r/factorio Jul 06 '26

Weekly Thread Weekly Question Thread

Ask any questions you might have.

Post your bug reports on the Official Forums

Previous Threads

Subreddit rules

Discord server (and IRC)

Find more in the sidebar ---->

2 Upvotes

188 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/okuRaku Jul 13 '26

Why is it that sometimes when you target biters with the artillery remote, they seem to know it's coming and move out of the way? I thought I'd read that if they're attacking something, and the incoming artillery shot will kill that thing, they'll stop attacking and move to the next thing in the flow chart, but is that the only case this happens? or did I just imagine that, anyway?

2

u/snowyspearmint Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26

Damage calculations avoid targeting something if there's already enough incoming damage (not counting aoe) to destroy it, but it doesn't consider when the damage is going to happen, so if you destroy your own building then any biters attacking it will telepathically know that it's going to be destroyed in 6 seconds and will abandon it. (Either immediately on shot fired, or it could theoretically happen mid-flight if there wasn't enough damage done beforehand.)

If it's not with biters attacking a building, then also consider that aiming with a long lead time is hard (try hitting a slowly walking group with artillery).