Restore the flamethrower's glory

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Lav
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Restore the flamethrower's glory

Post by Lav »

After spending some time playing 0.15, I'm a bit disappointed with the early game combat. I always went on alien-slaughtering rampages in 0.14, and still do in 0.15, but the way I do them has changed.

In 0.14, I waited until basic oil processing in order to grab a flamethrower. I would then drive to a nest, lay out a few turrets to serve as strongpoint, and then lunge forward and back, spraying the nests and worms with the flamethrower. A single burst from a flamethrower was enough to burn the spawner to the ground, while big worms needed two.

In 0.15, I no longer use flamethrower - it's become pretty useless against spawners. So now I simply take a bunch of turrets and turret-crawl them all.

Sure, I could do that in 0.14 too, but I didn't have to. I wasn't very fond of turret-crawl and I had other options. Now I don't.

So perhaps somewhat counter-intuitively, combat changes in 0.15, which had one of the goals stated as "reduce the turret crawl", actually resulted in the opposite (at least for me). Turrets are now the only decent early-game hive-cleaning weapon, and that's a pity.

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Re: Restore the flamethrower's glory

Post by Deadly-Bagel »

So basically, "unless it's OP and can instakill spawners with no research I don't want to use it"?

Seriously, build a tank. Or you can just go out in Heavy Armour.
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Re: Restore the flamethrower's glory

Post by Lav »

Deadly-Bagel wrote:So basically, "unless it's OP and can instakill spawners with no research I don't want to use it"?
It's basically "there was a tactical choice in early game and now there isn't". You would notice that too if you would read further than the second paragraph. :-)

There was a balance between early flamethrower and turrets when it came to fighting hives. 0.15 nerfed flamethrower to the point I rarely bother making it at all, not only in the early game, but later as well. Maybe it was overpowered in 0.14, but now it went too far the other way. I can get capsules for the same investment I would spend on flamethrower with a few damage techs, and they offer a much more effective DoT and area denial attack.

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Re: Restore the flamethrower's glory

Post by Deadly-Bagel »

It was far too OP, you only needed to put a single spot of fire on a Spawner and it would destroy it. Not only that but it was extremely effective at dealing with huge waves of biters, so you could very easily kite the biters around, destroy pretty much every spawner in a single loop, then obliterate the wave following you.

I never really used it much in the first place, haven't tried in 0.15 but it sounds like you need to spend a second or so on each spawner, similar to almost every other weapon. The rework has given ammo a decent damage boost, and the gun on the tank gives a damage boost on top of that. The health of the tank has drastically improved (I believe it was 500 and is now 2500?) so not only does it kill spawners more quickly but it survives longer. The Rocket Launcher is also acceptable, it seems standard rockets now oneshot nests with minimal research. Explosive Rockets still aren't great, I'd avoid them, they do 1/2 as much damage and at best you're going to hit 2-3 nests.

Much more player health and better regen allow you to engage in short skirmishes with small and medium nests in the early game even without power armour, the Combat Shotgun is still good for this but the SMG is now surprisingly effective too, particularly when you get Uranium ammo. If you like, the Modular Armour is now MUCH cheaper and I think offers better armour than Heavy Armour. It can be equipped with shields and batteries (though obviously with solar panels will take forever to charge) for better survivability.

Granted, combat still isn't where I personally want it but by no means are we now forced into turret creeping unless you're being stubborn.
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Re: Restore the flamethrower's glory

Post by Lav »

Deadly-Bagel wrote:I never really used it much in the first place, haven't tried in 0.15 but it sounds like you need to spend a second or so on each spawner, similar to almost every other weapon.
Nope. I can destroy spawners with basic ammo SMG much faster than with a flamethrower.
Deadly-Bagel wrote:The rework has given ammo a decent damage boost, and the gun on the tank gives a damage boost on top of that. The health of the tank has drastically improved (I believe it was 500 and is now 2500?) so not only does it kill spawners more quickly but it survives longer. The Rocket Launcher is also acceptable, it seems standard rockets now oneshot nests with minimal research. Explosive Rockets still aren't great, I'd avoid them, they do 1/2 as much damage and at best you're going to hit 2-3 nests.
Please explain how improvements to tanks and rocket launchers are supposed to make flamethrower more useful.

Flamethrower was a decent early game alternative to turret creep. Now that alternative has been nerfed to the point where it's uniformly useless all the time. Funny how you keep talking about usefulness of other weapons, yet admit to not using flamethrower yourself, which is the entire point.

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Re: Restore the flamethrower's glory

Post by Selvek »

My current setup is machine gun / uranium ammo for killing bases in zero seconds flat, and flamethrower for clearing the masses that chase me on my way out. Flamethrower can kill a lot of chasing biters more ammo-efficiently than uranium ammo - the machine gun works just as well, but I'm burning through my uranium reserves a little faster than I'm comfortable with...

Oh yeah, and nukes :)

I don't think the flamethrower nerf was absurdly too far, although maybe slightly. I agree it is pretty useless against nests now though sadly. But in 0.14, it was such an OP no-brainer that I never used anything else. And there is still a niche use for it.

I think in general the re-balance is ok, but unfortunately cannon shells are still largely useless - the auto-target of the machine gun just melts biters, and manually targeting the cannon you'll never be able to clear swarms fast enough. And machine gun with uranium ammo can kill nests waaay faster than cannon shells, which would be an obvious use for shells. My suggestion - 1) remove piercing rounds completely, they serve no real purpose, and 2) increase the range, so that you get more of a tradeoff between short range insane DPS or longer range, harder to use but safer cannons.

Oh yeah, and nukes :) :) :)

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Re: Restore the flamethrower's glory

Post by Kelderek »

The flamethrower is fine, the mechanics have changed a little is all. It's not a 1-click kill on nests any more due to increased fire resistance the nests gained, but you can overcome that with sustained fire.

From the 0.15 Patch Notes:
The flames created on ground from the flamethrower significantly increase in duration and damage when more fuel is added to them by firing at the same spot.
That is a buff. So don't just shoot and run away and hope for major damage, stand there and pour it on and the nests will melt. If you adapt your attack plan then you'll find the flamethrower to still be quite useful and it only gets better with research upgrades later on.

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Re: Restore the flamethrower's glory

Post by Tev »

Kelderek wrote: So don't just shoot and run away and hope for major damage, stand there and pour it on and the nests will melt.
Your idea might be interesting, but factorio combat isn't really about standing. The fact that current flamethrower forces you to stay close to nests should be hint it is pretty weak.

I think this was one of the worst decisions of devs - listening to droves of drones complaining something is "OP", when it wouldn't be nearly as strong with other weapons buffs. Not to mention it wasn't as OP anyway.

And they even didn't fix the core issue of spawners being lolweak, just flamethrower is lame against them now, while every other way of killing them just gibs them.

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Re: Restore the flamethrower's glory

Post by Lav »

Tev wrote:Your idea might be interesting, but factorio combat isn't really about standing. The fact that current flamethrower forces you to stay close to nests should be hint it is pretty weak.
Actually I don't feel like it's range has changed - it was pretty short-ranged in 0.14 as well.
Tev wrote:I think this was one of the worst decisions of devs - listening to droves of drones complaining something is "OP", when it wouldn't be nearly as strong with other weapons buffs. Not to mention it wasn't as OP anyway.

And they even didn't fix the core issue of spawners being lolweak, just flamethrower is lame against them now, while every other way of killing them just gibs them.
Personally I feel the other way around would be better. Instead of making stationary spawners more resilient to fire, make biters and spitters more resilient to fire but afraid of it. Then the flamethrower would be a decent area denial weapon with a side purpose of burning down stationary stuff (probably with more than one short burst as that was indeed a bit overpowered, but still much faster than currently in 0.15). Player would need another weapon to actually kill the mobile aliens, but flamethrower would still have an important role. And if it would send worms into panicked frenzy, attacking everything around them, it would be pretty nice as well.
Kelderek wrote:The flamethrower is fine, the mechanics have changed a little is all. It's not a 1-click kill on nests any more due to increased fire resistance the nests gained, but you can overcome that with sustained fire.
You should actually try it. The required amount of sustained fire is so high that it's faster to destroy a spawner with SMG instead.

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Re: Restore the flamethrower's glory

Post by Kelderek »

Lav wrote:You should actually try it. The required amount of sustained fire is so high that it's faster to destroy a spawner with SMG instead.
I use it in all my games as soon as it is available and all the way to end game. At end game I use atomic bombs for large enough bases and for anything smaller I just use the flamethrower, it works just fine. I'm not so concerned about one weapon being better than another. I use the flamethrower because it is fun and it works just fine so I have no complaints about it. This thread is implying that it is completely useless now and I strongly disagree with that assessment. It may not be the best option among our weapon choices any more, but that doesn't mean it is no longer serviceable. The only thing that changed in 0.15 is the fire resistance of nests, the changes made to biters and spitters appear to be more about health than resistance. It's an AOE weapon with a lingering damage over time effect.

The sustained fire is not much higher than it was before. Maybe an extra second or two to destroy a nest and the lingering DOT will damage any biters that run through it, something other weapons don't do.

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Re: Restore the flamethrower's glory

Post by Deadly-Bagel »

Exactly, you don't need to stand there for 5+ seconds spraying the spawner until it dies, you can spend 1-2 seconds laying down some fire then let the DoT finish it. The nest takes longer to die but you spend just as long shooting it, is what I meant.
Lav wrote:Please explain how improvements to tanks and rocket launchers are supposed to make flamethrower more useful.

Flamethrower was a decent early game alternative to turret creep. Now that alternative has been nerfed to the point where it's uniformly useless all the time. Funny how you keep talking about usefulness of other weapons, yet admit to not using flamethrower yourself, which is the entire point.
You said you were being forced into turret creeping, I'm explaining why you're not. Yes, the flamethrower got nerfed, it's no longer the ender of worlds it was and it's not changing back, get over it. You can use the new flamethrower to its potential, switch to using other weapons (turret creep if you like but it's no longer the easiest, fastest OR most efficient method), or quit entirely. Given how Factorio is the most awesome game ever and combat is such a small part of it I recommend adapting. I guess you could also write or install a mod to return it to godhood if you want to bury your head in the sand, I'm not one to tell you how to live.
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