Factorio Forums

I've got problem with the balancing of turrets.

In my opinion laser turrets are much better than regular turrets as they kill small and big biters faster.
So once I get my laser turrets the regular turrets become obsolete, I understand that laser turrets require a lot of power, yet with a handful of accumulators this problem is fixed.

That is why I think it is a good idea the change the laser turret from firing a series of small lasers to one big burst.
This burst would have the same DPS as the turret has now, but as it can only hit one enemy it would be far less effective against multiple small biters.
If possible it would be useful to have it prioritize bigger biters over smaller ones to get the maximum effectiveness out of it (and to avoid frustration).

Just and idea to make the regular turrets useful in later stages of the game, let me know what you think.

Actually, regular turrets with piercing ammo, once as much upgraded as lasers, does a nice amount of carnage.

I like your suggestion, I think that the direction should be towards making "mixed defense" (i.e. gun+lasers+minefields in various configurations) the optimum, rather than the current mindless laser turret spam.

I think that indeed the DPS of regular turrets is even a bit higher than lasers, especially because the bullet and turret damage upgrades stack. However, the difference is small enough to make it not really matter, enough laser turrets kill everything nicely (at least until behemoths), assuming that there is a large enough DMZ.

So, I think the trade-off is mostly that the logistics for lasers are so much easier (literally plug and play ) that relying on mostly gun turrets is quite a lot of extra work. Gun turrets do have the advantage that they will continue functioning if you run out of electricity, I've had to reload quite a few factories due to a no coal-no electricity-no miners/inserters spiral that allowed the biters to overrun the defenses. Using guns or mixing lasers/guns in the main base is usually quite doable logistically, but transporting bullets to outposts is a whole extra level of pain nice automation challenge.

Koub wrote:Actually, regular turrets with piercing ammo, once as much upgraded as lasers, does a nice amount of carnage.

And if you use my mod ammo, they become godlike.

A note about biters is they have physical resistance but not laser resist. Behemoth biters have 20% physical resistance.

Gun turrets benefit from turret upgrades AND ammo upgrades.
Laser turrets benefit only from turrets upgrade.

One fully upgraded laser shot from laser turret makes 11 damage
One fully upgraded piercing shot from a gun turret makes 24.2 damage
24.2 damage is more than 11 - even mitigated by 20% (19.36 mitigated)

And ... have I talked about firing speed ?

Laser turrets have the advantage of easiness : plop a bunch of them, add power poles, and you're done. Gun turrets must be reloaded, so you need some logistics to provide them magazines and reload them.

Koub wrote:Gun turrets benefit from turret upgrades AND ammo upgrades.
Laser turrets benefit only from turrets upgrade.

One fully upgraded laser shot from laser turret makes 11 damage
One fully upgraded piercing shot from a gun turret makes 24.2 damage
24.2 damage is more than 11 - even mitigated by 20% (19.36 mitigated)

And ... have I talked about firing speed ?

Laser turrets have the advantage of easiness : plop a bunch of them, add power poles, and you're done. Gun turrets must be reloaded, so you need some logistics to provide them magazines and reload them.

Yes, thats true, but still gun torrets become obsolete.

1. because they have only 400 HP
2. lower range
3. energy is infinte and therefore has no value

Even if gun turrets did 10x as much damage as laser turrets, gun torrets would still become obsolete. Its not possible to balance it, because it has an intrinsic broken mechanic. (An analogy is that it does not make a difference if you devide 10 or 500 by zero... As long as you devide by zero, its broken^^)

I solved this balance issue with my "Vanilla Plus" Mod:
viewtopic.php?f=95&t=20479

In my mod both turrets are useful.
Gun turret balance is oriented at laser turrets viability.

Mod change:
Gun turret: more tanky,(same HP as laser turrets but additional resistances to make gun turret with its lower range a "frontline" building), lower range, slightly higher damage DPS than Laser turret, consumes ammo
Laser turret: higher range and consumes a lot more energy(5MJ instead of 0,8MJ per Shot) in a mod where energy is not infinte(but plenty) anymore

Also note that the Gun Turret damage is instant !
When encountering large waves LASER lose their effectiveness due to enormous flight times

I used to ditch gun turrets ASAP, but now they get put down in pairs with lasers. They help provide extra damage with no power cost, act as a backup if the power does go out (which inevitably happens miles away, when it does) and running ammo isn't a big deal, as I always run supply trains anyway.

I think this suggestion and that: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=20073 Actual laser turret
could be combined.

ssilk wrote:I think this suggestion and that: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=20073 Actual laser turret
could be combined.

That was exactly what I was thinking of.

The entire premise of the main post is wrong.

I only use Gun turrets in my bases and I play on max biter settings. The same number of gun turrets can take out large packs of aliens better than the same number of laser turrets. Guns do require ammo but I find them great at keeping my base clear and I have found nothing that they can't hold up to.

Gun do more damage faster than lasers, as has been pointed out. The only downside is the ammo but that's what your base is for, might as well have it make something. Gun turrets are never obsolete and are great early, mid and late game. Best part about them, in any stage of the game, plop down a turret slap in some ammo and you are good to go. Base runs out of power for whatever reason, guns are still running. Just a great tool in the arsenal.

For the best defense you would want Gun turrets backed up by laser turrets. This would give you covering fields of fire and give you the best of both worlds (with the lasers longer range they can shoot over the gun turrets. In reality though, the laser and gun turrets are so powerful either type has no real issues taking care of any standard game alien menace.

Gun turrets are almost ok. Once fully upgrade they do like 4 times the damage of laser turrets. So the short range is very much compensated by the righteous death that they deliver.

Their only problems are:
1) they don't connect to logistic network: so you always have to setup a requester chest and an inserter. This is something devs are going to fix so it won't bother us for long.
2) their health doesn't scale so they are blown up very fast late game. You may want to place them behind laser turrets, but then they will have hard time reaching spitters.

I think that the devs could add an armored gun turret recipe that uses a regular turret plus steel. Same damage/range but better resistance.

malecord wrote:2) their health doesn't scale so they are blown up very fast late game.

That's what walls are made for

Koub wrote:

malecord wrote:2) their health doesn't scale so they are blown up very fast late game.

That's what walls are made for

Wall doesnt work vs spitters.

50% shorter range than lasers is what makes turrets obsolete. Nothing less, nothing more.

Lallante wrote:50% shorter range than lasers is what makes turrets obsolete. Nothing less, nothing more.

No, not at all. A combination of both is nice. Gun Turrets front, Laser Turrets right behind, and no matter what big waves are coming -> short work, without lasers getting in trouble due to low firing speed.

Of course, you can do a triple-row of lasers, for maximum overkill, THEN gun turrets become obsolete.


In the end, of course, it's more resource-friendly to use lasers, even if you need a huge amount of accumulators.

Maybe it will help if there is added a new mid-late game tech with hefty science cost, call it Advanced Combat Turret Research and it unlocks two recipes.

One for concrete reinforcing that you can build over your existing gun turret(s) (+4 Concrete + 1 Steel as extra production costs - restricted only to gun turrets) that doesn't add HP but it adds Acid Resistance (+5 maybe? +7? even more?)

And one that unlocks APFSDS ammo (Armor Piercing Fin-Stabilized Discarding-Sabot) (that uses existing AP Magazines + 1 Iron Plating as production cost with a blue color coding) that doesn't add to the turret physical DPS (or even decreases it a bit) but it does increase its range to make it relevant vs laser turret defenses (+10 range?)

silenced wrote:

Lallante wrote:50% shorter range than lasers is what makes turrets obsolete. Nothing less, nothing more.

No, not at all. A combination of both is nice. Gun Turrets front, Laser Turrets right behind, and no matter what big waves are coming -> short work, without lasers getting in trouble due to low firing speed.

Of course, you can do a triple-row of lasers, for maximum overkill, THEN gun turrets become obsolete.


In the end, of course, it's more resource-friendly to use lasers, even if you need a huge amount of accumulators.

Well, I am not sure if I can defend my base in the late game... I have thick walls and 4 rows(the 4-th is not continuous due to placement of electric substations) of laser turrets behind them. Everything damage/speed related is fully upgraded. Those continuous waves of behemoth spitters and biters manage to destroy my turrets from time to time. I would gladly replace some of my lasers by gun turrets if they would hold them...

You should destroy the biggest nests biters have created in your pollution cloud. it would make things a LOT easier for your turrets.

Koub wrote:You should destroy the biggest nests biters have created in your pollution cloud. it would make things a LOT easier for your turrets.

Agreed. In my first game we kept getting hit about 2 -3 times per day cycle. We went around in tanks and killed everything. Not a single attack after that.