any ideas how to control ammo in turrets

Don't know how to use a machine? Looking for efficient setups? Stuck in a mission?
Post Reply
zeddo
Manual Inserter
Manual Inserter
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Jan 28, 2019 8:28 pm
Contact:

any ideas how to control ammo in turrets

Post by zeddo »

Hi

i have a base with turrets and a belt which goes around the base to ervy turret. how can i control after every turret is loaded with 10 ammo the production will stop? i don't have any ideas.

cheers


evopwr
Fast Inserter
Fast Inserter
Posts: 172
Joined: Fri Apr 28, 2017 1:45 am
Contact:

Re: any ideas how to control ammo in turrets

Post by evopwr »

my opinion,
ditch the turrets as soon as possible.

Switch to a laser + flame approach. Heres mine:
Untitled.png
Untitled.png (443.53 KiB) Viewed 7436 times
As you can see, there is a single wall. Not double, and no "dotted outer walls" to confuse the biters. The double wall bit you can see is for blueprint alignment purposes.
This base is after hundreds of hours, has launched 100+ rockets, without a care for pollution, so I'm guessing the evolution must be maxed - and i've not had a biter break through for a loooong time.

Only Flame Thrower Damage 6, and Laser Speed/Dmg 6.

The trick, is in the roboports.
They are indepedent networks, with 3 robots each, and 10 repairs kits each. They dont overlap in logistics, so they are on there own, but they do overlap construction, so it ensures everything is covered.

The reason for independent networks, is based on experience. When bots are all part of one network, and there is damage at an outpost, the bots fly directly there, most likely flying over enemy territory, and non-stop dying. This approach ensures they dont constantly suicide themselves like that.

You'll note the train station with the generic station name of "repair" connected via circuit, that enables the station if it needs an extra repair kit, or extra construction bot. And of course, a single carriage train that responds and delivers bots/repair kits as required to all "repair" stations.

As soon as a wall or something is damaged, immediately the construction bots repair the damage using the repair kits, and if a new bot or repair kit is required, then the station is enabled, and the train delivers it.

The accumulator is included at each turret, to ensure adequate surge protection for all the lasers. Its overkill, but hey, its so easy to just put a BP down :)

Blueprint of stand-alone roboport, train station, and circuits connecting them

astroshak
Filter Inserter
Filter Inserter
Posts: 597
Joined: Thu May 10, 2018 9:59 am
Contact:

Re: any ideas how to control ammo in turrets

Post by astroshak »

For the hassle, turrets are stronger than laser turrets. One stack inserter will, at (vanilla) max, put 20 clips into a turret.

Want to ensure that your turrets only have so much ammo? Don’t limit the turrets. Inserters will do that themselves. Instead, have the inserters pull from a chest, and have that chest be limited. Either limit the chest to one stack, or use a circuit condition (or request, if using a requester chest) to limit how much ammo goes into the chest. Then simply limit the output from the AM(s) making ammo to avoid having too much in the system. This is especially handy when using robots to deliver ammo. Belts lead to a lot of belt storage.

Mr. Tact
Filter Inserter
Filter Inserter
Posts: 460
Joined: Sat Mar 26, 2016 3:37 pm
Contact:

Re: any ideas how to control ammo in turrets

Post by Mr. Tact »

astroshak wrote:
Tue Jan 29, 2019 9:55 pm
For the hassle, turrets are stronger than laser turrets.
They are? Personally, I never touched normal turrets once I had laser turret production...
Professional Curmudgeon since 1988.

orzelek
Smart Inserter
Smart Inserter
Posts: 3911
Joined: Fri Apr 03, 2015 10:20 am
Contact:

Re: any ideas how to control ammo in turrets

Post by orzelek »

Mr. Tact wrote:
Tue Jan 29, 2019 11:16 pm
astroshak wrote:
Tue Jan 29, 2019 9:55 pm
For the hassle, turrets are stronger than laser turrets.
They are? Personally, I never touched normal turrets once I had laser turret production...
I don't remember the numbers but gun turret plus uranium ammo equals lots more dps then lasers. It's partially because double scaling (both turret and ammo bonus) but also pretty high base damage so even behemot armor won't stop much with upgrades.

Mr. Tact
Filter Inserter
Filter Inserter
Posts: 460
Joined: Sat Mar 26, 2016 3:37 pm
Contact:

Re: any ideas how to control ammo in turrets

Post by Mr. Tact »

On my current "big" base, the turret damage bonus is +240%, the ammo is +320%, + 150% shooting speed -- laser damage is +720%, speed is +220%.
Professional Curmudgeon since 1988.

astroshak
Filter Inserter
Filter Inserter
Posts: 597
Joined: Thu May 10, 2018 9:59 am
Contact:

Re: any ideas how to control ammo in turrets

Post by astroshak »

Mr. Tact wrote:
Wed Jan 30, 2019 1:55 am
On my current "big" base, the turret damage bonus is +240%, the ammo is +320%, + 150% shooting speed -- laser damage is +720%, speed is +220%.
That depends on the direction your research takes you, in the unlimited researches, of course.

For pre-space science, turrets are better dps unless you totally neglect ammo and turret researches, and just go for laser turret researches. Someone did a chart, I don’t know the web addy, that shows how much damage per second you can expect from both turrets and laser turrets at different levels of research.

For the power, though, you pay the cost of logistics.

evopwr
Fast Inserter
Fast Inserter
Posts: 172
Joined: Fri Apr 28, 2017 1:45 am
Contact:

Re: any ideas how to control ammo in turrets

Post by evopwr »

astroshak wrote:
Tue Jan 29, 2019 9:55 pm
This is especially handy when using robots to deliver ammo. Belts lead to a lot of belt storage.
The problem with delivering ammo via bots, is if you'r base isnt a nice rectangle, and instead is L shaped, or has arms shooting off to outposts, etc, then you now have bots flying over hostile land, to deliver the ammo, and are constantly dying. Unless you setup a train to deliver ammo to localised starports, so the bots are dedicated to that part of the map only - just like my example above where repair kits are delivered. Seems like a lot of work when laser can be used instead.

Besides, its actually the flame turret that does most of the damage, as it has large AoE effect, and the lasers just finish off any stragglers, or where theyve got too close that the flame turrets cant hit them.

astroshak
Filter Inserter
Filter Inserter
Posts: 597
Joined: Thu May 10, 2018 9:59 am
Contact:

Re: any ideas how to control ammo in turrets

Post by astroshak »

I tend to claim rectangular areas from the biters, specifically to avoid L shaped, or otherwise concave shaped, walls and roboports. You get a much larger cleared area for the amount of wall you need to build, as well - though water can and will influence that. I prefer my bots to fly over claimed area, only going beyond the walls to make repairs if I’m playing a mod that involves drops from biters.

mrvn
Smart Inserter
Smart Inserter
Posts: 5682
Joined: Mon Sep 05, 2016 9:10 am
Contact:

Re: any ideas how to control ammo in turrets

Post by mrvn »

astroshak wrote:
Tue Jan 29, 2019 9:55 pm
For the hassle, turrets are stronger than laser turrets. One stack inserter will, at (vanilla) max, put 20 clips into a turret.

Want to ensure that your turrets only have so much ammo? Don’t limit the turrets. Inserters will do that themselves. Instead, have the inserters pull from a chest, and have that chest be limited. Either limit the chest to one stack, or use a circuit condition (or request, if using a requester chest) to limit how much ammo goes into the chest. Then simply limit the output from the AM(s) making ammo to avoid having too much in the system. This is especially handy when using robots to deliver ammo. Belts lead to a lot of belt storage.
A stack of ammo in a chest goes a long way when placed single sided on a belt instead. So just filling the belt single sided probably saves ammo over your chest idea.

astroshak
Filter Inserter
Filter Inserter
Posts: 597
Joined: Thu May 10, 2018 9:59 am
Contact:

Re: any ideas how to control ammo in turrets

Post by astroshak »

A belt can hold right now what, 8-9 items on it, depending? That’s about 4 per lane on the belt.

200 ammo is 50 belt pieces when in one lane only. That’s not a very long wall. Though as I said, belting them around leads to a very large amount of belt storage.

By the way, the reason for loading a chest then feeding the turrets from the chest is that a belt may not be able to supply enough ammo if you have a large scale attack. 13 1/3 items per second if you never upgrade your ammo belt may be insufficient. Storing a few in a chest, off of the belt, gives a comfortable buffer, though you’d need to limit the chest and/or feeding inserter to control that buffer.

mrvn
Smart Inserter
Smart Inserter
Posts: 5682
Joined: Mon Sep 05, 2016 9:10 am
Contact:

Re: any ideas how to control ammo in turrets

Post by mrvn »

astroshak wrote:
Thu Jan 31, 2019 3:50 am
A belt can hold right now what, 8-9 items on it, depending? That’s about 4 per lane on the belt.

200 ammo is 50 belt pieces when in one lane only. That’s not a very long wall. Though as I said, belting them around leads to a very large amount of belt storage.

By the way, the reason for loading a chest then feeding the turrets from the chest is that a belt may not be able to supply enough ammo if you have a large scale attack. 13 1/3 items per second if you never upgrade your ammo belt may be insufficient. Storing a few in a chest, off of the belt, gives a comfortable buffer, though you’d need to limit the chest and/or feeding inserter to control that buffer.
200 ammo is 50 belt pieces when in one lane only. That means if you have a turret with chest closer than every 50m then a chest will use more ammo.

And yes to the belts being slow. You do want double sided and possibly upgrade to red belts. At some point then attacks get too large and you need to add buffer chests as well. Or you add flame turrets and lasers to help out.

Overall I would say the storage capacity of the belt isn't the problem. You do need that storage. The problem is that a belt going once around the base needs to be fed at more and more places as you expand or an attack at one place will leave the next place without ammo.

The belt getting destroyed at one place is also critical. So my suggestion is to use train stations to supply ammo for a chunk of the wall. Maybe with belts going in two directions so each turret draws from 2 stations.

astroshak
Filter Inserter
Filter Inserter
Posts: 597
Joined: Thu May 10, 2018 9:59 am
Contact:

Re: any ideas how to control ammo in turrets

Post by astroshak »

I’m really not sure why you’re arguing. Belt storage is a good thing, in the sense that you want it to immediately replenish the chests when they get drawn upon - and fast enough that the chest and turrets are loaded before the next attack. On the other hand, the OP was asking how to limit production of ammo. Rather than putting 3200 ammo in a chest (16 slots of 200 apiece) either limit the chest or the inserter, and let backpressure do the rest. That’s all I was saying.

The only ways to limit belt storage would be to use one side of the belt. And the only way to eliminate it entirely would be to not use belts at all. Surely that was obvious and did not need saying?

mrvn
Smart Inserter
Smart Inserter
Posts: 5682
Joined: Mon Sep 05, 2016 9:10 am
Contact:

Re: any ideas how to control ammo in turrets

Post by mrvn »

You can also use circuit connection on the belt. Connect N tiles of belt with wires and set them to read and hold contents. Connect that to the belt feeding the loop or to the inserter on the ammo assembler and set it to enable when ammo < M.

By changing N or M you control how dense the belt loop will be filled with ammo. If you do this though you certainly need buffer chests for each turret. A partially filled belt might be enough in the long run but won't be able to restock turrets while under attack.

netmand
Filter Inserter
Filter Inserter
Posts: 302
Joined: Wed Feb 22, 2017 1:20 am
Contact:

Re: any ideas how to control ammo in turrets

Post by netmand »

I don't really think that is a good way to go, but to answer the question, and assuming that you also want production to turn back on when the turret needs more magazines:
1) For each turret, split off the main belt and have the inserter pick off a wired belt section (set to read hold)
2) At the start of the turret belt feed or where production enters the belt loop, attach a wire to that belt section and set it to enable/disable for condition: magazines > 0
3) Place an Arithmetic combinator; input wire from all read belt sections, output wire to enable/disable belt section feeding distribution belt; condition: magazines % 4, output: magazines
The only catch to this system is that production will be off for both full and completely empty (at peacetime) situations. However, While turrets are engaged magazines will be on their way even if the turret runs out, so your wall will be doing its job in the meantime.

Reasons why limiting belt saturation isn't a good way to go: You'll want to saturate the belts to immediately feed the turrets, otherwise you're introducing logistical delays delivering needed magazines. Extra magazines will never go to waste; Firearm magazines can be forwarded to making Piercing magazines, Piercing magazines can be forwarded to making Military Science Packs. Also, With magazines available on the belt, you can just pick up magazines to resupply yourself if you're shooting too.

Hannu
Filter Inserter
Filter Inserter
Posts: 850
Joined: Thu Apr 28, 2016 6:27 am
Contact:

Re: any ideas how to control ammo in turrets

Post by Hannu »

orzelek wrote:
Tue Jan 29, 2019 11:35 pm
I don't remember the numbers but gun turret plus uranium ammo equals lots more dps then lasers. It's partially because double scaling (both turret and ammo bonus) but also pretty high base damage so even behemot armor won't stop much with upgrades.
It depends on research, but is not important at all. You can build safe defense line from which turret type you want. I prefer gun turrets because it gives one part to quite simple logistic flows, but have also used lasers to defend a large base. You can also mix turrets and use flame throwers too.

Post Reply

Return to “Gameplay Help”