Factorio Forums

Laser turrets need a lot of research to be effective on their own and consume a ton of electricity. Are landlines a more economic choice?

No.

The main use of land mines is to turn construction bots into bombers.

Wait... what? That sounds awesome. What do you mean by that?

Landmines cost a lot for what they do and need roboports to be any effective (for rebuilding the exploded mines). It's a workable way to augment existing defenses, but laser turrets are a lot more efficient, especially if you have a solar farm.

chapium wrote:Wait... what? That sounds awesome. What do you mean by that?

1. Build a roboport and chests in range of a biter nest
2. Load them with construction bots and landmines
3. From safe distance, place landmine blueprints into the biter base
4. Watch the fireworks

Might be a bit less effective now that spitters have been introduced, though.

I used to use landmines actively during a fight (by dropping them as I was running). But now, Spitters will stop and target your landmines, just like they were any player-built structure. So I've stopped doing that.

Never used the bomber trick, though. Heehee!

Rahjital wrote:
1. Build a roboport and chests in range of a biter nest
2. Load them with construction bots and landmines
3. From safe distance, place landmine blueprints into the biter base
4. Watch the fireworks

Might be a bit less effective now that spitters have been introduced, though.

my no longer be effective but i will have to give this a go

Landmines don't work very well because biters don't have any fear factor or deterrence, they just charge ahead until they die. If biter behavior was a bit more organic, say they naturally tended to avoid areas where biters died recently, then land mines would be effective.

On that note, that's not actually a bad idea. If biters would avoid areas where biters had died already it would make it harder to cut off choke points because the biters wouldn't consistently attack the same places over and over again. You could have a hidden map of pheromone pollution over the map that influences enemy behavior and serve as a very true-to-life form of group AI coordination.

BluetoothThePirate wrote:Landmines don't work very well because biters don't have any fear factor or deterrence, they just charge ahead until they die. If biter behavior was a bit more organic, say they naturally tended to avoid areas where biters died recently, then land mines would be effective.

On that note, that's not actually a bad idea. If biters would avoid areas where biters had died already it would make it harder to cut off choke points because the biters wouldn't consistently attack the same places over and over again. You could have a hidden map of pheromone pollution over the map that influences enemy behavior and serve as a very true-to-life form of group AI coordination.

That would be so freaking awesome!!! Imagine if they programmed multiple types of pheromones for the biters to use, it'll be very organic. Imagine having the biters all just work off of pheromones that are invisible to the player... Almost just like ants... except very large.. and deadly...

It will probably be done at some point (because there is no good reason not to - factorio already has all the necessary building bricks in place), it's just not a high priority feature.

Landmines are fun and do seem somewhat affective vs small biters and spitters by putting them outside your wall in main attack and choke points. But using them instead of lasers or gun turrets is certainly not worth it. Using them as a supplementary thing though is fairly decent.