Factorio Forums

The flamethrower seems to deal damage to trees now, which often destroys the trees instead of catching them on fire and having the fire spread to nearby trees.

Here I am running in a straight line while holding down LMB:
https://gfycat.com/BriefLinedHornet
Not a single tree caught fire.
Tested with Flamethrower damage research level 6.

I think this is a trade-off the player has to make.

I tested it just now with my level 6 flame thrower and I didn't think it was a large issue. Standing still and sweeping my mouse across a forest, it managed to catch fire with very few trees instantly 'destroyed'. If I held on an area for any additional time they would, but not in my usual sweep motion.

I don't think this is a bug and should be considered a feature as intended with high-level damage researched. I think if you are at the point of flamethrower research 6, you could afford rockets, grenades or construction bots to clear the forest instead.

Although, burning down a forest is one of the most fun parts of the game

Still, if the trees are destroyed by fire, you'd expect that fire (which is still burning) to make the neighbouring trees catch on fire just as if there had been a tree-on-fire there.

Zaydan wrote: I think if you are at the point of flamethrower research 6, you could afford rockets, grenades or construction bots to clear the forest instead.

This is exactly my point. There are plenty of other weapons and methods for clearing trees, the flamethrower should not be one of them. Using the flamethrower to kill biters runs of the risk of setting nearby forests ablaze, which has the negative effect of releasing pollution. If fire simply destroys the trees, instead of igniting them and creating pollution, then there's no real downside to using it.

The flamethrower never used to damage trees iirc. I assumed this was a bug caused by the changes/addition of the tank's flamethrower, which intentionally(?) destroys trees.

Severenger wrote:

Zaydan wrote: I think if you are at the point of flamethrower research 6, you could afford rockets, grenades or construction bots to clear the forest instead.

This is exactly my point. There are plenty of other weapons and methods for clearing trees, the flamethrower should not be one of them. Using the flamethrower to kill biters runs of the risk of setting nearby forests ablaze, which has the negative effect of releasing pollution. If fire simply destroys the trees, instead of igniting them and creating pollution, then there's no real downside to using it.

The flamethrower never used to damage trees iirc. I assumed this was a bug caused by the changes/addition of the tank's flamethrower, which intentionally(?) destroys trees.

It's unrelated to the tank flamethrower. It was added as part of the combat reworking.

Thanks for the report.
Fixed for 0.15.19

Does that include flame thrower in tanks? They just destroyed trees here.

It doesn't. The one in tank was added mainly for purpose of destroying trees.