Factorio Forums

TL;DR
Make turrets able to target asteroid size classes instead of just specific asteroids

What?
Generalized targeting options for asteroid sizes

Why?
I was playing around with making a really good late game (not endgame) spaceship that would last until i could get my hands on railguns, and noticed i was wasting a lot of rockets on targeting the asteroids that normal ammo turrets could easily destroy so i went into targeting on the rocket turrets and noticed there is no "big asteroid" general targeting option. I do not want to prioritize one large asteroid over another since i only want it destroyed and to make the rocket turret not shoot one further away from the base just because it is a specific type of rocket. Could there be made a general "small asteroid" "medium asteroid" "big asteroid" and "huge asteroid" targeting options added? it would make space shooting way way less wasteful.

This seems like a very niche feature, since you can copy-paste the settings to all turrets on the ship. Plus, I think it would be more interesting if the different asteroids had different resistances. Like, carbon asteroids are dark so they could take more laser damage, ice are shiny, etc. (Not to mention, future mods with more asteroid types.)

You could have a circuit cycle between the appropriately sized targets? Or place them in clusters that have slightly different priority orders

AileTheAlien wrote: Wed Nov 13, 2024 8:48 pm This seems like a very niche feature, since you can copy-paste the settings to all turrets on the ship. Plus, I think it would be more interesting if the different asteroids had different resistances. Like, carbon asteroids are dark so they could take more laser damage, ice are shiny, etc. (Not to mention, future mods with more asteroid types.)

the "nichseness" of it you mention i don't see cause what i want to do is have the turrets target big sized asteroids. Currently to do that i have to weave priorities and is just way more annoying than there being a targeting option that is "big asteroids"

I don't understand this request... if you want something to target only medium asteroids, for example, you just set the target filters to all 4 types of medium asteroids and then check "ignore non-filtered targets" or whatever that checkbox is called. does that not meet your needs? if not, how so?

thatspsychotic wrote: Thu Nov 14, 2024 2:44 am I don't understand this request... if you want something to target only medium asteroids, for example, you just set the target filters to all 4 types of medium asteroids and then check "ignore non-filtered targets" or whatever that checkbox is called. does that not meet your needs? if not, how so?

that would mean that if you were to choose the carbonic asteroids as the first one in the list it would target the carbonic first even if there is another medium asteroid that is closer to your space platform than it. If it was "only shoot these types of asteroids" then i could do that but it is priority in not only "shoot these targets" but also in "shoot them in this order"

I can see the theoretical concern, but if this is truly a difference maker, isn't the solution just to add more firepower so that none of the asteroid types get close enough? You'd still achieve your objective of being selective to asteroid size in terms of what you throw ammo at, but you'd consume the same amount of rockets to kill a given set of asteroids regardless of how many turrets are firing those rockets.

Personally i like compact designs, especially for spaceships, the idea of "just add more gun" is not always feasible since that would mean remaking the entire production system to accommodate more guns