Question About Radar

[Hogweed]

Hi,

I was curious about the radar, I have seen in some videos (maybe they were just campaign?) where they tend to scan more than just a set square area around where you place them. Is there a way to get them to scan larger distances? I put one in each corner of my base, but i would hope they can do more because of the really high electric cost of them. They dont seem to see much father than my character, which makes them kind of useless, as the map updates when I am in the same position where they are. So the high cost of power seems too much since I can always update the map just by moving to each corner once in a while.

Appreciate any help or thoughts.

[sillyfly]

https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... itle=Radar

The radar gradually scans a much larger area than the one it keeps updated, so it is used to discover new parts of the map (that you haven't already been to yourself).
Supposedly it keeps updating this area periodically, so if something changes you will know about it (new biters nests spawn...), but I must say I have not seen it personally, so perhaps after it scanned to it's maximum range you should move it elsewhere.

[Garm]

They have larger radius than player by 1 chunk.

[Khyron]

Radars serve a couple of useful purposes.

Firstly, as you point out, putting one in each corner of your base gives you line of sight (or removes the fog of war, if you prefer) as if you were standing in each corner of your base at once. That's useful because sometimes biters will come and build a nest close to your base. Without the radar, you wouldn't know they were there. They're also useful at remote resource bases and train stops.

Secondly, they slowly automatically explore the map for about 2.5 times their sight distance. This is useful if you build a remote radar station to automatically explore the map. If you built a radar base near a big biter nest, you could discover what's on the other side which helps you decide if you really want to try and kill that nest or not.

[Hogweed]

Ahh - I see. Thanks for the info! I did notice that a few nests did appear whee i did not go out and explore. So I see it does, it just works pretty slowly. Thats still worth creating more power for, so I will use more efficiency modules to help counter them! Just wish they had openings for modules too!

[GewaltSam]

Five solar cells per radar and you have a self-sufficient radar station.

See also https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=8&t=3925

[Hogweed]

Five solar cells per radar and you have a self-sufficient radar station.

See also https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=8&t=3925

Wow! Thanks Gewalt! Thats great, I will definitely be using a setup like that! Do I need to protect them with guns? I would think that anything spawning nearby would go after it pronto!

[GewaltSam]

It doesn't pollute, so it shouldn't be attacked. But maybe some biters on the way to your base could find it, i don't know. I tend to build some lasers into it, because i got the space and hell, why not?