How do you supply gun turrets with ammo?

[Horoai]

Assuming you use them in your outposts and on the perimeter around your base.

Most importantly:
Do you have a way to conveniently do this without roboports?

I have had several ideas so far but none of them are either possible or satisfying it seems.
1) Circular ammo belt all around the base (along the perimeter) => too much ammo leing about.
2) Space out ammo with circuit network => wonky especially since fully upgraded turrets chew through clips in split seconds. Still too much ammo and belt gets excessively long in late game.
=>
3) Replace belt with rails. Add trainstop as part of turret / defense blueprint. => Couldn't find a way to work with generic train stations. => would have to update train schedule for every turret bank (= possibly houndreds).

Is there a way to set trains to just "visit next station in line" regardless of it's name?

Is there just no effing way to supply those turrets automatically without the aid of bots, or having houndred thousand of rounds running around the map on an houndred mile belt?

[impetus_maximus]

you could do ammo on demand with belts using a memory cell.

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[Horoai]

I've been trying (and failing) to design something similar, which doesn't need me to run a wire + combinator over every single gun turret on the map:

A circuit which
1) Puts a set sequence of items the belt.
2) Waits for the sequence to return.
3) Detects what is missing and orders replacements.
-Back to 1)

Problem is still the same though: Belts soon enough ends up being miles long which puts a significant delay on resupply arriving.

Perhaps if I had multiple resupply station which coordinate who supplies which order based on distance... but I'm not that good with circuits.

[impetus_maximus]

you could wire programable speakers to the chest feeding the turrets. that would alert you when they are below x number of rounds.

i know running the signals is a little annoying but if you use big electric polls it's not too bad. BTW you can use 1 arithmetic combinator for all the inserters feeding the turrets to do the x -1 math.

[Horoai]

引用自 impetus maximus：

you could wire programable speakers to the chest feeding the turrets. that would alert you when they are below x number of rounds.

i know running the signals is a little annoying but if you use big electric polls it's not too bad. BTW you can use 1 arithmetic combinator for all the inserters feeding the turrets to do the x -1 math.

You know what? I think I'm gonna go with a combination of this + segmenting the supply belts into train supplied parts in order to limit their size / supply delay. Thanks.

[impetus_maximus]

you are welcome. glad to be of some help.

[Horoai]

引用自 impetus maximus：

you are welcome. glad to be of some help.

To be honest I expected to get no reply at all because I assume nobody even bothers with this and just goes straight to laser turrets.

[Ryan]

Why is ammo sitting on a belt a problem? I have a few mining base blueprints I use that are fully functional with defenses. They can be supplied by trains which brings in barrelled oil for the flamethrower turrets and ammo for the guns. The base is a large square, so the ammo belt travels in a loop that is supplied from a chest at the train stop. This configuration is a low power version that can be sustained with solar power.

The track that runs through the edge of the base has two train stops on it. One is for collecting the mined resource, and the other one is for the supply train.

[impetus_maximus]

if you are limited on the ammount of ammo you have, rationing makes perfect sense.

[SeaBee]

I usually drop 50 ammo in each turret as I place it, then when any turret drops below 25, I go out to my perimeter and reload them all. On an outpost, I setup an ammo train to reload the turrets on a consistant basis. Train carries 500 ammo max and stops at each outpost, refilling as needed. If I get an area with heavy attackes, I increase the number of turrets. Once I get to laser turrets, I clear out the map beyond the edge of my pollution and keep them pushed back so I can expend freely.

[GronkJuice]

I believe he wants some kind of auto steup. I could just use my level 1 smart factory setup for this.

Setup a chest for your turrets (I would use 1 chest for at least two possibly 3 if you at ok with one in the rear helping when they get closer)
then just run your wire to a arithmetic combinator like mentioned above (this is your switch to see if said chest needs ammo (next make sure you setup your inserters to the same setup as they should only take in resources when the chest requests them)

next have an ammo factory turn on. (shouldn't be hard, just have it setup to a switch where if one of your arithmetic combinator turns on factory starts production) now you have two options. either you can do a large belt to the whole perimiter and feed the ammo onto said belt and have the system automated (a little sloppy until you get bots at which stage you will be in a world of hurt again until you get requester chests)

Or you could have a lights or sound setup to alert you of the request, you could even have many lights setup to turn on/off for each chest (so like one for the north, south, east, and west) then you have a chest where the new ammo is placed, just ctrl+click (been a while is this quick pickup) then just run to the light location and fill chest. return to check to make sure the light turns off (if not you didn't load enough ammo) keep the supply going until its off.

[THE kilroy]

You can limit your belt throughput without curcuit. Make your perimiter belt loop, but leave a 3 tile gap, put chest in center of gap and yellow inserters on both sides. Beltloop-inserter-chest-inserter-beltloop

Because the yellow inserters are slower than belts it will leave you belt mostly empty.

[lPaladinl]

Trains and Belts usually. Cut down the number of stops by allowing stretches of belts to feed a wall of turrets. That will give you more control over ammo production and supply.

That said, belt loops require no power or fuel.

[Helly]

I just use trains and belts on an high ocean world. I find I'm generally only attacked from one side of the wall, so I run belts towards that side giving the turrets that need more ammo a larger buffer. I've never seen a turret use enough ammo to run out during an attack, so it's just a case of resupplying as needed.

[Horoai]

引用自 Hellpest：

I've never seen a turret use enough ammo to run out during an attack, so it's just a case of resupplying as needed.

For reference, a fully upgraded gun turret empties 2.5 mags per second and requires just a bit more than that to destory a behemoth biter (no infinite research). Default buffer size they use when fed by an inserter is 10 I believe, so roughly 4 seconds worth of ammo.

In contrast, if you have a 1000+ tiles long belt (yellow, because why waste the resource?) then resupply might take considerably longer than 4 seconds.

[Ryan]

Sounds like you are talking about the Great Wall of China and not an outpost. I still don't consider ammo on belts a wasted resource. You didn't lose it. It's still there acting as a buffer. If it is a long way from your supply, then it is a nice buffer until your supply train arrives. If you ever decide to move the wall you can just collect all the ammo and move it. If you are making a wall that large then there is likely 100 million ore within the perimeter to mine. Ammo sitting on belts is a pittance.

On my maps I use a number of mods that enhance the enemies who attack in huge waves. I need lots of ammo. Turrets run out of ammo routinely during these attacks as they are pulling from the belt faster than it moves.

If you are playing vanilla, then just use flamethrower turrets and not have to mess with ammo as the oil will just sit in pipes.

An alternative is to setup a steam power generator by your wall with accumulators as a power spike buffer. Supply the steam generator with solid fuel from trains. Then use laser turrets. This would probably use more resources than ammo sitting on belts, but it is a fun setup.