Gun turret range

[twanvl]

I would like to use gun turrets for defense, but I find that they get quickly destroyed by spitters in the mid game, and that laser turrets are the only option.

The problem is that the range of a gun turret is 18, while a medium spitter has range 14. For comparison, a laser turret has range 24.
This means that a laser turret has 2.5 times as long to fire on a spitter before it is in range, and around 3 times as many turrets can be in range to fire on that spitter. The result is that no matter how big a wall of gun turrets I build, they still get damaged over time, while even with worse damage upgrades, laser turrets can destroy incoming waves without a scratch.

I propose that there should be a research to increase the range of gun turrets to make it the same as the range of laser turrets (perhaps combined with other gun turret research). Then gun turrets stay relevant for much longer. Or maybe the range could increase with the ammo type? For example to 21 for piercing rounds and 24 for uranium rounds.

[JimBarracus]

the non-laser-solution are flame thrower turrets
they have a range of 30
the gun turrets are only meant to clean the remaining biters that can slip through a blind spot because of the limited turning radius of the fame thrower turret.
anyway you will soon be struggling to keep up with the biters when you stick to gun turrets only.

[GrumpyJoe]

since i play modded most of the time, i dont realy have an opinion on this, but i can forsee the answers you´ll be getting.

1. there are mods for that
2. by the time you get big/behemoth spitters, you at least should have repairpacks and construction bots in range to repair your perimeter, or
3. a mix of gun turrets with uranium ammo, lasers and maybe flamers, because resistances of late game aliens vary.

[Hannu]

I would like to use gun turrets for defense, but I find that they get quickly destroyed by spitters in the mid game, and that laser turrets are the only option.

You can put couple of extra turrets on critical spots. In my opinion there is no reason to keep so weak enemies in the game who can not destroy any defense structures. It motivates you to build automated repair systems. Biters can not destroy so much turrets and robots in normal settings that you can see it in production stats.

I propose that there should be a research to increase the range of gun turrets to make it the same as the range of laser turrets (perhaps combined with other gun turret research). Then gun turrets stay relevant for much longer. Or maybe the range could increase with the ammo type? For example to 21 for piercing rounds and 24 for uranium rounds.

It would be quite nice and realistic if better ammunition gave more range. However, in my opinion gun turrets are quite well balanced with enemy strength. I have used them in my last couple of games (default biter settings) and have had no problems with their performance at any phase from beginning to late game after hundreds of rockets. They are expendable but cheap and automated repairs need only construction bots which are midgame technology (blue science). Any significant improvements would make biters more or less futile element in the game.

[BlueTemplar]

This looks like a great mod for balanced combat in Factorio :
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/pvp-rebalance/changelog

For instance it increases gun turret range so that they can no longer be attacked with impunity by the machine gun from out of range, whic should help you too !

[Hannu]

anyway you will soon be struggling to keep up with the biters when you stick to gun turrets only.

I prefer gun turrets and have never felt this kind of struggling, except when I have been lazy and gave advance to enemies by neglecting the development of defense. But I certainly except that game with enemies will punish me from such failure. Otherwise there is no reason not to disable biters completely.

Continuous line of gun turrets and double wall with automated repair will defy all biter attacks at default settings and vanilla game. You have just to be sure that you produce enough ammunition and spare parts and have reliable logistics to bring them to front line. Current uranium rounds are very powerful, but before them I had one dedicated full blue belt of copper for ammo factory.

[BlueTemplar]

Bullet & gun damage upgrades are critical !

Against Big Biters, the damage per shot of piercing rounds goes from
8/2*0.9=0.45
without upgrades

to

(8*1.6*1.6-8)*0.9 = 11.232
with the two upgrades at lvl 4 (Green+MilSci)

- almost a 25-fold increase !

(And that only for resource efficiency, there are also the firing speed upgrades...)

[Koub]

also remember you can use :
- dragon teeth walls, to lure biters into a labyrinth
- belts at extreme spitter range, to compell them to move continuously to get back in range, lowering their fire rate.

[pieterhulsen]

Gun turrets have better DPS but laser turrets a better range.
The best combination is to use the two of them together.

[Koub]

Gun turrets have better DPS but laser turrets a better range.
The best combination is to use the two of them together.

And add behind, a row of flamethrowers, because of :
1) even better range
2) Terrific AOE dot DPS
3) They are Flammenwerfers. They werf Flammen.

[pichutarius]

Bullet & gun damage upgrades are critical !

Against Big Biters, the damage per shot of piercing rounds goes from
8/2*0.9=0.45
without upgrades

to

(8*1.6*1.6-8)*0.9 = 11.232
with the two upgrades at lvl 4 (Green+MilSci)

- almost a 25-fold increase !

(And that only for resource efficiency, there are also the firing speed upgrades...)

8/2*0.9=3.6
u meant 1/2*.9=.45 ?

[BlueTemplar]

Indeed, thank you for the correction !
1/2 comes from 8 damage against 8 armor resulting in 1/2 rather than 0 :
https://wiki.factorio.com/Damage#Resistance

[Opsse]

anyway you will soon be struggling to keep up with the biters when you stick to gun turrets only.

I prefer gun turrets and have never felt this kind of struggling, except when I have been lazy and gave advance to enemies by neglecting the development of defense. But I certainly except that game with enemies will punish me from such failure. Otherwise there is no reason not to disable biters completely.

I agree. I'm doing the no laser challenge in 0.17 and I think it is well balanced. My gun turrets get destroyed only when my defence is bad.

[Darinth]

I did mine in 0.16. It can help a lot to put efficiency upgrades in your miners early on, they slow down biter attacks to a much more manageable level on your outposts.

[SyncViews]

I have done gun turrets only for several games now, they work well enough with armour piercing. Most of these games without any tactics like drastically reducing pollution, pushing the spawners way back so trees/water/etc. absorbs pollution, or creating wall obstacles that the biter pathfinding gets stuck on. So I think if there is a question, it is are the other options significantly overpowered (including gun turrets with uranium rounds)?

Been using them even with expensive recipes where the double steel cost impacts armour piercing rounds.


If I did have a wish, it would be a HP boost as gun turrets are much more fragile, and will often die before a construction bot with repair packs can get there. But its easy enough to massive produce turrets, so not really an issue.