A ride-on water cannon, not a weapon for guests
The Waterpark Simulator duck turret is officially described, in the 1.0.28 patch notes, as a duck-shaped water cannon structure you build and then sit inside to power-wash any guest or player in range. The community calls it the duck turret; the game treats it as a placeable attraction-side structure, not an inventory weapon. Its most practical uses are the Duck Invasion event task and, for some players, spray-based research-point farming, though both come with caveats covered below.
The single most requested answer about it is also the most misunderstood: there is no automatic mode. A developer reply in September 2026 confirmed the turret is manual only, so plans about parking it to spray guests by itself do not match the current game.
Unlock it on the research tree
The turret sits on the research table tree, not in a starting build menu. Players describe picking it from the research tree once their park had progressed, and the developer has confirmed the general rule governing it: research options open as your park advances in stars, earned through the mission list. Which exact branch and node hosts the turret has not been documented in any source this guide trusts, so treat the specific path as Pending verification and read your own tree.
After unlocking, the turret appears in the build menu for placement like other structures. One player reported unlocking the research and then not finding it in the menu at all; that report is single and unresolved, so if it happens to you, restart the session and check for construction-menu filters before reporting a bug.
Manual aiming: how it actually plays
Once built, walk into the turret and sit down; you aim and fire the water stream yourself. Reports from PC and controller players describe the intended loop as mouse or stick aiming with a fire input, and the turret sprays anything in range, including guests, staff, and other players in co-op.
The manual-only rule has consequences. You cannot queue soaking tasks and walk away; Duck Invasion and any spray farming require you sitting in the seat. It also means the turret competes for your attention during opening hours, so most players use it during closures, quiet periods, or co-op sessions where a friend covers the entrance.
Spraying has in-world effects you should respect: reports describe knocked-over guests and at least one player's top janitor quitting after being soaked. Treat it as a tool with victims, not a toy, unless your rating can absorb the annoyance.
The Duck Invasion task
The clearest official use is the Duck Invasion event, whose task "Splish-Splash" asks you to soak all the rubber ducks. The developer-marked community answer is that you simply sit in the turret and spray them. If the event appears in your park, the turret turns a tedious duck hunt into a quick sweep, which is the strongest reason to keep it unlocked even if you never use it on guests.
A separate community tip claims sitting in the turret at closing time and spraying trash bins repeatedly generates research points at roughly one point per eighteen seconds. That figure comes from a single thread and depends on your build's current tuning, so treat the technique as reported but unverified, and do not be surprised if a patch adjusts it.
Known bugs across platforms
Control problems are the turret's weak spot. A PC thread from August 2026 with multiple affected players described moving the mouse firing the water and the camera refusing to turn, with both mouse buttons unresponsive and Escape as the only exit. Controller players reported on-screen prompts that do nothing and turning inputs that fire instead. A Steam Deck player reported getting stuck inside until respawning. A co-op report describes two players entering the same turret and both getting stuck in the aiming view.
No fix-specific patch note has been identified for these control issues as of this research, so their current status is Pending verification. The practical mitigations from reports are: enter the turret alone, rebind or re-test controls before relying on it, respawn if stuck, and avoid using it as your only plan for a timed event window.
Not the Duck Gun
Search results mix the turret with the Duck Gun, and they are different. The Duck Gun is a handheld item bought at Caymart for $20,000 with no research requirement; the turret is a research-gated structure you sit inside. If your question is "why can't I find the duck turret in the shop," the answer is that it is not sold there, and the gun you saw for sale is the other item.
Placement and co-op etiquette
Where you put the turret affects how usable it is. Range reports describe it covering the area around its placement, so a turret buried behind buildings soaks little, while one near open water or plaza space covers the crowds and the ducks. Players who built it for the Duck Invasion event placed it where ducks actually drift, which argues for building it late, after you have seen where the event spawns its targets in your park.
In co-op, the turret is a shared toy with shared consequences. Reports of guests knocked over and staff quitting after being soaked came from spray sessions, and in multiplayer any player can occupy the turret and spray anyone else. A quick house rule, such as no spraying staff or no spraying during opening hours, prevents the stories players tell about losing their best cleaner to a joke. Two players entering the same turret at once also caused a stuck-aiming report, so enter one at a time.
Nothing in the reported game requires the turret outside the duck-soaking event task, which is the honest starting point for deciding whether to spend research on it. If you play for park management and rating, it is a novelty with a genuine use a few times per event. If you play for the sandbox toys and co-op chaos, the manual-only design is exactly the point, and the control bugs are the main risk.
The research-point farming claim deserves the same skepticism you would apply to any single-thread tip: the reported rate was modest, the technique requires you seated and spraying instead of running the park, and patch tuning could change or remove it quietly. If you test it, record your version and rate, and compare across two sessions before building a habit on it.
For related reading, the research-points page covers accumulating points toward the turret's tree, the quests page tracks event tasks like Duck Invasion in context, and the Mafia page covers the other thing in 1.0 that damages your park while you are busy aiming at ducks.