Factorio Forums

MF- wrote:I doubt the engines have an actual latency.
They only have a max. power output. Capacitors don't have any visible max. power output.
The lasers are so power hungry, that their consumption combined simply outweights the production combined.

Well the burners won't all be going if your not using the max power output.
And when they do turn on because steam engines are demanding more hot water to supply lasers they take a few seconds to heat up the water.
And the cooler the water produces less power.
And the water has to speed up to the rising consumption, putting a bigger heat gap for the turning on burners to catch up with because the water has less time to heat up as it passes through.
And, and, and...

Power levels fluctuate like crazy without caps.

Steam engines can produce tremendous amounts of power consistently but can't handle fluctuations very well. =/

I guess that's why I have >25 boilers on my water heating line.
When I built a handful of capacitors, the cold water does not reach the middle of the line anymore.
(I converted to solar since then, though)

Aza-Industries wrote:
Steam engines can produce tremendous amounts of power consistently but can't handle fluctuations very well. =/

totally agree with you(creeper attack really puts the energy production to the limit), but thats close to reality - sadly.
coal powered engines/turbines are inflexible even in modern power plants. so i like it that way - even if its challenging

i have no problem with laser turrets firing. my problem is the base load they need. you would need 2-3 solar panels just to feed the base load of one laser turret. i think this is way too much .. currently i have a base with 8 steam engines, enough solar panels to get 8 KW at noon and accus for 480kj ... so this is quite enough to feed my feed my whole factory for a complete night. but i also only have 15 turrets and they are on #3 of my power consumption. in my last game i built a rail network where i had to secure all the stations and so on... there was no way than placing thousands of accus and solar panels to hold them online .. even if i was not attacked.

I also think that their calm power consumption should be lowered.

Standby Consumption for Laser turrets is only 20W.
There is a charging period for the small built-in capacitor, but it's neither huge, nor long.
Personally, I feel the power levels for them are just fine as is, though, from a realistic (not balance) point, perhaps the damage is high.

By the time I'm setting up laser turrets my solar/accumulator production is through the roof. I usually have a 1:2 ratio of panel/accumulator (last factory peaked at 410:850) and I've never had a brownout situation during even massive attacks.

I was thinking it'd be nice if the internal capacitor for laser turrets was a bit higher.

I mean also, that the lasers took too less energy. Compared to an inserter, the laser has much, much more firepower. But needs not so much energy. I mean during firing: it blasts whole buildings and it takes not energyeven a piece of cole for that. I mean, that the usage of energy during the creation process of ammunition should have about an equivalence with the destruction-power.

In my imagination using lasers only, like now, for a creeper invasion, should bring the energy system to a limit. Currently gun turrets are useless.

Conclusion: I would like to have the weapons more comparable and additionaly every weapon should have a special use.

as i heard there are new enemies currently in dev, maybe they also implement "weakpoints" .. that special enemies are vulnerable for special damage types. this would make a good mix of all turrets. Also a flamethrower turret, or rocket turret would make sence with this.

More turrets are planned. However as usual the limiting factor is the speed of creating the graphics

you are still in alpha. so feel free to use some dummy graphics like baseballs. open a forum thread for user created textures and so on and take some "temporary" from the community. i think here are lots of talented graphers just waiting to help you.

I mean they're rending the whole stuff. So, graphics is just one single point of view of the whole process.

But, man, this brings me to some simple aspects: for NOW it doesn't matter how good or bad the graphics is and that it is not made in this process. It should be only visible: this is end-game graphics and this is provisory. E. g. make a small red dot into the graphics to distinct it.

And the other aspect: Grey is right, how about making a challenge? A new board, every thread is one entity describing the unit, making some example graphics. Everybody can make 3 suggestions. The winner gets something "stupid", it's just for the fun. Even if this graphics won't make it into the end game, they are better than nothing and a picture can say more than 1000 words, so the power of that creativity cannot be underestimated! And the best thing is, this s a powerful marketing thing, if it works.