic status, had my mark II harpoons manned and ready to fire but the delay happened again after I set them off. This also happened with the cannibals who were also under diplomatic status but turned hostile.

I think now that the issue is not with the turrets themselves but how fast the AI decides to fire on a hostile who was recently designated as Diplomatic Status/Neutral.

In other words if they run up to my gate being red/hostile they gonna get shot but if they stand in front of it in diplomatic status and I go out there and make them red/hostile the gunners take their sweet time to pick a target and fire.