Faster Tank Turret

Faster Tank Turret

Faster Tank Turret is a mod for Factorio.

Problem

The tank turret's default traverse speed is somewhat slow. Since the turret aims forward until spacebar is pressed, there is an annoying and sometimes tactically catastrophic (especially with explosive shells) delay between pressing the button and when the gun is fired.

If the turret would pre-aim at where the mouse cursor is, that would eliminate the problem, but it does not; it only aims toward the cursor when spacebar is held down, but then the user does not have precise control over when each shell is fired when using the cannon. And it can be hard to even know when firing takes place on a noisy and busy battlefield.

This issue is discussed in the forum post A couple of complaints about the Tank.

Solution

This mod solves the problem by simply speeding up the traverse rate, by default by 10 times. That makes firing practically instantaneous while still providing the visual impression of rotation (rather than teleportation).

Balance considerations

The default turret rotation rate is 189 degrees per 90 ticks, which is the cannon cooldown time. Therefore, in principle, it allows the turret to be fired at any angle from shot to shot while still firing at the maximum rate. Hence, this mod does not change the theoretical agility of the cannon weapon, it merely allows that rate to be realized in practice without wasting shots and having no control over the precise shot timing.

The rotation speed buff does improve agility for the submachine gun and flamethrower weapons. But for those weapons, "wasting" ammo by pressing spacebar to get the turret to rotate is not a concern, nor is synchronizing shots with aiming, so this mod's beneficial effect is minimal in practice.

Thus, while this mod undeniably makes the tank stronger, it does so primarily by fixing user interface deficiencies.