Please do not lock Artillery behind Space Science

[spoderman_spoody | Lvl 30 Druid]

The Schwerer Gustav came before Sputnik, even rocketry.

No. More. Sadism.

[Jagdtiger]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Vyndicu:

You are missing the point a tiny bit. It doesn't matter how far something has to go before reaching "Space."

Mount Everest is ~5.49 miles high, and the atmosphere is very thin at this point. An artillery shell arc that moves above 5.49 miles will encounter very little air drag. There is ~4.36 Pressure per square inch at the top of Mount Everest, which is 1/3 of PSI at sea level. At 25 miles high, it would be about ~2.3 PSI.

The original point was that it does not "shoot shells well into space", nothing to do with aerodynamic drag

Diposting pertama kali oleh Vyndicu:

The point I was trying to make was to examine the technology available in WWI and what was done with artillery during that era.

Then, go back and look at the requirements to unlock the in-game Artillery Turret: Yellow Science packs, which require flying robot frames, light-density structures, and blue processing circuits.

None of those technologies existed meaningfully during WWI, never mind the red advanced circuits required for Blue science packs.

Requiring artillery weapons to have GPS/Space Satellite/other post-cold era technologies seems a bit excessive since these are already baked in.

You specifically mention that the artillery in factorio requires advanced science to build, which directly correlates with the fact that it has modern guided munition capabilities. It has greater capabilities than early 20th century artillery, and requires more advanced science because of it. Perfectly reasonable that guided artillery is more advanced. To move it down the tech tree, it would need to be less advanced (from a realism perspective)

Diposting pertama kali oleh Vyndicu:

I never said that the 38 cm SK L/45 "Max" could fire while moving on the railroad. Factorio artillery wagons do NOT fire while moving. In this respect, they are more alike than dissimilar.

You never mentioned the 38cm SK L/45, you were talking about the 23.8cm Paris Gun. The SK L45 is capable of firing from a combined rail firing platform. The Paris Gun is not. It must be removed entirely from its transport rail carriage and assembled on a concrete base/turntable to fire. There was never any mention of firing on the move, no artillery piece is designed to do that. Some rail artillery is designed to fire on rails, a famous example being the Schwerer Gustav, which is on rails during the firing process, and is not removed from the rails until it needs to be disassembled and transported. The point is that the Paris gun cannot be fired on rails, and the SK L45 must still have a mount assembled before it can be fired. Factorio artillery does not require any additional mounting, and can be fired directly from its carriage, which makes it a true railway cannon, which neither the Paris gun nor the SK L45 are, meaning they are completely dissimilar

[Hurkyl]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Vyndicu:

I would refer to two points of information: FFF blog 373 and 370.

Since you didn't mention the blip from #373 or the implications of #370, I'll highlight them.

#373 explicitly says a full playthrough of Space Age will take roughly 60-100 hours.

The LAN party from #373 is just a 40 hour playthrough if they only played during a normal work week. (and they still thought it was too long and were going to trim things down) (and were having fun building an expensive gacha machine on top of the quality system*)

How long do the devs think a full playthrough of the base game takes? I don't actually know. 60-100 sounds plausible to me for a casual playthrough.

*: For the sake of precision, I just mean this to say they weren't focused on completing the game quickly. Presumably, as testers, they were spending a lot of time testing things out in addition to having fun like this. Specifically, in no way should the parenthetical be construed as implying the quality system itself is comparable to gacha mechanics.

Diposting pertama kali oleh Vyndicu:

The individual I was quoting had the opinion that this particular time length would stay the same.

No, I did not. I have the opinion we don't have nearly enough information to tell. And I have the opinion that remaining the same would be consistent with the known information.

And more pertinently, I have the opinion that some people -- I expect you are included -- are underestimating how early in a playthrough the rocket will come, and interpret "locked behind rocket launches" to be a lot later than it actually will be.

[Vyndicu]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Jagdtiger:

The original point was that it does not "shoot shells well into space", nothing to do with aerodynamic drag

Excuse me for being imprecise.

I didn't want to confuse readers with various definitions of 'where space begins,' and vomiting verbose math about going higher in the atmosphere makes for a much longer-range artillery firing arc.

Diposting pertama kali oleh Jagdtiger:

You specifically mention that the artillery in factorio requires advanced science to build, which directly correlates with the fact that it has modern guided munition capabilities. It has greater capabilities than early 20th century artillery, and requires more advanced science because of it. Perfectly reasonable that guided artillery is more advanced. To move it down the tech tree, it would need to be less advanced (from a realism perspective)

Look, I am trying to make several points, and you are replacing trees for the forest and vice versa.

I am going to reframe it in a simple, concise bullet list.

• Generally, Artillery in Factorio is one giant ball of suspension of belief - no maintenance required, having a capable turnaround on a wagon absorbing immense recoil from modern artillery without any stabilizer/support (mechanized or otherwise), and players carrying dozens of Artillery Wagon inside of their personal inventory, etc...
  
• Real-live Artillery was primitive during the WW1 era.
  
• Real-live Artillery capable of reaching the range of Factorio Artillery existed during WW1.
  
• Factorio Artillery requires technologies beyond the WW1 era to reach their capabilities. But not to the point where not having them would prevent its construction.
  
• Real-live Artillery has countless variants. This fact presents a stronger argument for an earlier green or blue science pack-based Factorio Artillery being weaker than later versions, similar to how the pistol is a weaker version of a rifle.

Diposting pertama kali oleh Jagdtiger:

You never mentioned the 38cm SK L/45, you were talking about the 23.8cm Paris Gun. The SK L45 is capable of firing from a combined rail firing platform. The Paris Gun is not. It must be removed entirely from its transport rail carriage and assembled on a concrete base/turntable to fire. There was never any mention of firing on the move, no artillery piece is designed to do that. Some rail artillery is designed to fire on rails, a famous example being the Schwerer Gustav, which is on rails during the firing process, and is not removed from the rails until it needs to be disassembled and transported. The point is that the Paris gun cannot be fired on rails, and the SK L45 must still have a mount assembled before it can be fired. Factorio artillery does not require any additional mounting, and can be fired directly from its carriage, which makes it a true railway cannon, which neither the Paris gun nor the SK L45 are, meaning they are completely dissimilar

The apparent counterargument goes to one of my bullet list points: Real Live Artillery has countless variants. I only started specifically mentioning a specific artillery gun after you brought up the K2 from the WW2 era as being misidentified as a Paris Gun from WW1. Now, the goalposts have been moved to artillery guns that were designed to fire while on the move, even though I have not specifically cited this capability as a point of comparison.


As described in this blog, a Paris Gun, 23.8 cm in caliber, was made from a 38 cm SK L/45 "Max" by shrinking the diameter with a liner tube to boost the muzzle velocity.

Krupp assembled the barrel of each Paris Gun by inserting a 210mm liner tube into a bored-out 56-foot 380mm SK L/45 “Long Max” naval gun barrel. The liner extended 36 feet beyond the muzzle of the main barrel. A 20- to 30-foot smooth-bore extension was then attached to the front of the protruding liner, resulting in a composite barrel with an overall length exceeding 110 feet. An external truss system clamped atop the barrel reduced the droop of the tube caused by gravity. Krupp engineers had to mount a massive counterweight on the breech in order to elevate the gun for firing and depress it for loading. The carriage was a steel box assembly, with a pivot in the front and wheels in the rear that ran on a circular track. The gun could only be moved to its firing position by rail, assembled in place and fired from a prepared concrete firing platform. The barrel alone weighed some 140 tons, the carriage 250 tons, and the turntable-type firing platform 300 tons.

Source: https://www.historynet.com/paris-under-the-gun/


I wonder why you are so focused on the capability to fire while on the move when the Factorio Artillery Wagon doesn't. I have yet to cite this capability as a point of comparison between real-life artillery wagons and Factorio Artillery Wagons.

[Vyndicu]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Hurkyl:

Since you didn't mention the blip from #373 or the implications of #370, I'll highlight them.

#373 explicitly says a full playthrough of Space Age will take roughly 60-100 hours.

The LAN party from #373 is just a 40 hour playthrough if they only played during a normal work week. (and they still thought it was too long and were going to trim things down) (and were having fun building an expensive gacha machine on top of the quality system*)

How long do the devs think a full playthrough of the base game takes? I don't actually know. 60-100 sounds plausible to me for a casual playthrough.

*: For the sake of precision, I just mean this to say they weren't focused on completing the game quickly. Presumably, as testers, they were spending a lot of time testing things out in addition to having fun like this. Specifically, in no way should the parenthetical be construed as implying the quality system itself is comparable to gacha mechanics.

I will take the opportunity to point out several things you didn't mention from #370 with a direct quotation and my emphasis.

The second playthrough was a week-long office LAN-party in July 2022, where 12 people spent 5 full days racing to finish the game before the end of the week. Some of us took family vacations because of this, so we tried to get the most out of it. You can imagine how intense it was, and how destroyed we were at the end. But it was a great experience, and playing one playthough in one continuous session, gave us an accurate feeling of the overall pacing. The key takeaway was that the game was too long, and some parts were too boring or repetitive.

A week-long one-playthrough in one continuous session where they are 'destroyed*' sounds different than a typical 40-hour work week. I presume that by destroyed, they meant exhausted and needing a break for a day or two before resuming a typical work week.


It is safe to assume that the need to have family vacations (meaning no distraction from family) provides another context clue that this was not a typical work week where they clock out and go home to spend time with family.


Twelve people * five full days (assuming eight work hours times five days is 40 work hours) is roughly 480 work hours compressed into a tight timeframe.

It is tricky to translate this into how long it takes a single individual to play 16 hours to reach what WUBE describes as 'one playthrough.'


They even admit that certain parts were too boring or repetitive and plan to tune until it isn't so.

Diposting pertama kali oleh Hurkyl:

No, I did not. I have the opinion we don't have nearly enough information to tell. And I have the opinion that remaining the same would be consistent with the known information.

And more pertinently, I have the opinion that some people -- I expect you are included -- are underestimating how early in a playthrough the rocket will come, and interpret "locked behind rocket launches" to be a lot later than it actually will be.

Here's the thing: Judging from the July 2022 playthrough, we know that there will be more to do* even after tuning it down to be less boring and repetitive without knowing when or how early a rocket silo can be built.


Expanding on the asterisk point from the previous paragraph, you need to consider that each world will be different and require players to clear, build, research, and more to unlock the necessary infrastructure to reach the last world.

Currently, the any% Factorio speedrun goal is to launch a rocket from Nauvis. Post-Space Age will likely look more like "reaching" the last world or "accomplishing" something challenging on the last world, as in There is no Spoon hard.


I am aware that the rocket silo and the costs of each rocket launch are going down (some material no longer exists and lower costs).

This simple change will trivialize the "There is No Spoon" achievement, and the "new" any% Factorio in Space Age will likely look very distinct from what we know today.

[Jagdtiger]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Vyndicu:

Real-live Artillery capable of reaching the range of Factorio Artillery existed during WW1.

Range in factorio can be interpreted as either an abstraction or an extension of the suspension of disbelief. The existence of long range with early 20th century technology does not, as you said, suggest that the factorio artillery can be build with WW1 technology

Diposting pertama kali oleh Vyndicu:

Real-live Artillery has countless variants. This fact presents a stronger argument for an earlier green or blue science pack-based Factorio Artillery being weaker than later versions, similar to how the pistol is a weaker version of a rifle.

Exactly the point is that the factorio artillery cannot (read: should not when realism is concerned) exist prior to space science. Introducing other types of artillery does not pertain to not "locking artillery behind space science", since in this context "artillery" means the factorio artillery specifically, which should be behind space science. Additional, weaker versions may not be (though they probably won't be added)

Diposting pertama kali oleh Vyndicu:

I only started specifically mentioning a specific artillery gun after you brought up the K2 from the WW2 era as being misidentified as a Paris Gun from WW1

No, you brought up the Paris Gun initially:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Vyndicu:

I recommend Google 'Paris Gun WW1.'

My aside about the Paris Gun commonly being misunderstood to be a railway cannon was due to this comment:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Vyndicu:

Also, it was so large and heavy that they couldn't move it well except on the railroad, and it is almost equivalent to a vanilla 1.1 Factorio's artillery wagon sans post-1920 technologies and capability.

In this context, calling it "almost equivalent" is inappropriate, since a more accurate analogue would be placing an artillery gun in a cargo wagon, unloading it on the other side and building it before firing, not an artillery wagon.

Diposting pertama kali oleh Vyndicu:

Now, the goalposts have been moved to artillery guns that were designed to fire while on the move

You originally brought up the idea (disputing it) here:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Vyndicu:

I never said that the 38 cm SK L/45 "Max" could fire while moving on the railroad

However, i had specifically said fire *while on rails*, not while moving. This is why neither the Paris Gun nor the SK L45 are railway cannons, since they are simply transported by rails, and then assembled on a concrete base before firing. Some real life examples of railway artillery exist, which can be fired directly from their wagon, akin to the factorio artillery wagons. No artillery is designed to fire on the move, that was never in dispute (except i guess naval artillery as mounted on moving ships, but that's not important to the discussion).

The point is not the capacity to fire on the move, no ground-based artillery can do that. The point is that all the examples of rail artillery you have brought up are merely transported by rail, and require assembly before firing. Examples of rail artillery that do not need assembly before firing and can fire from their wagon while on rails do exist, and they are more similar to factorio's artillery wagons, that can fire as soon as they come to a halt. This is what makes factorio's artillery incomparable to the named railway cannons, as well as the technology differences

[Vyndicu]

I will go through what you posted.

Diposting pertama kali oleh Jagdtiger:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Vyndicu:

Real-live Artillery capable of reaching the range of Factorio Artillery existed during WW1.

Range in factorio can be interpreted as either an abstraction or an extension of the suspension of disbelief. The existence of long range with early 20th century technology does not, as you said, suggest that the factorio artillery can be build with WW1 technology

I don't suggest it. The capability is there de facto; otherwise, there would have been no deaths or damaged structures in Paris during WW1 resulting from the heavily modified 38 cm SK L/45 "Max" artillery.

Diposting pertama kali oleh Jagdtiger:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Vyndicu:

Real-live Artillery has countless variants. This fact presents a stronger argument for an earlier green or blue science pack-based Factorio Artillery being weaker than later versions, similar to how the pistol is a weaker version of a rifle.

Exactly the point is that the factorio artillery cannot (read: should not when realism is concerned) exist prior to space science. Introducing other types of artillery does not pertain to not "locking artillery behind space science", since in this context "artillery" means the factorio artillery specifically, which should be behind space science. Additional, weaker versions may not be (though they probably won't be added)

Your original argument was that long-range artillery should not be possible from a realistic point of view without 21st-century technologies. Here is a quotation from you.

Source:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Jagdtiger:

You say that, but precision artillery came a long time after space flight in the real world. Early milestones in space flight include 1944, 1957, 1961 and 1969. The earliest example of precision (laser guided) artillery is the M712 Copperhead developed in 1970 to my knowledge. Additionally, GPS guided munitions don't really exist until the 21st century, and also inherently must be preceded by space flight, given the fact that they use satellites for guidance.

The existence of heavily modified naval-based guns, designed initially for battleships, that could be moved on land and fired at long-range large static targets in WWI indicates otherwise.

Diposting pertama kali oleh Jagdtiger:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Vyndicu:

I only started specifically mentioning a specific artillery gun after you brought up the K2 from the WW2 era as being misidentified as a Paris Gun from WW1

No, you brought up the Paris Gun initially:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Vyndicu:

I recommend Google 'Paris Gun WW1.'

My aside about the Paris Gun commonly being misunderstood to be a railway cannon was due to this comment:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Vyndicu:

Also, it was so large and heavy that they couldn't move it well except on the railroad, and it is almost equivalent to a vanilla 1.1 Factorio's artillery wagon sans post-1920 technologies and capability.

In this context, calling it "almost equivalent" is inappropriate, since a more accurate analogue would be placing an artillery gun in a cargo wagon, unloading it on the other side and building it before firing, not an artillery wagon.

Let's go through the various points and counter-points one by one.

Paris Gun is a 38 cm SK L/45 "Max" variant with a longer barrel and a smaller diameter. I identified it as an artillery gun that moved via rail/wagon without firing. See below for the full quotation.

Diposting pertama kali oleh Vyndicu:

Precision strike was not the goal because they did not yet have the capability. Artillery during this era was used to strike city-size targets or army fronts.

Also, it was so large and heavy that they couldn't move it well except on the railroad, and it is almost equivalent to a vanilla 1.1 Factorio's artillery wagon sans post-1920 technologies and capability.

It is not difficult to imagine a deathworld scenario in which the players care only a little about precision strikes, as there are valid targets everywhere.

The keywords and phrases here are 'almost,' 'couldn't move it well except on the railroad,' and the phrase 'sans post-1920 technologies and capability' includes and is not limited to being mounted to a dedicated wagon that allows the artillery gun to fire without being dismounted.

Also, notice the absence of when and how this particular artillery gun fired in the entire quotation block.

Also, being placed on a 'cargo wagon.' That is a misconception. Look at this screenshot from Wikipedia.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/38_cm_SK_L/45_%22Max%22#/media/File:38cmSKL45RRgun.jpg

A scheme of the 'cargo wagon.'

Source: https://topwar.ru/uploads/posts/2017-03/1488803665_38-cm-lange-max-10.jpg

That is different from what I would describe as an ordinary cargo wagon. Notice the complete metal assemblies for rail wheels in front and back and the uniquely modeled metal flatbed to fit only the 38 cm SK L/45 "Max, " never mind how they moved the Paris/23 CM variant (additional weight from the longer barrel). Furthermore, please look at the number of wheels/axes under the artillery gun 'cargo wagon. ' At the same time, the typical cargo wagon only had a few axles at most.

Diposting pertama kali oleh Jagdtiger:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Vyndicu:

Now, the goalposts have been moved to artillery guns that were designed to fire while on the move

You originally brought up the idea (disputing it) here:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Vyndicu:

I never said that the 38 cm SK L/45 "Max" could fire while moving on the railroad

I need specific criteria where I did say or bring up the idea because I am confident that I did not. See the absence of how/when the 38 cm SK L/45 "Max" fired while on the move section earlier in this post, and what you quoted indicates that I made a conscious choice not to.

Diposting pertama kali oleh Jagdtiger:

However, i had specifically said fire *while on rails*, not while moving. This is why neither the Paris Gun nor the SK L45 are railway cannons, since they are simply transported by rails, and then assembled on a concrete base before firing. Some real life examples of railway artillery exist, which can be fired directly from their wagon, akin to the factorio artillery wagons. No artillery is designed to fire on the move, that was never in dispute (except i guess naval artillery as mounted on moving ships, but that's not important to the discussion).

The point is not the capacity to fire on the move, no ground-based artillery can do that. The point is that all the examples of rail artillery you have brought up are merely transported by rail, and require assembly before firing. Examples of rail artillery that do not need assembly before firing and can fire from their wagon while on rails do exist, and they are more similar to factorio's artillery wagons, that can fire as soon as they come to a halt. This is what makes factorio's artillery incomparable to the named railway cannons, as well as the technology differences

I never discussed the difference between an artillery gun that exclusively only moves on the railroad vs. an artillery gun firing from a wagon on the rail without dismounting.

Furthermore, I compared Factorio Artillery wagons to real-life artillery guns, incapable of firing from a wagon without dismounting. The manual labor to build static mounts for firing those artillery guns could have been replaced entirely by 'handwave,' or even the existence of robots/automation doing it faster and 'behind the scenes.'


The technology difference indicates that, realistically, from a hypothetical point of view, a Factorio engineer could build a less potential artillery turret/wagon earlier in the Factorio tech tree. The existence of WW1 long-range artillery contrasts your assertion that 21st-century technologies are mandatory at a minimum.

[shadain597]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Jagdtiger:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Vyndicu:

Real-live Artillery capable of reaching the range of Factorio Artillery existed during WW1.

Range in factorio can be interpreted as either an abstraction or an extension of the suspension of disbelief. The existence of long range with early 20th century technology does not, as you said, suggest that the factorio artillery can be build with WW1 technology

Diposting pertama kali oleh Vyndicu:

Real-live Artillery has countless variants. This fact presents a stronger argument for an earlier green or blue science pack-based Factorio Artillery being weaker than later versions, similar to how the pistol is a weaker version of a rifle.

Exactly the point is that the factorio artillery cannot (read: should not when realism is concerned) exist prior to space science. Introducing other types of artillery does not pertain to not "locking artillery behind space science", since in this context "artillery" means the factorio artillery specifically, which should be behind space science. Additional, weaker versions may not be (though they probably won't be added)

Since it has been ignored, I repeat:

Diposting pertama kali oleh shadain597:

Baseline artillery range in game is 224 tiles for automatic and 560 for manual. One tile is approximately one square meter. It doesn't take lasers or GPS to have reasonable accuracy at that range.

Stop pretending that having good accuracy at a range of half a kilometre or being mounted on a railcar requires technology like advanced flying drones or GPS satellites. By far the most technically advanced part of in-game artillery is the automated operation of it, which can be hand-waved in the same way that everything else is. (i.e. gun turrets, inserters, assemblers, etc.)

The current placement of artillery has very little to do with IRL complexity but rather game balance. In vanilla it, along with spidertron, are primarily toys for post-victory megabases. They trivialize certain parts of the (vanilla) game. SA is slightly different, in that you may be spending a substantial amount of time on a different surface, so the automated defenses need to be able to hold the line without direct player intervention. That doesn't mean we need the power of vanilla's artillery, but we probably do need something for worms that creep up on our defenses while we're on another surface.

[Chindraba]

I think we can safely place Factorio weapons in a different category than IRL weapons. Even the ranking of weapon ranges is different.

IRL flamethrower turrets would have a range around 30m, though the British did develop one with a range of some 90m, but it never saw much service. Factorio range: 30 tiles.

IRL a submachine gun, or more likely an assault rifle since that's what the image of the smg more resembles, has a wide range based on make and model, but they generally fall in the 100m - 200m range and clustered more in the middle of the range. Let's just call it 150m. Factorio range: 18 tiles (smg and turret).

IRL a laser turret has a, to my knowledge, classified range. An article about the US Navy project to use them, discussing a 50kw platform said "These power levels can take out cruise missiles, drones, and manned aircraft at ranges of a few miles." (I can only imagine what one would do the 'soft targets' such as biters and spitters.) Factorio range: 24 tiles.

Relative rankings; [listl

• IRL = flamethrower -> lead thrower (x5) -> light thrower (x50).
  
• Factorio = lead-thrower -> light-thrower (x1.3) -> flamethrower (x1.7)

---

I further think we can ignore any relation between tile distances in Factorio and any IRL measurements. For speed of train, tank and car it works 'okay' to call a tile a meter. For every other purpose it's pointless. Pistols only shoot 15m? A tank is only 2.5m long? Radar only gives good coverage for 1/7 (0.126) of a km? A nuclear reactor is only 5m wide? Train wagons are only 6m long? Somehow it just falls flat somewhere. Something, or everything, is lost in the translation.

---

So, let's not bother comparing Factorio artillery, by range, to any IRL weapons of a similar nature - mortars, field guns, cannons, artillery or even the Paris gun. They are in two different worlds.

What we can, and should, compare are the in-game ranges of available weapons and known enemies. Guns (smg or turret) as the base or 1, lasers are 1.3 flamers are 1.6, small spitters are 0.7, behemoth spitters are 0.9, small worms are 1.4, behemoth worms are 2.7, and then artillery is 12.4 (automated, 31 manual).

If the artillery must be compared to anything IRL, then at least pick something comperable - the cruise missiles. Each shell includes a fully-functional radar, including exposing the tiles of the map it flies over rather than mere GPS guidance. WWII era "cruise missiles" lacked radar - the V-1 and V-2 - and had a limited range of 250km. Modern cruise missiles, made by several countries, have a range over 1000 km. And, if you wish to get into a bit of the tech, the V-1 and the modern versions are propelled by "rocket" engines.

---

Random cleanup. The artillery, and other toys are not said to require the use of space science, only that they require first visiting some other planet. The impression I have, from the FFF it was in and all which has followed, is that each thing will be on the tech discovered on some planet, not that any one of them will require visiting two, or more, planets to unlock. Spidertron, however, I could see needing two planets, just because they seem to consider it a very late game toy. And it's not just artillery, cliff explosives and spidertron in that change. It's also the tier 3 modules; speed, productivity and efficiency.

Diposting pertama kali oleh FFF #373:

Since the goal was to make the overall expansion experience as good as possible, we have rebalanced the tech tree. This means, that with Space Age enabled, some items that are available in vanilla are unlocked later on some planet. This specifically applies to artillery, cliff explosives (this is the masochist part of me speaking), Spidertron, best tier of modules, and some personal equipment upgrades.

Game play length: much has been tossed around about the LAN party. That was a trial and a learning experience to help develop and test the game. The goal is rather established.

Diposting pertama kali oleh FFF #373:

The game was a little bit too slow and grindy, so we were speeding things up, which doesn't mean dumbing it down. The goal was to be able to finish it in non-speedrun mode in less than 80 hours for an experienced player. We were trying to keep the mechanics and just cut down on the recipe counts and costs.

For comparison, though I don't recall where I encountered it, the current game is designed to be close 50 hours in non-speedrun mode to launch the rocket.

[Jagdtiger]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Vyndicu:

I don't suggest it. The capability is there de facto; otherwise, there would have been no deaths or damaged structures in Paris during WW1 resulting from the heavily modified 38 cm SK L/45 "Max" artillery.

Diposting pertama kali oleh Vyndicu:

Your original argument was that long-range artillery should not be possible from a realistic point of view without 21st-century technologies. Here is a quotation from you.

Incorrect. I was not referring to range in any capacity; i specifically said "precision". In this context, precision means guided by laser, GPS, radar, or other technologies surpassing the capabilities of conventional artillery, which is instead fired using simple ballistic motion equations as well as spotter guidance. The range is not a factor here. Factorio artillery can strike with decimeter accuracy. The WW1 artillery discussed cannot, and indeed no non-guided artillery can. The only way this is possible is with guided munitions - "precision" munitions, which does require technology that surpasses space science. The artillery shells in factorio require a radar to build. Whether this specifically means that they are radar guided, or is an abstraction of some other kind of advanced targeting onboard the shell is irrelevant, since either way it confirms that the artillery shells are guided. This means that factorio artillery cannot be compared to WW1 era artillery.

The possibility of other, non-guided conventional artillery being earlier in the tech tree is perfectly acceptable (from a realism standpoint)

Diposting pertama kali oleh Vyndicu:

The keywords and phrases here are 'almost,' 'couldn't move it well except on the railroad,' and the phrase 'sans post-1920 technologies and capability' includes and is not limited to being mounted to a dedicated wagon that allows the artillery gun to fire without being dismounted.

The use of "almost" here added enough ambiguity for it to be reasonable to interpret that you were suggesting that these guns could fire while on their rail carriage. This entire point is just semantics and we don't actually have a disagreement here

Diposting pertama kali oleh Vyndicu:

Also, being placed on a 'cargo wagon.' That is a misconception. Look at this screenshot from Wikipedia.
...
That is different from what I would describe as an ordinary cargo wagon

Certainly, these weapons are not carried on ordinary cargo wagons, and perhaps calling it a cargo wagon caused some semantic disagreement. It is a custom build transport carriage. The nature of it suggests that it is indeed a wagon for cargo, even if not conventional. The point of calling it a cargo wagon was to emphasise that it was on rails exclusively for transport, not for firing

Diposting pertama kali oleh Vyndicu:

I need specific criteria where I did say or bring up the idea because I am confident that I did not. See the absence of how/when the 38 cm SK L/45 "Max" fired while on the move section earlier in this post, and what you quoted indicates that I made a conscious choice not to.

The quote i provided was the first time the idea of firing on the move was brought up in this discussion. We both know and agree that these cannot fire on the move, and neither of us suggested they can. My point originally was that they cannot fire while on rails, which you misinterpreted as me saying they cannot fire while moving on rails, both of which are true, but there was no discussion of firing while moving prior, there is no discussion to be had about that.

The *reason* i pointed that they cannot be fired on rails is because you compared them to the factorio wagons, which can be fired while on rails. In my opinion, this makes the comparison poor

Diposting pertama kali oleh Vyndicu:

I never discussed the difference between an artillery gun that exclusively only moves on the railroad vs. an artillery gun firing from a wagon on the rail without dismounting.

This is exactly the difference i discussed, and is exactly where the disagreement on semantics of rail artillery comes from. Suggesting that the labour of assembling the guns is abstracted in factorio is a reasonable argument, but was not clearly implied by what you had said earlier, and does make the weapons more similar.

Diposting pertama kali oleh Vyndicu:

The technology difference indicates that, realistically, from a hypothetical point of view, a Factorio engineer could build a less potential artillery turret/wagon earlier in the Factorio tech tree

This is true, and i did not suggest otherwise. I only suggested that adding multiple artillery technologies to the game is probably not the direction the devs are going to take

Diposting pertama kali oleh Vyndicu:

The existence of WW1 long-range artillery contrasts your assertion that 21st-century technologies are mandatory at a minimum.

This, however, is false, and does not follow from your previous point. Again, i originally specified *precision guided* artillery. That is what factorio artillery is, and has only existed since the 70s - post space science. I did not dispute the range capabilities of any artillery discussed, and believe it to be irrelevant to factorio since the factorio artillery barely has a range of 1km, which is clearly a gameplay balance inaccuracy/abstraction. Indeed, at this range any artillery piece would be perfectly accurate. We should be able to outrange artillery with our rifles.

The point is not range, it is accuracy. We can lase the artillery to hit a specific spot with perfect accuracy near the limit of its range, as well as the shells being manufactured with guidance systems inbuilt (the radar in the recipe). The doctrine of artillery prior to precision guided artillery was fire superiority and fire volume. Firing enough shells would guarantee a hit by probability. This differs from the doctrine of guided weapons, where a single shell hitting within 10cm of a designated location is guaranteed to annihilate the target (like in factorio)

There absolutely could be conventional (non-guided) artillery built as soon as explosives are available, and i never disputed this.

[shadain597]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Chindraba:

I think we can safely place Factorio weapons in a different category than IRL weapons. Even the ranking of weapon ranges is different.

I realize that it probably isn't very clear from my posts, but we essentially agree. There's some essays being written trying to compare every little in-game detail to the real-world version, but Factorio hasn't made any attempts to be hyper-realistic.

Setting aside artillery, in SA we're also looking at cliff explosives and elevated rails being locked behind interplanetary travel--yet IRL these things existed long before electric lighting was common, and certainly long before manned spaceflight. This is a videogame and while the tech tree generally follows what we would think of as logical progression, there are definitely glaring exceptions for the purpose of gameplay/balance.

Diposting pertama kali oleh Chindraba:

If the artillery must be compared to anything IRL, then at least pick something comperable - the cruise missiles. Each shell includes a fully-functional radar, including exposing the tiles of the map it flies over rather than mere GPS guidance. WWII era "cruise missiles" lacked radar - the V-1 and V-2 - and had a limited range of 250km. Modern cruise missiles, made by several countries, have a range over 1000 km. And, if you wish to get into a bit of the tech, the V-1 and the modern versions are propelled by "rocket" engines.

I can't say that I'm a fan of this comparison. For one thing, the missiles you refer to are self-guided (and self-propelled). Modern missiles can take a very indirect path, and (AFAIK) can even be redirected/track a moving target to some degree. Yes, Factorio artillery is extremely accurate. But, then again, so are all the lead-throwers. We have unpowered turrets that can fire on enemies (and only living enemies) with perfect accuracy. The devs chose not to make accuracy an issue for most weapons. As for the radar. . . Is it any weirder than the actual radar structure? That thing is more like a satellite uplink that doesn't require you to launch satellites. It's a hand-wavy game mechanic, and the artillery part of it is addressed by the fact that one of the ingredients for making artillery shells is a radar.

Those fancy parts of in-game artillery? That is, unrealistic accuracy, automated functionality, and "radar coverage"? All are available within red science tech. That doesn't mean that we should get vanilla's artillery in red science, but the discussion should really veer away from:
"artillery is super-advanced tech that shouldn't be available before. . ."
And more towards:
"artillery is a powerful game mechanic that shouldn't be available before. . ."

[Chindraba]

Diposting pertama kali oleh shadain597:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Chindraba:

If the artillery must be compared to anything IRL, then at least pick something comperable - the cruise missiles. ...

I can't say that I'm a fan of this comparison.

I can't say I'm a fan of it either. Emphasis applied to 'must'.

I'm of the position that using IRL things and science to explain or understand what the devs do, in micro-scale decisions, is fine - when it works. Comparing anything in the game to IRL doesn't work so well. Take the radar in question. How much research is required to make it? Zero. The green circuits and gears, as well as the radar itself is available for hadcrafting the second the cut scene ends. So to is the ability to power it.
** If an explaination is needed - it's a space engineer who's the survivor of the "landing," basic electronics and radar are reasonable to grant as existing knowledge from ship-board duties.

Someone tried to equate artillery, as it is in the game, with the 'artillery' of the 17th century, iirc. Might as well compare the crossbow medieval use to that of 20th century. Same name, completely not the same thing. The weapons, and armor, of Nauvis are the same as the ones of Terra in name and conceptual functionality only. Past that point it's a no-go comparison.

As to the components; the explosives are a green tech. The cannon shells in the artillery shell, are blue and the artillery itself is yellow, though it has nothing needed beyond green in its construction (turret or wagon).

The decisions made in the game, especially the larger ones, are going to be based on game balance. They have to be if the game is going to be worth playing. The ranges, given and compared in my last post, have no relation in rank or ratio to IRL ranges. They do have reasonable - in game - comparison to the ranges of the enemies, the game progression, and the game balance.

Science, the IRL version of it, does come in handy sometimes. The sulfuric acid and calcite process to make steam, and eventually water, on Vulcanus is at least 90% valid. The 500 degree C steam might be a stretch. The reation does produce water and is exothermic, so the stretch is not that bad. I'll wager, however, that is about as far as the "science" will take it. There's sure to be plenty of actual requirements to make that reaction practical which will be hand-waved away on Vulcanus. Kewl. It is a game, not a science lesson. Or, in the case of artillery, not a history lessson.

Now for the real in-game kicker. As I understand it, in SA the rockets and all the space travel componets are blue science. That includes the space science. Those pritine white flasks will be flowing before the pissy ones will. With artillery locked behind another planet, which can be reached by nothing put blue science, it seems possible that the shells could be flying before yellow science is even started. It's also possible that, in clock hours, artillery becomes available earlier in SA than the base game. The total game time, on average, is targeted to be a 60% increase, and there's a whole bunch more stuff to happen after visiting one, or two planets. All three of the tier-2 planets (Nauvis being the solo tier-1 planet) have to be visited, and their science produced at some level, before we can reach the final, tier-3, planet. There we start its science, and still have one more science to learn. Yes, crash to artillery just might be shorter on the wall clock in SA than vanilla, and still keep the words of the FFF valid.

Diposting pertama kali oleh FFF #373:

Since the goal was to make the overall expansion experience as good as possible, we have rebalanced the tech tree. This means, that with Space Age enabled, some items that are available in vanilla are unlocked later on some planet. This specifically applies to artillery, cliff explosives (this is the masochist part of me speaking), Spidertron, best tier of modules, and some personal equipment upgrades.

I've no argument with your views. I do hope, however, that there is something added between flamers and arty. Something which is a reasonable match for the larger worms without being instant death to 49 square chunks in one gun.

[shadain597]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Chindraba:

Yes, crash to artillery just might be shorter on the wall clock in SA than vanilla, and still keep the words of the FFF valid.

Possible, though I'm inclined to think it's not terribly likely. Particularly in the first playthrough, I expect it to take quite a while. And, unless something else is added to partially take on that role, we'll likely feel it's absence in SA much more than vanilla.

Diposting pertama kali oleh Chindraba:

I've no argument with your views. I do hope, however, that there is something added between flamers and arty. Something which is a reasonable match for the larger worms without being instant death to 49 square chunks in one gun.

Yeah, I very much want something to fill in that gap too. I was thinking about it, and it seems likely (but not guaranteed) that we'll get roughly 4 new automated defense systems in SA, since it is supposed to have about the same amount of content that vanilla does. It'd make a lot of sense if one of those was another artillery-type weapon.

As I mentioned earlier, I've grown rather fond of the idea of having a multiple rocket launcher (MRL) as an alternative to vanilla's artillery, with each turret firing a volley of rockets that hit the target area in a shotgun spread. Individually, the rockets wouldn't do as much damage as an artillery shell, but there'd be 4-8 rockets (possibly more?) in each turret's volley. Range would probably start (without research or quality improvements) at 60-100 tiles and hopefully it'd be unlockable about the same time as space travel. A cool turret to keep biter expansion at bay, but inefficient at clearing large patches of territory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_rocket_launcher

[GAMING_Alligator]

Diposting pertama kali oleh 🆄🅽🅲🅻🅴 🅹🅾:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Biometrix:

I turn off cliff generation every single game. Those are annoying.

Ah! I'm not alone.

Wait, you can turn that off?!

[shadain597]

Diposting pertama kali oleh GAMING_Alligator:

Diposting pertama kali oleh 🆄🅽🅲🅻🅴 🅹🅾:

Ah! I'm not alone.

Wait, you can turn that off?!

It really pays to carefully look over ALL of the map generation settings. I typically turn off cliffs too, so the expansion's cliff puzzles are going to be super annoying. (My assumption is that, like in SE, the ability to turn off things like cliffs will be limited to Nauvis and not extend to the other worlds. But I might be wrong.)

[Chindraba]

Until the mention of moving artillery later in the tech tree - which may or may not be the intention after reading the FFF a few dozen more times - I had been rather mild, but interested, about the idea of a defensive weapon between flamers and arty.

At one point I had my perimeter established so far out that my pollution cloud was never going to reach it until I scaled up production by a factor of 5 or better. The only attacks I had were the random expansion party encounters. I was annoyed every time I saw the alert icon persist for more than a few seconds and often followed by the icon for destroyed walls. The cause was an expansion party that didn't encounter the wall and attack, but settled in a chunk close enough that a big or behemoth worm ended up with my wall in range and would spit at it (them) until they were destroyed. There is no automated solution other than artillery in that scenario. I had not deployed artillery and had to personally attend to the problem. Usually with a bit of nuclear diplomacy. It was a distraction more than a problem.

In one of the posts about SA it was covered that the base needed a good, automated, defense able to work without my attention for a long time while I'm on another planet. It included the inference that travel between planets will not be a rapid thing. Though, in my case, a train trip of some 20k tiles or more wasn't rapid either.

Diposting pertama kali oleh FFF 382:

You also probably know, that it is a good idea to set up a way to keep your defensive perimeter in good shape automatically, so biters won't eventually grind it down. This becomes even more useful once you need to ensure that your base is able to survive long enough without your physical presence in the space age expansion before having spidertrons or artillery.

Without the artillery, which is behind another planet in SA, and without me on-site to address that situation, there is no solution. Some new, much less OP, defensive turret which can be placed and automated is needed, imho, to fulfill the needed unattended and automated defense. Something with a range of 55 or so would work. Even with a minimum range of 25, allowing for the trajectory mechanic to be employed, would work. As long as its minimum range is within the range of the flamers and it max range allows for having behemoth worms in range at any point where the wall is in range of the worm, including enough extra to allow some buffer space between the turret and the wall, Interesting extra piece here is that if the flamers are behind a wall, and there's the 1-tile gap to account for behemoth biters ability to reach over walls, the flamer's effective range is 28 which leaves a 3-tile wide zone where worms can still exist out of range for any weapon and have the wall in range for acid attacks.

I'm not particular what kind of weapon it is. Mortar, a "primitive" version of artillery (conceptually even though they're actually quite different) would work. A cannon turret, using either the standard versions of cannon shells, or their own unique versions, with a longer range (~55) for being built rather than mobile like the tank (range 30). Even something similar with rockets, excluding the nukes perhaps, where the turret grants greater range than the hand-held launcher. Even something unique to the minds of Factorio devs which I can never dream of.

Diposting pertama kali oleh shadain597:

As I mentioned earlier, I've grown rather fond of the idea of having a multiple rocket launcher (MRL) as an alternative to vanilla's artillery, with each turret firing a volley of rockets that hit the target area in a shotgun spread. Individually, the rockets wouldn't do as much damage as an artillery shell, but there'd be 4-8 rockets (possibly more?) in each turret's volley. Range would probably start (without research or quality improvements) at 60-100 tiles and hopefully it'd be unlockable about the same time as space travel. A cool turret to keep biter expansion at bay, but inefficient at clearing large patches of territory.

That is one I'd not thought of, and with the proper range it would fit the bill as well as anything else I've considered.

One final piece.

I'm sure it's not the case, but I hope you're aware that the change to artillery will not affect the base game, even after the 2.0 upgrade. Or, more correctly, "that we know of." They've mentioned the changes to the vanilla tech tree - esp. the new trigger concept and adding productivity to things other than mining. So far it seems, however, that the relative sequence will remain mostly intact, and artillery, and the other toys mentioned in the tech move, remain essentially where they are. Only bring this up because of one section.

Diposting pertama kali oleh shadain597:

And, unless something else is added to partially take on that role, we'll likely feel it's absence in SA much more than vanilla.

Unless by "feel its absence" you mean situations like I had above, its absence won't be felt anymore post 2.0 than it is in 1.1 for vanilla games.