The personal laser defense

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AutoMcD
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The personal laser defense

Post by AutoMcD »

I like it, great for picking up stragglers that you can't be bothered to lift the shotgun for.. but really I can't help but feel that it's not worth the space.
Recently I loaded up the power armor mk3 mod which gives 20x20 space, I put 20 of these lasers backed up with a stack of batteries and 5 reactors. It still took them several seconds to take down a blue biter, which would have killed me if I didn't also stack on over 10 shields. While not totally ineffective, hard to justify such cost (especially in endgame). Why would you even bother when 2-3 shotgun shells or a destroyer capsule can do a better job. It's practically more valuable as something to paint targets and make noise in case you weren't paying attention.. It is a minor support weapon when it's cost is more than that. It shines if sitting in the tank and not needing the slot space for shields I suppose, but again even that sort of falls by the wayside once the evolution is high enough.


It needs a buff, and I have some ideas for it:
-reduce it's size to that of the shield, or smaller. The odd height is cumbersome and really I feel like it should be battery sized for being such weaksauce. The effectiveness of other upgrades makes this space very valuable.
-laser turret damage/ROF upgrades should apply. This lack of future-proofing is perhaps the biggest flaw. Or perhaps a mk2 option?
-uses less energy per shot. To put 2 or 4 of these to use requires a reactor and a pile of batteries, it's a large investment. If you're still on solar then forget it, those things can't even charge the roboport in a full day. It's just too much energy for not enough damage! I do have other thoughts about how far 75kw doesn't seem to go with charging a few robots but that's a different discussion.

Any or all of those would make me happier with it.

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bobingabout
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Re: The personal laser defense

Post by bobingabout »

20x20? that's quite the space, I think the MK5 in my warfare mod only offers 16x16, and people "Obsessed" with balance tell me there's too much room in there.

Putting that to one side though, I can understand why you'd say the laser defence isn't that effective, I personally add upgraded versions in my mod.
I suppose one of the things you need to look at is the low power portability, compared to the base defence laser turret. Perhaps, what we need is not to buff the existing personal laser defence, but instead to add a beefier MK2, I mean, we already have MK2 batteries, and shields, why not a laser too?
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Re: The personal laser defense

Post by AutoMcD »

Yeah that mod is OP as hell. But being able to haul 20 lasers, fully powered, and seeing how well they didn't do.. that is what really highlighted this to me.

Perhaps a Mk.2 version would make the most sense if it's a matter of tweaking damage efficiency.

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Re: The personal laser defense

Post by bobucles »

I'd rather have a personal gun turret defense. Something that doesn't take fusion power to use.

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Re: The personal laser defense

Post by AutoMcD »

bobucles wrote:I'd rather have a personal gun turret defense. Something that doesn't take fusion power to use.
+1 that's actually a great idea. Bring an extra stack of ammo and you're golden. I'd love that option.

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bobingabout
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Re: The personal laser defense

Post by bobingabout »

Having modules that can use an ammo from your inventory, yes, this I would like to see.

One of the things I was making in my warfare mod was an auto drone launcher, and did make one that creates distractor drones, but could only make it in a way that consumed power, not items. (Without using scripting, I didn't even look into it doing that).

If there was the ability to use ammo with a suit module, I'd do that for my drone launcher.
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Re: The personal laser defense

Post by AutoMcD »

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BRING IT

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Re: The personal laser defense

Post by stylistic_sagi »

the personal ammo turret looks like a great idea indeed.
As for the laser i think a simple range increase would also do a lot. Don't forget you get free ammo.
But i understand your point where late game the laser damage really does nothing anymore agains larger critters.
But i feel this way about many weapons.

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Re: The personal laser defense

Post by BlakeMW »

The PLD is only really usable when fired from the Tank. Thing is in the tank exos and shields do nothing (except let you run away faster when you get out the tank) and you only need 1 or 2 roboports for repairs & deconstruction planner, so that leaves a lot of free slots you can stuff PLDs into - and they're pretty cheap so far as power armor modules go. That's not an argument for it being good btw, just being completely fair to it's current strength. it's okay in the Tank if you can be bothered mucking around with the armor setup, it's better to have something than nothing even if that something isn't much.

The general thing about Factorio 0.12 is there is a strong disparity between weapons which have upgrades (Bullets, Shotgun, Laser Turrets) and weapons which don't (Flamethrower, Tank Cannon, PLD), basically most weapons without upgrades end up being crap (the only exception is Poison Capsule, which nothing resists and is insanely good anyway). If the PLD benefited from upgrades giving it quadruple the firepower it might actually be useful.

But apparently combat is rebalanced in 0.13 so this discussion is quite possibly a bit of a waste of time :).

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Re: The personal laser defense

Post by AutoMcD »

That didn't stop me from firing up the mod tutorial and getting started on this. 8-)

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Re: The personal laser defense

Post by AutoMcD »

https://www.dropbox.com/s/yoy1zy9parif5 ... 1.zip?dl=0

(will have to change filename version manually to 0.1.0)

This is preliminary.
The "advanced" version of laser defense seems to work.
The gun I'm having trouble with.. I have an open thread in modding help section.

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Re: The personal laser defense

Post by bobucles »

There are other designs for useful defense systems.
For example, a point defense system would shoot down spitter attacks and thus protect against incoming damage.
A paralysis effect would defend against biter attacks with a very linear growth pattern. Currently exoskeleton boosts reach critical mass where the player becomes immune to enemy movement.

A personal rocket defense would be fun, while a personal poison capsule defense would be hilarious.

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Re: The personal laser defense

Post by bobingabout »

One I tried to mod in. Personal Distractor robot launcher. Of course it wouldn't consume anything but energy, so I didn't release it.
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Re: The personal laser defense

Post by AutoMcD »

That might be possible with how Adil did the gun programming. I'll try to tinker with it.

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Re: The personal laser defense

Post by Gazer75 »

Old thread but still...

Why is this thing not scaling with laser turret damage and shooting speed?
Could be balanced that way?

This thing is just completely useless in late game vs behemoths.

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Re: The personal laser defense

Post by Deadly-Bagel »

Actually that's a pretty good idea.

Currently you don't really have any choice as you need all your shields and roboports with a few exos, doesn't leave room for anything else, but with the addition of vehicle modular slots we've got some breathing room to add some of the more interesting equipment. You could also fill your trains with shields and personal laser defences so if they encounter any biters they can fend them off automatically. Throw it into a train loop and you've got a mobile defence platform circling your base.

Although the whole weapon system still needs a serious overhaul (seriously, WHY does a rocket do less than half the damage of a shotgun shell??).
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Re: The personal laser defense

Post by AutoMcD »

Gazer75 wrote:Old thread but still...

Why is this thing not scaling with laser turret damage and shooting speed?
Could be balanced that way?

This thing is just completely useless in late game vs behemoths.
Can't with the current system, most of the laser equipment is hard-coded. From what I can tell it looks up the stats upon creation and that's it.
The gun reflects ammo upgrades because it's damage is tied to the ammo, if there is a way to trick the laser into honoring upgrades then it's beyond my skills to implement.
I made it a moot point by requiring the lvl 6 upgrades in order to unlock it. Basically those upgrades allow the better laser to be made.

On balance, I think they are plenty powerful enough. With 4 of these and a pile of shields, just did a few laps around a spawn camp and everything died. When they buffed shields and batteries it really made things easy.
I admit I have not encountered behemoth yet, I assume in such a case you may actually have to pull out the flame thrower and hose her down with fire.
Deadly-Bagel wrote:Actually that's a pretty good idea.

Currently you don't really have any choice as you need all your shields and roboports with a few exos, doesn't leave room for anything else, but with the addition of vehicle modular slots we've got some breathing room to add some of the more interesting equipment. You could also fill your trains with shields and personal laser defences so if they encounter any biters they can fend them off automatically. Throw it into a train loop and you've got a mobile defence platform circling your base.

Although the whole weapon system still needs a serious overhaul (seriously, WHY does a rocket do less than half the damage of a shotgun shell??).
I like to load the car with shields, then load up the armor with lasers. UNSTOPPABLE!! :twisted:
Smaller camps you can take out without even slowing down, it's ridiculous. :)

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Re: The personal laser defense

Post by orzelek »

Changing personal defence ammo category to laser-turret makes it work with laser turret upgrades.

Looking at the API/tech prototypes it should be possible to add separate upgrade lines for defence equipment by adding new ammo category and appropriate technologies (or effects to existing techs).

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Re: The personal laser defense

Post by bobucles »

I don't think that suit defenses will ever reach a happy medium. The scaling of biters is too severe and there's too narrow a line between "free kill all" and "getting swarmed down all the time". There is such a tiny window to deal damage, and if your outgoing DPS doesn't match the incoming HPs then there is going to be trouble.

I think that deterrent modules should hinder the biters in some way. For example a PLD could shoot down incoming projectiles, or cause a debilitating effect that makes it harder for biters to hurt you. That way they act as a force multiplier where MOAR SHIELDS isn't always the answer.

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