Artillery Auto-fire Toggle / Option for disabling artillery auto target / turn off the artillery (train)

Rage · Post by **Rage** » Sun Dec 24, 2017 9:00 am

this thread is joined with other threads, take care when reading — ssilk

The idea would be to have a toggle option (on by default) in the inventory gui for allowing an artillery gun to fire automatically.
When on (true), the guns would behave as they do now.
When off (false), they will not fire at targets automatically, they will however still fire at manually designated targets.

Seeing as I don't know how the fire control system (FCS) for the guns work I don't know how easy this would be.
My guess would be if it's one FCS controlling all guns then have it ignore the gun. Instead of "if gun is in range, fire on target", use "if gun is in range and auto fire true, fire on target".
If it's one an FCS for each gun then just disabling the auto fire for that gun may work.

The idea is mostly to give players more control over the guns, they may want to restrict some guns for supply or other reasons.
It would also be particularly useful when you've got artillery guns with different ammo, restrict the guns with the more expensive ammo from auto firing.

That all being said, I don't know how easy it would be, and I'm pretty sure all the fire control is hidden from us, so it's entirely up to y'all on if or when it happens.

p.s. Thank you for making the aoe radius on the artillery designator automatically adjust to the largest loaded round in range.

Caine · Post by **Caine** » Sun Dec 24, 2017 11:16 am

Instead of having a ready made solution for this, why not try building it yourself?

The guns will not fire without ammo in them and with simple circuit networks you can control inserters to load ammo or not.
You can then strategically place constant combinators which enable or disable the guns.

FalcoGer · Post by **FalcoGer** » Sun Dec 24, 2017 6:17 pm

Caine wrote:Instead of having a ready made solution for this, why not try building it yourself?

The guns will not fire without ammo in them and with simple circuit networks you can control inserters to load ammo or not.
You can then strategically place constant combinators which enable or disable the guns.

This is flawed, as this will also prohibit manual firing.
I would like such an option too, only allowing manual targeting, rather than wasting ammo on potentially unworthy targets. This would be especially true with mods such as atomic artillery.

Caine · Post by **Caine** » Sun Dec 24, 2017 11:46 pm

Ah yes, good point.

Crysis1 · Post by **Crysis1** » Thu Dec 28, 2017 2:51 am

This would be nice so you can bring your gun train out to a place you want to clear and be able to setup defences before firing instead of it unloading the moment you park

Serenity · Post by **Serenity** » Fri Dec 29, 2017 3:31 pm

Caine wrote: The guns will not fire without ammo in them and with simple circuit networks you can control inserters to load ammo or not.
You can then strategically place constant combinators which enable or disable the guns.

It's not as simple as an on/off switch as the guns have a large internal ammo storage. They don't just load one shell at a time. So you'd at least need some sort of counter.

Oktokolo · Post by **Oktokolo** » Sun Jan 14, 2018 4:23 pm

What ?

Give the player a way to disable auto targeting for selected artillery turrets and wagons while still beeing able to use them for remote-controlled bombardment of hand-picked locations.
A simple checkmark labeled "Auto target biter bases" in the artillery's GUI could control, whether auto targeting is enabled (checked) or not (unchecked).

If you want to go extra crazy on this, the checkmark could instead be a dropdown labeled "Auto target:" allowing the selection of "Enemy bases" "Enemy bases and trops", "Biter bases", "Biter bases and troops", "Nothing" and select the corresponding behaviour for the artillery auto target logic.

Why ?

Artillery is nice for automaticly keeping your lawn clean of biter bases as it is.
But used with the remote it is also good for quickly scouting ahead and removing biters from our freshly discovered oil and ore deposits.
On this occasions, having the artillery randomly waste shells on and atract hordes from biter bases that i do not actually care about right now, is inefficient and may attract biter hordes before the field camp construction is complete.

Also artillery auto targetting is much worse than me after a minute of training. So i would prefer to have the option to park my artillery train or turrets in the field and manually place the shots. I destroy three spawners/worms per unupgraded shot in average, where artillery auto targetting only frags one most of the time.
And i really like watching the shells hit the ground. That is easiest, when they only drop where i commanded them to.

BHakluyt · Post by **BHakluyt** » Sun Jan 14, 2018 4:33 pm

Yes! Please?

+1!

Sovietsanta · Post by **Sovietsanta** » Mon Jan 15, 2018 12:01 pm

I would also like to see this feature added to be game

Ram · Post by **Ram** » Mon Jan 15, 2018 4:19 pm

+1

I am trying to breach my way through dense biter territory on a rail/death world. And the autofire is quite an inconvenient as it is wasteful.

Oktokolo · Post by **Oktokolo** » Wed Jan 24, 2018 9:05 pm

Seems like i missed some already existing threads about this:
[0.16] artillery Wagon
Artillery Auto-fire Toggle

Oktokolo · Post by **Oktokolo** » Thu Jan 25, 2018 12:18 am

+1
Missed this thread when i created Option for disabling artillery auto target

Hyenna · Post by **Hyenna** » Fri Jul 27, 2018 5:43 pm

I would like to see a way to enable / disable autofire mode too.
I was in a train on the way to my mining outpost and the rail was broke i had to move out to repair and the artillery started to fire and the hordes of bugs came eating the train but i was able to runaway to my next outpost.

zOldBulldog · Post by **zOldBulldog** » Tue Jul 31, 2018 6:26 am

+1

I always prefer manual targeting as it let's me clear nests faster (1 well placed she'll hits multiple nests) and saves ammo so I need fewer wagons full of ammo when I go on a nest clearing drive.

Without such a switch I have to try to be faster than the auto targeting when selecting targets. But it is annoying to have to rush.

Band-aid:. Continue to research artillery range with space science, but never research artillery speed.

ownlyme · Post by **ownlyme** » Wed Sep 12, 2018 5:42 pm

+1 for targetting biters option

Hannu · Post by **Hannu** » Thu Sep 13, 2018 7:08 am

I agree.

MewMew · Post by **MewMew** » Fri Dec 21, 2018 9:02 am

Yes, please!

Sovietsanta · Post by **Sovietsanta** » Mon Mar 11, 2019 10:16 am

+1 this would really be a nice feature

Saftorio · Post by **Saftorio** » Mon Mar 11, 2019 5:50 pm

+1 this is a good idea

SuicideJunkie · Post by **SuicideJunkie** » Mon Mar 11, 2019 10:41 pm

This should apply equally to regular and laser turrets.
And be controllable by the circuit network.

Circuit logic could switch between bullets and lasers depending on your ammo storage and capacitor levels for example.
And then only autofire the artillery when both types of guns are charged and loaded.

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