Friday Facts #410 - Rocket turret & Target priorities

[barnaclebob]

Every FF i hope for info on release but instead just get more cool shit i want to play with making me want info on release even more.

[Azzinoth]

If you are adding new circuit connections to entities, may I suggest one for the radar? I always wanted radars to output a signal if enemies are within view distance (maybe even let us configure this distance). This would allow enabling turrets only if there are biters coming, disabling roboports so that robots don't die to flamethrowers and probably other cool stuff. I already have radars along my perimeter wall anyways to be able to see there.

[giloron]

Hmm one problem though:

Atomic bomb:
"Area of effect size: 35"

Rocket turret:
"Minimum range of 15, and a max range of 36 (improved +10% for each quality level)."

I' recommend bumping quality improvement stronger (given that biters targeted move towards your base) eg. max range 50 - making nuclear defence an actually viable option. Or maybe weaker nuclear rockets (intermediary between explosive rockets and atomic bombs) with AOE ~20?

Turret of last resort?
Set it further back so it only fires if they break through the wall.

[zingaya]

Just one little tiny thing. Can you add a little more delay before the turret goes into idle/down position.
It feels like the turrets are doing push ups.

[DeeHants]

With turrets and artillery in the circuit network, all that is left is being able to send target coordinates to a artillery unit. Why? No idea but it could be fun

Automated long range chunk revealing?

[penguiin]

the sound is amazing for the turret but the rockets just kinda appear out of thin air

[Jerm993]

Please, please, please tell me we are getting atomic artillery.

[Serenity]

Having them shoot nukes sounds like a spectacularly terrible idea

[GrandMasterB]

Great!

I would also be happy about more towers. Conon towers and shotgun towers would be ok, but they already existed in mods. Krastorio has the best towers. Turrets with different behavior would be great. For example, if they took longer to get ready to fire, or if they rotated slower or faster. The big turrets were great fun.

I like the mines too. But there could also be traps and walls with moving spikes, circular saws or laser barriers.

More enemies with more interesting behavior and other nests would also be great. Maybe even unique enemies with only one unique nest.

If the radar stations could measure enemy distances and maybe even scan the enemy type, that would be great.

[Cobaltur]

Rockets finally.

Please add a good set of default filters/priorities. I guess rockets are more expensives than turrets, that's why you introduded the priorites at all. But non-expert players should not be punished by forgetting to set these settings.

Like for turret ammo, there should also be a 3rd type of rocket ammo.

On the other hand - in 3k hours I never found mines to be useful - a mine layer tower with drone like in Riftbreaker would be so cool (but should immerdialty hide if enemy are approaching)

[wodzu93]

Oh, man. I can already tell vanilla rocket turrets are gonna suck ass...

So, from the footage in the FFF, looks like they have 360 arcs. So, basically there will be NO WAY to avoid blowing up your own defences if you dare to use any ammo with splash damage.
Just look at the clip with the biter waves. Notice how at the first biter wave, few turrets at the very bottom target the biters that managed to reach the wall. Now imagine the rockets are explosive - boom, no more wall. With how much damage bonuses you can get, one rocket is enough to tear nice hole for biters to get through.

Additionally, Factorio has "Damage Reservation" system in place. Basically, when turrets evaluate what to shoot, they check for incoming damage to the target (is there already something shooting at it). If target already has enough incoming damage to kill it, turrets will stop shooting it. While this is a positive in a sense it prevents wasting ammo, it also has a negative, in that it lets enemies get way closer that they should have.

You can very clearly see it in the clip - when there is enough rockets fired at those behemoth biters, laser turrets ignore them. With how slow rocket velocity is, that means those biters are very likely to reach the wall and munch on it - especially true if the rocket turret that fired at them were those that barely had the range, in the wall section further away.

Now imagine we get some enemies like a suicide charger - combine the damage reservation with the 360 arcs on rocket turrets, and many more enemies would reach the walls and blow up than you'd think be reasonable.

So basically, the only ammo you're allowed to use in the rocket turrets are the basic single-target one, and including rocket turrets in your wall sections will let biters slip way more chip damage than if you'd just stuck to existing gun/laser turrets.


I've seen quite a few turret mods that suck, precisely due to the above. I was sick of dealing with constant friendly fire in those turret mods, so I've made my own mod (Modular Turrets, if you're interested), to avoid this issue. I've succeded - I haven't had a single instance on friendly fire with a smart setup (even nukes are safe to use!), while keeping defence layouts interesting to design. I really hope devs will recognize the issue here, or we'll be getting quite a few reports of friendly fire after DLC is released.

[gGeorg]

Finaly we can switch off lasers on demand to save power. I have made some solution in current version, but turrets connected to circuits are new toy to play with.

Could you explain more :
"Set ignore unlisted target" there is a logic expression attached.
Does it mean, I can say, :"Ignore medium biters under 5 pcs ?"

Rocket tower animation -
when it goes inactive, (fold down) then it could stand up (unfold) immediately. It is too quickly. Looks silly. I would prefer more serious movement. When it goes inactive, it should fold self slowly and takes time to set into basic position. e.i. dont like when turret jump up and down, quickly. Rocket turret should rather be a strong but slow movement/ animate machine. A heavy tank rather than roadster.

Also it would be nice to re-think ranges and effects of weapons.
Rocket - longest ranges, low rate of fire. Probably lower than showed in FFF. Perhaps add a longer delay between salvos. Shoot three, wait for a second, shoot three, etc.
Mg - second longest range. Perhaps give different bullets also different range. Yellow - lowest range , green - highest range.
Lasers - based on physics - laser energy is greatly reduced by range. Make it so dmg near max range, is rather tickling. Also laser energy is reduced by smoke. Basicaly, lasers are overused now, therfore lasers should not be "final and best defence""
Flamer - shortest range, more focused at crowd control than dmg. e.i. sticky heavy oil slow should down movement speed of oponents by 1/2. It is an opportunity to use heavy oil for something more than lube. Lets introduce a formula - more sticky oil more slowdown it makes. Flame range which are longer than mg, common ! MG range is comfortably 1km, but flamers at max 50m. So use a bit of physics here.

[Shimohi]

one day, this game will get its rts mode :praying:

[Zelle]

Can we also read a signal on whether or not the turret is engaging with a target?

[pleegwat]

With turrets and artillery in the circuit network, all that is left is being able to send target coordinates to a artillery unit. Why? No idea but it could be fun

Automated deforestation.

[Brambor]

The artillery turret does not support the priorities/filters, due to the way the optimized artillery shooting logic works. This probably isn't a big problem because we should just kill everything anyway.

To save ammo I sometimes try really hard to keep the worms alive. I would love a toggle to only shoot spawners.

[GrandMasterB]

On the other hand - in 3k hours I never found mines to be useful - a mine layer tower with drone like in Riftbreaker would be so cool (but should immerdialty hide if enemy are approaching)

I've thought the same thing for a long time, but if you play on very hard difficulty levels, it can still make sense. You can lay a minefield to gain time when you're building a larger defense system. Or as an early warning system. Or to protect power pylons when defending a distant base with laser turrets. They can also be useful against special biters, for example exposive biters.

But what do I know, I've only played 1600 hours

[mcdjfp]

It is odd. Every week I get more and more excited about the expansion's contents, but less and less excited about the planet hopping, and I am currently enjoying the Space Exploration mod. I don't know what it is, and it may go away with future updates, but there is something about it that feels off to me. Too rigid, feeling less like a sandbox game where I progress where and how I want and more like a Zelda game where you go to a couple of dungeons in order to get an item(s) that then unlock the final dungeon (or the next tier at least). Or maybe I am afraid that I will be forced to play with several medium sized bases (which I enjoy sometimes but not as my only choice) and no option for a mega base. As I said I can't really pin down the issue, only that it is bothering me.

This does lead to a question (which might have been answered already and I missed it). If I buy the expansion, will there be a way to play with the new items (like the rocket turret from this week) but only with Nauvis like the current game?

I am a bit worried about what other game mechanics will be locked behind planet and not tech progression. In some ways I dread each weekly update.

[kitt159]

If you are adding new circuit connections to entities, may I suggest one for the radar? I always wanted radars to output a signal if enemies are within view distance (maybe even let us configure this distance). This would allow enabling turrets only if there are biters coming, disabling roboports so that robots don't die to flamethrowers and probably other cool stuff. I already have radars along my perimeter wall anyways to be able to see there.

+1

[Saphira123456]

I'm looking forward to the ability to set target priority and signal network connection.

I'd like the ability to hook up a set of defense outposts, a radar, a speaker, and some color-changing lights so that whenever the radar detects hostiles, the radar speakers give an alarm, the turrets switch on, defensive robots spawn, and the lights turn red.

Or in other words...

RED ALERT! ALL HANDS TO BATTLE STATIONS!

https://youtu.be/VqmSdDKmj2M