Autocannon turret

The autocannon turret is a defense structure that fires a burst of medium-damage shells.

Acquisition

Autocannon turrets can be constructed once the Autocannon turret research project has been completed. They require 350 Steel, 40 Plasteel, 6 Components, 15,000 ticks (4.17 mins) of work, and a Construction skill of 6.

Summary

The autocannon turret uses the autocannon weapon. In addition to the weapon's accuracy, the turret itself has a per-tile shooting accuracy of 96% or equivalent to a Shooting skill of 8. It has a maximum range of 32.9 tiles, but is unable to hit enemies within an 8.9 tile radius. These ranges are centered on the lower left tile of the turret, regardless of orientation. Despite its damage, the autocannon's stopping power is almost non-existent, not even being able to stagger humans - the same is also true for the uranium slug turret.

After firing 90 rounds, it needs to be reloaded with 180 steel by a hauler. This can be adjusted in the storyteller settings, but all default difficulty settings do not alter this.

Since autocannons are large 2x2 structures, ranged attacks are twice as accurate against them. And as of version 1.3.3117, turrets don't benefit from cover. Despite displaying in the mouse-over box as such, empirical testing demonstrates that turrets do not benefit at all.^[1]

Visualization of effective turret range of all three turrets, from uranium slug turret (top), to autocannon turret (middle), to mini-turret (bottom).
Green is 80 - 100% of peak accuracy, blue is 50 - 80% of peak accuracy, red is below 50% of peak accuracy and grey is outside range. Gold tiles are spaced every 5 tiles. Values from 1.0.

Explosion

Autocannon turrets have a 50% chance to explode when damaged below 20% health. The exploding turret will spark and emit a hissing sound for 240 ticks (4 secs) before exploding, dealing 50 Bomb damage in a 5.9 tile radius centered around the lower left tile of the turret. Bomb damage is multiplied 8x against walls, 4x against other impassable structures and plants, and 2x against passable buildings. Alll nearby raiders will attempt to move out of the blast radius before detonation..

Radius of autocannon turret explosion. Note the slight offset from the 'true' center of the turret.

Analysis

It can be useful in killboxes where it is more likely to hit, by bringing enemies closer together and putting them in range, but otherwise its use is not cost-effective in an open field as its low accuracy makes it unlikely to land shots at range, and it costs quite some steel for each shot.

Due to their damage output, autocannons can be effective at mowing down lancers when grouped, provided you can lure them within its effective range, otherwise the autocannons will have trouble hitting them. Autocannons are also somewhat effective at dishing out damage against large targets such as centipedes since the accuracy bonus from their body size significantly offsets the autocannon's lower accuracy, though centipede weapons can make relatively short work of autocannons too.

Graphs

True DPS over Range

Version history

0.19.2009 - Added.
1.1 - its damage and armor penetration was halved (40 -> 20, 60% -> 30%), and the reload cost was increased (120 -> 180 baseline).
1.1.2618 - damage and armor penetration was increased (20 -> 25, 30% -> 37.5%).
1.3.3200 - damage increased from 25 to 27. Accuracy increased: touch 0.25 -> 0.28, short 0.65 -> 0.72, medium 0.6 -> 0.66, long 0.45 -> 0.5.

Architect