Artillery can be built before tank is researched

[i-make-robots]

it is possible to build an artillery gun for which ammunition has never existed, and the knowledge of ammunition has never existed. um...what?

I researched and built only items required to build the rocket. having achieved that, I thought I'd add artillery and check it out. once completed I had an artillery gun and an artillery train but no ammo that would fit.

Also i have googled but am unable to find out how to manually (or automatically) fire the gun. I feel stupid :T

[i-make-robots]

I'm sorry but I don't have a save file & log file from the time between artillery built and tank researched. I only reported the but on reddit after, and was told to repeat it here.

[impetus maximus]

i don't see how this is a bug. you learn to build an artillery. for ammo you need to research explosive cannon shells to create ammo for it.
part of Factorio is choosing what to research next.

[bobbravo2]

I would have to agree with the OP - the suggestion would be to make Artillery depend on the Tank. That way we avoid breaking the user experience for new users - and it also shows how researching the tank will give you a awesome artillery cannon!

[Zavian]

The tech tree has plenty of other places where you can unlock a recipe, and then not be able build it, because you haven't done the research to be able to manufacture one of it's ingredients. Eg I'm pretty sure you can research advanced electronics 2 which unlocks blue circuits and hi-tech packs without being able to make sulfuric acid. Things like this have been pointed out before, and the devs have consistently said that they are not bugs, and that they do not want to add a horde of new dependencies.

My take is that the player isn't disadvantaged in any way by doing the researches 'out of order'. It costs exactly the same number of science packs, the same number of resources, and takes the same amount of time (assuming you have the flasks to keep your labs running) to research blue circuits, then acid as it does to research acid, then blue circuits. Your wouldn't be able to build them before you research both, and the order doesn't matter, so why add unnecessary dependencies that would force you to research them in a particular order?

[BlakeMW]

It seems a bit of a stretch that a new player would skip over the Tank, which is an easy-peasy blue science tech, when artillery costs a whopping amount of high tech science. The Tank is awesome on wheels and the only real reason I can think why a player wouldn't bother unlocking it because they're playing without biters in which case the artillery won't be much use either. It's a natural progression even if it's not a forced progression.