Gun turrets working without eletricity

[Adil]

If making concrete, something the ancient Greeks were doing on a massive scale over three thousand years ago in our world, is an advanced process requiring a stage-two furnace-made substance and two other mined substances combined in a robotic factory... Why are semi-intelligent robots with guns something we can make using a wood-handled pickaxe?

Heyy... It's not only that, they're also firing bullets that are made solely from metal. And then there's defender bots which are a one circuit and single ammo clip mashed together.
But chasing for reason everywhere is tricky, you risk ending up with bob's mod. (Which while having it's own fans, is slightly by large margin overly complicated for a beginner play.)

[bobingabout]

But chasing for reason everywhere is tricky, you risk ending up with bob's mod. (Which while having it's own fans, is slightly by large margin overly complicated for a beginner play.)

It's those damn electronics isn't it? It takes way too long getting anywhere when you have to create the whole processing chains required to make solder, and resistors! not to mention the excessive use of wood!
That's the main reason why I made it optional but without it kind of spoils the feel.

[Shokubai]

This is not at all like those water pumps that don't require electricity to pump water.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Considerations like that is why I've started laying out the foundations for a mod of my own, Factorio Gaiden. More focus on in-universe consistency and lore, with large shifts in progression as a result. Making everything that isn't a burner require power (belts being the sole exception because I can't arbitrarily connect them into their own powerlines without also having visible wires), but also making power available early on in small quantities. Making automation and off-character storage matter much more, but diversifying and improving the options for both. Shifting focus from generalized research to more specialized and diverse research branches with their own pre-research production chains. Capping the upgrades of individual turrets, but creating better and more powerful variants for late-game.

Generally, adding variety and touches of realism and common sense where it can be made not to interfere with gameplay. Like changing how the burner inserter is somehow easier and cheaper to make than a regular inserter, despite being the same thing with an integrated generator and self-refuel ability.

[Shokubai]

Considerations like that is why I've started laying out the foundations for a mod of my own, Factorio Gaiden. More focus on in-universe consistency and lore, with large shifts in progression as a result. Making everything that isn't a burner require power (belts being the sole exception because I can't arbitrarily connect them into their own powerlines without also having visible wires), but also making power available early on in small quantities. Making automation and off-character storage matter much more, but diversifying and improving the options for both. Shifting focus from generalized research to more specialized and diverse research branches with their own pre-research production chains. Capping the upgrades of individual turrets, but creating better and more powerful variants for late-game.

Generally, adding variety and touches of realism and common sense where it can be made not to interfere with gameplay. Like changing how the burner inserter is somehow easier and cheaper to make than a regular inserter, despite being the same thing with an integrated generator and self-refuel ability.

I think you could play this into something very simply like...
*Player starts with a stack of 20(ish) items that are called Basic Power Packs. These power packs can be used for turrets, pumps,etc. All the items that should require early power but do not.
*Perhaps the base turret should be split into two. One version for this power pack and a latter version which requires batteries.
*An early recipe should be created to create these packs. Perhaps using a special limited quantity ore. Maybe only found in Stones.
*Because very few items require these rudimentary power packs, there shouldn't be a need to create lots of them after early game as you progress to Laser and standard turrets.
*Because this is a very early game problem...KEEP IT SIMPLE.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Considerations like that is why I've started laying out the foundations for a mod of my own, Factorio Gaiden. More focus on in-universe consistency and lore, with large shifts in progression as a result. Making everything that isn't a burner require power (belts being the sole exception because I can't arbitrarily connect them into their own powerlines without also having visible wires), but also making power available early on in small quantities. Making automation and off-character storage matter much more, but diversifying and improving the options for both. Shifting focus from generalized research to more specialized and diverse research branches with their own pre-research production chains. Capping the upgrades of individual turrets, but creating better and more powerful variants for late-game.

Generally, adding variety and touches of realism and common sense where it can be made not to interfere with gameplay. Like changing how the burner inserter is somehow easier and cheaper to make than a regular inserter, despite being the same thing with an integrated generator and self-refuel ability.

I think you could play this into something very simply like...
*Player starts with a stack of 20(ish) items that are called Basic Power Packs. These power packs can be used for turrets, pumps,etc. All the items that should require early power but do not.
*Perhaps the base turret should be split into two. One version for this power pack and a latter version which requires batteries.
*An early recipe should be created to create these packs. Perhaps using a special limited quantity ore. Maybe only found in Stones.
*Because very few items require these rudimentary power packs, there shouldn't be a need to create lots of them after early game as you progress to Laser and standard turrets.
*Because this is a very early game problem...KEEP IT SIMPLE.

I just pretend the player character is an engineer with a good deal of technical knowledge and some futuristic tech-savvy, but limited resources. So he just builds mechanically simple Stirling generators (heat engines) to supply himself with early power. I prefer to keep the player's initial supplies to a minimum, and turrets and pumps should absolutely require power in some form.

[bobucles]

Gun turrets come into play well after the player has electricity established. Heck, you NEED electricity just to get the research completed.

It's not outlandish to demand electricity of a defense turret, even if it's a token amount.

[joe_da_cro]

It's not outlandish to demand electricity of a defense turret, even if it's a token amount.

heck even if it was a requirement just for them to be connected to the power system and had no drain would be good enough for me.

[bobucles]

Laser turrets cook 6kW to stay on hot standby. Early game you have what, a dozen turrets? Two dozen? That's no more demanding than an assembler or two.

[Adil]

Well, this seemed like a nice puzzle, so I did the mod for that for now.

[TN_Creator]

Well, this seemed like a nice puzzle, so I did the mod for that for now.

thats cool, thanks!

[Moosfet]

The thing is you need at least some way to defend your base even in case of power shortage. Laser will not work without current, but I think it's OK for gun turrets (I agree, not realistic, but acceptable gameplay wise).

Why shouldn't a power outage be a catastrophic event?

Why are semi-intelligent robots with guns something we can make using a wood-handled pickaxe?

Because the enemy is over-powered, all of the other weapons are under-powered, and the player needs some way to avoid being destroyed in the first 20 minutes?

I'd personally recommend that conveyor belts be introduced to gameplay a little later, requiring attachment to a steam engine not for electrical power but for motive force - i.e. belts and wheels, /or/then later/ requiring the placement of a single electrically powered motor for each section of interlinked conveyors. I'd be a lot happier if they only moved when attached to these systems, whereas back on topic ballistic gun turrets meanwhile should need green chips and motors to have any ability to move and track targets.

I was thinking the same thing about the belts, though a bit simpler, in that electricity would simply have to be present somewhere along the length of the conveyor, then that point in the belt would power the whole belt, since it's just one big belt and so the motor can be anywhere. It's so strange every time my power goes out and yet all of the belts are still moving. I also think the idea of "burner inserters" is just ridiculous. A coal-powered robotic arm?

As for the turrets, I'd say "enemy-tracking gun turret" sounds like "advanced circuit" to me. If the other weapons weren't such a joke, the turret wouldn't be essential for the early game, and could be reserved as a cool bonus for the later game.

Probably there should be a shipwreck with some basic supplies and parts that can be scavenged: Some ammo, circuits (maybe even a few advanced circuits), maybe a gun turret or two, and you can use this stuff to defend yourself and build a few of the more advanced machines until you're able to produce gun powder and more turrets so that you can defend a larger area. It would certainly help the early game be less boring. It would also make sense if you arrive with some basic technology that helps you get started but, if you lose it (enemy attacks or whatever) you're set back so far that you can't really move forward anymore, e.g. you need green circuits to build machines that produce green circuits, so if you lose them all to enemy attack, or if you just squander them all on stupid stuff, then it's game over.

[Harkonnen604]

1. As for belts - make them acting as 3x3 power poles. They will also power many inserters and decrease that pole/wire burden over the base.

2. As for gun turrets - does not matter actually. It's not problem getting pole (or 50 poles) to the turret. As for outages - they are catastrophic anyway in the late game, probably a way to educate a player in the early game to never have outages

3. What would be REALLY good - some better starting conditions regarding local ammunition. I.e. that pistol with unupgraded yellow bullets is nothing against even 1st small biters wave, so I start every game with 1 boiler, 1 steam engine and 1-2 labs. Just to research turrets asap. And then always carry 2-4 on me just to defend myself and my base because that pistol can do literally nothing. It was better balanced in campaign.

[thereaverofdarkness]

I don't like how easy it is to set up defense turrets near an enemy base to be used in a base assault. I'm in favor of any change that makes it harder to use them as an offensive weapon without making them hard to use as a defense.

Like what if it took a moment for them to come online? They could plop down as a turret shell, and assemble themselves into position over 10+ seconds. That would make it harder to put them up to defend your base in the middle of an attack, but if you set them up preemptively you should be alright.

[British_Petroleum]

Factorio is unrealistic in a lot of funny ways

- You can store thousands of steel chests inside a steel chest.
- A roboport is tiny when on a conveyor but then giant when you place it.
- Gun turret can automatically aim and fire yet doesn't require any power source.
- Your avatar is godlike: he has a tardis in his pocket, can construct/place things instantly, while simultaneously crafting things.
etc. etc. etc.

The devs are smart, they know the game is unrealistic in many ways but they purposely made it this way because it is more fun this way.

Leave gun turrets the way they are! They are really good early game, but later game it's better to switch to laser towers because they're sustainable (don't require ammo). Laser towers were way op in earlier versions but i tihnk it is good now.

[thereaverofdarkness]

The devs are smart, they know the game is unrealistic in many ways but they purposely made it this way because it is more fun this way.

Leave gun turrets the way they are! They are really good early game, but later game it's better to switch to laser towers because they're sustainable (don't require ammo). Laser towers were way op in earlier versions but i tihnk it is good now.

It's also better to switch to laser turrets because nothing resists them, while late-game biters are highly resistant to gun turrets.

There are severe balance issues with being able to use turrets as a method of attack, though perhaps part of it is just that turrets are more powerful than handheld weapons. Maybe handhelds should be more powerful than turrets. You can only use one handheld at a time, but you can place several turrets in one spot and they automatically fire without your input.

[malecord]

Imho you're all right, there are several use cases now for gun turrets and add energy consumption would necessarily leave some of those cases uncovered. Solution? Moar turrets!

Gun turret: like the current one but requires fuel.

Advanced gun turret: more health (at least like laser), slightly more range (let's say, 20), uses electricity but has an internal battery to remain operative in case of black outs (of course, electric consumption is minimal so battery would keep you safe for an entire night). Recipe requires gun turret, some steel (more health), a battery and maybe circuits (if they connects to logistic network which they should).


The first one is good at start, it allows you to creep and to defend your base from small attacks early game. But with no magic. The second is useful later on to help defending base during black outs. Then of course, you could add as many middle tiers as you want.

[Harkonnen604]

There could be a balance. Gun turrets are superior to laser turrets not only in fire power but also in rotation speed (but require ammo hard to deliver automatically and that kills their usage). For gun turrets I'd make these proposals:

1. Without electricity gun turret still works, but aims a lot slower. Like laser turret or at 50% speed of it. I don't think it should fire slower without power.

2. Clip stack size must be reduced to 10 or 20 bullets, not 100. This will make it feasible to deliver bullets via belts. Otherwise you are going to waste a lot of clips in every turret, some of them would never fire throughout the game (until pheromone pathfinding is added for biters when they avoid corpse areas). You can't have enough steel to afford a belt with red clips running perimeter of your base and 100 clips in every turret along the wall. That's just too much of steel. So that will eliminate tedious manual running and refilling gun turrets with like 25 clips each through right-clicking (even when you space gun turrets about 10 tiles apart). Besides, having an inserter near every turret to deliver bullets would offset electricity demand automatically.

3. It would also be advisable that once a turret is placed it is automatically filled with best bullet type you have (that is red or yellow). Not for turret creeping, but for fast defense placement when biters came from a new direction. Filling initial bullets annoys even when you setup preliminary defense, for you have to scan your inventory, your toolbelt and your own ammo to find where those darn bullets are.

[thereaverofdarkness]

Gun turret: like the current one but requires fuel.

Advanced gun turret: more health (at least like laser), slightly more range (let's say, 20), uses electricity but has an internal battery to remain operative in case of black outs (of course, electric consumption is minimal so battery would keep you safe for an entire night). Recipe requires gun turret, some steel (more health), a battery and maybe circuits (if they connects to logistic network which they should).

I like this idea! I wouldn't give the electric turret more range though. Maybe it could have a slightly higher rate of fire but mostly just more hit points to justify the steel in its construction. Late game the gun turrets start to die too fast and that's a big reason not to use them.

2. Clip stack size must be reduced to 10 or 20 bullets, not 100. This will make it feasible to deliver bullets via belts....You can't have enough steel to afford a belt with red clips running perimeter of your base and 100 clips in every turret along the wall. That's just too much of steel.

You have to try it before you say it won't work. Inserters only put ten magazines in a turret before they stop. You can easily use a belt to supply turrets. The hardest part is building such a huge belt and wall. Putting ammo on the belt is the easy part.

[Harkonnen604]

You have to try it before you say it won't work. Inserters only put ten magazines in a turret before they stop.

Wow I didn't know that. thanks are there other similar limitations anywhere in the game where non-smart inserter does not fill the stack completely?