Factorio Forums

Fletch wrote: Thu Aug 13, 2026 3:36 pm

Lashas wrote: Wed Aug 12, 2026 8:15 pm Instead it should be replaced with radar being able to track how many bitters/spitters/spawners&worms does it detect.

From that then we could build circuits for any alert we need - e.g. larger increase in spawners/worms - means we have detected new base there.

+1 on that. And when pairing the "counts" from that new radar signal with a programmable speaker, we could control the pitch of the alert based on the number of enemies detected by the radar(s). Radars are currently dumb devices and don't emit any signals -- they are like power poles and can just propagate something else's signals, so having Radars be able to emit signals would be a very welcomed change and opens up the sandbox some more. 2.1.7 allows labs, pipes, boilers, heat exchangers, and heat pipes onto the circuit network -- it would be great if Radars got similar sort of love too!

I personally feel that having a radar be a circuit network signal source as opposed to just a propagator (since universe mode allows it to technically emit a signal, but it is not the source of that signal, it merely passes it along.) is not what I would like. I would rather have a separate building that acts as an enemy detector (I bet a mod has already done this) and can generate a signal based on enemies within a certain range of the building. The radar feels more in line with what a power pole does, even more so now that universe mode signal propagation has been implemented.

I would actually appreciate if there was a new toggle that allows radars to NOT do a wide area scan as I don't want distant chunks from a legendary radar to be loaded and bloat my save files for chunks I do not intend on using. Similar to disabling the new radar behaviour, a slider that changes the number of chunks that are actively visible around the radar would be great because you can place radars in a fine-grained way inside your walls and have them only be viewing chunks inside your base. This would sidestep the alerts altogether while still giving your base coverage.

erectile_pisfunction wrote: Thu Aug 13, 2026 6:03 pm I personally feel that having a radar be a circuit network signal source as opposed to just a propagator (since universe mode allows it to technically emit a signal, but it is not the source of that signal, it merely passes it along.) is not what I would like. I would rather have a separate building that acts as an enemy detector (I bet a mod has already done this) and can generate a signal based on enemies within a certain range of the building. The radar feels more in line with what a power pole does, even more so now that universe mode signal propagation has been implemented.

Found one such mod after a quick search: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/radar-signals

erectile_pisfunction wrote: Thu Aug 13, 2026 6:03 pm fine-grained way inside your walls and have them only be viewing chunks inside your base. This would sidestep the alerts altogether while still giving your base coverage.

That's what roboport do