Auto ammo Maker

[Chief Smackahoe]

I finally made an auto ammo maker and it doesn't do anything. What am I missing?

[nzmountainclimber]

1) Waiting 45 seconds
2) Turning in on
3) Turning it on when you have 100 Materials

You should see a green rotating light when it's working.

[Chief Smackahoe]

Where does the ammo can go?

[sintri]

plops more or less in the same peg it's hovering over. Toggling probably resets the 45 second timer, so pretty much just turn it on and leave it.

[kknd]

Originally posted by Chief Smackahoe:

Where does the ammo can go?

The ammo box falls out next to the hatch that opens. A set of them with a conveyor belt below (I tend to triple up on them to fill the squares.) can pile up ammo boxes in a neat little box formed of 3 barriers. Switch 'em on, periodically go get ammo to fill things up. The truly advanced thing is to have a belt network that passes through the grab area of all your Advanced Autoloaders and forms a circuit. That's basically full automation right there. Throw in some shell makers and AA's to load the artillery and you could theoretically go afk while it fights for you.

[CheckYourSix]

Yah, I find it best to stick a couple of utility walls on either side of the pick up area of an advanced auto loader. Just let them drop and pile up in there as needed. I prefer that method over the conveyor belt as the belts just eat at performance. Too many belts you'll have a slide show once a lot of ammo cans start to move on them. It is not nearly as bad without the belts.

As stated before, they need to be turned on manually at the start of any tour. They have a 45 second "build" time and if you have 100 materials available after 45 second then they poop out ammo to the floor below them.

2 auto ammo makers feeding can easily feed an auto loader hooked up to 4 hellfires with 10 damage amps each. You'll end up with surplus actually. Now if you have a couple of smart mortars also going off that auto loader then you might run into ammo issues with only 2.

[kknd]

Originally posted by CheckYourSix:

Yah, I find it best to stick a couple of utility walls on either side of the pick up area of an advanced auto loader. Just let them drop and pile up in there as needed. I prefer that method over the conveyor belt as the belts just eat at performance. Too many belts you'll have a slide show once a lot of ammo cans start to move on them. It is not nearly as bad without the belts.

As stated before, they need to be turned on manually at the start of any tour. They have a 45 second "build" time and if you have 100 materials available after 45 second then they poop out ammo to the floor below them.

2 auto ammo makers feeding can easily feed an auto loader hooked up to 4 hellfires with 10 damage amps each. You'll end up with surplus actually. Now if you have a couple of smart mortars also going off that auto loader then you might run into ammo issues with only 2.

Call me silly, but the idea of having all those boxes of ammo vanish when I move from one spot on a tour to another (taking all those materials with them) is why I've not gone to Advanced ammo makers behind my Advanced Auto Loaders yet. (Well, I did that with shell makers for the one feeding the 406 turret, but it's the exception rather than the rule.) Having 3 basic ammo makers in the pickup area has fed my turrets needs so far without issue.

Now, that's not without bringing ammo to half load them up at the start (and for the basic autoloaders, full load them) of the tour, and I turn on the ammo spigot of 6 advanced ammo makers on recovery day to keep supplied. But the idea of either policing the ammo crates or wasting huge amounts of materials every day of tour just rubs me the wrong way. Really starting to wish there was a 'Harvester' Guardian type so I could crank out a couple and throw them at the stands of trees.

I can't say your wrong about the belt accumulating a lot of ammo and it eating into performance though, all those physics objects in motion is gonna take work. My one test with a production belt setup immediately educated me on the topic.

I'm starting to think maybe I should have a design for tours and one for Infinity Siege runs, where I can throw down 3 Advanced Ammo Makers behind the AAL's, flip them to on and fill a little bin with ammo without care between waves.

[HalyconShade]

Originally posted by kknd:

Originally posted by CheckYourSix:

Yah, I find it best to stick a couple of utility walls on either side of the pick up area of an advanced auto loader. Just let them drop and pile up in there as needed. I prefer that method over the conveyor belt as the belts just eat at performance. Too many belts you'll have a slide show once a lot of ammo cans start to move on them. It is not nearly as bad without the belts.

As stated before, they need to be turned on manually at the start of any tour. They have a 45 second "build" time and if you have 100 materials available after 45 second then they poop out ammo to the floor below them.

2 auto ammo makers feeding can easily feed an auto loader hooked up to 4 hellfires with 10 damage amps each. You'll end up with surplus actually. Now if you have a couple of smart mortars also going off that auto loader then you might run into ammo issues with only 2.

Call me silly, but the idea of having all those boxes of ammo vanish when I move from one spot on a tour to another (taking all those materials with them) is why I've not gone to Advanced ammo makers behind my Advanced Auto Loaders yet. (Well, I did that with shell makers for the one feeding the 406 turret, but it's the exception rather than the rule.) Having 3 basic ammo makers in the pickup area has fed my turrets needs so far without issue.

Now, that's not without bringing ammo to half load them up at the start (and for the basic autoloaders, full load them) of the tour, and I turn on the ammo spigot of 6 advanced ammo makers on recovery day to keep supplied. But the idea of either policing the ammo crates or wasting huge amounts of materials every day of tour just rubs me the wrong way. Really starting to wish there was a 'Harvester' Guardian type so I could crank out a couple and throw them at the stands of trees.

I can't say your wrong about the belt accumulating a lot of ammo and it eating into performance though, all those physics objects in motion is gonna take work. My one test with a production belt setup immediately educated me on the topic.

I'm starting to think maybe I should have a design for tours and one for Infinity Siege runs, where I can throw down 3 Advanced Ammo Makers behind the AAL's, flip them to on and fill a little bin with ammo without care between waves.:raven:

The jump from manual to auto isn't simple. In fact, I think there is a bug at the moment that if you turn on the autos in "bullet time" then they do ♥♥♥♥ all. I have (paranoiacally) had to turn them off and back on numerous times.

However, once you work out the ratios, the autos far surpass the manuals - assuming they actually work.

If your belts are piling up ammo, you have too many ammo generators for that level of difficulty - remove some. Autos only work if your guns are killing enough to sustain the ammo generation. - for eg; snow 4 I have to micro manage mine whereas in city 5 there fine by themselves, due to enemy density.

I actually thought there were loads of bugs when it comes to auto ammos; but actually, apart from the possible bug of not turning on in bullet time, if you turn them on in good time to feed they work better than manual.

EDIT: I should mention that I don't even manually tour - I just afk spend even at C5 and jump right into the boss battle with zero resources to start with. I think the idea of what you do prior to the end zerg map is kinda irrelevant, given that.

[ExavierMacbeth]

You can put normal ammo makers in the collection range of the adv auto-loader and still have space for a belt system to grab from (or just dump more boxes from the auto system)... Thats usually what I do so that during Exploration Days I can just make ammo via button press & not risk losing anything... I only turn on the auto makers for Recovery Day.

[kknd]

Originally posted by Legion:

Originally posted by kknd:

Call me silly, but the idea of having all those boxes of ammo vanish when I move from one spot on a tour to another (taking all those materials with them) is why I've not gone to Advanced ammo makers behind my Advanced Auto Loaders yet. (Well, I did that with shell makers for the one feeding the 406 turret, but it's the exception rather than the rule.) Having 3 basic ammo makers in the pickup area has fed my turrets needs so far without issue.

Now, that's not without bringing ammo to half load them up at the start (and for the basic autoloaders, full load them) of the tour, and I turn on the ammo spigot of 6 advanced ammo makers on recovery day to keep supplied. But the idea of either policing the ammo crates or wasting huge amounts of materials every day of tour just rubs me the wrong way. Really starting to wish there was a 'Harvester' Guardian type so I could crank out a couple and throw them at the stands of trees.

I can't say your wrong about the belt accumulating a lot of ammo and it eating into performance though, all those physics objects in motion is gonna take work. My one test with a production belt setup immediately educated me on the topic.

I'm starting to think maybe I should have a design for tours and one for Infinity Siege runs, where I can throw down 3 Advanced Ammo Makers behind the AAL's, flip them to on and fill a little bin with ammo without care between waves.

The jump from manual to auto isn't simple. In fact, I think there is a bug at the moment that if you turn on the autos in "bullet time" then they do ♥♥♥♥ all. I have (paranoiacally) had to turn them off and back on numerous times.

However, once you work out the ratios, the autos far surpass the manuals - assuming they actually work.

If your belts are piling up ammo, you have too many ammo generators for that level of difficulty - remove some. Autos only work if your guns are killing enough to sustain the ammo generation. - for eg; snow 4 I have to micro manage mine whereas in city 5 there fine by themselves, due to enemy density.

I actually thought there were loads of bugs when it comes to auto ammos; but actually, apart from the possible bug of not turning on in bullet time, if you turn them on in good time to feed they work better than manual.

EDIT: I should mention that I don't even manually tour - I just afk spend even at C5 and jump right into the boss battle with zero resources to start with. I think the idea of what you do prior to the end zerg map is kinda irrelevant, given that.

Indeed, there's a balance of production rate to enemy density, and the higher production rate of Advanced Ammo Makers is significant. I'm going to venture a guess that your setup is better than mine, but then I've never tested just skipping for loot before starting recovery.

Originally posted by ExavierMacbeth:

You can put normal ammo makers in the collection range of the adv auto-loader and still have space for a belt system to grab from (or just dump more boxes from the auto system)... Thats usually what I do so that during Exploration Days I can just make ammo via button press & not risk losing anything... I only turn on the auto makers for Recovery Day.

Come to think of it, there is just enough space for 2 Ammo Makers and a belt at the edge. That hybrid setup might meet my needs perfectly. Any left over from the travel will be there on Recovery day, while the belt ensures a steady flow for ammo during that and sieges. Plus the two AM's would provide an immediate reserve of ammo for peaks in demand which conveyor belts can't really respond to.

[Riktor87]

Originally posted by Legion:

The jump from manual to auto isn't simple. In fact, I think there is a bug at the moment that if you turn on the autos in "bullet time" then they do ♥♥♥♥ all. I have (paranoiacally) had to turn them off and back on numerous times.

It's not paranoia but what's most likely happening is if the ammo maker doesn't have material after its 45's it'll go into like a paused state but they'll never come out of it, and thus never actually make anything. What I've observed at least from sitting there watching them in tests. And by what I mean in not having material is say you have 1000 material banked, turn on the ammo maker then use all that in standard ammo makers. My work around has been say I have 10 ammo makers then I don't turn them on till I have the 1000 material to run all of them, then if at some point my material reserve drops below that I turn them back off.

[nzmountainclimber]

Originally posted by kknd:

I'm starting to think maybe I should have a design for tours and one for Infinity Siege runs, where I can throw down 3 Advanced Ammo Makers behind the AAL's, flip them to on and fill a little bin with ammo without care between waves.:raven:

I've arrived at this conclusion as well. The ammo needs of City 5 vs Infinite Siege are different and you need specialisation. If you have Hell Fires, it turns out 406 and 105's are rarely needed in the game (a few bosses occasionally)... hell fires are so effective you'll need more of those first than anything else, and those things are thirsty. Currently there isn't a mechanism to automatically "throttle" ammo making except by turning things off and on. Perhaps if we had this, just one outpost would be more possible. I don't find having an "ammo bin" works well on Infinity Siege, I need conveyors, because I need every crate feeding the hell fires ASAP. Bins are fine for City 5 as the build up and waste doesn't matter. What would make management easier, is the ability to throttle ammo makers with a slider - or even automatically - but that might take away the skill to much.

[Pandorian]

Originally posted by Legion:

The jump from manual to auto isn't simple. In fact, I think there is a bug at the moment that if you turn on the autos in "bullet time" then they do ♥♥♥♥ all. I have (paranoiacally) had to turn them off and back on numerous times.

I've had no issues turning them in slow mode. The main issue is there's a bug on main branch where if you turn them on before they have 100 materials they'll stay stuck in the disabled state(same with shell makers and 150 materials). There's a fix on the PTR for it right now.

[HalyconShade]

Originally posted by Pandorian:

Originally posted by Legion:

The jump from manual to auto isn't simple. In fact, I think there is a bug at the moment that if you turn on the autos in "bullet time" then they do ♥♥♥♥ all. I have (paranoiacally) had to turn them off and back on numerous times.

I've had no issues turning them in slow mode. The main issue is there's a bug on main branch where if you turn them on before they have 100 materials they'll stay stuck in the disabled state(same with shell makers and 150 materials). There's a fix on the PTR for it right now.

This is very likely what I have been experiencing then; thanks for clarifying - I only slowmo at the beginning so for sure there will be less than 100 rss quite often...I'll now stop doing that!

Originally posted by ExavierMacbeth:

You can put normal ammo makers in the collection range of the adv auto-loader and still have space for a belt system to grab from (or just dump more boxes from the auto system)... Thats usually what I do so that during Exploration Days I can just make ammo via button press & not risk losing anything... I only turn on the auto makers for Recovery Day.

Come to think of it, there is just enough space for 2 Ammo Makers and a belt at the edge. That hybrid setup might meet my needs perfectly. Any left over from the travel will be there on Recovery day, while the belt ensures a steady flow for ammo during that and sieges. Plus the two AM's would provide an immediate reserve of ammo for peaks in demand which conveyor belts can't really respond to.:raven:

You can jiggle a 2 auto / 1 manual setup quite easily with just 2 belts - use the manual as the endstop on the middle of the belts --I--, or a pure 3 (or even 6 if, for some insane reason, you need 6) auto setup with belts.

Originally posted by kknd:

Indeed, there's a balance of production rate to enemy density, and the higher production rate of Advanced Ammo Makers is significant. I'm going to venture a guess that your setup is better than mine, but then I've never tested just skipping for loot before starting recovery.

I don't know but I have become ahem...a little...fixated...on building my outpost - current value 869k, 5k power, 13k resources and 3.5k core...and only my bottom floor (of 6) is actually complete :D

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3236226314

Once you tip a certain power point, skipping then adding hazards at the end to multiply your loot is very viable. Just tedious as hell to load up on batteries...

[kknd]

Wait, if there's ammo on the belt and a basic ammo maker at the end of a belt, does that mean ammo will slot into the maker? Because that would be a really neat thing, even if I don't think that's what you intended to say.

Did a nice long run of Infinity 1 today, using 3 Advanced Ammo Makers per Advanced Auto Loader, to a bit above wave thirty. It gets a little messy with ammo packs not staying in the pickup zone (blast it) but other than one side getting more work than the other (and thus requiring some shifting of ammo from the dead zone's production on occasion.) it worked out pretty well.

Would not use it on tour, since I'm splitting development paths into a tour and a siege design, but it worked out. Need more shell makers to feed the 406 set to 'I do not want to see Large or above units please.' auto targeting, despite keeping a dedicated AAL full of shells for it. (I guess that'll see me using some belts.)

Having a Xen setup for 'all the materials on kill' didn't work out as nicely as I'd hoped though it did help a little early on. (Gravity and Missile have too long a refire rate, elemental spray isn't very ammo efficent...) I might have a go with a wreckage shotgun setup next run. Incidentally, I need to thank the person on the forums who suggested using basic missiles to instant mine wrecks remotely for that brilliantly wacky idea, because it works.

I think I'll need to try a run of Tour doing 'load up on materials at the first stop, skip to non-PoI's and then load up on mats at the final stop before retrieval. (also letting me stock up on ammo and all that.) I basically only care about one resource at this point (Where is all the Xenium Soil and why is it the mining site gets me a worthless trade good instead of more Xenium Soil!?) as I've piled up a lot of the rest. Well, that and getting some red gear, but that'll be an Infinity Siege stage 2 run thing.

[HalyconShade]

Originally posted by kknd:

Wait, if there's ammo on the belt and a basic ammo maker at the end of a belt, does that mean ammo will slot into the maker? Because that would be a really neat thing, even if I don't think that's what you intended to say.

Sadly not.

Originally posted by kknd:

Did a nice long run of Infinity 1 today, using 3 Advanced Ammo Makers per Advanced Auto Loader, to a bit above wave thirty. It gets a little messy with ammo packs not staying in the pickup zone (blast it) but other than one side getting more work than the other (and thus requiring some shifting of ammo from the dead zone's production on occasion.) it worked out pretty well.

Would not use it on tour, since I'm splitting development paths into a tour and a siege design, but it worked out. Need more shell makers to feed the 406 set to 'I do not want to see Large or above units please.' auto targeting, despite keeping a dedicated AAL full of shells for it. (I guess that'll see me using some belts.)

Having a Xen setup for 'all the materials on kill' didn't work out as nicely as I'd hoped though it did help a little early on. (Gravity and Missile have too long a refire rate, elemental spray isn't very ammo efficent...) I might have a go with a wreckage shotgun setup next run. Incidentally, I need to thank the person on the forums who suggested using basic missiles to instant mine wrecks remotely for that brilliantly wacky idea, because it works.

I think I'll need to try a run of Tour doing 'load up on materials at the first stop, skip to non-PoI's and then load up on mats at the final stop before retrieval. (also letting me stock up on ammo and all that.) I basically only care about one resource at this point (Where is all the Xenium Soil and why is it the mining site gets me a worthless trade good instead of more Xenium Soil!?) as I've piled up a lot of the rest. Well, that and getting some red gear, but that'll be an Infinity Siege stage 2 run thing.:raven:

I can't help with the XENs or the infinity as I don't do much of the latter (but I too have found that materials mod useless), but I can say that if you can, just blitz C5 as far as you can in auto - you get what you want then extract, if you don't then abort and retry.

Takes just a few mins that way - only load your reds that you want (components) into the trunk, and hope for at least one of the two component multipliers. I did 3 runs in 20 minutes, and my last run yielded 9 red components whilst the other 2 were aborts. By far the fastest way of getting soil or uranium or ions or barrels or processors - depending on your needs.

EDIT: Also, doing snow on max for 50-100k a run on auto is better than C5 manual - 10 mins for 50-100k vs 2 hours for 500k. I don't think, when it comes to non-infinity at least (infinity I can't comment on), that running maps manually is at all economic in the current game state (unless your after blueprints of course).