[MOD 0.11.6][WIP] Better Turrets - alpha 0.0.3

[psychobarge]

Hi guys i present here my first mod . it is still a WIP but you can try and download it

BETTER TURRETS

The mod tries to re-balance the way turrets are used and especially the way ammunition are built, packaged and delivered to turrets because to my point of view, this part of the game not as complex as it should be. It tries to do so with realism.
With this mod installed, the player now have to pay more attention to his ammunition-building factories to set up his defenses.
I don't plan to modify a lot of existing things in the game except the turrets and ammunition management. (I won't add any new biters for example).

BetterTurrets_alpha_0.0.3

Changelog

0.0.3 :
- Added an option in config.lua to start a new game with extended inventory (default false)
- Reduced wolframite hardness
- Change HP of all turrets
- Change inventory size of all turrets
- Reduced 7.62 mm turret range
- Reduced 30 mm turret folding and rotation speed
- Increased 100 mm turret cooldown and range
- Changes turrets projectiles creation distance (visual)
- Removed gun-turrets and laser damage upgrade technologies
- Removed bullet-damage and bullet-speed upgrade technologies
- Removed laser-turret speed upgrade technologies
0.0.2 :
- Change .45 machinegun range from 25 to 30
- Change .45 pistol movement_slow_down_factor from 0.7 to 0.1
- Change 100 mm turret recipe ingredients from 1 processing unit to 15 advanced circuits
- Added Dytech metallurgy resources compatibility
0.0.1 :
- Initial Alpha release

Added at the time being:
- New types of projectile based turrets classed by caliber (7.62mm, 30 mm, 100mm) each one of these have very different range, rate of fire, turning rate.
- A whole lot of types of ammunitions based on real things (HEDP, HEI, HEAT, KE, etc...)
- I've disabled my over-complicated way of producing ammunition and will focus on balancing turrets (and make better sprites)
- Now it is not as much complicated :
raw materials = 7.62 mm cartridge box (not usable as it is in a turret).
200 7.62 mm cartridges (8 boxes) + empty ammo can = 7.62 mm ammo can (this one is usable in a turret)
- New models and animation for each type of turrets (See screenshots below)
- New effects and explosions. (BOOMS !)
- New types of factory (ammunition making and ammunition packaging factory) also with their own models and animations.
- New hand weapons and ammunitions (.45 caliber) not a whole lot, just a few but much more realistic than the vanilla ones)
- A new Ore (wolframite) and its (simple) refining process to make tungsten carbides from tungsten, it is used to make some of the best ammunitions.
- New technologies to match all of this.

Planned before launch :
- Balancing is in its way ! but i need to make more

Planned after launch :
- New types of turrets (1 fore the moment, maybe more).
- Better icons/sprites
- Big mods compatibility (i'll use my own version of tungsten or the one of the mod that adds it)
- Adding a few things i have in mind...

Screenshots

Left to right : 100mm turret, 30mm autocannon turret, 7.62 mm gatling turret

turrets.jpg (198.1 KiB) Viewed 18440 times

The fabrication of tungsten carbide from coal/tungsten bars and water - and packaging of 7.62mm piercing rounds (icones are WIP)
This type of cartridges is the only one that requires a non-vanilla material.

tungsten cartridges2.jpg (535.25 KiB) Viewed 18046 times

The purpose of this mod is not to provide new over-powered-super-turrets. (100 mm turrets are very powerful but slow to aim and have a very long reloading time)
Following this logic, it will probably remove laser turrets in the future or find a way to make them less cheaty.

[kyranzor]

Looks cool mate, I like the look of the turrets too.

Honestly it already takes A LOT of effort to set up auto-reloaded turret defences, often requiring localized ammo manufacturing to make it useful. The thing the game really needs is just better turrets, especially ones with longer range that can kill the medium and large spitters that currently out-range the normal gun turrets, and only laser turrets can hit them. Your turrets should fix that, but don't overly complicate this ammo production process too much!

Perhaps make the ammo cheap in terms of materials. For example, a bullet is actually very small and cheap on metal to make. One metal plate should make MANY bullets in Factorio. Obviously 100mm ammo maybe 1 metal plate only makes 2-3 bullet heads.

[psychobarge]

Thanks ! i started from 0 on blender 3 weeks ago to learn how to make correct sprites...

Your turrets should fix that

Yes i want it to fix that. The big 100mm turret for example will be able to kill a medium biter in one shot with its best ammunition or at least to severly damage it with a lesser one. But this come at a price of a long reloading time and a costly ammunition.

A small 7.62mm turret fires extremely fast and can take out small biters very quickly but it consumes a lot of cheaper ammunitions. As you said a simple iron plate will provide a lot of small caliber cartridges but a 100mm shell requires more raw material.

[Degraine]

I look forward to this. It's been an awfully long time since Yuri's Revenge and gatling turrets, or the Arm Guardian back in Total Annihilation's day.

[psychobarge]

You got it ! i made the 100 mm turret thinking about the guardian and the punisher ! not the look but the feeling, a big boom turret !

I am currently folowing the kind advises of Kyranzor, i won't make ammunition creation as complicated as i first intended.
I also have to change things about compatibility with dytech and bobmod because i want to add tungten.

[kyranzor]

You got it ! i made the 100 mm turret thinking about the guardian and the punisher ! not the look but the feeling, a big boom turret !

I am currently folowing the kind advises of Kyranzor, i won't make ammunition creation as complicated as i first intended.
I also have to change things about compatibility with dytech and bobmod because i want to add tungten.

Tungsten bullets is a good idea! In bobs mods (bobores) you can make "tungsten carbide" which is used in real life to make armour-piercing rounds (bullets and tank shells).

I think Dytech has tungsten as well?

The other thing you might be able to do is use the Uranium ore and "nuclear waste" from MoPower mod to make "Depleted Uranium" bullets which are VERY good armour piercing, and should go past all the defence of the "big Biter" which are normally immune to bullets.

I look forward to using your mod, please make it faster!

[psychobarge]

I also added tungsten carbides (see the outdated screenshot),I added wolframite ore, raw tungsten and tungsten carbides and a third "material processing" technology to refine all of it. So if the player does not have bobores or dythech metalurgy, tungsten is still present.
however my mod is not yet compatible with bobores and dytech i still have to deactivate these things and others if these mods are installed.

The other thing you might be able to do is use the Uranium ore and "nuclear waste" from MoPower mod to make "Depleted Uranium" bullets which are VERY good armour piercing, and should go past all the defence of the "big Biter" which are normally immune to bullets.

Its a very good idea ! i have thought of it but i don't want to add dependancies to the mod yet, only support for other mods... but i may do it after the first release.
I could add depleted uranium and tungten ammunition : in real life depleted uranium are sighlty better than tungsten ones but tungten is way cheaper... i could implement this factor in the mod too.

I look forward to using your mod, please make it faster!

You can try it ! i've posted an alpha version

[kyranzor]

I also added tungsten carbides (see the outdated screenshot),I added wolframite ore, raw tungsten and tungsten carbides and a third "material processing" technology to refine all of it. So if the player does not have bobores or dythech metalurgy, tungsten is still present.
however my mod is not yet compatible with bobores and dytech i still have to deactivate these things and others if these mods are installed.

The other thing you might be able to do is use the Uranium ore and "nuclear waste" from MoPower mod to make "Depleted Uranium" bullets which are VERY good armour piercing, and should go past all the defence of the "big Biter" which are normally immune to bullets.

Its a very good idea ! i have thought of it but i don't want to add dependancies to the mod yet, only support for other mods... but i may do it after the first release.
I could add depleted uranium and tungten ammunition : in real life depleted uranium are sighlty better than tungsten ones but tungten is way cheaper... i could implement this factor in the mod too.

I look forward to using your mod, please make it faster!

You can try it ! i've posted an alpha version

Awesome, gonna try it out now!

[Degraine]

I wish I could try it out now but my laptop can't handle Factorio (or Steam for that matter) without crashing. Linux is good, but not good enough, it seems. Can't test and bugfix the next version of my mod either. Guess I'll have to wait...

I used to play with the Uberhack (not sure you can even find it these days, most of the old TA unit/map sites have closed down...) mod for TA which added a smaller gatling plasma turret. I'd play Delta-class Fortresses vs. a bunch of CPU players with nukes turned off, just for that awesome feeling of fighting off hundreds of invading units with all the towers I could build.

[kyranzor]

I wish I could try it out now but my laptop can't handle Factorio (or Steam for that matter) without crashing. Linux is good, but not good enough, it seems. Can't test and bugfix the next version of my mod either. Guess I'll have to wait...

I used to play with the Uberhack (not sure you can even find it these days, most of the old TA unit/map sites have closed down...) mod for TA which added a smaller gatling plasma turret. I'd play Delta-class Fortresses vs. a bunch of CPU players with nukes turned off, just for that awesome feeling of fighting off hundreds of invading units with all the towers I could build.

Ahh, good old TA. It seems 90% of the factorio players know of TA. This is good.

As for the turret mod, I like the 6-shooter revolver starting pistol

I was playing around investigating stuff related to Negative Root's "lean machine" style of gameplay he has just started on youtube. So I did not actually get to the stage of producing my first gatling turret and .45 UMP SMG. The guns and graphics and balancing seems pretty good though, but I am worried that the 100mm cannon needs Processing Units to build it. Surely it can just cost lots of advanced circuits!?

[psychobarge]

Ahh, good old TA. It seems 90% of the factorio players know of TA. This is good.

As for the turret mod, I like the 6-shooter revolver starting pistol

I was playing around investigating stuff related to Negative Root's "lean machine" style of gameplay he has just started on youtube. So I did not actually get to the stage of producing my first gatling turret and .45 UMP SMG. The guns and graphics and balancing seems pretty good though, but I am worried that the 100mm cannon needs Processing Units to build it. Surely it can just cost lots of advanced circuits!?

Thanks A LOT for giving feedback !

About the .45 revolver gun, I wanted to get rid of the unrealistic hyper fast shooting and useless gun of vanilla factorio... This one fires slowly but is MUCH powerful and can be used to defend yourself effectively. I'm planning also to get rid of the slowdown running effect when firing this gun.

About the 100 mm turret i'm not sure yet about the recipe, i have to try and play my mod to decide. For now 100 mm turrets are the best available but i plan to add an other turret.
This last one will surely have Processing Units in its recipe. (it will be much slow to shoot/turn, its ammunition a lot more costly, but the range will be longer) And then the 100 mm could cost only advanced circuits.

[kyranzor]

Ahh, good old TA. It seems 90% of the factorio players know of TA. This is good.

As for the turret mod, I like the 6-shooter revolver starting pistol

I was playing around investigating stuff related to Negative Root's "lean machine" style of gameplay he has just started on youtube. So I did not actually get to the stage of producing my first gatling turret and .45 UMP SMG. The guns and graphics and balancing seems pretty good though, but I am worried that the 100mm cannon needs Processing Units to build it. Surely it can just cost lots of advanced circuits!?

Thanks A LOT for giving feedback !

About the .45 revolver gun, I wanted to get rid of the unrealistic hyper fast shooting and useless gun of vanilla factorio... This one fires slowly but is MUCH powerful and can be used to defend yourself effectively. I'm planning also to get rid of the slowdown running effect when firing this gun.

About the 100 mm turret i'm not sure yet about the recipe, i have to try and play my mod to decide. For now 100 mm turrets are the best available but i plan to add an other turret.
This last one will surely have Processing Units in its recipe. (it will be much slow to shoot/turn, its ammunition a lot more costly, but the range will be longer) And then the 100 mm could cost only advanced circuits.

Okay, cool. Well I will try to get more done and build some turrets and more personal weapons and get back to you.

[kyranzor]

Okay I made the .45 SMG (the one which looks like the UMP), and some ammo factories, and produced some box ammo for my gatling turrets. I have not been attacked by the biters yet, so to test the turrets I took them over to a biter base. The gatling turrets are pretty good, but it seems maybe their "2" damage is not quite enough... I suppose it is, for small biters only and not too many - and expecting you to have walls and more than one turret nearby.

The .45 SMG was pretty good, but the range seemed a little low. one tile, maybe two extra would make it better. it was okay otherwise (just a really fast firing revolver in terms of stats)

I look forward to testing more of your turrets as I continue with my factory!

I really like the sounds, the animations, the models/sprites of the ammo factory and the turrets. Good work@

[psychobarge]

Okay I made the .45 SMG (the one which looks like the UMP), and some ammo factories, and produced some box ammo for my gatling turrets. I have not been attacked by the biters yet, so to test the turrets I took them over to a biter base. The gatling turrets are pretty good, but it seems maybe their "2" damage is not quite enough... I suppose it is, for small biters only and not too many - and expecting you to have walls and more than one turret nearby.

The .45 SMG was pretty good, but the range seemed a little low. one tile, maybe two extra would make it better. it was okay otherwise (just a really fast firing revolver in terms of stats)

I look forward to testing more of your turrets as I continue with my factory!

I really like the sounds, the animations, the models/sprites of the ammo factory and the turrets. Good work@

Thanks ! i'll look to make some changes according to your feedback.

[kyranzor]

I got the new version, still testing. Some things i've noticed:

1. The turrets do not benefit from the "turret damage upgrade" which I think they should.

2. The 7.62mm gatling turret has less health/HP than the standard turret, but costs a lot more in resources to build it

3. The 7.62mm gatling turret can only hold 1 box of ammo at a time. For convenience, it would be very good if it can hold 2 boxes. This is for fast change over in the middle of battle, and the inserters and belts can move around new ammo slowly after the battle and reload all the turrets. It also means if you have a low magazine box, you have to take it out manually and put in a new one (which I am doing a lot, with my new base and I have not got automatic re-loading in yet - I'm still building walls! )

4. The .45 SMG maybe does not benefit from the shooting speed/damage research upgrades?


I like the middle stage "jacketed" rounds upgrades and newer recipes, they are fair and good (and double damage! from 2 damage to 4 is good! and Tungsten carbide rounds at 6 damage which with the small gatling turret this will be good.)

One question - Are the Gatling turrets exactly the same size (x and y pixels) as the normal gun turret? Or are they bigger? This is cause for more HP as well, you can fit less of them in 1 small area lol. I think they are more like a square, which is better than the normal gun turret which seems tall/long only in 1 direction.

Will you be making an assault rifle? Maybe a G36?

[psychobarge]

Wow thats a lot of things !

First thing, about turrets upgrades and weapons speed upgrades etc, i don't want tu use it because it is so unrealistic... i have in mind to have upgrades via better ammunitions for turrets (keep in mind that the depleted uranium round are not there yet ) and an other tier of personnal weapon better weapons : G36 is not a bad idea at all ! its still .45 caliber

Also i may have find an other way to replace the turrets damage upgrades with something more realistic and fun...

I'll look to fix the HP of turrets and the inventory thing thx ! i'm glad you're here to start a game from scratch with my mod, it helps a lot

One question - Are the Gatling turrets exactly the same size (x and y pixels) as the normal gun turret? Or are they bigger? This is cause for more HP as well, you can fit less of them in 1 small area lol. I think they are more like a square, which is better than the normal gun turret which seems tall/long only in 1 direction.

The minigun turret is biger than the vanilla gun turret and yes it is a square, this is part because of the reason you said : i dont want to be able to spam an area with turrets.

[kyranzor]

that is okay if you do not want turret upgrades to count, you are right they are unrealistic.

G36 uses 5.56mm is 0.218898 inch, or 0.22 calibre. 9mm is 0.354 calibre, and 12.7mm is the big-ass .50 calibre sniper rifle and HMG ammunition. 0.45 calibre is around 11.45mm, which if you think about it, is pretty big!

Soon my factory will have oil industry and some blue science working and I can check out the 30mm autocannons!

Keep modding you are doing great!

[starholme]

You mentioned wanting a way to nerf lasers in some way, to make them fit better with your turrets.

Have you considered making them work similar to your gatling turret? High rate of fire, low range. Keep the default damage(or similar). Give them an internal energy storage good for a handful of shots, but limit the recharge rate to about 1 shot every 5 seconds. This would keep them useful as a niche item, but not as over powered.

Just something to think about if you have not already

[Zach123]

HI!,psychobarge
I have a little issue, I really want to try your mod(I know its early in dev) I keep getting an error, I wonder if its on my end or your's.(probable too many mods, conflicting or something. The error reads Files/Factorio\data\graphics/entity/explosion-particle/explosion-particle-05-shadow.png:No such file or directory. Im cur running on 11.6. Thanks for a reply, prob a newb problem but your mod seems neat!

[kyranzor]

HI!,psychobarge
I have a little issue, I really want to try your mod(I know its early in dev) I keep getting an error, I wonder if its on my end or your's.(probable too many mods, conflicting or something. The error reads Files/Factorio\data\graphics/entity/explosion-particle/explosion-particle-05-shadow.png:No such file or directory. Im cur running on 11.6. Thanks for a reply, prob a newb problem but your mod seems neat!

it's your problem. Update factorio. you will need 11.7 or 11.8 for it to work. The developers added new car models and new explosion art, which psychobarge's mod makes use of.