5 Point Defense Cannons combine into a Chaingun?

[Thundercraft]

What happened?

 

Combining 5 Point Defense Cannons at a Research Station will always result in a Chaingun. Similarly, combining some combination of Point Defense Cannons and Chainguns at a Research Station will always result in a Chaingun.

 

What did you do to make it happen?

 

Combining 5 Point Defense Cannons at a Research Station will always result in a Chaingun. Similarly, combining some combination of Point Defense Cannons and Chainguns at a Research Station will always result in a Chaingun. And combining several Point Defense Cannons with other turrets will usually, but not always, result in a Chaingun. I can not find any combination of turrets that will result in a Point Defense Cannon.

 

I would assume that this behavior is unintended and, thus, a bug. All of this seems very strange and unexpected. It's certainly not intuitive.

 

If this is not a bug, then I would point out that this mechanism is a glaring exploit that players are sure to take advantage of. Consider that Point Defense Cannons are extremely cheap. I can buy a simple Iron or Titanium Point Defense Cannon for around $1500 or less, while an Iron or Titanium Chaingun of a similar Tech Level will cost around 10 times more, if not greater!

 

So, all a player has to do is buy dirt cheap Point Defense Cannons whenever and wherever they are available, then go to a Research Station to combine them. Since the result is always a Chaingun, they will always get a much more valuable turret as a result.

 

Steps To Reproduce

 

1. Having several Point Defense Cannons in inventory.

2. Go to a Research Station (with Good relations or better).

3. Either combine 5 Point Defense Cannons or combine 1 or more Point Defense Cannons with 1 or more Chainguns.

4. The result will always be a Chaingun.

 

Game Version?

 

v0.19.1 r12932

 

Game Log?

 

Irrelevant. My game does not crash.

[cepheni]

That error has been fixed with version 0.20.

You could take a look into researchstation.lua yourself, if you want to fix this locally.