CROWS turrets spawn too much ammo

Game Talk The Garage
21

I think we can have it both ways by having robots default to passive, but go aggro if provoked.
Things that will provoke a turret include:

  1. Coming within some range of the turret.
  2. Aiming a weapon at the turret.
  3. Turret hears nearby gunfire.
  4. Turret takes damage.

So basically, keep your distance and leave the robot alone, and it won’t shoot. However, messing with it will trigger a persistent attack.

Sometimes the turret will not know who to shoot at, so it needs a prioritization list.

  1. Humanoid aiming a weapon at robot.
  2. Humanoid extremely close to robot.
  3. Moving object extremely close to robot.
  4. Source of gunfire.

Both lists are subject to change, but I think this gives you the general idea.

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22

Give the chicken walker a warning if you point a gun at it :stuck_out_tongue:
“You have 20 seconds to comply…”

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23

Oh man, that’s gonna make it easier for Rob Keys to kill them. He already hunts Chicken Walkers for fun – he tracks them with a clairvoyance artifact, pulls out his hand cannon, phases through a wall up close to them, and then with Alpha stats, Synaptic Accelerators, and a Targeting System CBM, he aims and fires a killing shot before the robot can shoot back at the creepy wall-hacking cyborg superman.

24

It… It was just a reference. :confounded:

2 Likes
25

Robocop could probably take a chicken walker…well, maybe.

I don’t mean to be too obvious here but shouldn’t turrets just “self-destruct” upon violent destruction in a small controlled explosion and subsequently destroy their surplus ammunition? (this could be done technically with whatever behind-the-scenes trickery is necessary of course).

I do agree that turrets drop too much ammo as far as game-play balance is concerned, even with their recent day-light vision enhancement as you can simply run them over with a Humvee or peek-emp them and take them out in 10 other various ways.

Isn’t it “realistic” that such a turret might self-destruct to protect from harvesting their tech as other military hardware does in real life?

26

If the game is working towards realism as a goal it shouldn’t only be when it hinders the player.

27

Well maybe some of the ammo has a chance to survive, but not all?

There is a fundamental rational/realism issue if you start to take the issue too seriously, for example if you are taking absolute realism into account as per the perimeters of the game, how in the hell did the human government ever fall?

Considering they had all these soldiers (presumably millions) with kevlar vests and automatic weapons, turrets, helicopters, nukes, tanks, power armor an technology vs. a series of blob zombies, fungi, plant monsters and other primarily melee based threats, when the most threatening and highly powered weapons in the game (out-side of random artifacts which are anomalies) are really human technology, it seems to me that if anything, humanity should be invading the inter-dimensional aliens world’s not vise-versa.

From CBMs, to mutagens, to Riv-tech firearms, vehicles and power-armor, all the best & most powerful things in the world are human-tech, how did earth lose? You can’t just use realism as a universal maxim as it breaks down in 100 ways logically. Game balance should be some consideration ( and I do really appreciate the idea of making the world have fidelity through a design philosophy of placing “realism” as a high consideration, so don’t think I am opposed to this concept, I just think it shouldn’t be the sole or defining issue in game-design).

I know we can all come up with alot of narrative reasons as to why humanity has fallen despite their apparent technological advantage, which presumably there is already a lore description that I am apparently unaware of but the point is simply this: It is really just a narrative reason, similar to the rational of having the ammo “self-destruct” in a turret when it is destroyed.

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28

You’re playing in the aftermath of the event, but the catalcysm was something else. During the portal storm, all sorts of really, really nasty stuff was able to traverse into our dimension, but were subsequently forced to retreat to their own dimension as our environment proved inhospitable. Some areas were covered in acid, others nuked in a vain attempt to stop the portals. All the armies on the planet couldn’t have stopped what came out of those portals. Not to mention when all that started, the blob already had infected most, if not all the human population, and making them increasingly aggressive and more likely to fight one another than anything else.

The game starts a few days later, when most of the portals have closed, and the worst of the nether monsters are gone. What’s left behind (the blob, mycus, triifids and mi-go) are only the extra-dimensional creatures most suited to life in our dimension.

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29

Look how and where they are placed, as parts of buildings, roadblocks, etc. Do you really think having them self destruct would be a good idea?
Why would the military want potentially valuble (and repairable) equipment and supplies to just go “boom” if it gets damaged?
How much military hardware is actually designed to self destruct?

30

Obviously because of balance but if you want to explain it away, there are a lot of newspapers saying that it’s a Chinese/Russian invasion of genetically enhanced super soldiers. Maybe they don’t want their tech to get into their hands. Or, if they are all being controlled by Melchior he doesn’t want the blob to somehow merge with robots like the blob did with organic lifeforms so he has them self destruct/have a power overload that melts and makes the ammo go off.

31

The Chinese are described as having better tech in game, could be a lie but dunno. Also Melchior would require the equipment to have built in self destruct mechanisms built in which brings me back to:

32

Just overload their batteries or something?? Again, it wouldn’t be hard to just explain it away, instead of not explaining it away and instead making the game ridiculously easy and boring. I dont care if its realistic that military bases should have tens of thousands of rounds of ammo, I don’t care if its realistic that a house of a gun owner could easily have hundreds of rounds of bullets in it. I don’t care because all of those would make the game stupidly easy. “Realism” can benefit the player by making the game more fun. Getting thousands of rounds of ammo from one turret doesn’t benefit me and isnt fun, it makes me feel like I cheated and want to turn off the game. Turrets themselves being the one thing preventing you from transcending humanity is just boring game design.

I understand why people like the game being “realistic” but it should seriously just be dropped and exchanged for the game being hardcore, as its a far far better description of C:DDA than realistic, and also seems to be what the devs are actually going for instead of realism.

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33

I’m an advocate for the setting being more sci-fi (as it was in the past) actually but the devs frequently talk about making changes to the game in the direction of realism, if it is going that way it should be consistant.

You know, you could always just not loot the turrets?

34

I have been using and will continue to use modular turrets until its fixed, but its just a bandaid. Eventually something will probably break the mod right?

35

Yeah, and I got the reference, but giving a warning is something they absolutely should do.

36

So don’t loot them when it does?

I’ve gone entire runs where I’ve restricted myself from using electricity, guns etc and never had any trouble restraining myself. Just kill/deal with them then ignore the mess on the floor. It’s not like even before this ammo was hard to find or scarce, on my radical radio run the first gun I picked up used .223 rounds and I never had to worry about running out.

37

You can just not pick the ammo up, I also set challenges for myself so I am with you there. If this game wasn’t in open development I would say that argument is just an excuse for bad game design but I think it would be unfair to apply that standard to CDDA seeing as how it is developed by the community.

That said, I still do not buy the realism argument for why turrets should drop so much ammo, by that logic why did I just have to search 3 houses to find a pot? Do you know how much stuff is actually in a house? I assume you have been in a house and like me have found that it contains more than 4 or 5 articles of clothing, an mp3 player, 3 magazines, a bottle of 20 aspirin, half a jar of peanut butter, a zucchini and 2 cans of coke in the basement.

Now we can explain this with various rationales like by suggesting that the houses, stores etc… have already been looted many times but wouldn’t this also suggest that the turrets would have depleted ammunition as well due to previous encounters with looters and hostiles?

So if we insist that turrets should have 1500 rounds of ammunition that drop when destroyed for the sake of realism shouldn’t we also argue that each house should have literally thousands of items in it, even a well looted house would, after all, and the houses themselves mostly do not appear in game as having been ransacked previously as mostly nothing is destroyed or disheveled etc…

Edit:

Any snark on my part is not meant to be hostile.

also, thanks for for the lore explanation of the Cataclysm bobchaos.

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38

Because we haven’t removed the old hardcoded houses with low spawn rates and without the itemgroups that spawn these common things.

Do you know how much stuff is actually in a house? I assume you have been in a house and like me have found that it contains more than 4 or 5 articles of clothing, an mp3 player, 3 magazines, a bottle of 20 aspirin, half a jar of peanut butter, a zucchini and 2 cans of coke in the basement.

See Item spawns are much too low. · Issue #34432 · CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA · GitHub, this is something that should be corrected.

39

Like @anothersimulacrum said, old buildings. If you have a poke around in the apartment towers I think they should give you a better idea of what level of loot should be present in those kind of places.

40

I have noticed apartment towers have much more food and items but it is still not very realistic.

I live alone In a fairly rural area of Wisconsin and though I am just a middle class guy I warrant that if I did a full inventory of everything in my house it would likely be more than is in a whole apartment tower or even a mid-sized city as currently exists in game. I have tens of different can goods, noodles, fruits, grains, beverages, spices, protein powder, meats, juices, vegetables, frozen pizzas, chinese food, venison, milk, lunch meat, hot dogs, ice cream, animal food (suet, bird seed), cooking utensils, 5+ bowls, dishes, forks, knives, coffee cups, x2 coffee makers, appliances of various sorts, electronics, clothing, decorations, tools, random kitchen hardware, an air compressor, cement mixer, cement mix, 50+ gallons of gas in various jerry cans, pressure washer, leaf blower, an ATV, truck, car, snow-blower, welding torch, riding mower, weed wacker, x2 chainsaws, safety gear, step ladders, tens of hammers, screw drivers, multiple power tools including a wall paper steamer, drills, sanders & Dremels, vices,mauls, a pick axe, rock hammer, leather gloves, safety glasses, explosives (fireworks) 1000s of screws, nails etc…, various chemicals (weedkiller, bug killer etc…), fireplace with wood, wood splitter, wet bar with various types of alcohol, closet full of board games, old toys & collectibles, 100s of linens, old video game machines, literally bottles of anti-septic, band aids, bandages, toothpaste, toilet paper, razors, cologne, shaving creams, ointments, anti-biotics, old prescription pain killers, at least 20+ towels, 15 bars of soap, cleaning chemicals, 5+ wrist watches, a compound hunting bow, multiple hunting rifles, a couple hand guns, 1000+ rounds of ammo ( l am a hunter) 30+ quality hunting knives as a collection, sword collection (high and low quality), an entire wardrobe of clothing, 100’s of books concerning DIY jobs, fantasy, computer programming, religious, mechanics and philosophy, tens if not hundreds of AA, AAA, D & C batteries as well has larger batteries for vehicles and tools… condoms, kool-aid and captain kangaroo … I could keep going on and on but you get the point, this is just one person living in a normal house, not rich, not poor etc… just a guy living in a country house.

A normal home, would be like a in-game city if it was “realistically” equipped.

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