Laser Turrets need upkeep

[Marconos]

I keep looking at gun turrets vs laser turrets. Guns require ammo, production line to keep them fed etc. They do loose power later game but that is a different discussion. What I would like to see is some resource usage on lasers where they aren't set and forget. We build these huge factories and beyond research and making a bigger factory there is no reason to keep going (I know end game is being worked on). I just want to have increased demand for more and more resources so we need a massive factory to make it end game. Making lasers need some type of upkeep would help with that.

Repairs for lasers
Requires special repair packs that need to be applied after so many shots
Acts like ammunition for regular guns but last longer
If the turret is fully exhausted it requires 25% extra packs to make it operational again
Packs can be applied by construction bots if setup properly
Repair backs should require batteries, circuit boards etc, something complex that would realistically wear out

Thoughts?

[Rahjital]

The entire point laser turrets is that they don't need any special attention after they are built. If they were to require repair packs, they would be just a stronger version of the ammo-based gun turret.

For increased resource demand, there could be rocket turrets and combat robot launcher turrets. Both robots and rockets require a fair amount of resources, especially if you go for destroyer bots and explosive rockets, so putting both of those in would make the game more interesting and satisfy your demand for resource consumption.

[hoho]

Having to have a decent amount of accumulators is sort of an investment

[Rahjital]

Accumulators still don't require any upkeep, though, so it's not what OP wants here.

[hoho]

I know, they aren't comparable with ammunition 1:1.

Though in some way having to expand and defend the land area for the accumulators is an extra investment one doesn't need (as much) with projectiles.

[Marconos]

I know, they aren't comparable with ammunition 1:1.

Though in some way having to expand and defend the land area for the accumulators is an extra investment one doesn't need (as much) with projectiles.

I'm just looking for some way to balance the laser turret a little and have more use for resources beside just research. One of the things I really like is how the gun turrets really put a strain on my resources early game. I want the pressure all the time so I'm always having to push for more more more, laser turrets defeat the purpose IMO.

[Ohlmann]

I think one need a better gun turret, who do real damage against anything and is mostly better than the laser, but eat through ammunition.

[Marconos]

I think one need a better gun turret, who do real damage against anything and is mostly better than the laser, but eat through ammunition.

That would be nice as well. So weaken the overall strength of the laser turret AND increase it's power usage to point where spamming them isn't really feasible (course that also requires a tweaking of solar panels but that's a different discussion)

[hoho]

I think one need a better gun turret, who do real damage against anything and is mostly better than the laser, but eat through ammunition.

Mini-version of rocket defense that would actually shoot at stuff?

Just nerfing lasers and buffing bullet-based stuff is boring. More options would be much nicer.

[Marconos]

I think one need a better gun turret, who do real damage against anything and is mostly better than the laser, but eat through ammunition.

Mini-version of rocket defense that would actually shoot at stuff?

Just nerfing lasers and buffing bullet-based stuff is boring. More options would be much nicer.

Add a new gun type with a purpose not just same ability. Laser lowest single target damage but longest range (25% longer then guns), guns are single target higher damage then lasers but shorter range. Finally add rocket turrets that are horrible single target but do AE damage to a group to make up for the lack of single target.

Make the aliens smart so if you stack one type of turret then only aliens that are best against that attack there. Variety and upkeep

[boro]

I think one need a better gun turret, who do real damage against anything and is mostly better than the laser, but eat through ammunition.

I agree. The gun turret starts out just fine for the initial waves of small biters, but the upgrades don't do nearly enough to make it useful against medium/big biters.
It would be much more interesting if the turret that requires the most resources and work was better than the place-and-forget turret.

[Rahjital]

If there was a turret that was good at single targets but horrible against hordes, that would be nice. Currently both laser and gun turrets have a pretty high rate of fire, which hurts the gun turret a lot as it needs a lot of upgrades to negate the big biter resistance. Maybe a rocket turret that fires once every four or five seconds?

[Ohlmann]

Sniper turret ! :p Kill one biter no question asked, every 10 seconde, and humeongous range.

Well, certainly not the best idea.

[Koub]

I'd also like some kind of "crowd control" so that when you get a huge wave of biters, you don't only have to count on the thickness of your walls to soak up damage until the turrets kill everything.
Like net throwing turrets, that entangle biters, slowing the horde, or air / water blasting turrets to repell biters a little further, tazer turrets to stun biters a few seconds, ...
Also turrets throwing poison and/or slowing capsules (the ones that already exist ingame).

That way, it would not be only turret+wall stacking until you have no more room to put walls or turrets

[Rahjital]

Yeah, capsule (and grenade) throwing turrets would indeed be useful. Along with combat robot launching turrets and multiple kinds of ammo and electricity based turrets, base defense design would be a lot more fun and would stop people from just massing laser turrets everywhere. We might need stronger enemies for to make up for it, or perhaps weaker laser turrets.

[Marconos]

Yeah, capsule (and grenade) throwing turrets would indeed be useful. Along with combat robot launching turrets and multiple kinds of ammo and electricity based turrets, base defense design would be a lot more fun and would stop people from just massing laser turrets everywhere. We might need stronger enemies for to make up for it, or perhaps weaker laser turrets.

I like this thinking here. More variety but definitely harder plushy toys to play with. Though this may make clearing those huge bases a larger issue.

What about some type of indirect fire gun? Very expensive to build, limit to 1. The gun can shoot farther than it can see but requires a "spotter" for it to be able to shoot longer range. Make the shells expensive and slow reload time to keep it from being spammed. With that you could then have a way to bust huge hives (or other players in multiplayer). Could potentially work, have to balance it out though.

[Luaan]

I know, they aren't comparable with ammunition 1:1.

Though in some way having to expand and defend the land area for the accumulators is an extra investment one doesn't need (as much) with projectiles.

Well, accumulators don't attract biters, so it's quite trivial to build huge farms of them. But there's a good idea in there - perhaps the laser turret upkeep shouldn't be built with the placement of the turret, but rather elsewhere. Accumulators with less than 100% efficiency? Accumulators that attract biters? Improve gun turrets so that lasers become the easy variant you have to spam, while gun turrets are the more involved variant that is cheaper and more effective in the long run?

[MalContentFL]

Why not just make laser turrets like 5x harder to craft and have less health.
20 Steel + 15 Processing Units + 15 Batteries + 40 Iron Plates = 1 Laser Turret. They can only be crafted in Assembly Machine Mark 3's and take 10 Time to craft.

[Dibbit]

Why not just make laser turrets like 5x harder to craft and have less health.
20 Steel + 15 Processing Units + 15 Batteries + 40 Iron Plates = 1 Laser Turret. They can only be crafted in Assembly Machine Mark 3's and take 10 Time to craft.

I don't think this is a good solution, this would just make it more tedious to set up your initial defenses.

The way I see it, there needs to be a bigger diversity between the turrets, also there needs to be a better return depending on their difficulty.

I propose something like this:

1. Gun turrets: They're semi-tough to automate, as they require either a belt or robots with chests to fill. Thus, they should be fairly effective. Since they're also the first turret you get, they should not be overwhelmingly powerful in the beginning. Luckily, with different ammo, you could make it so they upgrade nicely.
Damage of normal bullets seems alright, they are mostly used in a stage where you're handfeeding them.
However, to prevent their damage from falling off, AP bullets should do more damage, and there might even needs to be a "tier 3" bullet.
Main purpose: Main base defense.
Difficulty: Easy to construct, needs supplies and an easy construction setup (steel and copper)
Damage: should be fairly effective to use against everything, but needs to use upgraded ammo.

2. Laser turrets. While they're tougher to construct, they're "plop down and forget" and I think they should stay this way, they should maybe take up a bit more space so that they're not so stackable. I envision them as a hassle free defense for forward bases (no resupply needed) or parts that only see occasional fights. Of course, if you're mostly on green energy and get very light attacks anyway, or if you really place a whole lot of them, they should be usable as main weapons.
Main purpose: Outpost defense, place-and-forget defense for non-heavy combat.
Difficulty: Difficult to construct (needs oil and possibly accumulators), carefree operation.
Damage: I feel they're a bit too damaging at the moment, but they also shouldn't be too weak, they should be able to repel light and wandering attacks.


3. (not yet existing) Flamethrower turret. These should be short range, very high damage turrets that do friendly fire. This makes it so that they can't be placed behind walls or each other, making them extremely dangerous for both the player and creeps. (and buildings, and trains and that nice car you parked in range)
Main purpose: A very manly defense of heavy chokepoints.
Difficulty: not to difficult to construct, but supplying them requires oil (in jerrycans, just like the handheld flamethrower). Also, if a creep breaks through, they might create "fun" for the player.
Damage: Very damaging.

4. (not yet existing) Minefield emiter. These should slowly populate a wide range in front of them with mines. And, while very effective, minefields are slow to populate and will randomly fill, so it might be a while before the field is ready to stop another attack.
Main purpose: defense of places where creeps don't attack yet (or seldom) and additional defense in combination with other turrets.
Difficulty: not to difficult to construct, mines are not too difficult to supply either.
Damage: Very damaging, but very, very slow to repopulate.

5 (possibly) Missile installation. These very damaging weapons require a large amount of rockets and radar coverage, but they can be used to manually launch strikes at critter bases in range. To launch a missile barrage, the player constructs the missile installations, fills them with rockets, then goes to a location an (constructs then) drops a homing beacon. All missile installations will lock onto the beacon while the player Zoidbergs it out of there (whoop-whoop-whoop-whoop) after 10 seconds or so, the missiles approximately hit the target and do heavy damage. Meanwhile, the player flees from all the angry critters that he attracted while placing a beacon in the middle of their base.
Main purpose: Destruction of hives, clearing of forests
Difficulty: The missile installation should be high on the tech tree and moderately difficult to construct. Missiles are already hard to construct.
Damage: Extremely damaging, especially if multiple installations fire.

I think something like this would supply us with fun and different ways to defend our bases. We can all employ our own strategy, even if that strategy is hiding behind 100 laser turrets.

[MalContentFL]

Why not just make laser turrets like 5x harder to craft and have less health.
20 Steel + 15 Processing Units + 15 Batteries + 40 Iron Plates = 1 Laser Turret. They can only be crafted in Assembly Machine Mark 3's and take 10 Time to craft.

I don't think this is a good solution, this would just make it more tedious to set up your initial defenses.

The way I see it, there needs to be a bigger diversity between the turrets, also there needs to be a better return depending on their difficulty.

I propose something like this:

1. Gun turrets: They're semi-tough to automate, as they require either a belt or robots with chests to fill. Thus, they should be fairly effective. Since they're also the first turret you get, they should not be overwhelmingly powerful in the beginning. Luckily, with different ammo, you could make it so they upgrade nicely.
Damage of normal bullets seems alright, they are mostly used in a stage where you're handfeeding them.
However, to prevent their damage from falling off, AP bullets should do more damage, and there might even needs to be a "tier 3" bullet.
Main purpose: Main base defense.
Difficulty: Easy to construct, needs supplies and an easy construction setup (steel and copper)
Damage: should be fairly effective to use against everything, but needs to use upgraded ammo.

2. Laser turrets. While they're tougher to construct, they're "plop down and forget" and I think they should stay this way, they should maybe take up a bit more space so that they're not so stackable. I envision them as a hassle free defense for forward bases (no resupply needed) or parts that only see occasional fights. Of course, if you're mostly on green energy and get very light attacks anyway, or if you really place a whole lot of them, they should be usable as main weapons.
Main purpose: Outpost defense, place-and-forget defense for non-heavy combat.
Difficulty: Difficult to construct (needs oil and possibly accumulators), carefree operation.
Damage: I feel they're a bit too damaging at the moment, but they also shouldn't be too weak, they should be able to repel light and wandering attacks.


3. (not yet existing) Flamethrower turret. These should be short range, very high damage turrets that do friendly fire. This makes it so that they can't be placed behind walls or each other, making them extremely dangerous for both the player and creeps. (and buildings, and trains and that nice car you parked in range)
Main purpose: A very manly defense of heavy chokepoints.
Difficulty: not to difficult to construct, but supplying them requires oil (in jerrycans, just like the handheld flamethrower). Also, if a creep breaks through, they might create "fun" for the player.
Damage: Very damaging.

4. (not yet existing) Minefield emiter. These should slowly populate a wide range in front of them with mines. And, while very effective, minefields are slow to populate and will randomly fill, so it might be a while before the field is ready to stop another attack.
Main purpose: defense of places where creeps don't attack yet (or seldom) and additional defense in combination with other turrets.
Difficulty: not to difficult to construct, mines are not too difficult to supply either.
Damage: Very damaging, but very, very slow to repopulate.

5 (possibly) Missile installation. These very damaging weapons require a large amount of rockets and radar coverage, but they can be used to manually launch strikes at critter bases in range. To launch a missile barrage, the player constructs the missile installations, fills them with rockets, then goes to a location an (constructs then) drops a homing beacon. All missile installations will lock onto the beacon while the player Zoidbergs it out of there (whoop-whoop-whoop-whoop) after 10 seconds or so, the missiles approximately hit the target and do heavy damage. Meanwhile, the player flees from all the angry critters that he attracted while placing a beacon in the middle of their base.
Main purpose: Destruction of hives, clearing of forests
Difficulty: The missile installation should be high on the tech tree and moderately difficult to construct. Missiles are already hard to construct.
Damage: Extremely damaging, especially if multiple installations fire.

I think something like this would supply us with fun and different ways to defend our bases. We can all employ our own strategy, even if that strategy is hiding behind 100 laser turrets.

Turret Diversity and new turrets have been requested a lot. For one, you don't really need Minefield Emitters, just use construction robots. The End Game Missile defense could get a texture and be used as a missile tower. Flamethrower towers probably wouldn't be used much, because they consume fuel just like MG turrets use Ammo. If laser turrets couldn't stack, construction robots could just build, repair, and rebuild them. One reason laser turrets do so much damage is because there are so many rate of fire and damage upgrades. Normal Laser Turrets are quite weak. I don't mean to sound rude, but maybe you should have thought it through a bit more before you posted.