Red vs Yellow Ammo in edge case Deathworld scenarios.

[Drakken]

I know the 2.046 red ammo recipe change isn't as big of a deal for most factorio players. But for me, this is game changing.

I just came back to the game after a 9 month hiatus. I was streaming a Maxed out Enemies Deathworld Marathon Desert map from last year where I have run out of iron and failed on the map multiple times. (And I failed again...) Then a viewer asked in chat if I switched over to red ammo now that the recipe had been changed.?! What, what, what?! I had to stop streaming. I needed to know what this change was!

Red ammo was always fools gold on deathworld maps in the past. Piercing ammo increased costs: pollution (making more biters) plus extra resource costs often created a death spiral that would use up all of the iron in your starting patch pronto. This is especially true on desert/no forest maps with little to no pollution absorption.

Info most already know: Piercing ammo is most beneficial vs biters and then only after they have evolved to Medium or larger. This is because evolved biters get a flat number phys resist and percentage phys resist. For spitters yellow ammo is almost always more cost effective. However, the red ammo does kill ALL bugs faster as well, thus reducing the damage defenses might take.

After doing the math, red ammo now looks to be very well balanced vs yellow. Way to go Wube! I have to make an actual decision on what to use. I love added strategic depth!

Better yet, it seems the change remains relatively balanced as you progress through the Physical Projectile Damage (PPD) "techs" and as biters evolve. As the biters evolve the red ammo proves to be much better. However, as you progress through the techs the advantage red ammo has over yellow actually decreases based upon percentages.

Below is a damage chart for yellow and red ammo inside turrets vs Medium (4 flat phys resist), Large (8), and Behemoth Biters (12)



Once you get this far down the tech tree the bugs are usually no longer an existential threat (without mods) no matter how hard you set up a map.

At 30 ammo/min
Yellow ammo needs 4 miners, 3.2 furnaces, and 1 assembler.
Red ammo requires 7.5 miners, 8 furnaces, and 4 assemblers. This creates approximately 2.17 times the pollution of the yellow ammo.

Analysis: The Red Piercing ammo takes more space and a little more than double the infrastructure investment to create. That is short term costs. It also costs about 62% more iron, 2 extra copper, and creates 2.17 times the amount of pollution from miners, furnaces, and assembly machines.

Early on in the game as medium and large biters appear, red ammo does 4 or more times the damage vs yellow ammo. However, as you tech up this drops to less than double. Considering the 2.17 times pollution, the red ammo needs to do that much extra to be worthwhile, and it is some of the time. With spitters yellow ammo is clearly more efficient.

Calculating out exactly which ammo is best is practically impossible. It would depend on the ratio of biters vs spitters, how evolved the bugs are, how crucial it is to kill the bugs faster, tech levels, and availability of resources. I could easily make arguments for either ammo in different scenarios. Once again well played Wube!

For myself considering the extreme nature in which I play the game, I am considering using both ammo types to defend my base. It will be a pain to set up properly, but I think filling every other gun with normal/piercing ammo would be the best case scenario. I would set up the turrets with yellow ammo to kill first spitters, and then move on to small biters. I would set up the red ammo to fire at the biggest biters first down to the smallest and then move on to the spitters.

However, when I am on the offense, doing turret creep to try and destroy the giant nests I encounter, I think that I will go with all red ammo now that it is viable to use.

Now that red ammo is viable, I am thinking of doing a challenge where I ban the use of flamethrowers. (I already do the no laser/no solar challenge) Even though I always make oil difficult to expand to on my maps, once I obtain it, the challenge is over. Flamethrower turrets are OP IMHO. Perhaps the developers could balance them better as well?

Now I need to adjust my early game factory to make more red ammo and steel to supply it.

What say you? Did this change affect your game play?

Edit: Updated table with correct numbers

[Stargateur]

I said many time red ammo was too expensive, this buff was well deserved. To me the problem of yellow ammo becoming better with more research is link to the way the game balance damage. Maybe it's time we stop having tech the buff damage like crazy and have fixed damage value. Combat in the game may need a big rework IMO. Also, funny I did this before saw your thread viewtopic.php?t=130297

For gameplay change, since most my run are not deathworld, I think red ammo are now completely okay to use. The iron cost is still high I would prefer red ammo only need copper and not steel. like yellow magazine + 4 copper. Maybe the recipe of red ammo could be changed again to like 4 yellow + 1 steel + 4 coppers that would reduce again the iron cost.

For your specific problem you could only use red ammo for medium bitter with the new feature of turret filtering. Only target the enemy that deserve red ammo with turret fill with red ammo and target the rest with yellow ammo. And with better tech damage you could even remove medium bitter from red ammo and only target big bitter.

[Shirasik]

What say you?

I can't understand if you talking about early balance (you told about early factory setup) or about mid-to-late balance (you told about repeatable weapon damage techs).
In early game turrets are just bug attractors giving you time to move over and kill bugs with grenades.
Since mid game laser turrets are much more beneficial than gun turrets for picky targeting on Nauvis because laser turrets has longer aim distance, Nauvis' bugs has no resistance against lasers and laser turrets require zero logistic to supply them. Being mixed with solar power supply laser turrets has zero pollution after initial pollution cost for production.
Not to mention well known efficiency of flamethrower turrets against packs of bugs.
I have no idea why you consider gun turrets as a viable option for long-term defence on Nauvis.

[Drakken]

I can't understand if you talking about early balance (you told about early factory setup) or about mid-to-late balance (you told about repeatable weapon damage techs).
In early game turrets are just bug attractors giving you time to move over and kill bugs with grenades.
Since mid game laser turrets are much more beneficial than gun turrets for picky targeting on Nauvis because laser turrets has longer aim distance, Nauvis' bugs has no resistance against lasers and laser turrets require zero logistic to supply them. Being mixed with solar power supply laser turrets has zero pollution after initial pollution cost for production.
Not to mention well known efficiency of flamethrower turrets against packs of bugs.
I have no idea why you consider gun turrets as a viable option for long-term defence on Nauvis.

I agree 100% Shirasik. Laser towers, and Solar power are no brainers. However, I mentioned that I play without them to up the difficulty. I also get the "steam all the way" and "raining bullets" achievements. I am considering playing with no flamethrowers either because they are OP as hell as well. I didn't mention it before, but I also do not play with any bots whatsoever. I have to build/repair literally everything manually while dealing with insane biter settings.

Hence the name of the title of this thread. Edge Case Deathworld Scenarios.

I like the game to be an extreme challenge. Not in terms of building a factory, that was a challenge back when I started playing. However, once you have good designs for your factory, what is next? For me, it is pushing the boundaries of playability on maps most people think are nutty. And perhaps they are right?!

This is the current map I have lost on several times. However, now that red ammo is better balanced. I think perhaps, I can win?



If you want to see how a scenario like this plays out. Below is my youtube channel. The 1st episode in every series shows the map settings, biter settings, and the ground rules I use for making sure the map is hard but hopefully not impossible.

Please note: I can get pretty salty when I am dying over and over again. Not recommended viewing for kids or people who abhor expletives and obscenities.

https://www.youtube.com/@ragequitgaming8937

[Nidan]

Yellow ammo seems to be more cost efficient for the majority of the cases. There are few cases where red ammo is vastly superior, namely when red ammo exceeds the flat reduction but yellow does not. For example, against big biters at physical projectile damage 2 red ammo is a 880% improvement over yellow ammo (125 vs 1225 shots), dropping to 328% resp. 156% improvement with the next two research levels. Similarly, against behemoth biters there's a 1444%, 917% resp. 231% improvement at physical projectile damage 3, 4 and 5. Considering the number of bullets it take to kill a single biter at those research levels, I doubt keeping the physical projectile damage research low is a viable strategy (, but I don't play Deathworld). As damage research increases the benefit of red ammo approaches the nominal 60% improvement.
(I'm using damage bonuses from space-age (non space-age 2.0 differs at physical projectile damage 6 and later), the damage table in the OP is wrong.)

Now looking at the cost: Two yellow ammo cost 8 iron and 2 seconds crafting time. Two red ammo add an extra 2 copper, 1 steel and 6 seconds. That's a 87.5% increase in ore consumption and mining time/energy/pollution, a 150% increase in smelting time/energy/pollution, and a 300% increase in assembler time/energy/pollution. (Using steel smelting productivity (whether from research, foundries or (if you must) modules) will change the mining and smelting costs.)

Overall, I'd say stick with yellow ammo and use something else to avoid putting tens of magazines into behemoth biters.

[Drakken]

Yellow ammo seems to be more cost efficient for the majority of the cases. There are few cases where red ammo is vastly superior, namely when red ammo exceeds the flat reduction but yellow does not. For example, against big biters at physical projectile damage 2 red ammo is a 885% improvement over yellow ammo (112 vs 1103 shots), dropping to 321% resp. 159% improvement with the next two research levels. Similarly, against behemoth biters there's a 1446%, 916% resp. 230% improvement at physical projectile damage 3, 4 and 5. Considering the number of bullets it take to kill a single biter at those research levels, I doubt keeping the physical projectile damage research low is a viable strategy (, but I don't play Deathworld). As damage research increases the benefit of red ammo approaches the nominal 60% improvement.
(I'm using damage bonuses from space-age (non space-age 2.0 differs at physical projectile damage 6 and later), the damage table in the OP is wrong.)

Now looking at the cost: Two yellow ammo cost 8 iron and 2 seconds crafting time. Two red ammo add an extra 2 copper, 1 steel and 6 seconds. That's a 87.5% increase in ore consumption and mining time/energy/pollution, a 150% increase in smelting time/energy/pollution, and a 300% increase in assembler time/energy/pollution. (Using steel smelting productivity (whether from research, foundries or (if you must) modules) will change the mining and smelting costs.)

Overall, I'd say stick with yellow ammo and use something else to avoid putting tens of magazines into behemoth biters.

Thanks for the response, advice, and the spreadsheet.

After all of these years, I always thought both bullet and turret damage upgrades were based off of the base damage making them additive and not multiplicative. My bad for sure. Surprisingly this is only mentioned on the wiki page describing turrets and is not included on the Ammo or the Physical projectile damage page. Weird! I also didn't notice space age changed techs 6 and beyond. Thanks for letting me know about that.

I want to let you know, the database you shared is also wrong because it is not taking the 10% physical resistance from medium, large, and behemoth biters off of the damage.

I will fix my original chart with the new numbers.

As for yellow ammo being the best bet. When I am playing, the majority of ammo gets used when I go on the offensive and try to expand. It is not the "pollution" biters that eat up all of my iron. It is the "free" base biters that get aggravated as I approach and attack. This tends to happen after I have protected my base and I desperately need to get to a second source of iron. I make certain I can't get oil before this point as that would make the map too easy. My starting iron will usually get me through tech 3-4 PPD. In Marathon mode this is usually between 5-8 hours into the game. With the Deathworld setting, this is exactly when medium biters are numerous. After I destroy a bunch of nests, boosting evolution a lot, large biters start to spawn. This is exactly the evolution and tech level that makes the red ammo so desirable.

It is just up until now Piercing Ammo was WAY too expensive. Which is why I am excited!

Edit: if you update that spreadsheet to show the numbers including the 10% physical resistance the biters have, I would love to have it!

[Nidan]

if you update that spreadsheet to show the numbers including the 10% physical resistance the biters have, I would love to have it!

The result of the IF inside the damage after resistance cells should be multiplied with (1 - percentage resistance). Fixing it for one set and copying it over to the rest will do the right thing. (The sheet is designed for easy expansion by just copy-pasting another set of rows or columns.)
I'll see if I can sneak that in during work, otherwise the fix will have to wait for tonight.
Edit: updated spreadsheet

[Shirasik]

https://www.youtube.com/@ragequitgaming8937

Do you waste that many ammo intentionally?

When spawner absorbs pollution it puts absorbed amount into buffer. When spawner births another bug it don't subtract pollution immediately: pollution will be subtracted from buffer when and only IF most recent bug has joined "attack party". In other words absorbed pollution don't go anywhere from buffer if hive is considered under attack that is the case if fight is happening nearby. Add to that what spawners just spawning bugs periodically if there is not enough bugs nearby. So if you set up turrets close enough to hive to make bugs permanently aggressive then you simply getting endless stream of bugs which is not a result of pollution AND buffered pollution will be used to trigger nearly immediate attack if you retreat.

If that is the part of your edgecase then ok.

[Drakken]

https://www.youtube.com/@ragequitgaming8937

Do you waste that many ammo intentionally?

When spawner absorbs pollution it puts absorbed amount into buffer. When spawner births another bug it don't subtract pollution immediately: pollution will be subtracted from buffer when and only IF most recent bug has joined "attack party". In other words absorbed pollution don't go anywhere from buffer if hive is considered under attack that is the case if fight is happening nearby. Add to that what spawners just spawning bugs periodically if there is not enough bugs nearby. So if you set up turrets close enough to hive to make bugs permanently aggressive then you simply getting endless stream of bugs which is not a result of pollution AND buffered pollution will be used to trigger nearly immediate attack if you retreat.

If that is the part of your edgecase then ok.

I may be confused about your post?

I am not wasting ammo intentionally. I am trying to clear nests so that I can get the resources that are nearby? And usually I am attacking far enough away from my main base that those nests are only absorbing a small amount of pollution. It is the base biters that are replenished for free that eat up all of the ammo, because they spawn so quickly and without absorbing any pollution at all.

If you know of a better way to clear large groups of nests before oil, I would love to know.

[Shirasik]

It is the base biters that are replenished for free that eat up all of the ammo, because they spawn so quickly and without absorbing any pollution at all.

Every free biter = wasted ammo. Some is unavoidable ofc. Some.

If you know of a better way to clear large groups of nests before oil, I would love to know.

Turret creep.
Fill your pockets with ammo and a couple of dozens of turrets. Move forward couple steps, place a bunch of turrets, pick ammo "into hands", hold Z and LMB, mouse over turrets, repeat.
You will have two "rows" of turrets: front and back. Front turrets is the turrets that can reach spawners. Such turrets will persistently shoot spawners. Back turrets can't reach any spawners so they will pick every bug which moved close enough to turrets and you. When every front turret have cleared all reachable spawners, move forward immediately. Pick up back turrets that are too far from frontline.
Grenades are still essential, use them as usual.
To keep track of ammo remaining, place it into quick access slot. Same with grenades. Retreat if you running out of ammo. Restock and repeat.
In the essence you setting up turrets, loading them and letting them to shoot while you distracting worms and tossing grenades into thick areas.
The point is to destroy spawners ASAP since you stepped into aggro radius of a given hive.

[mmmPI]

I am not wasting ammo intentionally. I am trying to clear nests so that I can get the resources that are nearby? And usually I am attacking far enough away from my main base that those nests are only absorbing a small amount of pollution. It is the base biters that are replenished for free that eat up all of the ammo, because they spawn so quickly and without absorbing any pollution at all.

Maybe not intentionnally, but when looking at the video, i think you hinted at this but not too sure you fully identified the thing. As Shirasik said there is a distance to some nest at which if you build turrets they will be "aggroed" and biters spawning will attack immediatly ( not necessarily pollution related) , but if you are a little further away than this distance, they have a different behavior, the classic one, where they spawn with pollution and gather in groups before launching an attack.

I think too, that many of trouble you encountered in the linked clip are related, like if you were to slowly remove a bandage on hairy skin, instead of taking it off in one hit like for wax epilation. The turrets at some point are at a range that cause a big group of nest to be aggroed. It's not a situation that you want prolonged.

The point is to destroy spawners ASAP since you stepped into aggro radius of a given hive.

This ! don't just exert pressure on the bandage, either remove it entirely , or avoid it being tangled in something.
Not saying that is easy though, given the density of nests, it may be difficult to spot the area that is in the aggro zone of a certain cluster and the limit at which another cluster start.

Anyway, i like the analysis of the comparative costs for the diferent ammos, i am not used to play such hard settings, and not with such self-imposed challenge. To me the rebalance of red ammos didn't fundamentaly change the way i play. I'm still the lazy player that will favor researching a few damage research upgrade instead of using red ammo when i can, i feel like "i have to" use red ammo for the reason that they require less turret to kill biters, that another kind of lazy, i found easier to upgrade from yellow to red than adds several rows of turrets when you have already a large base.

[Drakken]

I have tried turret creep on maps like this in the past. It always failed me because my reflexes are not what they were 40 years ago. The number of biters, spitters, and worms in these nests end up killing a lot of guns and the ammo with them. I truly wish there was a command for inserting 10 ammo and no more. Adding ammo by the swipe over the entity method is unreliable at best.

Using turret creep, I made less progress than I did extending my defensive line and using grenades. However, I died a little less often because the guns were the target for most of the bugs.

I could give it another go and see how turret creep works?

Feedback on the red ammo. I have set my perimeter defenses to use only red ammo on medium or larger biters. I let the yellow ammo be used to take down spitters and small biters.

On the offensive, I am going to just use red ammo at tech 3 phys projectile damage upgrade. I am just at about the point of trying to expand, so I will see how this new strategy works out.

[mmmPI]

I truly wish there was a command for inserting 10 ammo and no more. Adding ammo by the swipe over the entity method is unreliable at best.

Sounds like this mod would help : https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Fill4Me ( autofill turrets with some ammo when built) But maybe too good it's like cheating ?

There are others to spread evenly the ammo over a lane of turret too like this : https://mods.factorio.com/mod/even-distribution ( to make the swipe reliable).

From your words the benefit of red ammo seem to be that it would maximize the damage output per "human action", every single click you make would have "more value" if you use red ammo, it would help no be overwhelm or provide time for other thing. Not sure how the extra pollution cost offset it, but for turret creep in particular, red ammo makes the job much easier and yellow ammo can stay on belts for cheap defense in the meantime, that sound like a good strat