Factorio Forums

h.q.droid wrote: Mon Sep 29, 2025 1:49 am I remember biggest strafers out-ranging legendary Tesla. Rockets have enough range but they fly so slowly that strafers tend to get a few shots off before dying. The only rapair-less defense is legendary railgun.
I had my perimeter surrounded by legendary spidertrons armed to the teeth before I had enough with the red warnings and switching to artillery. It's also why I suggested disabling warning for shield-only damage.

I am not convinced, from experience i know you are safe with legendary teslas and their range is indicated at 45 on the wiki which far exceed the 28 at which strafer will shoot at turrets, it's also written they have another attack with a range of 140, but i think this is not the one they use when they attack a wall, that's when they throw a wriggler. Legendary rocket turret can also work against behemoth worm, making them a decent alternate to artillery in nauvis, as their range being 54 versus 48, but 48 > 45 so even legendary tesla can't outrange behemoth worm.

I agree that rocket turret feels "too slow" to effectively prevent attacks on Gleba without some repairs, but you still don't need artillery

h.q.droid wrote: Mon Sep 29, 2025 2:03 am Well, artillery outposts do become viable when artillery covers half the distance or if you put down enough of them to guard the railroad / belt. It's a necessity when Gleba pollution cloud (polynomial scaling) eventually out-ranges legendary artillery (logarithmic scaling). I'd say it's an argument for buffing the range and not nerfing it, though.

If you cover the whole path with artillery protection it doesn't count as an outpost outside your perimeter to me, you just extended your perimeter !

That is an point 'for' moving around artillery shell around though, which I have felt the need to do in space age and used artillery trains for it, i wouldnt argue for buffing or nerfing the range, i think the balance is right on this one, the scaling is good, early game you can't have both the multipying effect of research and quality, that's when you may need to use artillery trains the most to me, late game you have a very strong turret that can offer you peace of mind with minimal effort, but you also have to be careful not to aggro more than you can chew.

I think the argument that it broke anything is not correct.

mmmPI wrote: Mon Sep 29, 2025 2:40 am I am not convinced, from experience i know you are safe with legendary teslas and their range is indicated at 45 on the wiki which far exceed the 28 at which strafer will shoot at turrets, it's also written they have another attack with a range of 140, but i think this is not the one they use when they attack a wall, that's when they throw a wriggler. Legendary rocket turret can also work against behemoth worm, making them a decent alternate to artillery in nauvis, as their range being 54 versus 48, but 48 > 45 so even legendary tesla can't outrange behemoth worm.

I agree that rocket turret feels "too slow" to effectively prevent attacks on Gleba without some repairs, but you still don't need artillery

I meant exactly the bug attack! I just don't feel safe when they keep throwing little bugs at me, even if it bounces off a wall or a shield -_- The did throw bugs at my Tesla during an editor test. But I do agree that artillery isn't strictly needed on Gleba.

I tried legendary rocket turrets on Nauvis too. The problem is, if you want to target expanders, you end up targeting spitters too. With the way Factorio targeting works, when a rocket would have killed a biter, guns would stop shooting it. At high enough evolution (around 0.9?), the delay is enough for a would-be-one-shot-later spitter to score a shot or two at the very turret / spidertron that shot it. So I used to have my perimeter surrounded by rare railguns like a promethium ship.

mmmPI wrote: Mon Sep 29, 2025 2:40 am I think the argument that it broke anything is not correct.

Agreed.

h.q.droid wrote: Mon Sep 29, 2025 3:01 am I meant exactly the bug attack! I just don't feel safe when they keep throwing little bugs at me, even if it bounces off a wall or a shield -_- The did throw bugs at my Tesla during an editor test. But I do agree that artillery isn't strictly needed on Gleba.

Ah ! i use a row of laser turret in front of my teslas to act as target for those, in earlier version the teslas had friendly fire so it caused a few losses, but it's gone now, it's safe !

h.q.droid wrote: Mon Sep 29, 2025 3:01 am I tried legendary rocket turrets on Nauvis too. The problem is, if you want to target expanders, you end up targeting spitters too. With the way Factorio targeting works, when a rocket would have killed a biter, guns would stop shooting it. At high enough evolution (around 0.9?), the delay is enough for a would-be-one-shot-later spitter to score a shot or two at the very turret / spidertron that
shot it. So I used to have my perimeter surrounded by rare railguns like a promethium ship.

Tbh I haven't tried legendary rocket turret for nauvis defense in game, i was only speaking about the range, i infered it would be a safe replacement as you can pack a lot of them and prevent any biters from reaching 50 tiles to your things or something, spitters have shorter range than worms for which artillery are needed.

mmmPI wrote: Mon Sep 29, 2025 4:13 am

h.q.droid wrote: Mon Sep 29, 2025 3:01 am I meant exactly the bug attack! I just don't feel safe when they keep throwing little bugs at me, even if it bounces off a wall or a shield -_- The did throw bugs at my Tesla during an editor test. But I do agree that artillery isn't strictly needed on Gleba.

Ah ! i use a row of laser turret in front of my teslas to act as target for those, in earlier version the teslas had friendly fire so it caused a few losses, but it's gone now, it's safe !

h.q.droid wrote: Mon Sep 29, 2025 3:01 am I tried legendary rocket turrets on Nauvis too. The problem is, if you want to target expanders, you end up targeting spitters too. With the way Factorio targeting works, when a rocket would have killed a biter, guns would stop shooting it. At high enough evolution (around 0.9?), the delay is enough for a would-be-one-shot-later spitter to score a shot or two at the very turret / spidertron that
shot it. So I used to have my perimeter surrounded by rare railguns like a promethium ship.

Tbh I haven't tried legendary rocket turret for nauvis defense in game, i was only speaking about the range, i infered it would be a safe replacement as you can pack a lot of them and prevent any biters from reaching 50 tiles to your things or something, spitters have shorter range than worms for which artillery are needed.

It's a decent idea but the rocket turrets have a minimum range. Doesn't matter: biter land speed is 64.8 kph -> 18 meters per second. You can get off 8-12 rockets at best, so unless you want to spend a million research on it it isn't great on its own.

The thing about the rocket turret is it will draw anything it hits into a cheaper defense. So if you put one out in front of the standard defense biters can't spawn worms 36-48 meters from your walls, because they'll get hit by a normal rocket, and pursue emotional sublimation at the hands of lasers instead of reproduction.
A tesla turret does the same work most of the time.

My solution to Gleba was to ship a therapist over. I've never used artillery in Space Age because it's pathetic beyond it's immediate use of killing demolishers.
Game I'm running now, I may use a train for scouting and accidentally hit a biters nest, but I'm pretty sure I won't actually get the achievement unless I accidentally hit a worm doing that.

coffee-factorio wrote: Mon Sep 29, 2025 11:27 am My solution to Gleba was to ship a therapist over.

Very good !

coffee-factorio wrote: Mon Sep 29, 2025 11:27 am It's a decent idea but the rocket turrets have a minimum range. Doesn't matter: biter land speed is 64.8 kph -> 18 meters per second. You can get off 8-12 rockets at best, so unless you want to spend a million research on it it isn't great on its own.

This seem to show a misunderstanding btw, what you mention here doesn't matter, and not only because you could use several rows of turret to counter the minimum range, but because this is a thread about artillery, and you need them to shoot on stationnary target, the behemoth worms, that's what you need artillery for, since rocket turret outrange behemot worm, they can act as replacement for artillery by preventing any behemot worm to settle just outside the range of your defense.

mmmPI wrote: Mon Sep 29, 2025 1:08 pm

coffee-factorio wrote: Mon Sep 29, 2025 11:27 am It's a decent idea but the rocket turrets have a minimum range. Doesn't matter: biter land speed is 64.8 kph -> 18 meters per second. You can get off 8-12 rockets at best, so unless you want to spend a million research on it it isn't great on its own.

This seem to show a misunderstanding btw, what you mention here doesn't matter, and not only because you could use several rows of turret to counter the minimum range, but because this is a thread about artillery, and you need them to shoot on stationnary target, the behemoth worms, that's what you need artillery for, since rocket turret outrange behemot worm, they can act as replacement for artillery by preventing any behemot worm to settle just outside the range of your defense.

If you're right, then 20 rocket turrets will stop 20 biters. If I'm right then one rocket turret and 20 lasers will stop 20 biters. We're probably both right in that the system makes it so you don't need artillery. My condition holds from... as soon as you can put down a substation of lasers and yours holds from as soon as you can put down 20 biters worth of fatal missiles. So between the two of us, when you get legendary quality onward, artillery is going to get less and less useful as a weapon. At which point...

I mean, the question is compared to just running out a spidertron_q5 with radar q_5 and some solar panels and two thousand rockets, is it better to ship tungsten plates for that purpose?

My point is simple, you just need a turrret that can outrange behemot worm, everyone knows this. This was the case before Space Age and is still the case, nothing is broken.

The point in OP mentionning that half of the fun is to supply artillery shell to outpost outside your perimeter makes no sense to me.

mmmPI wrote: Mon Sep 29, 2025 6:32 pm My point is simple, you just need a turrret that can outrange behemot worm, everyone knows this. This was the case before Space Age and is still the case, nothing is broken.

Technically we have one (legendary rocket turret). It's just super impractical.

crimsonarmy wrote: Tue Sep 30, 2025 11:19 am

mmmPI wrote: Mon Sep 29, 2025 6:32 pm My point is simple, you just need a turrret that can outrange behemot worm, everyone knows this. This was the case before Space Age and is still the case, nothing is broken.

Technically we have one (legendary rocket turret). It's just super impractical.

Technically, in the thread it was mentionned artillery and railguns, so with rocket turret that makes it three, albeit it doesn't contribute in any useful way in the argument presented in the OP to highlight this fact as far as i can see, the claim that artillery balance is broke isn't related to any of this, it appears in the OP based on non-existent facts. And the further discusssion seem to confirm that this thread leads to nowhere