What are the opinions on the current Turret Damage output?

[MeduSalem]

Introduction

I've been doing some experiments and maths on the Damage output of various Turrets because I wanted to find out at which point a Turret kills a Behemoth Biter with a single hit just for the sake of it.

Gun Turret (using Uranium Rounds)

As it turns out you can reach that with Gun Turret Damage Level 25 and Bullet Damage 25:

Gun Turret Damage.png (45.86 KiB) Viewed 7480 times

It should be noted that the scaling mechanic works multiplicatively on the bonus effects instead of additively. So the formula is basically (without resistances):

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Raw Damage = Base Damage * (1 + Cumulative Gun Turret Damage Bonus) * (1 + Cumulative Bullet Damage Bonus)

The resistance Calculation for Behemoth Biters is as following:

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Damage = (Raw Damage - 12) * (1 - 10%)

The damage scaling due to the multiplicative effect is quite impressive I have to say.

The costs for level 25 are insane of course... 524 288 000 Science Packs, so it doesn't really seem feasable. In my 1000 Science Packs/min factory that would be about 8738.1 hours. A little more than a year of uninterrupted research. Damn exponential scaling... just ugly.

On the other hand 2-hitting a Behemoth actually seems do-able in a factory with a decent enough science output... Only level 18 required, with a total amount of 4 096 000 science Packs. A few dozen hours of leaving Factorio running in the background maybe or doing something else in the factory. In my 1000 Science Packs/min factory that would be about 68.2 hours.

3-hitting is what I'm currently aiming for in my base. Only 512 000 Science Packs. In my 1000 Science Packs/min factory that would be about 8.5 hours.

Flamethrower Turrets

Here's the table for Flamethrower Turrets:

Flamethrower Turret Damage.png (41.32 KiB) Viewed 7392 times

It should be noted that the scaling mechanic is similar to the Gun Turret scaling... each level of Flamethrower damage actually impacts the Turret in two ways... once by affecting the Flamethrower turret itself and once affecting the flamethrower... so basically the Bonus is multiplicated by itself. So the formula is basically (without resistances):

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Raw Damage = Base Damage * (1 + Cumulative Flamethrower Damage Bonus)^2

It's not bad... considering the damage effects are over time and as an area of effect.

[edit]Added a column for the Stacking Effect of Over Time damage to the AoE. Thanks to BlakeMW[/edit]

Laser Turrets

Here's the table for Laser Turrets:

Laser Turret Damage.png (30.39 KiB) Viewed 7480 times

The formula for the Laser Turret is:

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Raw Damage = Base Damage * (1 + Cumulative Laser Turret Damage Bonus)

Well they scale just bad. Really bad. I didn't even bother to go beyond Level 30 because of how badly they scale. A single Gun Turret at Level 10 still outmatches a Laser Turret at Level 30!

The problems with them is definitely that they lack the multiplicative effect of 2 researches like Gun Turrets and Flamethrower Turrets have.

Since firing speed is also much slower compared to Gun Turrets they can't make up for the insane DPS output of Gun Turrets/Flamethrower Turrets.

They can only make up for the lack of DPS by not requiring any ammunition except energy which is free thanks to Solar power or almost free thanks to Nuclear Power. That said you have to place A WHOLE LOT more of them to make up for the lack of DPS.

Conclusion

Here's a graph comparing the Turrets:

Comparison Graph.png (24.34 KiB) Viewed 7466 times

Eventually one can see that the damage bonus of 20% per level from the Flamethrower Turret is outpaced by Gun Turrets which have 70% per level. So even if Flamethrower Turrets have a much higher initial damage output they will be overtaken by Gun Turrets.

And just like I wrote... the linear scaling of Laser Turrets just can't keep up with the other two.


From my point of view the damage upgrades make the Gun Turrets and Flamethrower Turrets more than worthwhile integrating into a proper defense.

Flamethrower Turrets are probably the most efficient way getting rid of most Biter attacks... especially when funneling them into a small chokepoint passage so that every consecutive biter has to walk through the fire trail. So probably they are the first things to upgrade with infinite research.

Laser Turrets may try taking out whatever gets past that inferno, but you really need a lot of them to do any significant damage because of how Infinite research is basically useless on them or at least doesn't have much effect.

And if that's not enough to deal with a Behemoth Biter a single Gun Turret is more than enough to put the nail to its coffin. The damage scaling is pretty much insane and should be the second thing to upgrade after Flamethrowers. Also usually one has too much Uranium Ore to spend anyways due my Nuclear Power plant almost imposing no drain thanks to Kovarex Enrichment.



So what's your opinion about it?

[Cribbit]

I made a similar chart recently! https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/ ... =drive_web

What I want to see is more reason to mix and match turrets. Flamethrower turrets currently fit this well as the only real AoE and DoT turret. I want to see "smart" turrets where you can set target priority based on enemy type and HP so that you have reason to mix in high RoF gun turrets with high damage per shot laser turrets and AoE flamethrowers. I want to see grenade throwers to add to the AoE-ness. I want piercing bullets that actually pierce targets.

[BigWolfUK]

Sounds like lasers need either buffing, or unique ability added to them beyond not using ammo, and a little extra range

[Hannu]

In my opinion this kind of crazy extremities are not good reason to adjust things and spend devs valuable time. Practically it is relatively easy and straightforward to make perfect defense line against all attacks with any turret type in normal games. If someone really wants to adjust what happens after millions of used science packs he can make a mod.

[MeduSalem]

I made a similar chart recently! https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/ ... =drive_web

Looks good... Didn't think about actually calculating the shots it takes in the table... only about calculating the damage output.

What I want to see is more reason to mix and match turrets. Flamethrower turrets currently fit this well as the only real AoE and DoT turret. I want to see "smart" turrets where you can set target priority based on enemy type and HP so that you have reason to mix in high RoF gun turrets with high damage per shot laser turrets and AoE flamethrowers. I want to see grenade throwers to add to the AoE-ness. I want piercing bullets that actually pierce targets.

Sounds like lasers need either buffing, or unique ability added to them beyond not using ammo, and a little extra range

1. Biter/Spitter Diversity
   
   Yeah, the Biters/Spitters should be more diverse in their resistances especially later at higher evolution factors with Big/Behemoth types... so that you are forced to mix turrets to make an actual effective defense.
   
   So what that would mean is that early on where there are only Small/Medium Biters/Spitters they have almost no resistance diversity and later on when there are Big/Behemoth Biters/Spitters they gain up to 70-90% resistance or so against a particular damage type. That would render the Turret types doing that damage type almost useless or at least very ineffective against them and you are forced to also use turret types that don't use that damage type and hence don't suffer the problem, creating a more diverse defense line.
   
   That said some additional, different enemy types would also be good. Maybe something airborne or so that is capable of flying over walls so you'd have some reason to place additional flak defense around in your base just in case some of them make it past the wall. Or even some water based enemies which go for everything that is on the shore/coast line of lakes.
2. Laser Turret problem
   
   I think the Laser Turrets currently don't scale that well to prevent people from Turret Creeping, but I think that could be worked around like I said if the Biters/Spitters would have different resistances so that Laser Turrets are only effective against one type and not the other, so you also have to bring on Gun Turrets/Flame Thrower Turrets... that way people would stop turret creeping altogether because they couldn't rely on the Laser Turret handling all of their problems.
   
   And that enables Laser Turrets to have a different damage scaling and maybe also different other effects. What I would find personally cool is if one single Laser Turret is crap, but if you'd be able to chain-link them and use multiple Laser Turrets to amplify the damage and range of one Laser Turret then they'd have a unique mechanic to them that might be actually interesting.
3. More Turret Types
   
   I'm also for more turret types than there are currently. There should be at least those turrets as well:
   
   • Flak Turret using Cannon Shells for long range
   • Rocket Launcher Turret using Rockets on mid range
   • Capsule/Grenade Launcher Turret
   • Repurpose the Flamethrower Turret to also throw Sulfuric Acid which doesn't burn but creates acid damage
4. Enemy Priority system for turrets
   
   Of course if the resistances on the enemies where that diverse there would have to be a system in place that allows one to adjust turrets so that they target a specific type of Biter/Spitter first or ignore them altogether.

In my opinion this kind of crazy extremities are not good reason to adjust things and spend devs valuable time. Practically it is relatively easy and straightforward to make perfect defense line against all attacks with any turret type in normal games. If someone really wants to adjust what happens after millions of used science packs he can make a mod.

Well you may be right about that... I already argued in another thread that the infinite research for Turrets/Damage are actually pretty much unbalanced in some cases or useless in the first place because of how one is pretty much capable of a sufficient defense/offense without Infinite Research.

But now that it is there I at least made the comparison. I don't really expect the Devs to react on it anyways... they have other, more important things to do and they have spend time re-visiting the combat system for 0.15 anyways to make it more balanced during the normal tech tree progression.

That said there are still people who think that there's a lot of combat related items/stuff in the game but about 80% of it never seems to come in handy because of how some items tend to be a one-fits-all-solution. That's where the devs might actually have some reason to expand the game in the future with some kind of DLC/Addon dealing with the problem.

[BlakeMW]

From playing Deathworld, I happen to know that even un-upgraded (or more realistically, barely upgraded) Flamethrower turrets are perfectly serviceable for wiping out Behemoth Biters, though I'm having a little trouble reconciling the math - but lets see if I can do it.

According to raws "fire-sticker" deals 100 dps so would kill a Behemoth in 50 seconds - this seems consistent with the handheld flamethrower performance, the fire sticker lasts for 30s and an un-upgraded flamethrower wont kill a Behemoth Biter with a single spurt, but add three upgrade levels and being tagged with fire will be a guaranteed death sentence as the Behemoth will die in 29.4s (actually slightly quicker due to standing in the flame for at least a moment).

The "fire-flame" stacks up to 6 times and should deal up to 13 * 6 = 78 dps once the flame is fully intensified, so a Biter which is on fire and walking through flame should take a base damage of 178dps.

With three upgrade levels and using light oil (+10%) the Flamethrower Turret should inflict 178 * 1.1 * 1.7 ^ 2 = 566dps, killing a Behemoth Biter in just under 9s. I guess this is consistent with my experience as a Behemoth Biter which has been set on fire by a lowly upgraded flamethrower turret does live long barely enough to run up and bite the turret, so the maths ultimately works out. Also a flamethrower turret with this kind of upgrade level completely obliterates Big Biters with their piddly 350hp - so that's also consistent.

Anyway maybe the Flamethrower table could be updated to take into account the fire-sticker and the stacking of fire-flame - essentially using 178dps as the base damage.

[MeduSalem]

According to raws "fire-sticker" deals 100 dps so would kill a Behemoth in 50 second

Interestingly the wiki and the game says the fire-sticker AoE does 90/s fire.

The "fire-flame" stacks up to 6 times and should deal up to 13 * 6 = 78 dps once the flame is fully intensified, so a Biter which is on fire and walking through flame should take a base damage of 178dps.

I didn't even know it can stack 6 times. I thought it only applies once and only the timer gets refreshed if the Biter/Spitter walks through another fire sticker. o_O

With three upgrade levels and using light oil (+10%) the Flamethrower Turret should inflict 178 * 1.1 * 1.7 ^ 2 = 566dps, killing a Behemoth Biter in just under 9s.

Honestly I think it isn't even worth using Heavy/Light Oil for Flamethrower Turrets. The additional 5%/10% require the oil industry to be involved meaning you have to get the Heavy/Light Oil somehow to the turrets... for mere 10% of additional damage.

On the other hand exhausted Crude Oil patches make for quite an interesting source of Flamethrower Turret ammo, especially for nearby outposts or far away defense lines.

The damage bonus from using Heavy/Light Oil should probable be re-visited to make it a more worthwhile effort. But then again I wouldn't know how much to buff Heavy/Light Oil before I'd consider using them instead.

Anyway maybe the Flamethrower table could be updated to take into account the fire-sticker and the stacking of fire-flame.

I can do that... just give me a couple of minutes.

[edit] Done. [/edit]

[BlakeMW]

I didn't even know it can stack 6 times. I thought it only applies once and only the timer gets refreshed if the Biter/Spitter walks through another fire sticker. o_O

Here is how it works:

When a fire stream particle hits the ground it creates a "fire-flame" on the ground and also splashes all biters in the AoE attaching a "fire-sticker" to each struck biter (fire which is stuck to the biter). The "fire-sticker" does not stack, the duration merely gets refreshed if the biter is splashed again.

But the "fire-flame" patches on the ground do stack up to 6 times (according to the raws), this stacking behavior was added in some patch or another to help remedy the practice of running around scattering fire patches like crazy instead of hosing things down.

When a biter walks through a fire-flame, they do not get a fire-sticker attached: fire stickers are only created by splash from fire streams. The "fire-flame" merely deals direct damage.

However a biter with a fire-sticker stuck to it can set fire to trees - biter to tree and tree to tree are the only ways that fire can spread "naturally".

Honestly I think it isn't even worth using Heavy/Light Oil for Flamethrower Turrets. The additional 5%/10% require the oil industry to be involved meaning you have to get the Heavy/Light Oil somehow to the turrets... for mere 10% of additional damage.

I do it, but that's because it bothers me to use the petroleum fraction for burning biters. The light oil is kind of like a waste product. But most my experience with Flamethrower Turrets is from Deathworld and you spend an awfully long time waiting for advanced oil processing, so that petroleum fraction is extra precious and the light oil extra useless.

The +10% damage isn't that useful but it does destroy a Behemoth nearly a second faster at 3rd upgrade level and you'll always end up with a little extra petroleum by using light oil instead of crude (although I will use crude oil if I'm defending an oil patch which is nowhere near an existing light oil line).

[MeduSalem]

Here is how it works:

When a fire stream particle hits the ground it creates a "fire-flame" on the ground and also splashes all biters in the AoE attaching a "fire-sticker" to each struck biter (fire which is stuck to the biter). The "fire-sticker" does not stack, the duration merely gets refreshed if the biter is splashed again.

But the "fire-flame" patches on the ground do stack up to 6 times (according to the raws), this stacking behavior was added in some patch or another to help remedy the practice of running around scattering fire patches like crazy instead of hosing things down.

When a biter walks through a fire-flame, they do not get a fire-sticker attached: fire stickers are only created by splash from fire streams. The "fire-flame" merely deals direct damage.

Somehow even you tried to explain it I feel like I still didn't get that weird mechanic at all. ^_^

So talking in numbers... which one applies when and which one can stack?

So when a fire stream particle hits the ground it creates the "fire-flame" on the ground is that the 90/s or that the 13/s? I thought it's the 90/s since it's called "AoE" but if the fire-flame is the one that stacks then actually the damage is even higher than what you calculated in your first reply. Then actually it should be 6 * 90 and not 6 * 13.

The fire-sticker which the Biter carries around would then have to be the "Over Time" damage of 13/s and that's the one that doesn't stack and only gets refreshed when walking through another puddle of fire on the ground.

So actually the total damage would then have to be 6 * 90 + 13 = 553/s base... but that seems way too high... but maybe that's how it is.

If it was the other way around then I feel like they are mis-labeled in-game/wiki because AoE is for me the thing that's on the ground, the over time is what sticks to the Biter.

[BlakeMW]

It is pretty complicated, I just reread through the raws and discovered another source of damage too! Here is my reading of the raws:

• A flame thrower turret creates a "flamethrower-fire-stream", which consists of a series of particles (one every 4 ticks, or 15 per second).
• The "flamethrower-fire-stream" particles when they hit the ground spawn (or intensify) a "fire-flame" (fire patch) on the ground, in addition the particles have an AoE explosion which deals 3 fire damage (45dps) and attaches a "fire-sticker" to valid units.
• The "fire-flame" on the ground deals 13dps and stacks (intensifies) up to 6 times, to a maximum of 78dps. It seems there is 10 tick cooldown between intensifications so it would take at least 60 ticks (1s) to reach full intensity (there is also more complexity to fire-flame mechanics, the damage slightly reduces over time if not kept topped up and the maximum duration it can burn for is complicated).
• The "fire-sticker" attached to units deals 100dps and lasts 30s, it does not stack, its duration is reset if another fire-sticker is attached.

Thus the total base damage which can be inflicted by a Flamethrower turret is:

• Direct damage: 45dps (to units being hit directly)
• Fire-flame: 78dps (to units walking through fully intensified fire patches)
• Fire-sticker: 100dps (to units which have burning liquid stuck to them)
• Total: 223dps

It is obviously complicated to say how much damage a flamethrower turret does "per shot" because to a single unit that is somewhere between 3 (direct damage) and 3003 (direct + fire sticker burning for full duration) or even more if the unit can be convinced to stand in the fire-flame. It is only really meaningful to speak of dps, particularly as a flamethrower turret unlike other targets does not stop shooting until its target is actually dead and isn't smart enough to "tag" enemies with fire and leave them to burn to death (as you can with the handheld flamethrower).

[Engimage]

I think that we are missing some kind of a "laser (energy)damage bonus" type of a research. This would effect all weapons (hand held, equipment grid, combat bots, turrets) that have energy weapons.
Ofc this is kinda balancing issue and it probably is not really needed for vanilla but for consistency sake it should be there.

[Hannu]

1. Biter/Spitter Diversity
   
   Yeah, the Biters/Spitters should be more diverse in their resistances especially later at higher evolution factors with Big/Behemoth types... so that you are forced to mix turrets to make an actual effective defense.
   
   So what that would mean is that early on where there are only Small/Medium Biters/Spitters they have almost no resistance diversity and later on when there are Big/Behemoth Biters/Spitters they gain up to 70-90% resistance or so against a particular damage type. That would render the Turret types doing that damage type almost useless or at least very ineffective against them and you are forced to also use turret types that don't use that damage type and hence don't suffer the problem, creating a more diverse defense line.
   
   That said some additional, different enemy types would also be good. Maybe something airborne or so that is capable of flying over walls so you'd have some reason to place additional flak defense around in your base just in case some of them make it past the wall. Or even some water based enemies which go for everything that is on the shore/coast line of lakes.

Interesting idea. Bob has something like that but his weapons are so effective that there is not real need for thinking weapons during fight or defense or even build production for every type of ammo.
I disagree, if it is implemented so that every type of biters are randomly chosen with equal probabilities, like in Bob's mods. Then I would have to just mix turrets and their ammunition in defense blueprints. Not very interesting. However, if there would be clearly different probabilities for different enemies in different environments and large enough biomes, it would be great idea. Player should explore terrain and maybe even biter nests to find out what would be the most probable enemies in that area and weight defenses to match it. It would be hard to balance so that simple mixing of all turrets would not work, but with a little rolegaming it would give interesting element in the game.

I think the Laser Turrets currently don't scale that well to prevent people from Turret Creeping, but I think that could be worked around like I said if the Biters/Spitters would have different resistances so that Laser Turrets are only effective against one type and not the other, so you also have to bring on Gun Turrets/Flame Thrower Turrets... that way people would stop turret creeping altogether because they couldn't rely on the Laser Turret handling all of their problems.

If someone wants to turret creep what is the problem? The good thing is that turret creep is not anymore only practical option to fight against biters before maximum end game equipment.

[*]More Turret Types

Maybe. However, if devs liked to add complexity in the game I would prefer the larger variety of production plants before enemies and weapons. But with heavily modded game, like Bobs & Angels, greater variety of enemies and military stuff would be interesting, if it was added interestingly.

[Escadin]

Sounds like lasers need either buffing, or unique ability added to them beyond not using ammo, and a little extra range

They absolutely don't.

This is failing to see the wood for trees:

Laser Turrets may try taking out whatever gets past that inferno, but you really need a lot of them to do any significant damage because of how Infinite research is basically useless on them or at least doesn't have much effect.

And if that's not enough to deal with a Behemoth Biter a single Gun Turret is more than enough to put the nail to its coffin. The damage scaling is pretty much insane and should be the second thing to upgrade after Flamethrowers. Also usually one has too much Uranium Ore to spend anyways due my Nuclear Power plant almost imposing no drain thanks to Kovarex Enrichment.

As little as 3 to 6 laser turrets suffice to deal with 99% of all realistic attack scenarios during the common matches played in this game. They always deal significant damage and will always continue to do so because biters do not scale exponentially either.
The fact that setting this up doesn't require any infinite research at all, nor prototyping and investment into intelligent resupply automations for ammo or fuel makes them already kind of OP as it is. Solar panels nullify their maintainance costs. Alternatively nuclear power allows you to run thousands of laser turrets with next to no effort and thus stack arbitrary numbers of laser turrets at any point of defense.
A solution that already suffices but has no maintenance cost or complexity to it in comparison to alternatives is the superior solution.

Thus, I'm am actually glad this comparison turned out they way it did. It's only fair other, more complex and laborious turret variants also offer more fire power in the long run. In fact, I would vouche to make this difference in power curve matter more for default settings given that biter attacks stop scaling by default long before you actually need to kill 20 behemoths per second per gun turret. Otherwise, the difference presented here is mostly irrelevant.

[Cribbit]

Building on Medu's list, here's a list of combat buildings I want in the game that are based purely off things already in the game:

Incendiary ammo, puts a fire-sticker on enemy but weaker than one by a flame turret
Incendiary landmine, puts fire-flames on the ground when activated
Uranium landmine, simply a stronger landmine
Either a "landmine thrower" turret that slowly replaces placed landmines or a way to stop construction bots from running into combat zones so they can replace landmines
Grenade thrower turret
Rocket launcher turret
Cannon turret

As for the current lasers vs gun turrets, lasers are waaaayyy easier to use and their consistent damage makes calculating research levels way easier. It doesn't really matter how OP it looks on paper, you need thousands of rocket launches to get even a few levels into infinite research you hit max evolution way before that.

[MeduSalem]

As little as 3 to 6 laser turrets suffice to deal with 99% of all realistic attack scenarios during the common matches played in this game. They always deal significant damage and will always continue to do so because biters do not scale exponentially either.
The fact that setting this up doesn't require any infinite research at all, nor prototyping and investment into intelligent resupply automations for ammo or fuel makes them already kind of OP as it is. Solar panels nullify their maintainance costs. Alternatively nuclear power allows you to run thousands of laser turrets with next to no effort and thus stack arbitrary numbers of laser turrets at any point of defense.
A solution that already suffices but has no maintenance cost or complexity to it in comparison to alternatives is the superior solution.

Thus, I'm am actually glad this comparison turned out they way it did. It's only fair other, more complex and laborious turret variants also offer more fire power in the long run. In fact, I would vouche to make this difference in power curve matter more for default settings given that biter attacks stop scaling by default long before you actually need to kill 20 behemoths per second per gun turret. Otherwise, the difference presented here is mostly irrelevant.

I haven't been playing with settings where just 3-6 Laser Turrets would suffice for at least 2 or 3 years. Double-lined Laser Turrets is pretty much obligatory if one doesn't want the Biters to gnaw on the wall all the time (and even then it still happens every now and then with larger attack parties with several dozen Behemoths and Big Biters keeping the Turrets too busy).


But that said I see your point. Power is free/cheap, so are Laser Turrets since they only consume power. So you can have as many as you want with near to no downside except requiring a lot of them just like Solar Panels/Accumulators.


I have to admit I absolutely dislike Solar Power because of how it's a no-brainer solution for power production that doesn't challenge the player at all and I've always pointed out on the forum that for me it sucks as a game feature for the reason of being boring. I've always went with Steam Power (using Solid Fuel) before Nuclear Power was a thing because it challenged me with logistic problems and for me that's the actual spirit of the game.

And I think basically the same about Laser Turrets... they are the no-brainer solution for a defense. I've always been against Laser Turrets not requiring any logistics from the first time I've ever laid hands on them and I have always expressed that on the forums. I've always said that the damn Laser Turrets require a similar mechanic as Nuclear Power is currently using... with Rechargeable Batteries that eventually get worn out and need to be replaced... and each recharge cycle of the Laser Turret wears out the Rechargeable Battery a little bit more until it needs to be replaced... and you'd have to build infrastructure dealing with the worn out Batteries and re-integrating them into the system. (Funny thing is I also mentioned several times on the forum that the same mechanic should be done with Accumulators to make Solar Power a less boring blueprint-stamp-game)

I mean really... the Game is about building a factory and logistics and all things around it and then there are shortcut solutions that feel like they are completely against the nature of the game. I'm always surprised how people are so eager to defend Solar Power or Laser Turrets for the reason that they are an easy way out...


But back on topic... I think it eventually depends on one's philosophy and playstyle. I for once find a defense consisting of 10k-20k Laser Turrets not really that appealing or attractive (even though it might be sufficient for most playthroughs). I find it more interesting to mix up Turrets and having to deal with some infrastructure backing it all up.

From my experience with mixing up Turrets the Laser Turrets always end up being sandwiched between Flamethrower Turrets and Gun Turrets as both outperform the Laser Turrets by far with the right research. I've looked at the alltime damage dealt at various sections of my defense lines and the Flamethrower Turrets and Gun Turrets always steal the show. The Laser Turrets are there... but that's all that can be said about them... they rarily get a kill, they might as well not be there, especially when a single Gun Turret becomes able to take out Behemoths with 4-5 shots while it takes 20+ for a single Laser Turret.

[Nasabot]

Are the research cost really scaling that crazy?
I always thought the research cost scale linearly, like 1000->1100->1200-> etc
In a youtube series from nilaus and his megabase I saw that he had mining effieciency on 70+. Assuming the game uses the same scaling math for all researches I think levels of 10-25 are realistically reachable.

Even if the gun turrets are that crazy strong, are they still better?

If a line of laser turrets suffices to defend against everything, then laser turrets are so much easier to handle. Also energy is free.

Personally, I'd try to go for super powerful gun turrets, buts its more because of lifestyle reasons, rather than reason I guess.

[Koub]

Everyone has different ways of getting pleasure while playing.
Some prefer challenges. They want to figure a way to solve impossible things.
Others want optimization, up to their own efforts. Why make an effort if you can get things done without effort ?
And for everyone, the sweetspot is somewhere between the extremes.

When I come back from work, my brains are slowly dripping through my ears. All I want is something not too violent for my few neurons still alive, and I want to feel myself progressing. Lasers are good for me. But for someone who wants challenge, I guess feeding a few tens of thousand turrets with bullets and oil must be more appealing.

[Cribbit]

Are the research cost really scaling that crazy?
I always thought the research cost scale linearly, like 1000->1100->1200-> etc
In a youtube series from nilaus and his megabase I saw that he had mining effieciency on 70+. Assuming the game uses the same scaling math for all researches I think levels of 10-25 are realistically reachable.

Even if the gun turrets are that crazy strong, are they still better?

If a line of laser turrets suffices to defend against everything, then laser turrets are so much easier to handle. Also energy is free.

Personally, I'd try to go for super powerful gun turrets, buts its more because of lifestyle reasons, rather than reason I guess.

Many of them are exponential, doubling in cost each level.

[MeduSalem]

Are the research cost really scaling that crazy?
I always thought the research cost scale linearly, like 1000->1100->1200-> etc
In a youtube series from nilaus and his megabase I saw that he had mining effieciency on 70+. Assuming the game uses the same scaling math for all researches I think levels of 10-25 are realistically reachable.

Only Mining Productivity and Follower Robot Count scale that way... they go from 1000->1100->1200->1300 and so on.

But while their demand per level increases linearly their cummulative research investment is not scaling linearly. That one scales quadratically. 2 times the level requires 4 times the total science packs. I made a graph about that a while ago as well:

research.png (14.09 KiB) Viewed 7176 times

Even that one doesn't pay off at some point anymore because of how you'd spend an eternity researching... or you'd have to expand your factories by a factor of 4 for every doubled level.

So while it may be easier to reach much higher levels with Mining Productivity/Follower Robot Count compared to the exponential increase of the all other researches you will eventually also hit a throughput wall where you just can't expand your factory any further without taking a serious hit on UPS.

Even if the gun turrets are that crazy strong, are they still better?

If a line of laser turrets suffices to defend against everything, then laser turrets are so much easier to handle. Also energy is free.

Personally, I'd try to go for super powerful gun turrets, buts its more because of lifestyle reasons, rather than reason I guess.

If one isn't willing to waste any resources on the defense at all then Laser Turrets will always win because of how no amount of damage upgrades to Gun/Flamethrower Turrets will ever be enough reason for most people not to consider Laser Turrets out of convenience reasons. You'd have to nerf Laser Turrets to oblivion... requiring 4-5 lines of them before most people would start saying "fuck that, I'm going for Gun/Flamethrower Turrets" and even then there would still be some people who'd go for Laser Turrets only because of how it is basically an upkeep-free solution just like there are still people playing with Solar Power because it has no upkeep even Nuclear Power is a lot more space efficient.

As I wrote earlier I think upkeep-free solutions in a game that is about building factories and its maintenance and dealing with logistic/throughput problems are somewhat against the spirit of the game, but that's my personal opinion... and I think the people thinking similarly are the minority on the forum, which is why Laser Turrets are the cheap way out of a game mechanic (in this case defense) a lot of people seem like they don't really want having to deal with... which makes me question why they don't play on peaceful mode if they don't really want to have to deal with having to set up a thought-through Defense against Biter Attacks in the first place. For me it's like they only want half the deal.

Everyone has different ways of getting pleasure while playing.
Some prefer challenges. They want to figure a way to solve impossible things.
Others want optimization, up to their own efforts. Why make an effort if you can get things done without effort ?
And for everyone, the sweetspot is somewhere between the extremes.

Actually I tend to be a Black-and-White or All-or-Nothing-thinker even though I know there are various shades of grey in between. Can't help about it, it's one of my deficits I have to deal with.

[BlakeMW]

As I wrote earlier I think upkeep-free solutions in a game that is about building factories and its maintenance and dealing with logistic/throughput problems are somewhat against the spirit of the game, but that's my personal opinion... and I think the people thinking similarly are the minority on the forum, which is why Laser Turrets are the cheap way out of a game mechanic (in this case defense) a lot of people seem like they don't really want having to deal with... which makes me question why they don't play on peaceful mode if they don't really want to have to deal with having to set up a thought-through Defense against Biter Attacks in the first place. For me it's like they only want half the deal.

I play Deathworlds a fair bit and setup awesome Flamethrower turret based defenses with gun turrets to wipe out the leading biter and these defenses serve me well for many dozens of hours, costing very little to obliterate thousands upon thousands of big and behemoth biters.

But there's comes a point when my factory is prosperous enough and there's enough going on that I transition to laser turrets because it's easier to expand my borders that way than routing in fuel and ammo, and I never have to worry about running out of fuel or ammo.

The "there's enough going on" is the whole thing: that's why laser turrets and solar power are neat in the late game, because by then you have enough to do without worrying about upkeep for defense and power.

Why not play on peaceful? Because it's rewarding to carve out a territory for yourself, building your factory on the corpses of your enemies. In fact, even if you exclusively use laser turrets from the moment you can make them this is still true; a player who enjoys conquest and expansion but isn't too interested in maintaining defenses is well served by the plop-and-forget nature of laser turrets.

And if we're going to be honest: laser turrets are not issue free. Every player has run out of power at times for some reason or another, or had broken power lines causing a section of defenses to go down. And if you play on intense biter settings you can experience an overwhelmed power grid causing a death spiral if you haven't carefully segregated your power networks to prioritize power production (i.e. coal miners on dedicated grid). Laser turrets can be very reliable, but they are nothing without reliable power.