Space Artillery
Automated artillery defense against asteroids. Requires Factorio 2.1 + Space Age.
Place artillery on a space platform and use a powered targeting computer to select its targets. Cannons lead moving asteroids, coordinate fire using expected damage, and hold shots whose predicted blasts would reach platform foundation.
Cast steel and promethium artillery shells onboard, then research faster turret rotation and shell flight.
The shell-follow recording slows flight to one third of real time.
Getting started
- Research Artillery targeting computer after artillery, electromagnetic science and metallurgic science.
- Craft a computer using rare processing units and radars, superconductors, tungsten plates and low-density structures.
- Place it on a platform with artillery turrets, supply power, and choose the asteroid sizes, types and firing sector.
Targeting computer
- Filter by asteroid size and chunk type, including modded asteroid chunks.
- Set direction, arc width, and near and far range. The firing sector is highlighted while the computer window is open.
- Enable Show targets to see the platform's artillery aim points as red circles, connected to their asteroids by orange lines. These markers are visible to you while the window is open.
- Drive filters and sector settings through red or green circuit signals, or switch the computer off with a selected signal.
- Configure ghosts before construction, copy settings between computers, and carry settings in blueprints.
Any working computer on the platform can permit a target.
Make ammunition in space
Cast flash-hardened steel in a foundry from molten iron, carbon, calcite and ice. Use it with explosives and radars to make steel artillery shells. Promethium artillery shells also require a promethium asteroid chunk.
| Shell | Physical damage | Explosion damage |
|---|---|---|
| Vanilla artillery shell | 1,000 | 1,000 |
| Steel artillery shell | 200 | 800 |
| Promethium artillery shell | 4,000 | 1,000 |
Damage values are before research and asteroid resistance. Promethium shells pierce huge asteroids' 3,000 flat physical resistance at base damage research.
- Destroy 500 medium or larger standard asteroids with artillery to complete Asteroid ballistics field data. Kills in planet orbit count. Progress appears in the research interface, and completion unlocks Steel artillery shell research, costing 2,000 of each required science pack.
- Destroy a medium or larger promethium asteroid to complete Promethium ballistics field data and unlock Promethium artillery shell research, costing 4,000 of each required science pack.
The compact ship makes its steel from collected chunks and carries radars and explosives as cargo.
The larger factory makes its shell components and propellant onboard, with separate belts for production inputs.
Research upgrades
- Artillery turret rotation speed adds 30% per level across ten levels, reaching four times the original turning speed.
- Artillery shell velocity adds 20% flight speed per level, with infinite research.
- Vanilla artillery damage and shooting speed research apply.
The larger combat showcases use +300% artillery damage, four times the base firing speed, rotation research VI and shell velocity research IV. Resource fields and combat waves are staged, and the showcase ships are indestructible. Production uses collected chunks.
Settings and current limitations
Map settings control the targeting update interval, smallest asteroid size, maximum shells per target, hull safety margin, and whether artillery requires a working targeting computer.
Widely separated cannons can miss moving asteroids because they share a lead calculation based on the battery's average position. Shell velocity research reduces this error.