Factorio Forums

What Happened?

I can research additional weapons damage for lasers without having figured out how to build a laser yet.

I noticed my technology list looked like this:



Then I noticed I could choose to develop this:



Before this



What I expect?

I'd expect to develop the wheel before designing grip treads for different surfaces and weather, so it seems logical I'd need to have developed lasers before figuring out how to increase damage with them.

I suspect this is just a dependency issue so hopefully it's a simple fix if it's truly a problem and not something I'm misunderstanding.

This was discussed in some FFF quite a while ago.
If I recall correctly it is because the dps buff also applies to the personal laser defence or some other item as well and this is why the technology is unlocked before the laser turret is.

I might be wrong though, I will try to find the link later.

EDIT: This is the FFF introducing the new tech: https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-275 and they are explaining how energy weapons damage works. But I don't remember where I read what I mentioned above explicitly, maybe in the Forum discussion.

Yeh. That would make sense if you had previously researched personal laser defences, or had them for free.