Artillery wagons are not attacking all static targets within range

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Tongs
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Artillery wagons are not attacking all static targets within range

Post by Tongs »

I have a series of train stops along my base's perimeter and two 2-4-2 artillery trains making their rounds.

The trains have a condition of "one second inactivity OR cargo empty" for each train stop.

Sometimes I can see static targets, worms and spawners, in range on the map view. However, the artillery wagons do not always attack despite having plenty of ammunition.

Knowing the map view of "fog of war" areas might contain stale data, I went out to look for targets on foot. Sometimes the blobs were no longer there (possibly mobs of biters, i.e. invalid artillery targets), other times they were worms and spawners.

My most recent test was looking at a corner of my base's wall and noticing the radars were picking up spawners that were rather close, since I did not have an artillery train stop nearby to clean them out. I went outside the walls on foot and verified that there were multiple nests, and they were all definitely within range of artillery: well beyond the minimum range, and certainly within 17.5 chunks (7 +150% for automatic targeting at current research level 5). Many of them were just outside the actively visible radar range which is nowhere near either the minimum or maximum range.

I added a new train stop at this location and waited for the next artillery train to stop by. The circle in map view easily covered these bases. However, it fired at one base and drove off.

Per the wiki, time spent scanning, aiming, and firing does not count for inactivity. Since I personally verified there were static targets within range and the artillery wagons have plenty of ammunition, why do they not always fire at valid worm and spawner targets within range?

Am I doing something wrong? Is this a bug? Some limitation I am not aware of that is not documented on the wiki?

https://wiki.factorio.com/Artillery_wagon

I am not running any mods that affect combat, biters, or military entities.

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MEOWMI
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Re: Artillery wagons are not attacking all static targets within range

Post by MEOWMI »

It's almost as if, at longer ranges, target acquisition becomes very slow. I have a test map with a lot of artillery range (research cost of next level is in hundreds of millions). Sometimes I'll notice or even place targets within range, and artillery turrets can easily take half a minute to acquire target and start turning towards it, even though there's nothing else for them to do. Other times they'll react pretty quickly. This is at 60 UPS of course.

I'm guessing it's a bug or undocumented design.

I've not tried it with trains but it sounds like exactly the same thing we're experiencing. I also don't have enough experience to tell if it happens at all range levels or if it's something that gets worse at higher upgrades.

orzelek
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Re: Artillery wagons are not attacking all static targets within range

Post by orzelek »

You are right MEOWMI.
It was described here by devs - artilliery dearches for tragets only few chunks per tick. This is done to reduce the cost of searching and as a drawback it makes it acquire targets slower especially with longer ranges.

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Re: Artillery wagons are not attacking all static targets within range

Post by Tongs »

I can understand being slow and taking a while to scan. As it is, my artillery trains take around ten seconds. However, they should not give up in the middle of scanning and tell the locomotives they are done. After watching a bit more, it seems that they will eventually get all the targets. It may take both trains stopping by a few times, but they will eventually clear the area.

I guess that is not a huge deal given this is an automated task that requires zero babysitting. It would be nice, however, to clear the area right away once I establish a new artillery train stop. For example: after I expand my walls and want to clear any nearby nests. Behemoth worms close to my walls make my turrets sad. And dead. I have had that happen when biters decide to expand just outside of turret range, which is far enough away for the artillery wagons to hit them.

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Re: Artillery wagons are not attacking all static targets within range

Post by Tongs »

I think I figured it out. I had the train schedule open while it was firing. The wait timer visibly filled up and the train left.

I reset the wait condition to the default five seconds. The timer moved to the right, then zipped back to zero as the wagons acquired more targets. My new artillery train stops now have plenty of breathing room around them.

This may be a bug: scanning should count as activity. Maybe there is a short delay between firing and scanning?

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