Factorio Forums

RA achieves this fairly well but could be improved further. It's a WIP mod but we are aiming for perfection, are we not? Now is the time q:
Clockworks are good in big numbers due to their long range. Many small or big ones all at once is their weakness. They die very easily but combined with SMGs and terminators their low max health ceases to be a big downside since they rarely get aggro.

Rocketeers are similar to clockworks but hit harder. That makes them good a big targets and supports terminators very well against big ones. Small ones are a waste with all the overkill. Since their rockets have travel time they often target the same enemy even if those are already walking dead natives with an expiration date, unlike laser turrets which co-operate with kills. This means they will waste even more on overkill. They are very effective in small numbers though.

This means that it's quite good to have a small core of rocket droids for long range support. And when you want to increase the DPS of the long range support you add clockworks on top since they scale better with high numbers. Using clockworks only is not recommended with their limited individual DPS. So the combination seems to be the best. In some ways the stupidity of the rocket droids is a bit annoying, but the effect that comboing them with clockworks is a good tactic is a good end result. It might be a good idea to improve targeting behaviour of rocketeers, but in that case come up with other ways of not eliminating clockworks usefullness in the combo. Example: Clockworks could get buffed in range significantly and nerfed slightly in fire rate and max health. This would further cement their long range support role and strength in numbers advantage while making them less effective on thier own. They could also get a small boost in damage per shot as long as they are far from one shotting the bigger natives (more on this later). They could prioritise the biggest enemies they can one-shot first. If they run when something gets within 50% of their range and they run fairly slow and can't shoot when something is closer than 50% of their max range then they could be kept in a state of permanent escape until the natives catch up to them. That would make them very weak without another type of droid that doesn't flee and keeps the natives at a fairly constant distance.

SMG droids are have fairly good DPS in early game. When facing armoured natives with flat damage reduction their low damage per hit with high firerate is not ideal. Short range means they have to get dangerously close, but they are also fairly frail and will draw aggro even with terminators close by. In an army with all kinds the SMG droids are the ones to die first. Clockworks and rocketeers survive as long as terminators are on the frontlines. In early game they are probably good together with clockworks, but once you can to have a few terminators I might just skip SMGs completely.

Terminators are expensive but have high DPS and can take much more punishment. Their firerate is good enough that they can almost hold back a horde of natives on their own even with just a few of them. Since it's just almost, long range support will extend the lifetime of your terminator investment significantly and at low cost. But their fast speed is a bit wasted when they don't try to outrun the biters when those come close.

Maybe terminators roles should be split in two. One bot crafted with shields that has very low range and fairly low damage output but can take a lot of punishment. Maybe with SMG and prio at the smallest targets so the others can focus on the big ones without worrying about their own health. Terminators themselves could have slightly shorter range than spitters (so still fairly long range) so that they can't just outrun those safely and need help from other long range droids or the tanky droid to kill spitters safely if you only have a few terminators. But they should just stay out of range of biters with their high speed and focus their lasers on whatever is closest. With buffed (I think?) range and biter avoidance they should get their health nerfed slightly.

The first bots A can be as useful as the highest tech bot Z at end game and still have balance at early game when you unlock A. That is, if their combination is what makes A and Z powerful and A is weak and cheap on it's own.

The upgrades should keep bot A about as much of a worthwhile investment in your resources in the end game as the early game. If clockworks are weak without another bot that can self heal and soak up the damage then they will be weak until you get another bot to combine them with. And then the combo is an upgrade to clockworks effective strength that the player pays for fair and square.

Terminators being strongest and most expensive is kind of fine though. You won't be able to afford a big force of them for a long time. If you can afford to have an all terminator army then it isn't a problem if it is powerful enough since it is not as material efficient as a mixed army. If you can afford that terminators die sometimes or such a big army that their power is overwhelming it is beyond the point where it is reasonable to balance for. At least for now. A megabase will be able to pump out the strongest droid in numbers so big that it won't matter much if it is cost efficient.

... that might be good on their own but reduces the amount your bots your CPU can handle. Performance is an important feature. Interesting AI behaviour is also very good to have, but if you can't have a lot of them then that reduces the amount you can experience that AI and the way you can combine different types in an army. So far I haven't had any performance problems with RA though.

I can just use 2 of bot B instead. And vice versa if bot A cost less than X times as much as bot B then why would I ever use bot B?

That is another reason to have diverse strengths and weaknesses of different droids, because they are all useful in different ways so you can't determine which is strictly better. And when their combination is bigger than the sum of it's parts then ignoring one type because it is weaker is still a bad move. Though if the combo is good then having one type be better than another (per resource spent building it and not per unit) isn't a always a bad thing. You can have a bot A be 3 times better than bot B even if bot A only costs 2 times more if they synergise so that each bot is twice as effective. A repair bot is a good example. Useless on it's own. And a tank with low self regen but high max health might be an expensive way to keep all your other bots alive. But together they can survive indefinetly and it doesn't matter if a pure bot A army is more powerful than equal amount of resources spent on a bot B army.

If a droid is very weak against biters but very strong against spitters then they will easily be a good combo with the type of droid that has the other ideal enemy type. But don't make it a "spitter damage resistance bonus" or something boring like that. The properties of the droid should dictate this so it's up to the player to discover and analyse wich combos are good. Terminators being outranged by spitters but faster and runs away from biters that are extremely close is a good example. Clockworks outranging spitters while being too slow to outrun biters is the reversal and another good example.