Disable artillery wagon auto-fire when train is in manual mode

[bormand]

The problem

Imagine that you manually drive your train into the wilderness. That train has some artillery wagons. And if you stop, those wagons would shoot and attract all neighbours.

Similar problem arises when you want to temporary park your artillery train at outpost but don't want it to shoot yet.

Of course, there are some workarounds, like clearing train schedule and quickly switching to automatic drive before train stops. But they are annoying and error-prone.

The proposal

Disable artillery wagon auto-fire when train is in manual mode (driven by the player).

No need for fancy UI. And this behaviour would be very intuitive for new players too: train in manual mode does nothing without your explicit action.

Wagons already have reference to their train, so they just need to lookup for manual_mode property. So, no impact on performance, I hope.

Previous discussions

There were many threads about artillery auto-fire:

• Option for disabling artillery auto target
• Suggestion: Allow enabling/disabling artillery turrets with circuit network
• Artillery Auto-fire Toggle
• Artillery auto-targetting

But all of them attempt to solve more general problem and propose to add something to the UI. That's why I decided to make a separate thread.

[conn11]

Though with a designated artillery train, this behaviour might be desirable.
If any change is to be made, a toggle (probably manually operated) automatic artillery UI addition will do the trick.

[bormand]

Though with a designated artillery train, this behaviour might be desirable.

You still can switch the train to the automatic mode and send it to the temporary station if you want automatic fire at arbitrary place.

a toggle

Yeah, toggle would be better. But it has it's own problems:

• This toggle should be at the train UI, not at the wagon UI, because it's not fun to toggle all wagons one by one. And the train UI is already complex enough.
• It's much harder to implement than my proposal since it requires UI changes.
• It raises additional question whether to implement it for artillery turrets. And it's a controversial topic, since you already can control them with inserters.

That's why I think that my proposal is the lesser of two evils.

[conn11]

In automatic mode, when the train is stopped, the artillery wagon will automatically scan for enemy structures (spawners and worms) and shoot at them. Automatic mode cannot target mobile units (biters and spitters); shells do, however, damage mobile units in the vicinity of impact normally.
In manual mode, a special item is used to point-and-click anywhere in the world, map, or zoomed-in map; each click corresponds to one shell delivered to that location, so long as any working artillery turrets and / or wagons are in range.

Auto firing while driving manualy only shoudln‘t trigger auto engaging (wiki)

You still can switch the train to the automatic mode and send it to the temporary station if you want automatic fire at arbitrary place.

For anything else IMO auto-fiering is the desireable option. Especially parking it temporaly.

[bormand]

I don't understand why you quoted this paragraph from the wiki. It's about manual targeting mode, not about manually driven train. Trains in manual mode are described in the "Train properties" section below:

When part of a manual-mode (player-driven) train, artillery wagons will fire whenever the train is stopped, regardless of where it was stopped.

And that's the only thing that I want to change here.

[conn11]

I don't understand why you quoted this paragraph from the wiki. It's about manual targeting mode, not about manually driven train. Trains in manual mode are described in the "Train properties" section below:

When part of a manual-mode (player-driven) train, artillery wagons will fire whenever the train is stopped, regardless of where it was stopped.

And that's the only thing that I want to change here.

Wich I think, is a good feature. Therefore, not very surprising, different playstyles exist. A valid option would be the aforementioned toggleable UI or at least an option in the menues. Though I suspect this is a too niche issue/topic to get any changes.

[ssilk]

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/ArtillerySwitch
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/SmartArtilleryWagons

[foamy]

Mods notwithstanding, this is a simple change that results in a very logical way to turn autofire on or off. I agree with OP's analysis.

[atomizer]

+1. It's one of those aspects of the game that seem like an oversight/underdeveloped feature more than anything. Even if this is not going to change in 1.x, I hope the expansion has some/more quality of life features like this.

[NotRexButCaesar]

+1 It seems like everyone wants this, & it can be annoying to have the artillery train required to be far away when you are not ready for it yet.

[Koub]

It seems like everyone wants this

At least 4 people . But that doesn't make the suggestion less valid.

[azesmbog]

If this behavior of artillery trains was originally - I would be all for it.
But now I'm CATEGORALLY! against it.
There is no need to make the game easier.
I know what I'm talking about. I have the largest number of both artillery trains and the longest railway with a constant respawn bite around it, and constantly one train with manual control and 500 shells in it. I constantly have to make sure that he does not start shooting in an arbitrary place, but only where I need it. Yes. This is hard. But we are not looking for easy ways in this game?))
-1

[ssilk]

It seems like everyone minus one wants this

At least 4 minus one people . But that doesn't make the suggestion less valid.

[wobbycarly]

+1. =4 now

[NotRexButCaesar]

There is no need to make the game easier …
I constantly have to make sure that he does not start shooting in an arbitrary place, but only where I need it. Yes. This is hard. But we are not looking for easy ways in this game?

Factorio is not a game about micromanagement or constant monitoring. Were you against the addition of train limits, blueprint building from the map, or any of the other recent features that removed something tedious or irritating?

The fun part of Factorio is the puzzle–solving. Adding this feature would not remove any puzzles.

[azesmbog]

Killing a biter and a spitter is not a puzzle.
Disable them and micromanage as much as you want.
Factorio is a sandbox and I like it when things are difficult, even when destroyed.
Who doesn't like complexity - put mods on everything and everyone.
-1 again

[bormand]

Who doesn't like complexity

There is a difference between complexity and inconvenience, IMHO.

And auto-firing from a manually-driven train is not a complexity: it doesn't add new interesting mechanics, it doesn't balance stuff that will be overpowered otherwise. It's just a (quite minor) inconvenience.

[UkcsAlias]

Who doesn't like complexity

Plenty of players just want to game casualy. Its usualy a minority that is very dedicated and wants to learn all quirks. Forums are often overrepresented on this as it takes more effort for them than just playing a game, or directly search for a mod to cover this (and as they exist, that usualy is the solution).

However, QoL is not about complexity, its about convenience. Convenience means you can perform something in a much easier way. And i think this falls under the convenience part. The complex method being: Build a train without arillery wagons, move the train, replace wagons/make 2nd track with wagons. And let those shoot. Its not too difficult to come up with this, but its a lot of clicking or uses a blueprint to get this done. A toggle can effectively just do the same.

UI wise i would place it where it normaly displays vehicle ammo. And a simple toggle can do a lot more there (also enable auto and manual mode). And the train UI next to its color can then just display the same toggle.

Anyway +1 to the idea

[ssilk]

The fun part of Factorio is the puzzle–solving. Adding this feature would not remove any puzzles.

Depends on standpoint!

You can see the problem of avoiding to do any shoot from a - not yet ready - outpost as a puzzle.
Or is it more like something, that just disturbs the game-flow? I couldn’t say what’s better.

[FuryoftheStars]

+1 to this idea.

-1 again

Sorry, but you can only vote once.