Range Increase Equipment

[Creativity]

As you progress through the game, things become bigger and bigger: Enemies, Bases, Factories.

I feel that a Range Increase could be implemented as both a module type and a piece of equipment (2x2 would probably fine)
It would probably be better as a piece of equipment.

As a Module:
Beacons would be far more useful.
This is the only reason to have a Range Module, but I feel like this would be a nice one.
In hindsight, it would probably be better to just make more Beacon upgrades. Upon adding the Range Module, there would be a bunch of stuff about how useless it is on Furnaces and why it 'doesn't work properly' on Electric Drills.

As an Equipment:
Combat potential. Though the Combat Shotgun is, hands down, the best late-game weapon in the game, increased range would allow players to deal with large nests at a more reasonable pace.
Attempting to fight through behemoth spitters and biters is a slow and tedious process, made even slower due to the density of hostile camps late-game.
Having Range upgrades would offer players another playstyle- since simply sitting still and tanking enemies becomes disastrous lategame, running and kiting with capsules & turret siege is the only successful strategy.

Building potential. Quite unnecessary due to the creation of personal roboports, but it's always helpful to have some extra reach to place a single belt/inserter inside of a wall of machines.

It's not a passive, so it's more balanced.
The idea of numbers getting bigger as you play more is always appealing, but there is already a great amount of it.
If a Range Increase were just a simple passive upgrade, it would end up being one of the player's end-game goals, along with maxing out bullet damage and bullet fire rate- as excessive and almost as unnecessary. However, as an equipment, it offers players an alternative playstyle for a period of the game. It would definitely prove more useful than Discharge Defense or Personal Laser Defense, and for longer, too.
And like the personal Roboport, Night Vision, and Basic Exoskeleton Equipment, it adds to the modularity of the modular armor by letting the player decide his/her own playstyle.

*Inaccurate* TL;DR
Just another person wanting to snipe things with rocket launchers.

Edit: Will MS Paint pictures because pictures are nice.

[Harkonnen604]

I agree about building range increase for currently you have to walk on belts a lot to set something up and it's quite disturbing and makes you thinking about sandbox mode. As for beacons - that can't be done with a module because that will leave only one slot for the other module the beacon was really placed for, so it better be some sort of "wide beacon" requiring a lot of resources, covering large area and perhaps having 3 modules in it.

[bobucles]

The combat shotgun is already RIDICULOUSLY good. The fact that a player can make progress against brutal hives neglecting turrets, explosives or capsules is testament to just how damn powerful it is.

Why would you want the best weapon in the game to be even better? Give some love to the toys that NEED it.