Gun turret size & rotation

[sillyfly]

(I don't know if this is the best forum for this. I even thought about putting it in bug reports . Mods: Please feel free to move it if you find it fits another forum better).

The issue I want to discuss is gun turrets - they have 2x1 size (2 height, 1 width), but when rotating they remain 2x1. This means they are very problematic in blueprints (ssilk-bot: I found your old post about blueprints mentioning this, but it wasn't about the turrets themselves, they were only an example ). It also makes them unique in the world of Factorio - the only other such entity I can think of* are trees, but they are not player-placeable, so it's not a real problem.

What I want to know is - why are they 2x1? Laser turrets are 1x1, with similar sprite size. I understand the graphic may represent something which is taller than 1m (1 tile), but then the top half shouldn't block the upper tile, it would only be an artifact of the perspective.
Another option is that their actual "base" is 2 tiles long - in which case, they should be allowed to rotate to be 1x2. This way most (maybe all?) of the problems of placing them in blueprints will be alleviated.

I personally think they should be changed to be 1x1, just like the laser turrets.
What do you guys think?

(* I realize I may have forgotten a lot of entities If they are relevant to the discussion please remind me!)

[El-Lobo]

Yes, that's a bit annoying. Of course you can make a horizontal and a vertical blueprint for the defenses, but still, annoying... Square footprint should be mandatory for all the buildings. *looking at modmakers* *deathstare at dytechs gem manufacturing chain*

[sillyfly]

I wouldn't go as far as saying buildings must be square, but if a building is not square it should be allowed to rotate it. Having a building with non-square footprint and only one possible orientation doesn't really make sense... or does it?

[El-Lobo]

Yes, you are right. The only thing that springs to my mind is that that would need more sprites for the buildings, i think.

[Marconos]

There is second problem that comes from this that isn't mentioned. Turret density, with the guns in the horizontal position you get a very compact set of turrets that can put out more firepower in the same area. With the vertical orientations you can only get 1/2 the same amount of firepower. On higher difficulties (densities of aliens) this makes gun turret walls not feasible. It really doesn't make sense to me that Gun turrets have shorter range, larger physical size, enormous upkeep costs and infrastructure to support, yet are inferior in virtually every way to laser turrets.

Course that goes back to the laser -vs- gun balance question .....

[Gandalf]

It really doesn't make sense to me that Gun turrets have shorter range, larger physical size, enormous upkeep costs and infrastructure to support, yet are inferior in virtually every way to laser turrets.

Makes perfect sense to me. Laser turrets are simply not available in the early game.

That the 2x1 footprint of gun turrets can't be rotated is indeed annoying and confused me a lot before I understood what's going on.

[pyrolytic_tungsten]

I have a strong dislike for the 1x2 footprint that can't be rotated. I'd be fine with the footprint being rectangular if they were rotatable.

[Cordylus]

I'm sure that it's not intended behaviour, and it's kind of a bug.

The good idea woud be report it.

[bobingabout]

Agreed, non-rotatable 2x1 footprint is highly annoying.

[MeduSalem]

Well I can't believe that this still hasn't been fixed yet.

If they don't want to make it rotate-able then they should change the footprint to be squared/symmetrical so it doesn't matter how it is placed. Wouldn't mind if the Gun Turrets would be 2x2 but have even further increased (doubled?) damage output to make up for that increase in size.

Or better yet make the turrets a modular 2x2 platform/tower with changeable/variable mountings ranging from Machine Guns, Lasers, Rocket Launchers, Flamethrowers, Grenade Launchers, Capsules/Combat Bot Launchers or whatever you want to put on those towers and exploit the possibility for a more diversified defense structure, especially if the enemies develop specific resistances each.



At least it is pretty much annoying when one can't rotate a blueprint containing Gun Turrets. But I find it even more annoying that my N/S defenses are not identical to the E/W defenses because of that issue. ^^

[sillyfly]

Well, they are re-doing them: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... 13&#p63993

I guess we can expect this for 0.12, but kovarex didn't give an exact version when the change will be made...

[bobingabout]

All turrets are 2x2 now in 0.12.x, so this issue is fixed.