Friday Facts #410 - Rocket turret & Target priorities

[KeithFromCanada]

Nice! One thing that occurred to me was that, because this is so powerful, a firing limitation should be in place. For example, once a pod has fired off its three readied missiles, it should retract into the turret to reload. (If you don't want to add in the extra animation, you could wait until either both pods are empty or X number of seconds has passed.)

Cheers!

[Mendel]

With regards to laser turret idle power, isn't there already known solutions even without mods? For example, gun turrets already detect if enemy is close and will spend ammo when they activate. I feed ammo to a gun turret from a crate and I read crate contents. If crate is not full, a power switch will trigger and lasers will activate. (Also I have a hysteresis system with another inserter activating to put a fish on a long belt, The power switch will only go off when the fish eventually enters a crate and the ammo box is full again at the same time)

[Phauxstus]

I feed ammo to a gun turret from a crate and I read crate contents. If crate is not full, a power switch will trigger and lasers will activate.

Yes, but since we're getting circuit network connection for turrets anyway it would be nice to be able to get this information directly instead of having to measure ammo drops. Also this requires you to have some turret that uses ammo, instead of ex. 1 laser turret that's connected to power at all times and 20 that only connect when that first one turns on.

[Qon]

I feed ammo to a gun turret from a crate and I read crate contents. If crate is not full, a power switch will trigger and lasers will activate.

Yes, but since we're getting circuit network connection for turrets anyway it would be nice to be able to get this information directly instead of having to measure ammo drops. Also this requires you to have some turret that uses ammo, instead of ex. 1 laser turret that's connected to power at all times and 20 that only connect when that first one turns on.

It's possible to use a laser turret as a detector. But I do agree that a wire to the laser turret would be nice to have. But will it be UPS performant? That might be the reason that easier solutions for disconnecting laser turrets haven't been implemented.

[linktothepast83]

This update makes the stationary spidertron defences that i used obsolete and i love it! No more need to use spidertrons as rocket turrets!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWTlgFCgP8E

Oh, man. I can already tell vanilla rocket turrets are gonna suck ass...
So, from the footage in the FFF, looks like they have 360 arcs. So, basically there will be NO WAY to avoid blowing up your own defences if you dare to use any ammo with splash damage.
Just look at the clip with the biter waves. Notice how at the first biter wave, few turrets at the very bottom target the biters that managed to reach the wall. Now imagine the rockets are explosive - boom, no more wall. With how much damage bonuses you can get, one rocket is enough to tear nice hole for biters to get through.

I can think of an easy way to avoid friendly damage in most cases using explosive rockets, use a combination of turrets that use exclusively explosive and normal rockets together, have the explosive turrets target only spitters and normal rocket turrets target only biters. There is only one reason spitters will get too close to the wall while using explosive rockets that target them exclusively, your defenses are already breached. Explosive rockets literary massacre spitters in large numbers from a big distance and spitters don't charge the walls either, so yeah if you find a spitter next to the wall alive your defense is already done for and therefore possible friendly damage should be the least of your worries.

[TheCornishman]

AUTOMATED FISHING?!?!!?

Automated fishing already works in 1.0. Set up a long-handled inserter on the water's edge with a box behind it, and every time a fish comes into range, it'll be grabbed and salted down in the box. Plus, you don't have to supply the salt

[TheCornishman]

Every FF i hope for info on release but instead just get more cool shit i want to play with making me want info on release even more.

Marketing 101 There's no chance any of us are going to hesitate for even a few seconds before we hit "Add to Basket"!

[Bowiemtl]

I'm liking what I'm seeing. This may be a wild idea, but would it be viable to have radars read out how many enemies are in range onto the circuit network? That way it could be possible to let rocket turrets ignore enemies *unless* they are in a quantity higher than X. Same could be done with asteroids or whatever may be out there. Seeing as we now have wireless signals using radars now I don't know if this would clash though but I think it'd be awesome to have at least some way to read out this information by turrets

[Stalinlover22]

Look Awesome!! I can´t wait to buy the expansion. I can´t even wait for the next FFF

[Phauxstus]

It's possible to use a laser turret as a detector. But I do agree that a wire to the laser turret would be nice to have. But will it be UPS performant? That might be the reason that easier solutions for disconnecting laser turrets haven't been implemented.

Yes, you can use turrets as turret activity detectors by measuring ammo/accumulator/fuel drops, but since turrets are getting a circuit network interface anyway it would be better to be able to get this directly. I don't see how it could possibly be a UPS hitter, it's just a binary which the turret is necessarily always aware of.
I mean, turrets already send an "is active" notification to your hud, so why not get that info where it can actually be useful?

[garrotte]

Sad news for Factorio future. Filling gameplay with limitations and balance breaking things of space exploration free modpack, instead of making paid game add-on on much higher quality level and with more story aspects than a game mod.

[MeduSalem]

Sad news for Factorio future. Filling gameplay with limitations and balance breaking things of space exploration free modpack, instead of making paid game add-on on much higher quality level and with more story aspects than a game mod.

They wanted to do the Space platform stuff and whatnot already 8 years ago but couldn't do it for 1.0 because they lacked the manpower and time.

That dedicated modders implement stuff before a game's original developers can get to it themselves is something that happens in games all the time.

Ontop of that the original author (Earendel) of Space Exploration is on the dev team now and designed a lot of the expansion. If anyone would have a right to complain then Earendel himself.


Also if developers always cared about what already exists as a mod then most of the moddable games out there that have been released for a few years would not be able to do any addons at all anymore because they all have to do something similar or borrow from content that somehow already exists for free in some mod.

For that reason I don't wonder that some game developer studios even stopped giving a damn about reading suggestions on their own forums. Not only because some people can't be satisfied anymore anyway with whatever content they would make, but also because there are even more extreme people who spam them with copyright claims.

[numzero]

would it be viable to have radars read out how many enemies are in range onto the circuit network? <...> Seeing as we now have wireless signals using radars now I don't know if this would clash though

It would clash: you would read the exact same signals from all radars on the map having no way to know which radar sees what.

Said that however, enemy detection is the very purpose the radar was invented IRL. So maybe it would be better to use something else for wireless transmission, or at least leave that a possibility for a mod.

[Qon]

I don't see how it could possibly be a UPS hitter, it's just a binary which the turret is necessarily always aware of.
I mean, turrets already send an "is active" notification to your hud, so why not get that info where it can actually be useful?

Well before 2.0 small individual networks had noticeable performance impacts, almost certainly potentially much worse if the individual electric networks are merging and splitting apart tick by tick. But at least some of these problems have been alleviated in 2.0.

So the question is, would "disabling" a laser turret by signal have a different performance impact from putting each laser turret in its own individual power network? You would have to read the engine code (which haven't been written yet) to analyze if there's any difference. Also, my 0~drain laser turrets activated by a laser turret have networks by chunk instead of by individual towers (except for the sensor turret which is alone in its network). That means my solution might even have a much lower performance impact than the ability to shut off individual towers by signals.

And if the Wube solution is just sensing without the ability to disable laser turrets, then we are still using the same technique as now to disable turrets. And if the majority of the current performance impact is from that part, then having turrets as sensors by signals directly would not matter much from a performance standpoint.

[PrinceDest1ny]

would it be viable to have radars read out how many enemies are in range onto the circuit network? <...> Seeing as we now have wireless signals using radars now I don't know if this would clash though

It would clash: you would read the exact same signals from all radars on the map having no way to know which radar sees what.

Said that however, enemy detection is the very purpose the radar was invented IRL. So maybe it would be better to use something else for wireless transmission, or at least leave that a possibility for a mod.

Actually this could be fixed with the same "connect to logistics(or ig in this case circuit) network" option that train stations have. Or at least I think train stations, Ik one of the buildings have this option but I've forgotten which one.

[picklock]

Another outstanding FFF.

I think it's good that the rockets now have another possible use. The fact that certain targets can be selected via filters is also a great new feature.

[MrChuse]

Hello there.
Nice post, but why make target priorities be impossible to be a blacklist? I can imagine some mods make a lot of different enemies and it will be convenient to also have an opportunity for the player to have a blacklist there, not a whitelist. I think making 3 option buttons for disabled, white- and blacklist correspondingly is better. I also think that some global options for each turret type should be implemented for ease of use. i.e. gun turret shoots small and medium, laser turret shoots large and behemoth etc.

[gGeorg]

Also, my 0~drain laser turrets activated by a laser turret , ...
means my solution might even have a much lower performance impact than the ability to shut off individual towers by signals.

You advertice your old topic often, indeed. But it has one problem, your fence do not work.
I had a dispute with you already, so keep your emotional attacks. If you belive in your fence, make a vid of stamping your blue print, then repeated columns of biters attack. Post link of such vid. Until then, stay silent. Thank you for not spreading disinformation.

[0xE1]

Bentham can now make a mod that will prioritize Iron Chests being shot on sight

[Qon]

Also, my 0~drain laser turrets activated by a laser turret , ...
means my solution might even have a much lower performance impact than the ability to shut off individual towers by signals.

You advertice your old topic often, indeed.

Because it is often needed. I come across the topic often, but it is a solved issue. And it is solved by me (though I think others have done their own solutions and attempts, some of which inspired mine). So I help people by linking to the solution so people don't have waste time on asking for the wrong things. An example would be the thing I responded to with the text you quoted. If people ask for signal from radars or turrets to know if there are enemies in range, but actually want a complete solution that also can remove laser turret drain with low UPS impact, then they will be disappointed when they get what they ask for.

But it has one problem, your fence do not work.

Since you didn't point out any specific issue with it I'm going to assume you just didn't place it down correctly. No-one who responded in my thread had issues. PEBKAC, works for everyone but you. Maybe you forgot to power it? Or maybe you forgot to include the control signal piece exactly once? Maybe you didn't connect the wall pieces? Maybe it worked but you didn't understand that it was working?

I had a dispute with you already, so keep your emotional attacks.

I don't remember you. But I don't do "emotional attacks", I attack faulty arguments and wrong information. If being wrong and having that pointed out hurts your feelings then that's your problem.

If you belive in your fence, make a vid of stamping your blue print, then repeated columns of biters attack. Post link of such vid. Until then, stay silent. Thank you for not spreading disinformation.

You don't decide when I am silent or not. But it works, so showing a video of it is simple, attached to this post. Now don't post anything all until you have thanked me, admitted to being wrong and apologized for spreading misinformation, except to post just that.