turret that aims at the nearest enemy and fires

A turret is a SCRIPT PATTERN over find, rotate, and fire. There is no TurretComponent. On a tick, find the nearest valid target with ctx.world.find or findEntitiesByTag, patch the turret TransformComponent rotation to face it, and fire on a cooldown by spawning a projectile and launching it. Reuse the projectile recipe for the shot itself.

auto-targeting sentry gun that tracks targets

A turret is a SCRIPT PATTERN over find, rotate, and fire. There is no TurretComponent. On a tick, find the nearest valid target with ctx.world.find or findEntitiesByTag, patch the turret TransformComponent rotation to face it, and fire on a cooldown by spawning a projectile and launching it. Reuse the projectile recipe for the shot itself.

tower that rotates to face and shoot players

A turret is a SCRIPT PATTERN over find, rotate, and fire. There is no TurretComponent. On a tick, find the nearest valid target with ctx.world.find or findEntitiesByTag, patch the turret TransformComponent rotation to face it, and fire on a cooldown by spawning a projectile and launching it. Reuse the projectile recipe for the shot itself.

cannon that locks on and fires on its own

A turret is a SCRIPT PATTERN over find, rotate, and fire. There is no TurretComponent. On a tick, find the nearest valid target with ctx.world.find or findEntitiesByTag, patch the turret TransformComponent rotation to face it, and fire on a cooldown by spawning a projectile and launching it. Reuse the projectile recipe for the shot itself.

Turrets auto-aim and target tracking guns

The recipe

Author with project_apply_script_semantic_patch using the ai_safe op pack.

Acquire a target each think: addTickHandler { "handlerKey":"onTrack" }, and inside a GessaScript body (replaceScriptFromGessaScript) call ctx.world.find with a tag and a radius (or findEntitiesByTag) to list candidates, then pick the nearest by comparing positions.
Face the target: compute the aim direction to the chosen target and ctx.entity.patchComponent the turret barrel TransformComponent rotation to point at it. Parent the barrel under a base pivot with ctx.entity.setParent if only the barrel should swivel.
Line of sight (optional): ctx.physics.shapecast from the muzzle toward the target and only fire if the cast reaches the target and is not blocked.
Fire on a cooldown: gate firing with a TimerComponent plus addTimerHandler (or a last-fired timestamp in state with setBooleanState a ready flag). On fire, spawnEntityFromTemplate { "prefabKey": <projectile> } at the muzzle and launch it with ctx.physics.command (see projectiles-and-ranged-weapons for the launch and impact damage).
Idle when no target: if the query returns nothing, hold or slowly sweep the barrel and do not fire.

Pitfalls

Recompute the nearest target on a throttled tick, not every frame; unbounded per-tick world scans are costly (keep the query radius and limit small).
Rotate the barrel through ctx.entity.patchComponent; never write VelocityComponent to spin it (it is engine-internal and hidden from authoring).
Aim uses the target's live position; lead the shot for fast movers by aiming ahead, since the projectile takes time to travel.
The turret fires for all players from the authority; do not run a parallel client-side turret or shots will duplicate.

Verify

simulation_run (qa.run.start) to prove the turret acquires the nearest target, rotates to face it, and fires on its cooldown.
project_get_graph_snapshot to confirm the tracking tick handler and the fire cooldown timer landed.

The recipe

Pitfalls

Verify

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