Gun Turret - Distance Upgrade or Recycle option.

[Bushdoctor]

Good day,

At a certain point in the game Spitters spit a larger distance than the Gun Turrets can shoot, thereby making gun turrets obsolete.
By that time, I have a full automatic bullet supply system, all wired up, and producing bullets on demand. Works great.
All of that becomes obsolete and has to be replaced by Laser turrets because the Gun Turrets sit there doing nothing while they get spit to bits.
And that's a shame because manufacturing and distribution is what the game is about. It feels very un-factorio to have to cut part of that process.

My suggestion is to create a gun/bullet upgrade that will match the distance of Laser turrets. Or at least the distance of a Spitter's spit.

Either that, or give us a recycle function please, so we can regain some of the ingredients used to make the (still brand new) Gun Turrets.

Thanks!
Doc.

[ssilk]

This has already been discussed from several sides, it's a balancing question, cause the gun turrets are not thought to work on their own, you need them in combination lasers and other defense. So moved also from Suggestions to Balancing.

[BlakeMW]

Spitters have not outranged gun turrets for quite some time now. They work fine all the way up to Behemoth Biters, and the only reason they become undesirable then is just because it costs so much damn metal to kill each Behemoth Biter,

[mooklepticon]

Spitters have not outranged gun turrets for quite some time now.

Uh, yeah, they have.

[mooklepticon]

Either that, or give us a recycle function please, so we can regain some of the ingredients used to make the (still brand new) Gun Turrets.

Thanks!
Doc.

Completely agree. This mod, AmmoBox 0.3.0 - Fun with Turrets & Logistics viewtopic.php?f=93&t=15182, was suggested to me. Haven't tried it yet.

[BlakeMW]

Spitters have not outranged gun turrets for quite some time now.

Uh, yeah, they have.

I guess you haven't used gun turrets much since 0.11.6 came out.

• Balancing
  • The range of all spitters have been set to 15, so they don't outrange the gun turrets.

[mooklepticon]

Spitters have not outranged gun turrets for quite some time now.

Uh, yeah, they have.

I guess you haven't used gun turrets much since 0.11.6 came out.

• Balancing
  • The range of all spitters have been set to 15, so they don't outrange the gun turrets.

Do what now? I see the patch note. I'm totally with you on that. The reason I switch to lasers is because spitters will kill my guns! Seriously! They'll just sit out there and my turrets won't do jack. I'm so confused.

[greep]

I haven't used gun turrets late game because they suck, but I would imagine that they do fight back. It's just that with mass gun turrets, the spitter starts shooting right at about the time the gun does, and so starts blowing several up, while the laser turrets kill the spitter by about the time it gets off a single spit.'

In any case, I don't see much point in balancing guns vs laser turrets. It's just static defense that reacts without specialty towards enemies that require no particular strategy other than raw power.

[Aru]

The primary things that obsolete gun turrets is the climbing biter resistance to physical damage, and the limited range against spitters. Laser turrets have the damage type for biters, and the range for spitters, so it's better at both. And, laser turrets have more health, so they're suitable for the front line, which compounds gun turrets' lesser range (because they have to be farther back). That's why we don't use gun turrets in the late game.

To encourage using both, the resistances of spitters and biters should be swapped. Which is not unfitting, since biters are fast and spitters are slow. (And then rebalance turret damage, of course.)

The other option is to make biters resist laser turrets instead of physical, but that doesn't really fit. Why would simple insectoid aliens develop more resistance to lasers than physical trauma? You'd have to think of an alternate technology (other than lasers) that is more advanced than bullets, but also less penetrating. Maybe something with area damage? And lower maintenance than mines.

[mooklepticon]

I haven't used gun turrets late game because they suck, but I would imagine that they do fight back. It's just that with mass gun turrets, the spitter starts shooting right at about the time the gun does, and so starts blowing several up, while the laser turrets kill the spitter by about the time it gets off a single spit.'

Ah, and with only 400 hp, they die kinda quickly, relative to the 1000hp laser turrets. So, by the time I get there, they've been destroyed. That makes sense.

[mooklepticon]

The other option is to make biters resist laser turrets instead of physical, but that doesn't really fit. Why would simple insectoid aliens develop more resistance to lasers than physical trauma? You'd have to think of an alternate technology (other than lasers) that is more advanced than bullets, but also less penetrating. Maybe something with area damage? And lower maintenance than mines.

Well, the game *does* have an evolution factor. There's your plausibility reason.

[bo6]

Maybe if the gun turrets can fire shotgun shells?

The shotgun is still pretty effective against big biters; and maybe it'll give the gun turrets a role other than compete with laser turrets for the highest concentrated DPS.

[Aru]

Well, the game *does* have an evolution factor. There's your plausibility reason.

They call it evolution internally, but otherwise I'd never get the impression that pollution is causing impossibly rapid, (successful) global evolution. Rather, that pollution's upset of local balance is agitating the natives, causing them to spawn their more aggressive, violent, combat-oriented strains until the threat is gone. The more you damage their ecosystem, the more they fight to protect it, that kind of thing.

[BlakeMW]

The other option is to make biters resist laser turrets instead of physical, but that doesn't really fit. Why would simple insectoid aliens develop more resistance to lasers than physical trauma? You'd have to think of an alternate technology (other than lasers) that is more advanced than bullets, but also less penetrating. Maybe something with area damage? And lower maintenance than mines.

IRL a laser would have a hard time penetrating an armored target because the generation of a plasma cloud obstructs the beam from drilling further into the target - granted a laser would do a superb job of blinding a biter if shot in the face but it's not going to easily get through the carapace of an armored biter.

What you would use is anti-tank munitions, weapons specifically designed to punch through thick armor such as a shaped charge or kinetic energy penetrator. These weapons punch a hole through the armor and disintegrate messily inside the target, this would turn the internal organs of a behemoth biter into mush.

Now granted the laser turret is clearly not a laser, it's more like what I'd call a "light-saber chucker", it throws what appears to be focused sabers of energy that working on the sound principle of applied phlebotinum could easily penetrate an armored target, but sticking with RL weaponry give me kinetic energy penetrators any day of the week.

[AutoMcD]

In another thread on here someone pointed out that the DPS of gun turret is about twice that of laser because of ROF. (both fully upgraded). It may be a lot of metal but that makes it useful.
Anyways I agree the range could use a buff, and I kind of think they should be physically tanks compared to laser turret.

It makes sense that laser shoots farther than bullets, but in my opinion they both should have more range. Why should spitter be able to touch them at all? Not unless there is a swarm incoming that can't be taken down quickly enough.

[thereaverofdarkness]

I'd like to be able to use my steel production to produce a gun turret base that has more than 400 hit points, but as others have said you just have to mix your turrets. I just got through setting up automatic refilling on my base, and when I got laser turrets I just slipped them in between the other turrets. I started needing more turrets anyway because they are starting to send medium units now. I had several wall breaks before I doubled up on turrets, but back with just small biters there were more than enough gun turrets.

Oh I should clarify, I was building on an iron patch surrounded by several enemy bases. It was the beginning of the game, I expanded there as early as possible because there was no iron anywhere else that I could get to, so I used stone furnaces to defend myself early on, and I upgraded to turrets and walls at the earliest opportunity.