Factorio Forums

When artillery range is big enough, significantly larger than radar coverage (started happening after artillery range 7):
1. Build artillery somewhere remote, away from pollution cloud, with robots, without visiting the location with the player character
2. The area where the artillery is built is explored by radar, not by player

What happens:
1.Artillery clears some area around it, leaving outer chunks from its range unexplored and unbombarded.
2. Visit the location of the artillery turret with the player character after any arbitrary amount of time.
3. Artillery starts shooting at unexplored chunks, which now are generated by player approach.

What I expected to happen:
Artillery generates all chunks in its coverage without the player being present.

This is not a bug. Artillery is not shooting "to discover area" but it is shooting to kill enemies. When a chunk is not yet generated (pollution will generate chunks, radars will generate chunks) or it is at one of the generation stages where it has no entities yet, artillery will not shoot because there are no targets to shoot.

boskid wrote: ↑Tue Jan 03, 2023 8:19 am This is not a bug. Artillery is not shooting "to discover area" but it is shooting to kill enemies. When a chunk is not yet generated (pollution will generate chunks, radars will generate chunks) or it is at one of the generation stages where it has no entities yet, artillery will not shoot because there are no targets to shoot.

I understand that reasoning, that is what is logical.
However this makes expanding the factory in an automated way less comfortable - I have to remember to use manual targeting, to try and generate all the relevant chunks on the outer border of the automatic artillery range.
I can't start expanding the next rail segment, which is tailored to fit inside artillery range, until the artillery range is clear.
Not a big deal, but immersion-breaking, that the enemies are not even there behind the fog of war.

Perhaps this could be moved to suggestions?

aka13 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 03, 2023 7:44 am 3. Artillery starts shooting at unexplored chunks, which now are generated by player approach.

Hmm, well I would say for immersion, artillery shouldn't shoot at unexplored chunks, because how would it know there are spawners there?

Yes, but currently artillery shoots spawners, even if you don't know, that they are there, and they are not explored - expansion spawners outside of radar coverage are a typical artillery firing scenario.
I'd even say the mos useful one, preventing biters settling close to your walls.
Artillery just smells them somehow This "artillery smells biters" works very nicely for chunks that are generated, but not explored, or were explored, but are not seen.

Also, after a certain point in expansion, I just know, everything not water is spawners:

In one sentence, what I don't like for consistency is:
"I can not predict, at what point in time artillery will decide to fire at black chunks, and if not firing at a black chunk implies that there are no enemies there".


This whole sector was bombarded entirely automatically, I was never present at that point of the map. Artillery neve uncovered the 4 squares when it started cleaning out everything. Does that mean, that there are no spawners there? Does that mean, that those chunks were not generated, since no shell flew close enough to them?
A manual shot request to any of those squares triggers their generation, and suddenly a lot of automated fire happens, and it's clear that this square simply wasnt generated by accident.

aka13 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 03, 2023 9:29 am In one sentence, what I don't like for consistency is:
"I can not predict, at what point in time artillery will decide to fire at black chunks, and if not firing at a black chunk implies that there are no enemies there".

This whole sector was bombarded entirely automatically, I was never present at that point of the map. Artillery neve uncovered the 4 squares when it started cleaning out everything.

I have upgraded the firing range of artillery shells to level 13.
Therefore, before cleaning up the territory, I open it, shooting at the perimeter at the maximum range in manual mode, and then in automatic mode - I clean it. After that, I build a railroad to Infinity. And so many years in a row)

azesmbog wrote: ↑Wed Jan 04, 2023 1:19 pm I have upgraded the firing range of artillery shells to level 13.
Therefore, before cleaning up the territory, I open it, shooting at the perimeter at the maximum range in manual mode, and then in automatic mode - I clean it. After that, I build a railroad to Infinity. And so many years in a row)
artillery.jpg

I have seen your base, yes, this is what gave me points to think about. I do the same as you do , but I don't like that I have to do it.