Factorio Forums

Artillery should have another slot for remote device. It should not target anything automatically, if slot is empty.
Player just need to build few devices more if he want auto-targeting to work.

+1

I think it would be nice to be able to control even the automtic firing of the artys... example for some covert operations, when assembling a few troops and not wanting to blow cover before the time. Also, having the ability trigger by circuut network especially with train stop conditions would be very convenient..

Chest with trigger device + Inserter for each cannon do the trick.

EDIT: ...and some wires to trigger inserters...

Yes that will work, but if I were an engineer stranded on a planet I will definitely not have my artys running loose like that.

I forgot to add: it will also be usefull to have an arty parked at the outpost and have it sit for ex 30min to let nests expand and then fire an expensive but effective nuclear shell at the bunch. Otherwise the artys really waste expensive nukes added by mods, which by the way I hope will make it into the game too one day.

I don't know that this is a good idea, but, there should definitely be a way to turn off artillery auto-targetting.

Why?
Why would you drive an artillery train to a position and not have it shoot?
Why would you put artillery turrets at a place if you don't want them to always shoot everything in range?
If you don't want an artillery to target something, don't put an artillery down. Seems simple to me.

dood wrote:Why?
Why would you drive an artillery train to a position and not have it shoot?
Why would you put artillery turrets at a place if you don't want them to always shoot everything in range?
If you don't want an artillery to target something, don't put an artillery down. Seems simple to me.

One of the reasons stated applies: You want to wait for a nest to grow before shooting a nuclear shell that kills it all with one hit. No point throwing nukes at miniscule threads. But all of that can be covered by "insert ammo when you want to shoot".

There is one gold nugget in here though that isn't covered by inserting ammo: Targeting by circuit signal. It's not just about when to fire but where to fire. Basically it's manual targeting but automated by the circuit wire.

But shouldn't there just be a new building for that? You signal the artillery targeting controller where to fire and it finds the nearest artillery with ammo and fires a shell. Should be relatively easy to mod something that places a targeting marker on the map and let the normal game logic handle the shooting.

mrvn wrote:One of the reasons stated applies: You want to wait for a nest to grow before shooting a nuclear shell that kills it all with one hit.

Why would you permanently park or build something loaded with those on the outskirts of your base?
Those are exclusive artillery train material and that thing lives deep inside your base where it has nothing to target.

mrvn wrote:

dood wrote:Why?
Why would you drive an artillery train to a position and not have it shoot?
Why would you put artillery turrets at a place if you don't want them to always shoot everything in range?
If you don't want an artillery to target something, don't put an artillery down. Seems simple to me.

One of the reasons stated applies: You want to wait for a nest to grow before shooting a nuclear shell that kills it all with one hit. No point throwing nukes at miniscule threads. But all of that can be covered by "insert ammo when you want to shoot".

In fact, it's frustration with the method you suggest that informs my desire. I did indeed try this method, only to have the turret spring into life the moment I inserted ammo, and I had to rush to get the targetting thing to target something before it auto-fired. And then, I had to keep on picking targets or it would begin picking its own.

And it's not because I'm using nuclear ammo. It's because I do a much better job of targetting. If you always center on a spawner you will kill that spawner, but what about all the worms and spawners near it? If you target yourself, you can target a 'blank' spot that's in the middle of a whole grouping and get them all with one shot, even with standard artillery ammo.

And without being able to turn off auto-targetting, doing so basically involves racing the auto-targetting system. And that's needlessly annoying.

Omnifarious wrote:In fact, it's frustration with the method you suggest that informs my desire. I did indeed try this method, only to have the turret spring into life the moment I inserted ammo

So place the turret where it has nothing to target.
You have a much larger manual targeting range anyway.
This little bit of extra work should be no problem if you're still concerned with optimal, manual targeting because your tolerance for extra chores seems to be very high.

Let's see you sing the same tune after killing a couple thousand more nests.

dood wrote:

Omnifarious wrote:In fact, it's frustration with the method you suggest that informs my desire. I did indeed try this method, only to have the turret spring into life the moment I inserted ammo

So place the turret where it has nothing to target.
You have a much larger manual targeting range anyway.
This little bit of extra work should be no problem if you're still concerned with optimal, manual targeting because your tolerance for extra chores seems to be very high.

Let's see you sing the same tune after killing a couple thousand more nests.

I already have. I almost never want to auto-target.

Trying to pull back to be just out of auto-targetting range is really fiddly, especially if you have a lot of water.

A simple toggle that turns off auto-targetting could be put in and there would be no problems.

dood wrote:

Omnifarious wrote:In fact, it's frustration with the method you suggest that informs my desire. I did indeed try this method, only to have the turret spring into life the moment I inserted ammo

So place the turret where it has nothing to target.
You have a much larger manual targeting range anyway.
This little bit of extra work should be no problem if you're still concerned with optimal, manual targeting because your tolerance for extra chores seems to be very high.

Let's see you sing the same tune after killing a couple thousand more nests.

First time I built the artillery I put it smack in the middle of my base and then killed everything around me. There wasn't any place where it didn't have any automatic targets for quite a number of shots.

is it possible somehow to disable autotargeting with a lua scenario script? really would like a manual artillery.

MewMew wrote:is it possible somehow to disable autotargeting with a lua scenario script? really would like a manual artillery.

Even if it's not possible to disable auto targeting, you might be able to set the auto target range to something small, eg 5 tiles, which would effectively disable disable it.

dood wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 09, 2018 1:13 pm

Why?
Why would you drive an artillery train to a position and not have it shoot?
Why would you put artillery turrets at a place if you don't want them to always shoot everything in range?
If you don't want an artillery to target something, don't put an artillery down. Seems simple to me.

Because in between all those alien worms is a puffer nest. If you just shoot any worm then the nest takes damage and is destroyed. So you have to shoot somewhat around the worms so the nest stays out of the damage range,

Or you have build an alien artifact farm, harvesting alien artifacts from bitters spawned by a alien nest. You certainly don't want to shoot that nest with artillery then.

dood wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 09, 2018 1:13 pm

Why?
Why would you drive an artillery train to a position and not have it shoot?
Why would you put artillery turrets at a place if you don't want them to always shoot everything in range?
If you don't want an artillery to target something, don't put an artillery down. Seems simple to me.

When I first get artillery I have very limited production of shells. I play heavily modded game so increasing need order of magnitude more labor and resources, which are probably far beyond my borders at that stage of the game. I use heavy water settings and have much lakes. When I begin to expand I do not want that cannon shoots my precious shells to non-dangerous nests behind water or worms which can be deleted later. I can also shoot 2 nests with one shell if I shoot exactly between them. Automatic shooting uses one shell per nest.

Later in the game when I have strong shell production I can use cannons as defense weapon to keep biter colonies further from my defense lines. At that phase I like to have automatic shooting. Simple switch would be easy to add and would not disturb anyone's playstyle. I prefer switch on UI over some kind of stupid cheap item which fills inventory or I forget it in chest.

Adding to this, the toggle could be per-wagon, or even per-train.