Buff laser turrets a bit?

[gienekman]

The way they were nerfed is kinda silly, especialy if you compare them to gun turrets.

Laser Turret with all pre-rocket upgrades deals:
384 dps.

Gun turret with all pre-rocket upgrades deals:
942.5 raw dps with basic ammo.
1508 raw dps with armor piercing ammo.
4525 raw dps with uranium rounds.

The difference gets even more silly as you dive into space science, since gun turrets get 40% ammo bonus and 70% turret bonus per research.

Yes, you need more logistic gymnastics for gun turrets, but with trains and bots running, that's not an issue.

Few years ago, i played a rather long map and even then, uranium rounds gun turrets were much better for outposts and active perimeter defense, but at least laser turrets could be a good alternative if you stacked enough of them.

Now? It feels like all they are good for, is being a light source at night.

[Fel]

To be fair, it doesn't really matter since both serve a very specific role at that point, which is to kill the few leading bitters that are not cooked to death by flamethrower turrets.
They apply a 20% move speed reduction and pretty muc anything that walks in the fire dies before being able to really do anything.

Laser turrets were debuffed because the "meta" was to just stack them and not worry about anything else.
They still have the advantage of having 50% more range than gun turrets so that DPS can be applied sooner, making them pretty effective at shooting the leading bitters and the bitters have no resistance to laser but they have some to physical damage that the bullets use ("only" 10% but it still makes a difference).

[Nailfoot]

I don't really care about the DPS. The vanilla biters are weak. Two rows of laser turrets, a two-wall thick wall, and repair robots can fight back any wave.

I also put artillery at every wall to keep the bases beat back. You don't need anything more than laser turrets, assuming you build the power for it.

A good sized base of mine will have 3 to 4 thousand laser turrets.

[PhantomDgen]

Laser could at least have an counterpart which makes them useful, the fact they need energy is more of a problem than an advantage, maybe they could charge when not in use so the next seconds they have a bit more dps, OR they could retain and charge like an battery so they resist a bit if energy is not being provided.

I wish i knew normal turrets were better way sonner cause i alredy done and huge wall around m base with laser turrets, but everytime we had an energy shortage, well, ♥♥♥♥. Me and my buddy straight had not a good time for almost an entire hour

As this was not enough of an argument aganist laser turrets they also got ♥♥♥♥ dps compared to normal turrets, the "more range" thing its only aplicable if the laser turret dps is still relevant, because if the horde is strong they are just pull trough it and cause damage. Which is the case on my factory now.

Laser turrets need an buff to make them have something normal turrets dont have. and the energy and range wont make it...

Currently its really situational where these adavantages will be aplicable

[Dakota]

Originally posted by {S.S.E.} EriHero:

Laser could at least have an counterpart which makes them useful, the fact they need energy is more of a problem than an advantage, maybe they could charge when not in use so the next seconds they have a bit more dps, OR they could retain and charge like an battery so they resist a bit if energy is not being provided.

I wish i knew normal turrets were better way sonner cause i alredy done and huge wall around m base with laser turrets, but everytime we had an energy shortage, well, ♥♥♥♥. Me and my buddy straight had not a good time for almost an entire hour

As this was not enough of an argument aganist laser turrets they also got ♥♥♥♥ dps compared to normal turrets, the "more range" thing its only aplicable if the laser turret dps is still relevant, because if the horde is strong they are just pull trough it and cause damage. Which is the case on my factory now.

Laser turrets need an buff to make them have something normal turrets dont have. and the energy and range wont make it...

Currently its really situational where these adavantages will be aplicable

What you are looking for are accumulators, build a block of those so you have a big battery for the base that gets used whenever you go over your power production. It's great for sudden spikes such as laser turrets.

Later on the more range is very important because some spiters will end up outranging gun turrets, especially in wall of turrets format where even if they are in range they might only be in range of a few instead of many at once. Power also becomes a total non issue for laser turrets once you've moved on to nuclear.

EDIT:

Also just want to point out with the damage: biters have huge resistance to the physical stuff. goes up 0/4/8/12 flat damage reduction and a 10% reduction. This, even with the upgrades to the turrets usually mean you're going to need to go with AP mags to really deal with threats, and gun turrets burn through ammo at an insane rate while AP mags are relatively expensive. Of course setting up the logistics grid to handle supplying all of those turrets in of itself is a hassle too, but the upkeep costs are what really hit the hardest. I always swap to flame and lasers (mostly flames) as soon as possible.

[PhantomDgen]

Originally posted by Dakota:

What you are looking for are accumulators, build a block of those so you have a big battery for the base that gets used whenever you go over your power production. It's great for sudden spikes such as laser turrets.

Yeah, i know, but i procrastinate so much i didnt made an alarm system to tell us when something its wrong with our coal powered boilers, or at least that all our base is being dependent on a small array of accumulators until energy goes out for good. Yeah i should have moved to nuclear. Yeah i am an dumbass

Originally posted by Dakota:

Later on the more range is very important because some spiters will end up outranging gun turrets, especially in wall of turrets format where even if they are in range they might only be in range of a few instead of many at once. Power also becomes a total non issue for laser turrets once you've moved on to nuclear.

That is a good point, but there is still need for flametrowers or turrets, because the dps from laser turrets are not gonna cut it for the melle biters until the spitters destroy the defenses or the turrets themselfs. So i guess there is need an mix of either flamethrowers and lasers or turrets and lasers with enough flame and bullet to stop the melle bunch asap so the laser can focus the spitters.

Originally posted by Dakota:

EDIT:
Also just want to point out with the damage: biters have huge resistance to the physical stuff. goes up 0/4/8/12 flat damage reduction and a 10% reduction. This, even with the upgrades to the turrets usually mean you're going to need to go with AP mags to really deal with threats, and gun turrets burn through ammo at an insane rate while AP mags are relatively expensive. Of course setting up the logistics grid to handle supplying all of those turrets in of itself is a hassle too, but the upkeep costs are what really hit the hardest. I always swap to flame and lasers (mostly flames) as soon as possible.

I'll look out for that, but my concerns are with the laser turrets not focusing the spitters before the melle.
wont it be better to have turrets as a main defense, some laser on frontline, and some flame on the back just to get the ones that get real close to the wall? So flame secures that real huge melle hordes wont break the all if they pull trough, turrets being main source of dps to get rid of the melle ones asap, and laser to melt the spitters?

They may have some dmg redu. but the turret dps still very relevant, only loses to flame, but flame is very close and is not as instant as turrets

[PunCrathod]

If you calculate damage per resources used then as time goes on laser turrets approach infinity while the other turrets have a limit based on the upgrades done. If you spend the resources your gun turrets used for ammo to make more solar+accumulator+laser turret then in the long run you actually save a massive amount.

[Dakota]

Originally posted by {S.S.E.} EriHero:

Originally posted by Dakota:

What you are looking for are accumulators, build a block of those so you have a big battery for the base that gets used whenever you go over your power production. It's great for sudden spikes such as laser turrets.

Yeah, i know, but i procrastinate so much i didnt done an alarm system to tell us when something its wrong with our coal powered boilers or at least that all our base is being dependent on a small array of accumulators until energy goes out for good. Yeah i should have moved to nuclear. Yeah i am an dumbass

Originally posted by Dakota:

Later on the more range is very important because some spiters will end up outranging gun turrets, especially in wall of turrets format where even if they are in range they might only be in range of a few instead of many at once. Power also becomes a total non issue for laser turrets once you've moved on to nuclear.

That is a good point, but there is still need for flametrowers or turrets, because the dps from laser turrets are not gonna cut it for the melle biters until the spitters destroy the defenses or the turrets themselfs. So i guess there is need an mix of either flamethrowers and lasers or turrets and lasers with enough flame and bullet to stop the melle bunch asap so the laser can focus the spitters.

Originally posted by Dakota:

EDIT:
Also just want to point out with the damage: biters have huge resistance to the physical stuff. goes up 0/4/8/12 flat damage reduction and a 10% reduction. This, even with the upgrades to the turrets usually mean you're going to need to go with AP mags to really deal with threats, and gun turrets burn through ammo at an insane rate while AP mags are relatively expensive. Of course setting up the logistics grid to handle supplying all of those turrets in of itself is a hassle too, but the upkeep costs are what really hit the hardest. I always swap to flame and lasers (mostly flames) as soon as possible.

I'll look out for that, but my concerns are with the laser turrets not focusing the spitters before the melle.
wont it be better to have turrets as a main defense, some laser on frontline, and some flame on the back just to get the ones that get real close to the wall? So flame secures that real huge melle hordes wont break the all if they pull trough, turrets being main source of dps to get rid of the melle ones asap, and laser to melt the spitters?

They may have some dmg redu. but the turret dps still very relevant, only loses to flame, but flame is very close and is not as instant as turrets

A trick I use for coal power is having a few burner drills setup so that coal comes out of them, then it has a belt that goes one away from itself then in a direction where a burner inserter can feed it back the coal, excess from this system of a set is pumped into the line going to the boilers, the boilers have both a burner inserter and a normal inserter each, this way it is impossible for my boilers to get softlocked in a situation where they need power to start making power.

As for defenses, really all you need is a single flamethrower turret every other underground pipe setup then walls placed starting at the minimum range of the flamethrowers a few layers thick with some little pieces infront to force a longer path to the main wall. Flamethrowers get a lot of their damage not just from the impact, but also from their damage over time that they tick when something is on fire, it is massive amounts of damage, they also leave fire on the ground, and they destroy all enemies in a sizable area, so where a gun turret is firing all its damage at one target, the flamethrower turret is likely hitting most of the incoming wave at once.

Some have said that it might be more optimal to go with a full wall of flamethrower turrets to prevent the large spiters from spitting once and breaking the underground pipes to either side of the flamethrower turret while the turret survives due to its high health (1400 vs 500 on the gun turret), however I get by with just having some construction drones replace the pipes, which is of course less optimal in terms of some additional iron cost over the game, however the initial cost of all the steel and other components to make entire walls of flamethrower turrets make me not worry much about said cost, especially with how effective just a single one is at clearing any enemy waves, even the highest level enemies when given a proper wall setup.

I am curious if you've tried out the flames with that comment of yours about them not being as instant as the gun turrets. I guess there is the travel time issue, but they kill much much faster on contact, basically just requires a proper wall. Infact, you could probably use pipe in place of wall as a really weak wall that's just set to be in junk in the way around your wall, this could be made from the savings of no longer dumping 10000 rounds into each biter wave.

[PhantomDgen]

Originally posted by Dakota:

A trick I use for coal power is having a few burner drills setup so that coal comes out of them, then it has a belt that goes one away from itself then in a direction where a burner inserter can feed it back the coal, excess from this system of a set is pumped into the line going to the boilers, the boilers have both a burner inserter and a normal inserter each, this way it is impossible for my boilers to get softlocked in a situation where they need power to start making power.

I cant quite make up how that its actually works, i alredy use burner inserters so my concern its actually when there is no coal and we need the get train to bring enough to it be loaded and come and uload before the coal in the boilers run out. But i dont think its that the system that you mean.

As for the rest, i have to try more things out, cuz i think i really underestimate the power of the flamethrower, i still got to try them out for real. before discussing too much about it...

[Silberfuchs]

I think he meant that his Factory uses a backup coal system that doesn't use any electricity at all.

A set of burner drills that and a few extra belts can do the job.

[gienekman]

Originally posted by Dakota:

Originally posted by {S.S.E.} EriHero:

Laser could at least have an counterpart which makes them useful, the fact they need energy is more of a problem than an advantage, maybe they could charge when not in use so the next seconds they have a bit more dps, OR they could retain and charge like an battery so they resist a bit if energy is not being provided.

I wish i knew normal turrets were better way sonner cause i alredy done and huge wall around m base with laser turrets, but everytime we had an energy shortage, well, ♥♥♥♥. Me and my buddy straight had not a good time for almost an entire hour

As this was not enough of an argument aganist laser turrets they also got ♥♥♥♥ dps compared to normal turrets, the "more range" thing its only aplicable if the laser turret dps is still relevant, because if the horde is strong they are just pull trough it and cause damage. Which is the case on my factory now.

Laser turrets need an buff to make them have something normal turrets dont have. and the energy and range wont make it...

Currently its really situational where these adavantages will be aplicable

What you are looking for are accumulators, build a block of those so you have a big battery for the base that gets used whenever you go over your power production. It's great for sudden spikes such as laser turrets.

Later on the more range is very important because some spiters will end up outranging gun turrets, especially in wall of turrets format where even if they are in range they might only be in range of a few instead of many at once. Power also becomes a total non issue for laser turrets once you've moved on to nuclear.

EDIT:

Also just want to point out with the damage: biters have huge resistance to the physical stuff. goes up 0/4/8/12 flat damage reduction and a 10% reduction. This, even with the upgrades to the turrets usually mean you're going to need to go with AP mags to really deal with threats, and gun turrets burn through ammo at an insane rate while AP mags are relatively expensive. Of course setting up the logistics grid to handle supplying all of those turrets in of itself is a hassle too, but the upkeep costs are what really hit the hardest. I always swap to flame and lasers (mostly flames) as soon as possible.

The sad part is, that with all pre-rocket upgrades gun turrets with the basic 5 damage clip do more damage vs. behemoth biters than laser turrets.
1 gun turret with basic ammo vs. 1 behemoth will kill it about 20% faster than laser turret.

[CPT Chthonbeard the Pirate]

Originally posted by gienekman:

The way they were nerfed is kinda silly, especialy if you compare them to gun turrets.

Laser Turret with all pre-rocket upgrades deals:
384 dps.

Gun turret with all pre-rocket upgrades deals:
942.5 raw dps with basic ammo.
1508 raw dps with armor piercing ammo.
4525 raw dps with uranium rounds.

The difference gets even more silly as you dive into space science, since gun turrets get 40% ammo bonus and 70% turret bonus per research.

Yes, you need more logistic gymnastics for gun turrets, but with trains and bots running, that's not an issue.

Few years ago, i played a rather long map and even then, uranium rounds gun turrets were much better for outposts and active perimeter defense, but at least laser turrets could be a good alternative if you stacked enough of them.

Now? It feels like all they are good for, is being a light source at night.

One thing that you are not taking into account here: Biters have physical armor. Biters do not have laser armor at all. No matter how much armor the biter has, a laser will still be doing 384 dps.

On the other hand, you have to greatly reduce that physical damage for the gun turret to account for the individual biter's armor. Overall it still will be more damage, but not nearly as much as you are making it look:

Basic Ammo:
vs Big Biter 56.7 dps
vs Behmoth Biter 0 dps

AP Ammo:
vs Big Biter 181.44 dps
vs Behemoth Biter 105.84 dps

U-238 Ammo:
vs Big Biter 836.72 dps
vs Behemoth Biter 771.12 dps

So, yes, gun turrets still out damage laser turrets by about 2:1, but it's not nearly as bad as you make it out. Gun turrets literally need all that "raw damage" as you put it to overcome the armor and defenses of late game biters, while lasers have no need to do so.

[Dakota]

Originally posted by Silberfuchs:

I think he meant that his Factory uses a backup coal system that doesn't use any electricity at all.

A set of burner drills that and a few extra belts can do the job.

Yes, I designate a small area in the starting coal field to be used for backup power in belting distance of the boilers. You can set this up to only ever be used if say, there's no coal on the line for the boilers then it opens up its belt to place more if you'd like to be very careful.

Another alternative to be sure I never run out of fuel is to actually burn solid fuel in my boilers, oil never runs out, only gets slower and slower, so if you're using solid fuel you'll always have some coming in to either offset coal costs or eliminate them completely, I also use the stuff for my smelters before going to electric. I otherwise have nothing else to do with the light oil other than turn it into petrolgas but I usually have enough of that.

[gienekman]

Originally posted by CPT Chthonbeard the Pirate:

Originally posted by gienekman:

The way they were nerfed is kinda silly, especialy if you compare them to gun turrets.

Laser Turret with all pre-rocket upgrades deals:
384 dps.

Gun turret with all pre-rocket upgrades deals:
942.5 raw dps with basic ammo.
1508 raw dps with armor piercing ammo.
4525 raw dps with uranium rounds.

The difference gets even more silly as you dive into space science, since gun turrets get 40% ammo bonus and 70% turret bonus per research.

Yes, you need more logistic gymnastics for gun turrets, but with trains and bots running, that's not an issue.

Few years ago, i played a rather long map and even then, uranium rounds gun turrets were much better for outposts and active perimeter defense, but at least laser turrets could be a good alternative if you stacked enough of them.

Now? It feels like all they are good for, is being a light source at night.

One thing that you are not taking into account here: Biters have physical armor. Biters do not have laser armor at all. No matter how much armor the biter has, a laser will still be doing 384 dps.

On the other hand, you have to greatly reduce that physical damage for the gun turret to account for the individual biter's armor. Overall it still will be more damage, but not nearly as much as you are making it look:

Basic Ammo:
vs Big Biter 56.7 dps
vs Behmoth Biter 0 dps

AP Ammo:
vs Big Biter 181.44 dps
vs Behemoth Biter 105.84 dps

U-238 Ammo:
vs Big Biter 836.72 dps
vs Behemoth Biter 771.12 dps

So, yes, gun turrets still out damage laser turrets by about 2:1, but it's not nearly as bad as you make it out. Gun turrets literally need all that "raw damage" as you put it to overcome the armor and defenses of late game biters, while lasers have no need to do so.

Where did you get 0 damage vs. Behemoth?

Gun turrets get a stacking bonus from both gun damage and gun turret damage, with pre-rocket science upgrades done, basic rounds do 37.7 damage per shots 25x per second.

Behemoth has 12/10% physical resistance, so:
37.7-12 = 25.7
25.7-10% = 23.13
23.13*25 = 578.25 dps

[CPT Chthonbeard the Pirate]

Originally posted by gienekman:

Originally posted by CPT Chthonbeard the Pirate:

One thing that you are not taking into account here: Biters have physical armor. Biters do not have laser armor at all. No matter how much armor the biter has, a laser will still be doing 384 dps.

On the other hand, you have to greatly reduce that physical damage for the gun turret to account for the individual biter's armor. Overall it still will be more damage, but not nearly as much as you are making it look:

Basic Ammo:
vs Big Biter 56.7 dps
vs Behmoth Biter 0 dps

AP Ammo:
vs Big Biter 181.44 dps
vs Behemoth Biter 105.84 dps

U-238 Ammo:
vs Big Biter 836.72 dps
vs Behemoth Biter 771.12 dps

So, yes, gun turrets still out damage laser turrets by about 2:1, but it's not nearly as bad as you make it out. Gun turrets literally need all that "raw damage" as you put it to overcome the armor and defenses of late game biters, while lasers have no need to do so.

Where did you get 0 damage vs. Behemoth?

Gun turrets get a stacking bonus from both gun damage and gun turret damage, with pre-rocket science upgrades done, basic rounds do 37.7 damage per shots 25x per second.

Behemoth has 12/10% physical resistance, so:
37.7-12 = 25.7
25.7-10% = 23.13
23.13*25 = 578.25 dps

You're right I forgot it, but basic rounds don't do 37.7. They deal 5 * 220% * 220% = 24.2 So you're already off. 24.2 - 12 = 12.2 * .9 = 21.78 * 10/second * 210% = 457.38 dps

This is still a far cry from 942 dps which is your raw. Their defense eats up a lot of the raw dps, which is why it's so high. Also, note that you get 50% easily with the last tech, while it doubles from the last 2. By pre-space you are dominating biters no matter what you are using. There isn't a biter designed to keep up with that level of tech, so who cares?

Maybe if they added post behemoth biters who had defense values to match that dealt with post space bases it'd matter what the balance was here, but as it currently stands it really doesn't. You're arguing that "Laser turrets end game need a buff because they aren't as good as a turret that really has no point at this point in the game."

[PunCrathod]

If you actually tested things instead of theorizing with numbers you would quickly see that if you have a line of turrets and send a behemoth biter to attack that line, flamethrower turret kills it the fastest. Followed by laser turrets. And the gun turret comes last. Why? It's because of range. By the time the behemoth is in range of the gun turrets lasers would have killed it already and by the time it is in range of the lasers flamethrowers would have killed it already.

And when it comes to dps you also have to account for the fact that bigger range means more turrets are able to shoot the same biter. Laser turrets have 1.333... times the range of a gun turret thus for every 10 gun turrets that could shoot a biter 13 laser turrets would have been able to shoot it too if it is a single line of turrets. with Multilines range is even bigger advantage. When you take this into account then the dps difference becomes even smaller.

And I would like to assert again that making power and powerlines for laser turrets is cheaper and easier than making ammo and bringing it to gun turrets.

Edit: If we compare laser turrets with substations and belt fed gun turrets then the laser turrets even outdps uranium ammo.