Artillery wagon

The artillery wagon is a specialized train wagon that mounts artillery and serves both as a long-range weapon and as a high-capacity transport for artillery shells. It functions like an artillery turret with greatly extended mobility: when positioned and stopped it can automatically scan and fire on enemy nests, or accept manual target orders from an Artillery targeting remote. The wagon holds up to 100 artillery shells, making it the most space-efficient rail method to move shells, and can be towed to forward positions to provide fire support across vast distances.

When a train containing an artillery wagon is stopped at a train stop the wagon can fire; it cannot fire while moving or stopped at a red signal. In automatic mode the wagon scans surrounding chunks for enemy structures (spawners and worms) and will fire at them; this automatic scan covers a radius of 224 tiles (7 chunks). In manual mode the player uses an Artillery targeting remote to point-and-click any location (even unexplored areas) and order a shell to land there; manual range is 560 tiles (17.5 chunks) and targeting remotes display the number of fire-ready artillery pieces in range of the cursor. Shell impacts reveal any chunks traversed by the shell. Both automatic and manual ranges are increased by infinite-range research at +30% per level.

Artillery shells deal very high damage: most enemies and spawners are killed in a single shot at low evolution, and artillery damage research increases this threshold so tougher spawners and behemoth worms can be one-shot at higher research levels. Artillery has a minimum firing range of 32 tiles. Shell impacts damage mobile units in the impact area even though automatic mode will not target mobile biters or spitters directly.

Using artillery wagons effectively requires planning and logistics. Limitations and practical notes:

• Artillery firing provokes nearby enemy aggression: shells will antagonize mobile units in the impact area and can draw large attack waves toward the artillery wagon’s location at the time of firing. Provide local defenses (walls, gun/laser/flamethrower turrets) or relocate the wagon between volleys.
• Firing rate is relatively slow by default; infinite research can increase firing speed (applies equally to wagons and stationary turrets) at +100% per level.
• Artillery shells have a stack size of 1, so inserters move only one shell at a time and containers fill slowly. The wagon’s internal 100-shell magazine mitigates some supply problems compared with turret magazines (15 shells).
• Artillery wagons cannot fire while a train is stopped due to pathing problems (No-Path) and scanning for enemies counts as activity toward schedule inactivity timers; the wagon scans at one chunk per tick when looking for targets.
• Weight and train performance: an artillery wagon counts as heavy mass — equal to 4 regular wagons (or 2 locomotives) for acceleration calculations. For long-range hit-and-run or frequent repositioning, fuel choice matters: nuclear fuel gives a large acceleration bonus (+250% versus +180% for rocket fuel).
• Transport efficiency trade-off: an artillery wagon holds 100 shells versus 40 in a regular cargo wagon, making it the most space-efficient shell transporter. However, because it weighs four times a regular wagon while carrying only 2.5× the shells, regular cargo wagons are more mass- and fuel-efficient if acceleration or fuel usage is the priority.

When operated as part of a manual (player-driven) train, artillery wagons will fire whenever the train is stopped regardless of stop type. For defensive deployments consider combining artillery wagons with forward supply stops and protected parking positions, or limit use to long-range offensive bombardment where provoking local counterattacks is acceptable.