Sense/detect/count biters/enemies for circuits somehow

[Theikkru]

I'd just like some way of directly detecting biters/enemies for circuit control purposes, since that would open up some interesting new ways to control a base (e.g. suspend rail/bot traffic, raise gates, conversely summon train to squash intruders, summon resupply train to outpost upon attack, adjust factory military production based on attack frequency, granular control of ammo supply based on location of attack, etc.). Counting turret ammo use is slow and unreliable. This could be accomplished by allowing turrets or radars to report whether or how many enemies are within range.

[Qon]

Already possible to some extent.

[Theikkru]

See: counting turret ammo use is slow and unreliable. My main point here is I want something that will work without having to shoot. What if I don't want to (or can't) kill the enemy or enemies immediately?

On another note, I don't use lasers, and that's not compatible with the "Raining Bullets" achievement.

[Qon]

See: counting turret ammo use is slow and unreliable.

My method doesn't count ammo use, it measures electricity use. And it's quick and reliable. Did you read the thread I linked?

My main point here is I want something that will work without having to shoot. What if I don't want to (or can't) kill the enemy or enemies immediately?

Seems very unrealistic that you think my almost instant method is too slow but you at the same time don't want to kill the enemies immediately? Is your plan to know about their visit instantly but only kill them after they have already chewed on your turrets for a few seconds? Or is the plan to not kill them at all but just detect them so you can give up immediately before they eat you?

If you can't or don't want to kill them you lose.

This could be accomplished by allowing turrets [...] to report whether [...] enemies are within range.

You asked for it. I provided the solution.

On another note, I don't use lasers, and that's not compatible with the "Raining Bullets" achievement.

Those gun turrets do react immediately and they do kill the natives. So you don't care about preserving the local wildlife after all...
Also if you are achievement hunting and one the turret that gives you exactly what you request isn't available for you because of your own self-imposed limitation then maybe send a rocket already to get the achievement and switch to lasers or forget about the achievement?

It's a partially valid concern and I wish the same. But it also sounds a bit like you are asking for gun turrets to use electricity as ammo so it would be more convenient but still allowing you to get your achievement.

I'm not against the request. I posted the link to help you. I said it was possible to some extent, not that your idea was bad.

There are mods that provide this functionality too if you are interested.

[Theikkru]

I should clarify: by "slow and unreliable", I mean from a circuit control perspective, in that other things I may want to prevent (like the turrets shooting) may or must happen before the alert signal comes in, not that it takes any arbitrary length of time to happen (though that may be the case as well). In other words, in this case, "almost instant" isn't good enough because the laser has fired.
I'm aware that your design would cover a lot of use cases, but I'm specifically asking for the direct capability general to all turrets or radars because it is required in some instances where nothing else would work. To illustrate, two ideas:

① Unloaded gun or flamethrower turrets used as biter detectors along a defense line consisting entirely of land mines. In order to prevent bots from rushing out into a horde of biters, reserve supply is kept outside the logistic network until enemies are no longer in range (yes this setup is brittle, but that's fixable).

② I want to make a biter "fun house" out of gates in the ground that go up and down in the biter's vicinity depending on how it moves, confusing its pathing. Of course, this requires the biter to stay alive to work.

Unfortunately, lasers are devices that require power, so if left unpowered to prevent shooting, they would also fail to update their signal.

[Qon]

① Unloaded gun or flamethrower turrets used as biter detectors along a defense line consisting entirely of land mines. In order to prevent bots from rushing out into a horde of biters, reserve supply is kept outside the logistic network until enemies are no longer in range (yes this setup is brittle, but that's fixable).

Well yeah, but actually, no. What do you gain by not having your laser turrets powered? If you want mine defence then how does it make your setup more effective if you disable the turrets ability to shoot? Why not have mines and turrets that can shoot instead of mines and turrets that can't shoot?

This is a toy example that has as much practical use as the biter funhouse. And I'm not going to say that having fun in a game is wrong. But I think it would make your case stronger if you could find a practical use case for an actual base that isn't just a creative project. Because if that is your goal then you are probably better served by mods.

My problem with my detector is that I can't power it during the night (in its current state) with accumulators so all turrets turn on on the night if you rely completely on solar. But that can be mitigated by chaining accumulators so I might be able to design away from that weak point.

Another is it can be inefficient CPU wise to toggle power switches between thousands of tiny networks about 12 times per second each. If I could just connect a wire to a turret directly then the detector would rely on the efficient native code the turrets already use to detect enemies.

Detecting them outside the turrets range is another feature I would enjoy for several reasons. When I play with Recursive Blueprints (should be vanilla!!) letting my expanding factory find and destroy or avoid the natives would be cool. Or with my Artillery Combinator mod it would be cool to carpet bomb the entire region outside my walls when I detect a swarm approaching. For that, I have to detect them way before they reach the wall or else the the slow artillery won't have time to rotate or the shells time to fly over there.

[Theikkru]

I honestly don't care what the specific detecting device is; I was just using turrets and radars as examples, since they are military buildings that one would expect to have that capability.

Assuming it WERE turrets with that capability, the answer to "why leave unloaded/unpowered" is efficiency. Because land mines deal significant up-front area damage at low cost, it makes sense to use them before other types of defense, and by leaving turrets empty/unpowered, the logistic clutter of supplying (or powering) them is saved as well. My point at the end was that lasers would NOT serve that purpose properly, since their ability to shoot would not be separable from their ability to send signals.

For a more heavy-use case example, I might want to use fueled flamethrowers in an especially "hot" spot for extra damage, since the persistent fire damage of flamethrowers and the stun of land mines go hand in hand. In this case, it's critical that I'm able to detect biters as soon as possible, since land mine supply must be disabled to prevent bots from joining the biters in a firey explodey death. If the flamethrowers could send an alert signal directly this would work, but trying to sense biters using a circuit to the flamethrowers' fuel supply tank would be too unreliable.

[Tekky]

OP's suggestion has already been suggested in the following threads:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=61350 Alien Detector
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=60736 Entity Sensors i.e. detecting bugs before an attack
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=40784 Pressure Plate (and other Dwarf Fortress things)
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=19637 Connecting radars to circuit and logistic networks
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=41805 Sensors and such.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8011 [Electronics] - Sensors

[Theikkru]

Oh my god of course I used the only words that no one else did in my search "biter enemies sense" orz.



......I'm chalking it up to my title being the clearest....

[Koub]

I've seen a mod that "Adds sensor for: Number of near enemy units (biters, spitters, etc)" :
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/FactorIO
I don't know what it really does, but would this suit you @OP ?

[Theikkru]

Sounds about right, I'll check it out. (Still would like to see it in vanilla though.)