Autocannon turret

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

Acquisition[edit]

Autocannon turrets can be constructed once the autocannon turret research project has been completed. Each requires 350 Steel, 40 Plasteel, 6 Components, 15,000 ticks (4.17 mins) of work modified by the construction speed of the builder, and a construction skill of 6.

Once constructed, they cannot be re-installed, they can only be deconstructed.

Summary[edit]

Autocannon turrets automatically shoot at enemies within range so long as they are powered and have sufficient ammunition. They only shoot at enemies of their faction, including manhunting animals but not animals hunting pawns or faction animals for food. They are capable of friendly fire. 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.

As of version 1.4.3580, autocannon turrets do benefit from cover but only if the lower left corner of the turret is covered from the shooter as confirmed by empirical testing. In practice this means that the turret can only be in cover if engaged from the south-east, as pawns will target the nearest tile of the turret and cover only applies if it is directly adjacent to the targeted tile.

Like all turrets, they cannot target any pawn that has one or more tiles of blind smoke between the turret and them 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[edit]

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. All 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[edit]

In general, turrets are not very strong for their price. Outside of the easier difficulties, you shouldn't expect turrets to defeat raids on their own. They are best used when to support colonists, rather than replace colonists.

Autocannons are a general purpose turret. They can be useful in killboxes, where turrets can be massed together. However, they are quite costly. In an open field, the autocannon's low accuracy makes it less viable.

If you want automated firepower, autocannon turrets are usually your best bet. Other turrets have their niches beyond firepower, however.

Mini-turrets offer less firepower at most ranges. 4 mini-turrets output less DPS than 1 autocannon, beyond 12 tiles of range. The advantage of mini-turrets is that they are effective distractions. They are cheap and disposable, meaning they are great for taking attacks from enemies. Mini-turrets also have the benefit of being harder to hit.
Uranium slug turrets are not strict upgrades. The autocannon actually outdamages the uranium slug turret until 25 tiles of range (before AP). Even then, since the uranium slug turret has a tendency to overkill, they are almost always worse against human targets. The uranium slug turret's advantages are the massive range and massive AP. They are highly effective against centipedes and other armored targets.

Graphs[edit]

True DPS over Range

Version history[edit]

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. Turret ammo cost is no longer factored by difficulty.
Between 1.3.3117 and 1.4.3580 - Turrets now benefit from cover. Despite displaying in the mouse-over box as such, empirical testing demonstrated that turrets did not benefit at all. However, a new issue was introduced. See above.

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