Uranium slug turret

The uranium slug turret is a defensive turret with very long range and shot damage, but with a wide blind zone.

Acquisition

Uranium slug turrets can be constructed once the Uranium slug turret research project has been completed. They require 300 Steel, 30 Plasteel, 60 Uranium, 6 Components, 15,000 ticks (4.17 mins) of work, and a Construction skill of 6.

Summary

The uranium slug turret uses the autocannon weapon. In addition to the weapon's accuracy, the turret itself has a per-tile shooting accuracy of 98% or equivalent to a Shooting skill of 14. It has a maximum range of 45.9 tiles, but is unable to hit enemies within an 11.9 tile radius. These ranges are centered on the lower left tile of the turret, regardless of orientation. Despite its damage, the uranium slug turret's stopping power is almost non-existent, not even being able to stagger humans - the same is also true for the autocannon turret.

After firing 30 slugs, it needs to be reloaded with 60 uranium by a hauler. This can be adjusted in the storyteller settings, but all default difficulty settings do not alter this.

Since uranium slug turrets 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]

Like all turrets, they cannot target enemies through blind smoke and are temporarily disabled by sources of EMP, with downtime scaling to the EMP damage dealt. Unlike mechanoids, turrets do not adapt to EMP and thus can be continuously restunned.

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

Uranium slug 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. All nearby raiders will attempt to move out of the blast radius before detonation.

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

Analysis

Uranium slug turrets are expensive, with high research costs and high ammo costs. Sufficient uranium is difficult to come across, until you get to ground-penetrating scanners or long-range mineral scanners. For most stages of the game, autocannon turrets are often the more practical choice.

Turrets in general are not very strong. Outside of the easier difficulties, you shouldn't expect turrets to defeat raids on their own. And, for a turret, the uranium turret is weak for its price point. Autocannons do more raw DPS - to the majority of targets - until past 25 tiles of range. In addition, the uranium slug turret has a tendency to overkill humans. It deals 55 damage per shot, but a human's largest body part, the torso, only has 40 HP. This results in wasted damage, which results in the autocannon generally outperforming (against humans) at all ranges the autocannon can reach. Against centipedes and other heavy mechanoids, where damage isn't wasted, the uranium slug turret ends up being a stronger option due to AP.

The real niches of the uranium slug turret are its massive range and its massive AP. With 45.9 tiles of range, the uranium slug cannon outranges every enemy in the game. And unlike most weapons in the game, the uranium slug turret increases in accuracy as you get further away; it is most effective at 35 - 45 tiles of distance. AP is extremely high, able to completely ignore the armor of any mechanoid in the game.

Overall, uranium slug turrets are relegated to the late-game and end-game, where its uranium cost is no longer an issue. It performs great against high-armor targets, which colonists and other turrets are most likely to struggle with. Since uranium turrets are most accurate from far away, you'll want to design any killboxes around that fact. Give space to place your turrets, but place them out of line of your colonists to avoid friendly fire. And due to its range, uranium turrets become very effective outside of a killbox.

Graphs

True DPS over Range

Version history

0.19.2009 - Added.
1.1.0 - Received a massive nerf to damage (75 -> 30), nerf to armor penetration (112.5% -> 70%), reduced range (49.9 -> 39.9), increased reload cost (60 -> 80 baseline) and nerf to shooting accuracy (98.8% -> 98%).
1.1.2618 - Received a buff to damage (30 -> 45), increased range (39.9 -> 45.9), increased reload cost (80 -> 120) and reduced magazine capacity (40 -> 30).
1.1.2624 - Received a buff to damage (45 -> 50), buff to armor penetration (70% -> 75%), and reduced reload cost (120 -> 90).
1.3.3200 - Damage increased from 50 to 55. Accuracy increased: touch 0.2 -> 0.22, short 0.3 -> 0.33, medium 0.4 -> 0.44. Turret ammo cost is no longer factored by difficulty.

Architect