Audible alert when gun turrets are out of ammo

[Boogieman14]

Early game, reliance on gun turrets is somewhat unavoidable (required even, for some mods). Babysitting ammo levels can become somewhat tedious, so I think an ongoing alert (red 'taking damage' level) for turrets that are out of ammo would add some gameplay value.

[orzelek]

I'd second this one - running out of ammo is dangerous

Especially with mods you need to use gun turrets for prolonged time - in some even always since they are better/offer different damage types then laser.
And at first you will rely for quite long time on manually feeding turrets/simple belt reloaders that need to be filled in with ammo.

[Vin]

I think this is a good idea, but I would like it to be "turret is out of ammo AND attempting to fire". This allows for a more demanding audio alert as it won't trigger when setting up turrets or other shenanigans where the player may have them intentionally empty. It doesn't even need to be a separate alert for under attack. It could just add something about the turrets being out of ammo under "x turrets are engaged with the enemy".

[Boogieman14]

@Vin: I get what you're saying, but that carries some risk too: imagine a big(-ish) attack where the ammo runs out at the very start of the wave. That could result in a decent bit of damage to clear up. Perhaps ideally, turrets would get a checkbox to disable this alert on a per-turret basis.

[bobucles]

IMO if a turret has less than 5-10 ammo stacks then it is in big trouble. There is a warning when turrets are totally dry, but knowing when they won't have ammo for the next wave is pretty damn important.

[Boogieman14]

You're right. I just realized my example immediately invalidates my own argument as well as others I guess ideally the audible alarm would sound when there's less than x ammo left (with x configurable but at a sensible default)

[orzelek]

IMO if a turret has less than 5-10 ammo stacks then it is in big trouble. There is a warning when turrets are totally dry, but knowing when they won't have ammo for the next wave is pretty damn important.

There is a warning for empty turrets?
I don't recall being warned in any way. We are proposing such warning

[Boogieman14]

He's probably talking about the blinking icon when it's in visible range.

[Vin]

IMO if a turret has less than 5-10 ammo stacks then it is in big trouble. There is a warning when turrets are totally dry, but knowing when they won't have ammo for the next wave is pretty damn important.

In my opinion, a warning (particularly an audible one) should be reserved for "I have a problem right now and it's actively causing harm". This is why I suggested both out of ammo and attempting to fire. That's an immediate, objective problem that always needs attention at the moment it sounds. A low ammo turret (that's not engaged) is worrisome, but it doesn't require an immediate solution.

I would support a low ammo indicator, perhaps the current flashing icon on the turret turned a gentle yellow, but I don't think it should be a global warning. Low ammo should really be the responsibility of the player to set up a logistics network that will have warning signs before the turrets get to that point. A global warning should be about player failure, not something the player might want to do.

[orzelek]

I'd actually like a low/no ammo warning for turrets.
We are mostly talking here about state when there is no logistic network at all - with network it doesn't matter that much since it's quite trivial to provide ammo.

I'd agree that it could be annoying - maybe add the low/no ammo warning as warning only (no sound only icon blinking and map indication).
Then if turret with no ammo tries to shoot something add a proper alarm with sound.

[Vin]

I'd actually like a low/no ammo warning for turrets.
We are mostly talking here about state when there is no logistic network at all - with network it doesn't matter that much since it's quite trivial to provide ammo.

I'd agree that it could be annoying - maybe add the low/no ammo warning as warning only (no sound only icon blinking and map indication).
Then if turret with no ammo tries to shoot something add a proper alarm with sound.

I mean logistics in the sense of distributing items, not in the game logistics robots sense. If supplying turrets early game is actually a worry, as it will be with some mods, you'll have some sort of system to supply turrets that's beyond running around with a bunch of ammo and refilling them. That system should be easily checkable to see how ammo levels are without having to mouseover individual turrets.

I'd be fine with no ammo being the same warning as no repair packs, except without the beep beep. I don't personally like it (I think it should be up to the player to manage ammo; alarms should be when stuff is already happening, not might happen), but it's reasonable enough that a turret should tell you when you're asking it to do something (shoot) that it can't do. Then it screams louder if it's actually trying to do that thing.

Side Note: Bots make it trivial to move ammo, but the player still has to make sure the supply of materials is still sufficient, which I would argue could be a non-trivial task.

[Frodoctorio]

What is the point of more alarms if you're unable to click 'm and goto? From early on I found the 'bound centralist' idea in factorio very interesting and finally something different than rts (god view once you have radar). You can only see, hear and perform actions when you're near to the action.

I do like the idea of auto refilling/supplying gun turrets options, via bots or a structure that takes care of gun turrets in a radius. So you only have to supply that structure with ammo. In that way, the gun turrets function more or less independently from the player. The same as electricity (radius) dependent laser turrets.

I find the alarms annoying and I'm always too late to make a difference in the outcome anyway.

[Peter34]

Early game, reliance on gun turrets is somewhat unavoidable (required even, for some mods). Babysitting ammo levels can become somewhat tedious, so I think an ongoing alert (red 'taking damage' level) for turrets that are out of ammo would add some gameplay value.

I'm pretty sure I don't want any audio alert for that, but a flashing icon, on the mini-map, would be nice. The "out of ammo"-icon is already displayed in the main game view, but it should be on the mini-map too, and on the normal map.