Factorio Forums

Title: Walls Block Spitters
Short Description: Walls block spitter attacks. A few other stats balanced accordingly.
Name: walls-block-spitters
Factorio Version: 0.14
Mod State: Beta
Dependencies: Base
Optional Extras: Concrete And Stone
Author: Earendel
Downloads: Mod Portal
Licence: See below

Long Description
Changes spitter projectile mechanics so that they are blocked by walls. Spitter projectiles are not blocked by trees or worms. A few other stats are balanced accordingly.

The mod has been updated to let walls block all spitter projectiles including modded ones (in theory).

cant load mod.
I got an error that says: data-final-fixes.lua:126: attempt to perform arithmetic on field 'max_health' (a nil value). so i had to disabled the mod

That would have been caused by a different mod adding an entity with a non-standard definition. This mod has now been updated to handle that situation.

the changes that Rampant AI makes to the spitter blasts (to make them non-tracking) causes them to bypass WBS. I don't know if this is something that can be fixed from your end, but it is a bit of a pain, as that is one of the nice things about Rampant, ie being able to dodge spitter shots

Perhaps some sort of cross-compatibility mod could be written that depends on both of these being active and adjusts the new projectile accordingly.

From the looks of things, if the projectile is put on layer 13 and given a collision box it should maybe work?

In fact maybe just adding an optional dependency on Rampant might do the trick, as then this mod will take effect last. Will try that and report back.


Unrelated to that issue (which is one of the reasons I'm here), this mod also compresses the range 25% towards 22. Is there any particular reason that compression towards 22 is a desirable thing in this context?

(It happens to break shotgun turrets from Combat By Samuel, which start out one tile longer ranged than spitters, but end up exactly the same range except the spitters often stand slightly to one side so the turret AI can't see them as 'in' range, for some reason)

Edit: Alas, the easy potential fix does not work. An actual effort must be made to determine why Rampant's acid blasts (which are AoE, quite nicely) go across the walls.

Also I would like it if the biggest spitters and worms could get across walls, but the rest not.

The problem with Rampant right now is it uses stream-based projectiles for the biters and those don't support collision at all. They need to be changed to real projectiles.

The ranges compression is because I think turret range discrepancy is too high, so it's a gentle nudge towards a more consistent range. The spitter vs shotgun thing is not intended though, I will fix that.

Read your description out of curiosity and something caught my eye that made me wonder what you meant. What other stats have been balanced accordingly? I would assume spitters do more damage to walls now?

No plans to install the mod just curious. I like checking out the different mods and seeing what they are all about.

tsunami wrote:Read your description out of curiosity and something caught my eye that made me wonder what you meant. What other stats have been balanced accordingly? I would assume spitters do more damage to walls now?

No plans to install the mod just curious. I like checking out the different mods and seeing what they are all about.

HP of turrets has been reduced. Turrets become brittle to reflect the importance of wall.

thc133 wrote:

tsunami wrote:Read your description out of curiosity and something caught my eye that made me wonder what you meant. What other stats have been balanced accordingly? I would assume spitters do more damage to walls now?

No plans to install the mod just curious. I like checking out the different mods and seeing what they are all about.

HP of turrets has been reduced. Turrets become brittle to reflect the importance of wall.

Also the cooldown of enemy attacks has been reduced a bit, and the range difference between some entities has been reduced a little, and most enemies move a bit faster. None of the changes alone are huge, but overall it means that relying on it's slightly more likely that some damage will get to turrets if you don't use walls and therefore walls are more useful because they can block the spitter damage.

Also it's worth pointing out that the AAI Industry mod has some improved walls that work well with this mod.

Earendel wrote:

thc133 wrote:

tsunami wrote:Read your description out of curiosity and something caught my eye that made me wonder what you meant. What other stats have been balanced accordingly? I would assume spitters do more damage to walls now?

No plans to install the mod just curious. I like checking out the different mods and seeing what they are all about.

HP of turrets has been reduced. Turrets become brittle to reflect the importance of wall.

Also the cooldown of enemy attacks has been reduced a bit, and the range difference between some entities has been reduced a little, and most enemies move a bit faster. None of the changes alone are huge, but overall it means that relying on it's slightly more likely that some damage will get to turrets if you don't use walls and therefore walls are more useful because they can block the spitter damage.

Also it's worth pointing out that the AAI Industry mod has some improved walls that work well with this mod.

I have a lot of respect for players who are more into the survival aspect of the game than me. I love to build and want to have to defend against the biters otherwise it is no fun (peaceful mode is no fun at all), but Rampant and harder biter type mods are or mods that weaken my defenses SCARE me! As some have figured out on the mod portal a certain someone and I are in the same household and after trying some of the same mods we were not amused. He was far more frustrated with one than I was but we were both very unhappy with a whole series of mods. Have my own personal 'opinions' about the state of the AAI series in general so that is nothing I will ever delve into again.

If walls blocked spitter projectiles and nothing else were changed it would make it far to easy. Trivialising base defence would be extremely boring.

Also I'm sure most people have seen a factorio player make a defensive line of all turrets and no walls.

Making turrets a little more fragile but making walls block spitter projectiles means that it is very much worth protecting those turrets with walls.

Earendel wrote:If walls blocked spitter projectiles and nothing else were changed it would make it far to easy. Trivialising base defence would be extremely boring.

Also I'm sure most people have seen a factorio player make a defensive line of all turrets and no walls.

Making turrets a little more fragile but making walls block spitter projectiles means that it is very much worth protecting those turrets with walls.

Maybe those changes to turrets etc should be optional?
If you use this along with Natural Evolution for example it will get problematic.

orzelek wrote:

Earendel wrote:If walls blocked spitter projectiles and nothing else were changed it would make it far to easy. Trivialising base defence would be extremely boring.

Also I'm sure most people have seen a factorio player make a defensive line of all turrets and no walls.

Making turrets a little more fragile but making walls block spitter projectiles means that it is very much worth protecting those turrets with walls.

Maybe those changes to turrets etc should be optional?
If you use this along with Natural Evolution for example it will get problematic.

I could make the values scaleable options, that would be reasonable.

I just place this modlink here from our beloved Earendel himself. In which you can have both Rampant projectile dodges and spitter attacks blocked by walls. There is talk about rampant not supporting blockable projectiles, but this mod is not mentioned.

https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Earendel ... rojectiles

Will we be seeing an update to 0.16? It's a beloved mod on my server

vedrit wrote:Will we be seeing an update to 0.16? It's a beloved mod on my server

It's updated now.

Artillery can no longer kill spawners in a single shot, can you fix this?