Attacking biters with turrets makes all weapons pointless

[5thHorseman]

I think people don't realize that pretty much all weapons in the game are rather OP.

Also people don't realize that this thread has been running for over 5 years, during which the game has changed a LOT.

But to be fair turret creep has always been looked down upon by a portion of the player base, and another portion has used it exclusively that whole time.

[n7m6e7]

At this point. I only see 2 "solutions" to turret creep.

1. Make early weapons a better option.
Which would make biters not an issue sooner.

2. Disallow building in range of a biter base.
Which people will complain about arbitrary restrictions.


Or just leave it be, as the moment one has artillery, biter bases should no longer be an issue.

[Klonan]

I made a mod to add 'building time' to all entities,
Which directly nerfs offensive turret placement

If anybody wants to see how it fits, please let me know your thoughts:

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Building_Time

[MEOWMI]

My (updated?) short thoughts on turret creep: Yes it is very powerful. Not necessarily too powerful, given how powerful turrets are meant to be as a defensive tool. The strategy of using hotkeys and going 1 + mouse left + drag then 2 + ctrl mouse right + drag is probably the strongest form and almost suggests something like Klonan's post above: building times. Then again, speaking of weapon balance, I do believe many of the weapons are underpowered or at least very inefficient (grenades, battle robots, tank shells, anyone?), so I wouldn't necessarily count turret creep as a big discrepancy in balance. Combat still plays very well despite these things.

My opinions on the fastest and most efficient way to destroy nests:
Early-game: Turret creep.
Mid-game: Circling around in a car, with a closeby turret camp for kiting and repair, possibly some poison capsules on deathworld. Very good once you learn to dodge stones and trees due to the high-risk-high-reward nature, which also makes it impossible in multiplayer due to latency.
Early-late-game: modular armor mk2 with exoskeletons, rapidly zig-zagging to mess with targeting AI, avoiding nearly all projectiles, with personal lasers to rapidly destroy everything in sight. Doesn't matter how many or how big nests. In my opinion a lot more powerful than turret creep but is also a very high-tech weapon.
(Very late-game: probably just artillery??)

I made a mod to add 'building time' to all entities,
Which directly nerfs offensive turret placement

If anybody wants to see how it fits, please let me know your thoughts

That does sound quite interesting, possibly a nice balance change. (And secretly, creates the option for more having graphical candy via a small building animations, even if it's just one or two "in building" frames )

[Oktokolo]

I made a mod to add 'building time' to all entities,
Which directly nerfs offensive turret placement
If anybody wants to see how it fits, please let me know your thoughts

I played on multiple multiplayer servers wich had build timers for turrets (not sure if they used your mod) and it "sort of" worked as it made the players do the "proper" turret creep where you always have turrets backing the turrets that are currently build.
The main effect was, that turret creep in general was done using more turrets and that the event of biters overrunning poorly executed turret creep was less common.
I liked it.

[n7m6e7]

So. I couldn't stop thinking about it, forgive the ramblings.


The issue at hand is : Turret creep renders all the shotguns, machine guns, tanks, and cars pointless. It is better in every way to just turret creep, and this strat is viable, almost from the start.

Having a delay on turrets is nearly pointless as it just makes turret creep slower, and more annoying.

"Just dont use it" is an argument i refuse. It would be horrid game design to put a free "lvl up" button in an rpg, even though you don't HAVE to press it.


With that out of the way. I believe the solution is to prevent players from building turrets in range of spawners. Players would still be able to "creep" themselves closer to form a staging/fallback area, but have to use actual weapons to clear them out.


The issue i see with this, is obviously turrets have different ranges. If you prevent building in short range, you can snipe with a laser turret. If you prevent building in laser range, then biters could build out of gun range, but in laser range, and prevent replacement of destroyed turrets.


With this in mind, I suggest that worms (or the spawners themselves) cannot be targeted by turrets. But are able to fire upon turrets. They would also be unable to form within turret range.

[netmand]

[...]The issue at hand is : Turret creep renders all the shotguns, machine guns, tanks, and cars pointless. It is better in every way to just turret creep, [...]

yeah no.

- while you turret creep one nest, i'm annihilating ten or more with nukes and/or combat bots.
- I find joy in rolling through nests using my tank's cannons and personal laser defense.
- you must really enjoy running, I use my automobile (car) to get to ends of a map I haven't planted rail stations nearby yet
- I guess you've never shotgunned overgrowth in early game (before developing grenades then bots to clear those forests)
- sometimes the next oil field is too far away to "creep" to... flame turrets do pretty well in isolated oil outposts

I DO attack biter nests with turrets; but only near the beginning of the game, at mid-game I switch to better weapons and strategies.

[n7m6e7]

[...]The issue at hand is : Turret creep renders all the shotguns, machine guns, tanks, and cars pointless. It is better in every way to just turret creep, [...]

yeah no.

- while you turret creep one nest, i'm annihilating ten or more with nukes and/or combat bots.
- I find joy in rolling through nests using my tank's cannons and personal laser defense.
- you must really enjoy running, I use my automobile (car) to get to ends of a map I haven't planted rail stations nearby yet
- I guess you've never shotgunned overgrowth in early game (before developing grenades then bots to clear those forests)
- sometimes the next oil field is too far away to "creep" to... flame turrets do pretty well in isolated oil outposts

I DO attack biter nests with turrets; but only near the beginning of the game, at mid-game I switch to better weapons and strategies.

That is a lot of " I's". There are plenty of players who go all out military, and many who avoid bots despite them being objectively better.

Also, should turret building near nests be discouraged, your playstyle would be unaffected.

[Hannu]

That is a lot of " I's". There are plenty of players who go all out military, and many who avoid bots despite them being objectively better.

Also, should turret building near nests be discouraged, your playstyle would be unaffected.

What is actual problem? All we are Is and have personal playstyles. If turret creep is overpowered for your style or you just do not like it then just do not use it. It may be good solution for someone else. It is usually bad idea to try forcing everyone to my playstyle.

I agree that turret creep is non-interesting and currently overpowered strategy. But I use it because I do not want to grindy warfare with low power weapons. I will not complain if they remove it but give big boost to combat bots and other assault weapons so that I do not have to use tens of hours in boring warfare. Peaceful is not solution for me. I want that biters are significant resource sink even at endgame (after 200 rockets) and would also like that manufacturing of defense weapons would need large and complex (i.e. interesting) assembling chains. But I do not want to play as average private and kill them by myself.

Actually I have cleared biters with commands in my latest playthroughs when my starter base is ready and I need room for railworld. Even atomic bombs are boring because I want to have tens of square kilometers. I would like to have interesting way to conquer land, for example automated attack robots, but I understand that my playstyle is special and will not be supported ever (without commands, mods etc. modifications).

[Oktokolo]

The issue at hand is : Turret creep renders all the shotguns, machine guns, tanks, and cars pointless. It is better in every way to just turret creep, and this strat is viable, almost from the start.

Now, that worm AI has been fixed a bit, i don't think that the turrets actually are the real problem. Sure, they (and every other entity) should have a cooldown timer after being placed.

But the real cause of turret creep is the biter respawn time. They just respawn too quick.
This disables all divide and conquer strategies, that are commonly used in other games. You can aggro small to medium sized packs of biters and lure them to their death if you are too weak or inexperienced to attack the whole pack at once. But it makes no sense as they will have respawned the next tim you come near that base.
People who are not good at going in guns blazing (now even more than before the worm target AI update) now only have the option to do the turret creep early game. They can't do hit and run, because luring away parts of the guard force does not reduce the available guard force of the base. This changes when the tank becomes available because then they can circle the base a bit to mashine gun away most of the guards and then drive thrlugh some buildings before having to retreat. Buildings take a long time to respawn making that feasible.
If biters would respawn less quick, divide and conquer strategies would start working and hit-and-run stratgies would be feasible early on.
The type of player, that i would assume Factorio to atract the most, would be become able to deal with biter bases without having to use turret creep.
As turret creep is pretty boring, that would probably mean, that they would have more fun playing the game with biters enabled.

So, yes, turret creep is overpowered - let's fix the biter respawn times so other tactics become more feasible for a huge part of the player base (me included on lazy days).

[Koub]

[...]
But the real cause of turret creep is the biter respawn time. They just respawn too quick.
[...]
So, yes, turret creep is overpowered - let's fix the biter respawn times so other tactics become more feasible for a huge part of the player base (me included on lazy days).

I totally agree with this. It took me a lot of time to even try turret creep (because I don't like it), and I did so only to help mitigate the continuous respawn of biters while trying to clear nests early game (or at least when I'm not overmilitarized for the biter level). At first, It was only to kill the full base of biters that spawned while I tried to kill a worm or nest, and after that, as I had turrets with me, well ... The step was small to do full turret creep.

It's only when I can crush more or less effortlessly resistance (power armor MK2, shields, powerful weaponry, ...) that I don't feel the need to back my ass with turrets.

[Hannu]

It's only when I can crush more or less effortlessly resistance (power armor MK2, shields, powerful weaponry, ...) that I don't feel the need to back my ass with turrets.

In my opinion it is OK to make back fortress with turrets away from attack range. It is real war tactics to make temporary fortification before attack, or at least was before modern fast and mobile warfare. What I do not like is to build turret next to biter nest or worm, put bullets in and run away. It is completely unrealistic.

[Koub]

I agree, but the difference between both options is just a few tiles. It's turret creep when you aggro with your turrets, but fine strategy when you're a few tiles further back.

[Oktokolo]

It is real war tactics to make temporary fortification before attack, or at least was before modern fast and mobile warfare. What I do not like is to build turret next to biter nest or worm, put bullets in and run away. It is completely unrealistic.

In early industrialized warfare, you would bring tanks (more than one) and artillery (of wich the game offers only one lategame type). Today you would just send some cruise missiles or a gunship wich bombards the nests from that far away, that the natives do not even see what is hitting them...

In most RTS, instead of using turrets, most players build a bunch of units and send them attacking.
But Factorio is all about delaying automation of warfare until lategame while forcing you to do warfare to get your first oil...

I agree, but the difference between both options is just a few tiles. It's turret creep when you aggro with your turrets, but fine strategy when you're a few tiles further back.

Actually, both are fine strategies. The problem is, that a (probably) huge part of the player base is basically forced to use a boring strategy because of the fast respawn rate disabling the less boring ones.
If you can dance, you can go in guns blazing and outmaneuver biters and worms early on just fine. And that is definitely more fun than turret creep. But it has some dexterity requirements wich are not commonly associated with building games and RTS.

Fun fact: Building things is commonly associated with building games and as turret creep basically is exactly that, it is the more pure strategy in a building game.

[Mylon]

... forced to use a boring strategy because of the fast respawn rate disabling the less boring ones.

This is the real problem. Players need to kill nests and they have to kill them FAST or they'll just respawn faster than an SMG can put out bullets. Turrets are one of the simplest ways to handle the massive number of respawns.

Building times (either Klonan's version or the Redmew version) help slow down turret creep so it's worth it to explore other military options. Which with sufficient tech is viable, but it's just so much simpler to personal roboport build laser turrets so that's why it's such a dominant strategy.

[Itemfinder]

At this point. I only see 2 "solutions" to turret creep.

1. Make early weapons a better option.
Which would make biters not an issue sooner.

2. Disallow building in range of a biter base.
Which people will complain about arbitrary restrictions.


Or just leave it be, as the moment one has artillery, biter bases should no longer be an issue.

Turret creep vs artillery creep. I'd rather another tier of tank or something to deal with the largest nests personally.

[Ranakastrasz]

I suppose you could add wide area "Creep" like starcraft to biter bases, which gives an excuse for why building doesn't work, and make it many times the range of turrets, such that while you CAN use turrets to fall back to, it would be far enough to be inconvinent.

[mudcrabempire]

I disagree that turret creep makes weapons useless. Naturally, using some turrets to hold your back is a good idea or even mandatory in most cases.
But:
In regular mode (maybe also death world), during early game, defender bots are way better than gun turrets. Basically defender bots are cheapish mobile gun turrets that don't have this awkward moment where they sit out in the open while you scramble to fill them with ammo. With ~10+ defenders you can easily crush up to roughly medium stuff, faster than gun turret creep ever could (since you don't waste time on repeated building/arming/mining).

When defenders are not an option, I find personal intervention with an MG much less risky for taking down (small) worms so I place turrets out of their range but close enough to kill anything that runs up to me. The shotgun is quite good and resource-efficient for nests, though admittedly if you don't care about resources, once the worms are gone you can just put down a few turrets and let them do the rest.

Same later. I've found turrets to be quite good targets for worms, especially if there are plenty of biters up front to soak the damage. Grenades are a working early alternative to get rid of worms when the MG no longer cuts it, but once you get the tech, poison capsules and the rocket launcher are fantastic for worm-sniping. Again, keep turrets out of range of the worms, no point risking to loose them. Especially if we're talking about those freshly researched, expensive laser turrets.

And from that point onward you can slowly gear up your modular armour until you no longer need turrets. But even at that stage the rocket launcher and poison capsules are quite usefull to snipe worms to soften up the nests.

Late-game of course nukes and artillery, but that's their purpose.

I don't much use the flamethrower but I suppose it might come in handy when a big bunch of biters is chasing you down and your PLD/whatever can't handle them. The handheld flamer does have the "touch of death" effect so it remains usefull even against behemoths.

So to sum it up:
MG: Excellent for early game worm sniping. Good general purpose pistol replacement.
Shotgun/upgraded shotgun: Good resource efficiency, can be well used against nests, can be skipped though if resource-efficiency is no concern.
Rocket launcher: The ultimate worm/nest sniper, can for worm-sniping be replaced by poison capsules. Use on large/high level nests when stamping down turrets nearby would risk heavy losses (especially since big and behemoth worms outrange laser turrets).
Flamer: Can be used lategame when you no longer bother with turret creep to complement your PLD.
Turrets: Vulnerable to worms due to being static, targeting rules and requiring setup (ammo/electricity). Usually slower than personal intervention due to setup/tear down. Unbeatable for defending a position and holding your back.

Last word on default mode: Any reasonably experienced player will shame- and hopelessly outpace biter evolution in default mode, to the point where you can do pretty much whatever you want. I would still disfavor turret creep, because even though build/mine time can be circumvented by bots, the required extra stuff (filling with ammo/dragging a power line behind you) is just too much of a pain when you can just as easily walz through with anything else.

[wildhorn]

A more elegant solution would be to simply add new type of bitter/spitter with different resistance/immunity.

Reflective Bitter (immune to laser damage)
Magmatic Spitter (immune to fire and spit fire like a flamethrower)
Explosive Bitter (comes at you and explode like a bomb)

[Pi-C]

A more elegant solution would be to simply add new type of bitter/spitter with different resistance/immunity.

Something like this? There's also a mod providing an entirely new species.