More Artillery

More Artillery

Early artillery that does the targeting for you. Build a supplied defensive line, drive an artillery vehicle or run a patrolling artillery train, then get back to your factory.

Works with base Factorio. Space Age is optional. The stationary guns, Assault wagon and three new artillery cars work without expansion mods. With Space Age enabled, their research is available on Nauvis before your first trip to space.

| Weapon | Role | Range | Fires every | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Field Artillery | Automatically removes nests and worms | 20–160 tiles | 6 seconds | | Hunter Artillery | Leads moving enemy groups with shrapnel shells | 15–120 tiles | 3 seconds | | Assault Artillery Wagon | Hunts mobile enemies while the train is moving | 15–120 tiles | 3 seconds | | Fire Artillery | Covers approaches with sustained ground fire | 20–140 tiles | 5 seconds |

New in 0.3.0: drivable artillery cars (Factorio 2.1)

Three heavy tracked vehicles carry Field, Hunter or Fire Artillery. Drive them yourself while their cannons select targets and fire automatically, including on the move. They consume the same real shells as their stationary counterparts and use the same ranges and firing intervals. Field targets nests and worms; Hunter leads mobile enemies; Fire offers four target priorities and checks friendly buildings and characters before firing and again at impact.

Research each vehicle after Automobilism and its matching artillery technology. Craft it from one car, one matching artillery turret, 30 steel plates and 10 engines. Add fuel and shells to the vehicle's native inventories. Manual shooting does not trigger additional artillery shots.

The cars work on their own. Optional expedition automation and supply-base integration require Autonomous Expeditions 0.7.1 or newer; older releases do not control these vehicles. That companion update adds solo/group expeditions and a shared supply store for mixed ammunition variants and qualities.

Build, supply, defend

Field Artillery needs red, green and military science. Hunter, Fire and Assault add blue science. Every weapon consumes real shells, and normal inserters handle loading. No repeated remote targeting is needed.

The Assault wagon uses Hunter shells and fires automatically on patrol, in either direction and through curves. Its cannon aiming, muzzle flash and recoil follow the scripted shot.

Fire shells use 2 steel plates, 3 explosives and 50 heavy oil. Craft them in a machine with a fluid connection; the turret takes finished shells. An impact creates ground fire across roughly a 10-tile radius for 20 seconds.

Four Fire targeting modes

Open a Fire turret or Fire artillery car to choose:

• Enemies first, then nests — the default.
• Nests first, then enemies.
• Enemies only.
• Nests only.

The choice survives saving and loading, setting-copy, cloning and new blueprints. On Factorio 2.1, placing a blueprint over an existing turret also transfers its mode; on 2.0, use normal setting-copy for existing turrets.

Fire avoids friendly buildings and characters before firing and again at impact. Turrets coordinate incoming shots and burning areas to reduce wasted ammunition. Walking or building into an existing fire can still cause damage.

Balance and compatibility

Designed to be strong and convenient, with a small dead zone that keeps close defence useful. Hunter, Fire, Assault and the artillery cars use fixed scripted range, cooldown and damage; extra Quality or vanilla artillery research does not scale them. The stationary Field turret uses native artillery behaviour. The native artillery remote and automatic-targeting switch are not supported controls for scripted weapons and cars.

Factorio 2.0: older 0.1.x releases remain available; the new vehicle update targets 2.1. Factorio 2.1: release 0.3.0, tested on 2.1.23, with and without Space Age. Languages: English and German.

Tested alongside the author's Manifold, Resource Compressor Extended, Factorio Soundtrack Slowed Down and Second Shift releases on the applicable game lines. The installed Manifold 0.11.1 profile was also checked. Without Space Age, the mod was also checked with Manifold, Resource Compressor Extended and Factorio Soundtrack Slowed Down. Second Shift itself requires Space Age. The packaged compatibility notes list the exact tested versions.

With Space Age enabled, Hunter and Fire have been checked on all five planet surfaces, including native small wrigglers on Gleba. Stationary guns need heating on Aquilo and do not shoot while frozen. These checks do not promise Demolisher hunting, universal fire effectiveness, or planet-specific balance; enemy resistances still apply. Elevated rail ramps have no separate visual acceptance test.

The 0.3.0/Autonomous Expeditions 0.7.1 verification covered 40 scenarios, including real ammunition use, moving fire, supply, groups, planets and save/reload. A historical two-client test with the combined 2.1 mod set passed on 2.1.22, including real GUI changes and server reload. Further multiplayer tests are deferred. In the Space Age benchmarks with 100 stationary script guns and 20 moving wagons, additional average combat script time was 0.51–0.56 ms/tick on the documented test machine; individual peaks were higher. Audio has not been audibly reviewed.

The thumbnail is an original Blender model and render, using the same materials and lighting style as the companion mods. It is cover artwork; in-game weapons use tinted vanilla graphics.