Gun turret range

[marjoriewbecker]

I would like to use gun turrets for defense, but I find that they get quickly destroyed by spitters in the mid game, and that laser turrets are the only option.

The problem is that the range of a gun turret is 18, while a medium spitter has range 14. For comparison, a laser turret has range 24.
This means that a laser turret has 2.5 times as long to fire on a spitter before it is in range, and around 3 times as many turrets can be in range to fire on that spitter. The result is that no matter how big a wall of gun turrets I build, they still get damaged over time, while even with worse damage upgrades, laser turrets can destroy incoming waves without a scratch.

I propose that there should be a research to increase the range of gun turrets to make it the same as the range of laser turrets (perhaps combined with other gun turret research). Then gun turrets stay relevant for much longer. Or maybe the range could increase with the ammo type? For example to 21 for piercing rounds and 24 for uranium rounds.

[Honktown]

There's something that's being overlooked - turrets fire rate is 10 bullets per second vs a lasers 1.5. Even at base damage, a single un-upgraded turret firing AP rounds can kill a medium spitter in .7 seconds (rounded to the nearest bullet), having dealt a possible 56 damage. That's no speed or damage upgrades at all. The first red-green-military upgrades get you something like +80% damage and +50% fire rate total, so dead in .27 seconds.

I would think what's more likely happening is the turrets are wasting time on biters.

It takes more space, but try adding or only using flamethrower turrets if you're having problems. Flamethrower turrets technically have more range than laser turrets, but they have to be moved back further because of the minimum firing distance. Enemies usually only get one nibble on a wall per wave. Flamethrower turrets have many advantages over laser turrets: usable as soon as you get oil processing+the turret research, no power needed at all, fewer turrets needed, much less resource intensive to use. Most difficult part of using flamethrowers mid-game is the walls.

Turrets could use some buffs, but range isn't as significant as their pitiful damage (lasers start at 20 and nothing resists it).

[Koub]

don't forget that upgraded gun turret has way more DPS than laser

[jodokus31]

I have a wall with gun turrets (red ammo, all damage upgrades without space science) + flamethrower, which resists 92% evolution pretty well. I need a roboport with some repair kits, though, because sometimes a spitter is able to spit once or twice. Or a biter gets near the wall. The key here is, that no single turret is exposed, when others can't attack. I always have 3 or more for the same wall section, almost a solid line.
Maybe my attacks are not the hugest, because i care about pollution, although its deathworld. I will see what happens with the new attack mechanic from FFF316.
But I would guess that upgrading to green ammo would improve it significantly.

[foamy]

don't forget that upgraded gun turret has way more DPS than laser

Yes, but by the time that's really relevant, you can get entirely adequate DPS out of upgraded laser turrets, with far, far simpler logistics. Especially since you can stick lasers three deep and the last one will still be able to shoot the same biters a single gun turret can, and it gets worse than that because there's more side to side that can shoot, too.

Even a couple of extra tiles for gun turrets'd be appreciated.

[mudcrabempire]

While I share the sentiment, you need to keep in mind that gunturrets are super cheap to research and to produce. They are explicitely meant for the early game. The superior damage upgrades and ammo benefits simply allow it to remain usefull well into the later stages of the game. Increasing the base stats of gunturrets would require an increase in their price to keep them balanced but that would be rather bad for early game.

[Ranakastrasz]

Either A t2 gun turret, or a range upgrade maybe? And by t2 I mean extra range and nothing else.

[Honktown]

What would be nice is a "turret mechanics" upgrade. Once you're doing decent damage, the limiting factor of killing small guys is turn rate. A research branch (through a mod probably) could improve turrets a little bit themselves. Tier 1 and 2 increase range and turn rate for gun turrets by a little bit, say +1 range and 20% faster turning. Tier 3 could improve flamethrower turrets ... whatever. Firing rate, range, arc, construction bot fireproofing; an upgrade that makes them better, but doesn't overpower them. Laser turrets probably wouldn't need a change, but maybe a 10% decrease in firing energy or something, so every turret can get a small improvement which makes a big difference in the long run.

[foamy]

While I share the sentiment, you need to keep in mind that gunturrets are super cheap to research and to produce. They are explicitely meant for the early game. The superior damage upgrades and ammo benefits simply allow it to remain usefull well into the later stages of the game. Increasing the base stats of gunturrets would require an increase in their price to keep them balanced but that would be rather bad for early game.

Perhaps, as mentioned earlier in the thread, tying range to ammo type? That brings the range upgrade in organically, without requiring additional researches, and at the point where the longer-ranged spitters start showing up anyway. +1 from AP ammo, +2 from Uranium?

[Frightning]

Yall are missing the 'real' obvious problem: The gun turret has a mere 400 hp, the laser turret has 1000, and flamethrower turret has 1200. The issue is it's lack of durability. This is why I've wished that they added an 'Armoured gun turret' to the game, which had the same gun, but more hp (and maybe resistances??). Would solve that issue, and make Gun turrets good without having to spam them for defense later on (a solid line of gun turrets is still nigh untouchable thanks to firepower supremacy+lack of delay for damage being dealt).

[Honktown]

Yall are missing the 'real' obvious problem: The gun turret has a mere 400 hp, the laser turret has 1000, and flamethrower turret has 1200. The issue is it's lack of durability. This is why I've wished that they added an 'Armoured gun turret' to the game, which had the same gun, but more hp (and maybe resistances??). Would solve that issue, and make Gun turrets good without having to spam them for defense later on (a solid line of gun turrets is still nigh untouchable thanks to firepower supremacy+lack of delay for damage being dealt).

It'd be simple enough to copy the gun turret and change a bunch of things. Name, iron plates to steel (that'd be expensive unless the amount was changed since it is ten plates). I think entities have resistances even though they're hidden. Besides higher HP it could have a damage bonus, range difference, acid resistance, physical resistance, etc, any other changes one might think of. Gun turrets are expensive enough, if there were a better version I'd want it to be really worth it.

[Frightning]

Yall are missing the 'real' obvious problem: The gun turret has a mere 400 hp, the laser turret has 1000, and flamethrower turret has 1200. The issue is it's lack of durability. This is why I've wished that they added an 'Armoured gun turret' to the game, which had the same gun, but more hp (and maybe resistances??). Would solve that issue, and make Gun turrets good without having to spam them for defense later on (a solid line of gun turrets is still nigh untouchable thanks to firepower supremacy+lack of delay for damage being dealt).

It'd be simple enough to copy the gun turret and change a bunch of things. Name, iron plates to steel (that'd be expensive unless the amount was changed since it is ten plates). I think entities have resistances even though they're hidden. Besides higher HP it could have a damage bonus, range difference, acid resistance, physical resistance, etc, any other changes one might think of. Gun turrets are expensive enough, if there were a better version I'd want it to be really worth it.

Yea, I was thinking Mil 3+level, 1200 hp, but good physical and decent acid resist. Recipe could be like Gun turret, 10 Reinforced concrete, maybe a 3rd ingredient (like 8 Iron sticks or 5 Steel plates).

[gGeorg]

There's something that's being overlooked - turrets fire rate is 10 bullets per second vs a lasers 1.5.

don't forget that upgraded gun turret has way more DPS than laser

and upgraded turret with an upgraded (green) ammo shreds the bugs like no laser could.
My current map, is somehow evolved but ratios should be similar its 10 of each endless tech so:
Turret with
Yeallow ammo : 5+14
Red ammo : 8+22,4
Green ammo: 24+67,2
They do 10+15 shot/s
>>> green ammo does 2289 dmg/s . As long as Behemot bitter has 3000HP and some resistances it takes aabout 2,5 seconds to kill.
Compare to laser 20+102dmg by shooting 1,5s+3,3 it does 463 dmg /s so it takes 6,5 seconds to kill.

Each turret has his own puprpose. Your goal learn how to use them properly.

Frankly speaking -
If you are on a Deathworld, then defence combining Flame plus ammo turret saves your ass. Laser is only good when you could afford serious research and large quantities of turrets. Also mines are superb. Cant understand why people always forget mines.

Turrets are fine, no need to change or add.

Perhaps some HP to the ammo turret to get 500hp.
There is a real issue tho > build-in underground pipe for flame turret would be super.
It is soooo anoying when you need constant supply for replacement of pipes. When behemot spitter hits your flamer then acid melts the connected pipe.

[Hannu]

Yall are missing the 'real' obvious problem: The gun turret has a mere 400 hp, the laser turret has 1000, and flamethrower turret has 1200. The issue is it's lack of durability. This is why I've wished that they added an 'Armoured gun turret' to the game, which had the same gun, but more hp (and maybe resistances??). Would solve that issue, and make Gun turrets good without having to spam them for defense later on (a solid line of gun turrets is still nigh untouchable thanks to firepower supremacy+lack of delay for damage being dealt).

In my opinion weakness of inserters are much worse problem. I like that biters can make real damage and stress my manufacturing plants and logistics. Replacing walls and turrets is very natural part of defense line. But inserters are ridiculously weak and area effect destroys them first. It is OK to replace cheap inserters too, but number of ammo inserter loads to turret should be adjustable by simple edit box in control window. Default could be 10 so that nothing would change but it would be practical to load 100 or 200 clips at endgame. 10 clips does not last many seconds and after that turret is useless because feeding inserter has been destroyed.

[Hannu]

I would like to use gun turrets for defense, but I find that they get quickly destroyed by spitters in the mid game, and that laser turrets are the only option.

Have you even tried? I have no problems to defend large bases with gun turrets. They are often destroyed and ammo feeding inserters are continuously destroyed but I have repair network which repair, feed ammo and replace destroyed entities. It is very natural that there is cost to maintain defense line when enemies attacks regularly.

I propose that there should be a research to increase the range of gun turrets to make it the same as the range of laser turrets (perhaps combined with other gun turret research). Then gun turrets stay relevant for much longer. Or maybe the range could increase with the ammo type? For example to 21 for piercing rounds and 24 for uranium rounds.

Extra range with more advanced bullets would be nice and somewhat realistic addition but not necessary. I have never seen such settings in vanilla game that gun turrets had been useless or even have bad performance. Continuous line of gun turrets with green ammo can easily defend all attacks in vanilla game. You lose some units but bots replace them automatically after battle and line is ready for next attack wave. Only thing to keep in mind is that you must change to uranium bullets soon after behemoth class enemies appear. Red bullets are weak against them. They can kill first few individuals but not massive endgame attacks when significant percentage of enemies are behemoths.

[SirSmuggler]

In my opinion weakness of inserters are much worse problem. I like that biters can make real damage and stress my manufacturing plants and logistics. Replacing walls and turrets is very natural part of defense line. But inserters are ridiculously weak and area effect destroys them first.

Perhaps long handed inserters would fair better? They can be placed with a one tile gap to the turrets they feed and so should avoid any splash damage from spitters hitting the turrets.

[Hannu]

Perhaps long handed inserters would fair better? They can be placed with a one tile gap to the turrets they feed and so should avoid any splash damage from spitters hitting the turrets.

Thanks for the tip. I will test this during weekend.

[gGeorg]

Perhaps long handed inserters would fair better? They can be placed with a one tile gap to the turrets they feed and so should avoid any splash damage from spitters hitting the turrets.

Thanks for the tip. I will test this during weekend.

make a chain of turrets, box >long hand inserter into turret>long hand inserter from this turret into other turret then > long hand insterter from this turret into .... and so on. made like 100 in one chain.You need to supply only first one, then they hand over ammo thru the chain. Looks cool save space and surprisngly even cheaper than feeding belt plus inserter.

Also keep in mind, that spitters do splash dmg. When you place your defence tight it gets unnecesary dmg. Always keep one square space between turrets. (or turrets and any other entity)

For complete firework, add ocasional flamethrower to the backseat line.

[wobbycarly]

Perhaps long handed inserters would fair better? They can be placed with a one tile gap to the turrets they feed and so should avoid any splash damage from spitters hitting the turrets.

Thanks for the tip. I will test this during weekend.

make a chain of turrets, box >long hand inserter into turret>long hand inserter from this turret into other turret then > long hand insterter from this turret into .... and so on. made like 100 in one chain.You need to supply only first one, then they hand over ammo thru the chain. Looks cool save space and surprisngly even cheaper than feeding belt plus inserter.

Also keep in mind, that spitters do splash dmg. When you place your defence tight it gets unnecesary dmg. Always keep one square space between turrets. (or turrets and any other entity)

For complete firework, add ocasional flamethrower to the backseat line.

The only problem with this approach is that if one of your turrents gets killed, everything "upstream" from that one doesn't get any more ammo.

[Hannu]

make a chain of turrets, box >long hand inserter into turret>long hand inserter from this turret into other turret then > long hand insterter from this turret into .... and so on. made like 100 in one chain.You need to supply only first one, then they hand over ammo thru the chain. Looks cool save space and surprisngly even cheaper than feeding belt plus inserter.

I prefer bot logistics in defense lines despite I do not use them in main material flows. I usually choose very big starting area so that I do not need automated feeding before my starter base is almost ready and I begin massive expansion. Bot defense is immune to single point damages. Actually I do not remember that I had lost any logistic bots ever. Construction bots are destroyed occasionally, especially in vanilla games. In modded games I use intentionally very slow construction bots at defenses so they arrive when battle has settled.

Red inserter seems to work perfectly with requester chest. I have now played maybe 10 hours and have not lost (at least noticed it) any inserters even biters have destroyed some turrets.