Factorio Forums

TL:DR

I would love to connect electricity based turrets (currently only laser turret) to a circuit network with 1 input and 1 output:
1) Turret is firing / Not firing (boolean output)
2) Enabled / Disabled (boolean input)

What ?

I suggest an easy to implement feature and report a bug at the same time.

Having Laser Turrets, and any future electricity based static weapon systems connected to a circuit network would be extremely helpful, because that would allow the player to redirect electricity from a maxed out grid, meaning other parts of the factory you would knowingly shut down with the help of power switches, in order to enable the turrets to actually fire on the buggers and save your wall, and with it, your base.

A bug, or unintended game mechanic I found during trying to set this up, is that if you have too many Laser Turrets, and not enough power to supply them all, then all of them want to fire at the same time, therefore none of them actually does fire, leaving you with an utterly useless and dead defense system. This is why having a circuit network connection on them would become immensly useful, because then you could pick and choose how many turrets you want to, or able to, or which specific ones you want to activate

Here are the 2 modes I would like to see:
1) If turret is firing / not firing -> Send specified boolean signal
2) Enabled / disabled -> Receive specified boolean signal

I propose 2 modes of operation for Laser Turrets, both being accessible at the same time, just like many other entities are capable of doing in the game, because that would be the most useful.

Why ?

Because of the reasons I explained in the What ? section. Your forum post template is not very organised and thought out guys...
Jokes aside, I have created a screenshot that hopefully gives you guys an idea what I was looking for.

Now I know there are some weird workarounds, for example building 1 power switch for every single laser turret, but that is just such a dumb solution, and more CPU intensive on top of it, so I would really like it if just simple circuit network was integrated to the laser turret instead.

Thanks for reading, waiting for your responses

Ehm, it's part of placing lasers, that they suck power, even if not used. You can turn them off by using power switch and an own power network. Thats complicated, but IMHO wanted.

There are many suggestions to add circuit capability on all the entities that don't have any, and turrets are amongst them :

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=47787
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=82635
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=71937

I would personnally be in favor of being able to read all relevant information from any entity via circuitery, and control that entity also via circuitery. Turrets, and all the others.

Koub wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2020 2:21 pm There are many suggestions to add circuit capability on all the entities that don't have any, and turrets are amongst them :

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=47787
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=82635
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=71937

I would personnally be in favor of being able to read all relevant information from any entity via circuitery, and control that entity also via circuitery. Turrets, and all the others.

me too, it's the main thing this game has that others like Satisfactory do not.

Koub wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2020 2:21 pm I would personnally be in favor of being able to read all relevant information from any entity via circuitery, and control that entity also via circuitery. Turrets, and all the others.

This. The circuit network is an incredibly flexible tool with a virtually limitless number of possible uses. It's very hard to anticipate in advance exactly what things players might want to use it for, so IMO the more functionality is exposed the better, and there's a lot of low-hanging fruit in this area right now.

Ajedi32 wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2020 8:27 pm

Koub wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2020 2:21 pm I would personnally be in favor of being able to read all relevant information from any entity via circuitery, and control that entity also via circuitery. Turrets, and all the others.

This. The circuit network is an incredibly flexible tool with a virtually limitless number of possible uses. It's very hard to anticipate in advance exactly what things players might want to use it for, so IMO the more functionality is exposed the better, and there's a lot of low-hanging fruit in this area right now.

Yes, indeed, but I find that this is the biggest missing piece of the circuit network, because you can't even connect a turret to the circuit, therefore you can't even get ANY info out of it, while other entities, you can get at the very least SOME info out of.

Would be cool to have this feature, yes. Excessive power switching isn't very performant.

But

Shadow0013HUN wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2020 10:38 am Now I know there are some weird workarounds, for example building 1 power switch for every single laser turret, but that is just such a dumb solution, and more CPU intensive on top of it, so I would really like it if just simple circuit network was integrated to the laser turret instead.

you don't need 1 power switch for each turret.
I made ~0 drain laser turrets with one power switch/chunk instead of per turret.

Qon wrote: ↑Sat Aug 15, 2020 9:02 am Would be cool to have this feature, yes. Excessive power switching isn't very performant.

But

Shadow0013HUN wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2020 10:38 am Now I know there are some weird workarounds, for example building 1 power switch for every single laser turret, but that is just such a dumb solution, and more CPU intensive on top of it, so I would really like it if just simple circuit network was integrated to the laser turret instead.

you don't need 1 power switch for each turret.
I made ~0 drain laser turrets with one power switch/chunk instead of per turret.

My main goal here isn't so that laser turrets stop draining power whenever they are not needed, my main goal here is that I can shut down production for the time the turrets need power to fire. Because not producing for a short time is still better than not producing because the entire production line is destroyed by the buggers
So I think you misunderstood me...

Shadow0013HUN wrote: ↑Sat Aug 15, 2020 9:16 am My main goal here isn't so that laser turrets stop draining power whenever they are not needed, my main goal here is that I can shut down production for the time the turrets need power to fire. Because not producing for a short time is still better than not producing because the entire production line is destroyed by the buggers
So I think you misunderstood me...

My goal of posting it was to show that you need less than 1 switch per chunk to get a "laser turret firing" signal. The signal that opens the switch can be routed anywhere and used for anything, it's a circuit signal. You can repurpose it for whatever you want. The blueprint also snaps to the grid and includes red circuit network cables so the whole perimeter can be used to to connect from a single point to the switch that turns off the power to your factory.

Shadow0013HUN wrote: ↑Sat Aug 15, 2020 9:16 am My main goal here isn't so that laser turrets stop draining power whenever they are not needed, my main goal here is that I can shut down production for the time the turrets need power to fire. Because not producing for a short time is still better than not producing because the entire production line is destroyed by the buggers
So I think you misunderstood me...

This is actually much more easy : power your turrets from a few isolated points, and at every point, add an accumulator. Just read the accumulator level. If it goes under max, it's because the power demand exceeds production at a given point. That's the sign you can shut off the facultative production (science for example) with a switch. And if you want to do fancy things, add a combinator thingie that shuts production when accumulator is below 50%, and only restarts it when accumulator is back to full. Like that, less flickering.

Koub wrote: ↑Sat Aug 15, 2020 11:03 am This is actually much more easy : power your turrets from a few isolated points, and at every point, add an accumulator. Just read the accumulator level. If it goes under max, it's because the power demand exceeds production at a given point. That's the sign you can shut off the facultative production (science for example) with a switch. And if you want to do fancy things, add a combinator thingie that shuts production when accumulator is below 50%, and only restarts it when accumulator is back to full. Like that, less flickering.

great idea
is this what you mean?

wooden poles - the main power grid - supply power to the turrets and if it isnt enough the turrets will start using power stored in the acumulator connected by an isolated medium pole

Koub wrote: ↑Sat Aug 15, 2020 11:03 am

Shadow0013HUN wrote: ↑Sat Aug 15, 2020 9:16 am My main goal here isn't so that laser turrets stop draining power whenever they are not needed, my main goal here is that I can shut down production for the time the turrets need power to fire. Because not producing for a short time is still better than not producing because the entire production line is destroyed by the buggers
So I think you misunderstood me...

This is actually much more easy : power your turrets from a few isolated points, and at every point, add an accumulator. Just read the accumulator level. If it goes under max, it's because the power demand exceeds production at a given point. That's the sign you can shut off the facultative production (science for example) with a switch. And if you want to do fancy things, add a combinator thingie that shuts production when accumulator is below 50%, and only restarts it when accumulator is back to full. Like that, less flickering.

Yes, but for one, I will never bother with crafting ANY solar energy related things, because F those, and for two, having the turret connectable to a circuit network and being able to read if it wants to shoot or not, would be so much simpler. Plud one, reading from accumulators is very CPU intensive.

quaatal wrote: ↑Sat Aug 15, 2020 11:37 am ...

Something like that. The solar panel is even facultative.

Shadow0013HUN wrote: ↑Sat Aug 15, 2020 12:08 pm Yes, but for one, I will never bother with crafting ANY solar energy related things, because F those, and for two, having the turret connectable to a circuit network and being able to read if it wants to shoot or not, would be so much simpler. Plud one, reading from accumulators is very CPU intensive.

if thats the case then you can use a steam storage tank instead of batteries

Koub wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2020 2:21 pm There are many suggestions to add circuit capability on all the entities that don't have any, and turrets are amongst them :
I would personnally be in favor of being able to read all relevant information from any entity via circuitery, and control that entity also via circuitery. Turrets, and all the others.

There are mods that accomplish most such requests. I think if those mods were more popular they would be more likely to be implemented in the base game. At least, that was a common story to tell new players making such requests years ago.

Popularity of a mod does not automatically mean vanilla needs it. It's just one of many variables the devs will process. The devs' conviction it would make an overall better game for the majority is an even higher driver, I think.

While I like the fact that even a mod is able to achieve this feature, I'm deeply convinced vanilla vould benefit significantly from it, hence my suggestion.