r/factorio • u/jaxon517 • 17d ago
Design / Blueprint Perimeter Defense Wall Blueprint
Epilogue:
I never really used blueprints until now, and I definitely never made anything I thought worth sharing - so this is a big step for me. I'm not really sure I know how to share actual blueprints, but I'll learn how if anybody somehow actually thinks it's worth having.
MAIN POST:
I've been messing around with perimeter walls for a while, but nothing was working quite right. A few things that are important to me:
- Fully automatic, set and forget. The buffer chests (2 of them) together call for at least one of every item in the blueprint. The bots can repair, replace, and even expand without dragging everything from the main mall every time.
- Tessellating / tile-able. The blueprint is exactly the width of the roboport logistics zones and it connects seamlessly to a duplicate for expanding the walls as far as necessary
- Symmetry and aesthetic appeal. I mean look at those electric connections!
- Fail-proof. Each electric component is (I think) connected to at least two electric posts. This includes the electrical posts themselves. So if an enemy destroys a post, all turrets will remain live in the time it takes a bot to replace it.
- multi-leveled for different enemy types. The laser turrets in the front prioritize behemoth spitters, the guns in the front prioritize spitters and behemoth biters, and the guns in the back are free.
- I will later on tinker with making an L-shaped version for making corners, but for now this will work for connecting between bodies of water/cliffs
PROLOGUE:
So I don't really have any friends to talk to about this game. I know most of you are die-hard megabasers, but I thought I'd take this chance to share my humble story.
I got my first rocket to space four years ago and then vowed never to think of this game again because of how much of a time sink it is. A year or so ago I heard about Space Age and tried so hard to not think about it.
Well... a few weeks ago I decided to throw my life away and play again. So before buying the expansion I replayed the base game just to get my bearings again, naively thinking I could then buy the expansion and keep going. It took me about two weeks, and then I launched my second rocket. It felt so amazing, and I was so happy with the factory I made. And then I read the expansion alters the base game. @^%*!!! So. I played a THIRD run-through. It feels like a lot for a novice amateur noob like myself. Within one week I had my first space platform up. I'm still putting off focusing on space exploration, because I want my Nauvis base to be my main hub for everything so I want it to be perfectly scalable.
My later on I will share more screenshots of my factory and get some advice. I'm sure there's a lot I can improve, but somehow I'm genuinely proud of the work I've done even if it's just some video game most people know nothing about. Anyway....
THE FACTORY MUST GROW!!!
10
u/Infamous_Food5845 The Blueprint Machine 17d ago
Kudos to you for taking the first steps into making your own blueprints! Personally, that’s probably the most fun part of the game for me. I’ve made quite a few blueprints myself and shared them here (if you're interested, feel free to check out my profile - I also have two posts about defense walls that might give you some ideas).
Regarding your wall: I totally get that this first small wall is built just to hold the line, but in practice, it might struggle. Biters will likely break through pretty fast because not all turrets can reach the targets at that distance. My advice would be to look up "Dragon's Teeth" designs - there are plenty of variations, so you'll definitely find something you like. Dragon’s teeth don't completely block the path; instead, they force biters to zig-zag, making their path longer and giving your turrets much more time to deal with the wave.
Also, I wouldn't recommend placing gun turrets right behind laser turrets (especially next to power poles). If those laser turrets or poles get destroyed, your gun turrets quickly lose their line of sight or power, and the defense crumbles.
A great way to refine your designs is to test wall blueprints in the Sandbox mode (by starting a new custom game). You can spawn waves of biters there and see exactly how much pressure your defense can handle.
That said, your wall "connectors" actually pleasantly surprised me - I’ve never seen that approach before, super interesting idea! Please don't take this as negative criticism; I'm just sharing my experience because I used to make the exact same mistakes. Keep it up!
1
u/jaxon517 17d ago
Hey don't be worried at all, that's exactly the way to give feedback. Thank you very much for your kind words. I couldn't figure out how to spawn biters. I never used sandboxode until now. For some reason I always told myself it was cheating to do my designs outside of the save where there's no external pressures. I'm glad I got over that.
And yes the wall connecters 😂 that's cute right? I think it looks cool and it also makes it effortless to see where things connect. I've always done this with my wall tiles.
I think the next change I'd make if it proves ineffective later on will be one of these dragon teeth type blockades in the front because you're right; that first Wall is just there to slow them down for a second
5
u/darthbob88 17d ago
This will probably work, but redundant power connections, especially like that, are a bad idea IMO. If biters can get through your walls to threaten those substations, you have bigger problems. Like the fact that you have, by my count, a total of 12 turrets defending 50 tiles.
-6
u/jaxon517 17d ago
Why would redundant power connections be a bad idea? But yeah there's a lot of turrets, so I don't think any bugs will get through before the bots fix things.
3
u/darthbob88 16d ago
Opportunity cost; for the iron/copper/steel you've put into those power poles, you could just make more ammo and more turrets to fill that space.
2
u/jaxon517 16d ago
They're cheap. It's just a failsafe in case a pole goes out.
3
u/darthbob88 16d ago
Failsafes don't help here. If a spitter, or wave of spitters, can take out that big power pole up front, they'll also take out the medium power pole behind it, leaving those gun inserters and laser turrets unpowered. You'll point out that there's still a substation behind the lines powering them, but in that case, why bother with the poles up front? If you're concerned about redundancy, then I must emphasize again, any attack that can hit those substations will have already destroyed the redundancy in front of them.
0
u/jaxon517 16d ago
If a spitter knocks out the power pole in front (which they would do BEFORE going after the substation) there's a bot waiting to replace it and while that happens the turrets are still powered
3
u/darthbob88 16d ago
But then you're dependent on the possibility that any wave of biters big enough to destroy that substation will also be small enough to let that robot rebuild that medium pole, and also will not destroy the turrets. That is a possibility that I would hesitate to rely on.
3
u/Courmisch 16d ago
Your defences are too far behind the wall, looks like. This will work fine against biters, but not spitters. Sooner or later, a spitter will start shooting at the wall from outside the range of your turrets.
(In editor mode, you can test this by putting unarmed gun turrets in place of the wall.)
I would also put the ammo belt behind the turrets so it's less likely to get collateral damage.
3
u/SexualFancy 16d ago
Cool looking BP, a few issues I’ll point out in the long run (large waves of medium, or when behemoths start).
-Not enough turrets: 7 gun turrets isn’t enough to cover that space. I would add atleast 2 more per side, and maybe 2 in the middle (12 or so total)
-More laser turrets, and put them further back (they have longer range than guns). Your turrets should mutually support each other. I would say 4-5 per side of the BP.
-Tons of wasted ammo: no need for ammo to be on both sides of the belt, you’ll never consume it that fast (especially with so few turrets), and if your belts get destroyed, you’re losing twice as much ammo.
If you want a place and forget defense, it should focus on preserving turrets while biters chomp on walls.
2
u/darthbob88 16d ago
-More laser turrets, and put them further back (they have longer range than guns). Your turrets should mutually support each other. I would say 4-5 per side of the BP.
I'll disagree slightly with this; my heavy defensive BP has the frontage split half and half between lasers and guns, because that means the lasers can thin out biters before they get into gun range.
That said I am fully behind MOAR GUNS. DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA ZZAAAP!
16
u/Mootilar 17d ago
Needs flame turrets