Mini-turret

The mini-turret is a stationary defense mechanism which fires at incoming enemies.

Acquisition

Mini-turrets are constructed with 30 Stuff (Metallic, 300 for SMVs), 70 Steel, 3 Components and take 1,800 ticks (30 secs) to build, and requires Gun Turrets to be researched. Note that some scenarios start with it already researched.

Alternatively, turrets can be uninstalled and looted from various world sites.

Summary

A powered mini-turret automatically fires with a mini-turret gun at any enemy entering its range of 24.9 tiles, if not set to Hold Fire. The turret itself fires with an accuracy of 96%, equal to a Shooting skill of 8. It fires a 2-round burst, with no need for warmup, but with a slow 4.8 second cooldown. Enemies will only target turrets that are firing, unless they are a raider with no other targets available (where they can attack any building).

As of version 1.3.3117, despite displaying in the mouse-over box as benefiting from cover, empirical testing demonstrates that this is false and mini-turrets do not benefit from cover at all.^[1]

A tfer firing 60 rounds, mini-turrets requires a barrel change to be performed by a hauler, costing:

40 steel in Peaceful and Base Builder difficulty
60 steel in Strive to Survive difficulty
80 steel in Blood and Dust difficulty and above.

Images

Steel Mini-Turret
Plasteel Mini-Turret
Uranium Mini-Turret
Silver Mini-Turret
Golden Mini-Turret

ve

Materials

The Mini-turret is built with 30 Stuff (Metallic, 300 for SMVs), 70 Steel, 3 Components in 1,800 ticks (30 secs).
You should expect turrets to be frequently replaced.
The most effective material is plasteel. It has the most HP, is non-flammable (as of v1.2), is somewhat easier to obtain mid-late game, and saves steel for other purposes.
Steel is the most viable option early-game, but it's advisable to switch them out for plasteel turrets as soon as you can, as steel turrets aren't very durable and therefore can't withstand sustained gunfire.
- Silver and gold are poor material choices due to their poor durability and extremely high cost. Uranium is too rare and expensive to be practical.

Usage

See also: Defense structures#Turrets

Used alone or in small numbers, mini-turrets do not provide much additional firepower. However, raiders will often target the turret instead of the colonists if it is closer to them, shielding the colonists from harm until the turret is destroyed. However, attackers will not take an unpowered turret as a primary target. The firepower of the turrets adds up when massed together, to the point where turrets alone can sometimes beat back even massive raids. Larger colonies often build a "killbox": An entrance area designed to funnel raiders where turrets can do maximum damage while the raiders' own ability to fight back is minimized. Raiders with long ranged weapons can snipe mini-turrets from outside its range, so forcing them into close range with walls or terrain is recommended.

The accuracies listed in the infobox are for the base weapon, the Mini-turret gun - similar to weapons used by pawns both the weapon's accuracy and the pawn's Shooting Accuracy combine to make the true accuracy. In this instance, the Mini-Turret has a Shooting Accuracy of 96%, equivalent to a pawn with a shooting skill of 8.

Turret explosion

Radius of mini-turret explosion visualized.

Turrets have a 50% chance to explode when it reaches 20% health. The exploding turret will spark and emit a hissing sound shortly before exploding a 240 ticks (4 secs) later. All nearby raiders will run in an attempt to get out of the blast radius (3 tiles) to keep their skin intact.

The explosion deals 50 Bomb damage - which does 400 damage to walls, 200 to plants and impassible buildings, 100 damage to all others structures and furniture, 50 damage to the slag chunks and components that drop, and around 50 damage across multiple body parts to all pawns unlucky enough to get caught in the explosion. Due to this, it's best to space out groups of turrets so that one exploding doesn't create a chain reaction. This is somewhat less of a risk with Plasteel turrets. Doors do not block the explosion.

Stats table

Mini-turret	Beauty	Work to Build	HP	Flammability	Market Value
Material	Beauty	Work to Build	HP	Flammability	Market Value
Bioferrite	-20	004,500 ticks (1.25 mins)	200	52.5%	270
Gold	0	001,620 ticks (27 secs)	60	28%	3,235
Plasteel	-20	003,960 ticks (1.1 mins)	280	0%	515
Silver	-14	001,800 ticks (30 secs)	70	28%	535
Steel	-20	001,800 ticks (30 secs)	100	28%	290
Uranium	-20	003,420 ticks (57 secs)	250	0%	420

Graphs

True DPS over Range

Version history

0.2.363 - Made turret look and sound weak to match its functionality.
Alpha 3 - Auto-turret renamed to Improvised Turret.
Beta 19 - renamed from Improvised turret to mini-turret. Power decreased from 350W and costed decreased, but now requires barrel changes.
1.1 - it was nerfed to fire a 2-round burst, down from 3.
1.1.2569 - Range increased from 25 to 29.
1.1.2618 - Reload cost was doubled and the fuel capacity was halved, while the damage was increased to 11 from 10.
1.3.3200 - Damage increased from 11 to 12. Accuracy increased: touch 0.7 -> 0.77, short 0.64 -> 0.7, medium 0.41 -> 0.45, long 0.22 -> 0.24.

Original sprite of the auto-turret and improvised turret.

Architect

Security: Barricade • Sandbags • Spike trap
(research): Autocannon turret • Foam turret • Mini-turret • Rocketswarm launcher • Uranium slug turret • Mortar
IEDs: IED trap • IED incendiary trap • IED EMP trap • IED firefoam trap • IED smoke trap • IED antigrain warhead trap • IED tox trap • IED deadlife trap
Related: Antigrain warhead • EMP shell • Firefoam shell • High-explosive shell • Incendiary shell • Smoke shell • Tox shell • Deadlife shell

↑ https://i.imgur.com/mq4aojR.mp4

[1] ttps://i.imgur.com/mq4aojR.mp4

[1]