tModLoader Expanded Sentries

i really enjoy this mod :)
it's saved me a lot of early game problems by crafting some wood spikes to place outside my base so i can farm safely :D

Seconding having the Toolbelt also include the scopes and chips please :)

If you are doing sentries based on the NPCs that is cool. Especially enjoy sentries that do debuffs like poison and fire

maybe some sort of sentries crafted from traps? like a boulder thrower, dart traps, spears, a sort of "lava" pool, geysers,etc.
maybe a gel/ice trap that can slow down enemies or lock them in place for a bit so the spike sentries can rack up more damage?

i like the idea of using mana to set persistent traps and use turrets to protect me while i am mining or fishing ^_^ i adore this mod
 
My main computer is currently in the shop so I can't work further on this mod till I have that back. It has mostly been tweaks and bug fixes for a while.
I have found a little bug with this mod. When fighting the Old One's Army, I tried to place a turret down but didn't have enough (Etherian) mana. It ate my mana anyways :/
This seems to be something that keeps coming up. I probably had the most bug fixes related to this and it's still not fully fixed yet. I have an idea on what may be causing this, but I can't check it out just yet. Otherwise I would get a fix out when I can.
i really enjoy this mod :)
it's saved me a lot of early game problems by crafting some wood spikes to place outside my base so i can farm safely :D

Seconding having the Toolbelt also include the scopes and chips please :)

If you are doing sentries based on the NPCs that is cool. Especially enjoy sentries that do debuffs like poison and fire

maybe some sort of sentries crafted from traps? like a boulder thrower, dart traps, spears, a sort of "lava" pool, geysers,etc.
maybe a gel/ice trap that can slow down enemies or lock them in place for a bit so the spike sentries can rack up more damage?

i like the idea of using mana to set persistent traps and use turrets to protect me while i am mining or fishing ^_^ i adore this mod
The toolbelts already include the scopes. The chips likely won't be included since at the moment anyway, I consider it OP to have sentry increases on top of range and speed increases in one accessory. The chips also are on a separate tier progression than the tool belts, an example being that the Hallowed tool belt is tier 4 while the Hallowed Chip is tier 3. I probably wouldn't rule such a thing out for a Fargo's style super accessory.

I have considered a boulder style sentry. Actually, perhaps trap tile style sentries could be earlier game sentries to add. I wouldn't have any idea of how to do a pool style trap. I could also consider a sentry that does little damage but slows down enemies. The spike sentries used to have knockback that sort of did this. The late game Water Tornado can effectively trap any mobs not immune to knockback. Then again, they would die pretty quickly too before they had much of a chance to become trapped.

Thanks for the support. I admit I lost a lot of motivation lately to work more on this mod despite still having a lot of ideas like cross mod support and more weapons. Now if only I could get anyone to show off the mod in their videos.
 
Fargo style accessory would be awesome, just for the sentry range and sentry count alone.

pool style i guess would be like...a "projectile" i suppose that, when walked over does continuous damage as if the enemy had walk into lava. like those farms with the half-bucket depth lava.
although if there are/were "molten" spikes could effectively do the same thing. on fire debuff, etc.
I currently use the demonite turret and haven't really got a chance to mess with all of them, had a few spikes as i got access to more materials when starting my new world/character
immensely helpful as I'm currently doing a playthrough focused on fishing
 
I've finally updated this mod after a month. I know it's a pretty small update. Work and not having access to my main computer for weeks had a factor in that. However, I should be getting in new sprites soon. I should also be making some more sentry weapons finally.
I have found a little bug with this mod. When fighting the Old One's Army, I tried to place a turret down but didn't have enough (Etherian) mana. It ate my mana anyways :/
Sadly, I was unable to recreate this bug from my end. The way the code is set up is that it should check if the player has at least 10 Etherian Mana before spending any. Were you running the latest version at the time, 0.942? You probably were, but just to be sure. Do you remember any of the details involved in that bug happening?
Fargo style accessory would be awesome, just for the sentry range and sentry count alone.

pool style i guess would be like...a "projectile" i suppose that, when walked over does continuous damage as if the enemy had walk into lava. like those farms with the half-bucket depth lava.
although if there are/were "molten" spikes could effectively do the same thing. on fire debuff, etc.
I currently use the demonite turret and haven't really got a chance to mess with all of them, had a few spikes as i got access to more materials when starting my new world/character
immensely helpful as I'm currently doing a playthrough focused on fishing
Anyone have any naming ideas for Fargo style accessories? How the weapon ones tend to work is that the first tier is Something Essence and the second tier is Something Soul. I could have a Defender's Essence or Defender's Soul, but what could the second name be?

The Molten Spikes can do that, including the on fire debuff. However they are not as powerful as lava, although they are entirely safe for players. The later hardmode spikes can out damage lava. Sentries are very helpful to keep mobs at bay while fishing, although minions can do that too.
 
Anyone have any naming ideas for Fargo style accessories? How the weapon ones tend to work is that the first tier is Something Essence and the second tier is Something Soul. I could have a Defender's Essence or Defender's Soul, but what could the second name be?

Well, I did have an idea of such:

Crafter's Essence (This is only the Beginning...)
Dell's Soul (And you best hope...not pointed at you.)
 
I'll probably go with that name especially since this mod currently lacks references, but could someone explain the reference? I did a quick Google search and couldn't find the reference or joke.
Dell is the name of the TF2 (Team Fortress 2) engineer, according to the comics (as well as his appearence in Dungeon of the Endless) where his family line plays a large role in the story there.
The "And you best hope...not pointed at you." is a line said at the end of the "Meet the Engineer" video.

The reference is based around the area of how Engie is know for his sentries. Even outside of that game.
 
First things first, this mod is great. I greatly enjoy the fact that sentries stay where you put them and defend that area, in comparison with summons who often all group on a single enemy and leave all other enemies to roam free and eat my face.
Although there is a few problems.
First, Molten Turret. It is barely useful.
By that i mean projectile it fires is so big it collides with ground if turret is firing sideways.
Here: that antlion was slooowly climbing that pole, and turret tried to shoot it many times, but below the point antlion reached on a screenshot, sentry was powerless due to projectile immediately colliding with the ground turret stands on.
turr.png


Second: Frame rate. It drops significantly when amount of "working" sentries goes over ten. It might be more of my personal problem, but 1 Gb VRam graphic card should generally be enough? Effect is more severe with turrets who leave a lot of flashy effects, like hallow, terra or pulsar breaker, last one even without any firerate boosting accessories can slog my machine when i place ten of them. This can be somewhat dealt with by disabling frame skip (and gaining some cool slow-mo in the process), but that is not going to work well in multiplayer.

Third: accessories from DD2 event (shields, belt and scarf) increase sentry count depending on the slot they are put in, was that intentional? Bottom one, top five (six in expert).

And now, suggestions:
Could you replace "Sentries react" to "Sentries shoot", or "recharge", or something that suggests that gears affect fire rate? On my first engie playthrough i ignored them untill i thought "hey, i have a huge excess of beetle scraps, let's look what they'll do" and whoops, massacre began. I just thought this will increase accuracy by reducing delay between when sentry aims and shoots, and there are better things to equip, but it reduces cooldown between shots, which is much more important.

Second, can we have something like TF2 Wrangler? For those who doesn't know, it's a weapon that allows for direct control, making sentry shoot at the cursor, with probably a fire rate bump.

And third, as much as it hurts me to say, could you make Gears/Scopes/Belts and Chips/Circuit not stackable? So I couldn't equip Terra Belt, Beetle Gear, Celestial Chip and Hallowed Circuit and steamroll over, well, anything that dares to oppose me?
 
First things first, this mod is great. I greatly enjoy the fact that sentries stay where you put them and defend that area, in comparison with summons who often all group on a single enemy and leave all other enemies to roam free and eat my face.
Although there is a few problems.
First, Molten Turret. It is barely useful.
By that i mean projectile it fires is so big it collides with ground if turret is firing sideways.
Here: that antlion was slooowly climbing that pole, and turret tried to shoot it many times, but below the point antlion reached on a screenshot, sentry was powerless due to projectile immediately colliding with the ground turret stands on.View attachment 193502

Second: Frame rate. It drops significantly when amount of "working" sentries goes over ten. It might be more of my personal problem, but 1 Gb VRam graphic card should generally be enough? Effect is more severe with turrets who leave a lot of flashy effects, like hallow, terra or pulsar breaker, last one even without any firerate boosting accessories can slog my machine when i place ten of them. This can be somewhat dealt with by disabling frame skip (and gaining some cool slow-mo in the process), but that is not going to work well in multiplayer.

Third: accessories from DD2 event (shields, belt and scarf) increase sentry count depending on the slot they are put in, was that intentional? Bottom one, top five (six in expert).

And now, suggestions:
Could you replace "Sentries react" to "Sentries shoot", or "recharge", or something that suggests that gears affect fire rate? On my first engie playthrough i ignored them untill i thought "hey, i have a huge excess of beetle scraps, let's look what they'll do" and whoops, massacre began. I just thought this will increase accuracy by reducing delay between when sentry aims and shoots, and there are better things to equip, but it reduces cooldown between shots, which is much more important.

Second, can we have something like TF2 Wrangler? For those who doesn't know, it's a weapon that allows for direct control, making sentry shoot at the cursor, with probably a fire rate bump.

And third, as much as it hurts me to say, could you make Gears/Scopes/Belts and Chips/Circuit not stackable? So I couldn't equip Terra Belt, Beetle Gear, Celestial Chip and Hallowed Circuit and steamroll over, well, anything that dares to oppose me?
Thanks for such detailed feedback. It's been awhile since I had that.

I can shrink the projectile fired from the Molten Turret so hopefully that will no longer be an issue.

I'll have to see what I can do about the effects. Probably tone them down or make a config option for them. I copied the code from things like the Heat Ray. That can only be fired one at a time compared to multiple turrets firing projectiles with the same effect.

I had no idea what caused those DD2 accessories to increase the sentry count. I always felt it was random. I know they increase summon damage beyond 10%, which my mod decreases by 10% to get rid of the increase and instead increase sentry damage by 10%. I know the accessories increase sentry count by more than one even without this mod. I would have to test further, but I think this is a tModLoader issue and nothing I can fix on my end.

I can change the wording. I might also add in a line about only affecting this mod's turrets.

Maybe I could do something like the Wrangler. It won't be anytime soon thought. Then again it shouldn't be very hard since all this mod's turrets have a parent class for their behavior.

Yeah, I can make the different accessories not stackable with one another. I limited the max range and speed to times three, but getting anywhere close to that for speed would be super powerful.

Edit: I already shrunk the Molten Turret projectile, changed the wording of the gear and toolbelt accessories, made the accessories with the same stat bonuses not equip-able with one another, and even attempted to fix the DD2 accessory bug. I can confirm that particular bug is not caused by my mod, but it would be quite noticeable with this mod especially since it shows you your turret limit right on screen. It could also allow you to have around six or more extra turrets from something you can obtain after defeating one mecha boss, which is quite OP. Even the post Moon Lord Celestial Chip only gives five extra slots with no 10% sentry damage bonus.
 
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First, let me echo other posters here in congratulating you on an awesome mod! I'm currently undertaking a sentry-only playthrough and am very much enjoying the novelty of the experience. I am still preparing for Hardmode, but would like to share my impressions so far:

1) Sentries, as you made them, are powerful. I'm playing on Expert and, other than taking increased damage (more on that below), I have no difficulty making mincemeat of enemies, invasions and bosses. I actually wonder if Nightmare Turrets aren't a bit too effective, though, as dropping a set of six has allowed me to burn through every boss since crafting it (playing with Spirit and Thorium, so bosses I've used NTs on are: Ancient Flyer, Buried Champion, Granite Energy Storm, Starplate Raider and Star Scouter) with little to no risk, and all under or around a minute each. Currently using Sky Armor, Molten Toolbelt and Night (not Nightmare) Chip.

2) I feel like I am an indirect-fire glass-cannon. Sky Armor's defense rating is pretty low for the transition point of Normal-into-Hardmode. I understand that this is by design, as per your detailed explanation, but I can't help but be concerned about facing WoF. Just going into the Underworld to gather Hellstone had me die several times, despite using Regen, Ironskin and healing potions on-cooldown. This also caused me to put a hold on progression and to farm crates in order to be able to craft a proper defense set once Hardmode hits, as I doubt I would survive spelunking for ores. Likewise, I'm considering crafting a set of Molten or Gladiator (Thorium's highest defense set, pre-hardmode) armor, to replace Sky, and to either spam two sentries while running, or just cheese the WoF with beenades. Maybe both.

3) In context of #1, I find myself drawn to simply spamming Nightmare Turrets regardless of what I'm facing. I love Nightmare Spikes, too, and they worked wonders for the Old Ones' Army, but dat homing tho... I wonder if it would be possible (preferable?) to limit sentries of a type to half of the current capacity, so as to encourage diversity. (i.e: 6 total sentry cap, 3/6 can be turrets, and 3/6 must be something else)

More opinions and experiences as I cross the threshold into Hardmode :3
 
First, let me echo other posters here in congratulating you on an awesome mod! I'm currently undertaking a sentry-only playthrough and am very much enjoying the novelty of the experience. I am still preparing for Hardmode, but would like to share my impressions so far:

1) Sentries, as you made them, are powerful. I'm playing on Expert and, other than taking increased damage (more on that below), I have no difficulty making mincemeat of enemies, invasions and bosses. I actually wonder if Nightmare Turrets aren't a bit too effective, though, as dropping a set of six has allowed me to burn through every boss since crafting it (playing with Spirit and Thorium, so bosses I've used NTs on are: Ancient Flyer, Buried Champion, Granite Energy Storm, Starplate Raider and Star Scouter) with little to no risk, and all under or around a minute each. Currently using Sky Armor, Molten Toolbelt and Night (not Nightmare) Chip.

2) I feel like I am an indirect-fire glass-cannon. Sky Armor's defense rating is pretty low for the transition point of Normal-into-Hardmode. I understand that this is by design, as per your detailed explanation, but I can't help but be concerned about facing WoF. Just going into the Underworld to gather Hellstone had me die several times, despite using Regen, Ironskin and healing potions on-cooldown. This also caused me to put a hold on progression and to farm crates in order to be able to craft a proper defense set once Hardmode hits, as I doubt I would survive spelunking for ores. Likewise, I'm considering crafting a set of Molten or Gladiator (Thorium's highest defense set, pre-hardmode) armor, to replace Sky, and to either spam two sentries while running, or just cheese the WoF with beenades. Maybe both.

3) In context of #1, I find myself drawn to simply spamming Nightmare Turrets regardless of what I'm facing. I love Nightmare Spikes, too, and they worked wonders for the Old Ones' Army, but dat homing tho... I wonder if it would be possible (preferable?) to limit sentries of a type to half of the current capacity, so as to encourage diversity. (i.e: 6 total sentry cap, 3/6 can be turrets, and 3/6 must be something else)

More opinions and experiences as I cross the threshold into Hardmode :3
Thanks for the feedback. Every bit helps. I'll like to do another sentry only playthrough, but I'm holding off till I get the mod further in development.

1. Nightmare? You mean Night, as in the combination of Demonite/Crimtane, Jungle, Aqua, and Molten turrets? Sentries do a lot of damage to make up for how they don't move unlike minions and because you can't easily damage enemies on the go like when mining. Since bosses are usually fought in arenas, sentries do shine a lot there. They also work very well for invasions, especially the Old One's Army event. I'll leave the stats the same for the Night Turret for now. Still, I have been making balance changes based on feedback thus far.

2. I'm glad someone read my long explanation of why I did things the way I did. WoF can be very tricky since it always move and you can't keep it locked down to one area like most other bosses. If you plan on using only sentries, you'll want to build a long bridge so you have a place to put down your sentries. Maybe bring a few Mana Potions too since you might run dry from how fast you'll likely be placing sentries down. The Amber Gem Layer can be very useful as it's among one of the only floating sentries pre-Hardmode. It'll be a tough fight, but doable.

3. Once you get into Hardmode, especially post Plantera, there's more diversity in the types of sentries you can get so you may not always just use all of one type. It would be very tricky for me to program something like you suggested. I rather not force the player into having to use multiple sentry types.

Depending how soon you get into Hardmode, my next update after the upcoming one is me planning on finally adding several more sentries throughout Hardmode, mainly to fill in gaps where you don't get any sentry weapons like the moon events.
 
Some special ideas:

The Lunar Revel
- Rare drop from Solar Eclipse mobs
- Fires a powerful lunar moon crescent at foes, piercing through them

The Blood Moon
- Rare drop from HM Blood Moon mobs
- Fires an sinister lunar moon crescent at foes, exploding into a ring of crescents upon impact
 

Ok, I have no idea where that Nightmare thing came from. I was at work and I kept getting interrupted, so I lost track of what I wanted to say several times while writing. Yes, you're absolutely right, Night is what I meant all along.

1) I'm not advocating for a nerf of Night Turrets: This is your mod, you decide on the stats and power-level :) Damage per hit is fine and on-par with what I would expect to deal with another class of weapons at that point in the game and materials required to craft them. I was simply surprised at how efficient a set of six proved to be against the Star Scouter, for example.

2 & 3) I'll find out soon enough, as I fished up enough crates to start Hardmode with a bang since last night. I'll attempt WoF this evening, and see what happens!
 
As a guy with three (oh god what am I doing with my life) play-throughs on sentries, i can say that unless you are running Calamity with Revengeance mode, WoF is perfectly doable with Night Turrets.
If you are running Revengeance, well...
11.png

Then, you'll have to use something else in addition to Night Turrets. But that's just Revengeance. Voila, you're in hardmode!

As of Night turrets, if you are looking to reduce their great effectiveness, try slowing their projectile or lowering its homing capabilities. Combination of these are the things that player in pre-HM usually lack, and harder bosses are usually those who evade your shots and outrun your bees.
 
As a guy with three (oh god what am I doing with my life) play-throughs on sentries, i can say that unless you are running Calamity with Revengeance mode, WoF is perfectly doable with Night Turrets.
If you are running Revengeance, well...
View attachment 193765
Then, you'll have to use something else in addition to Night Turrets. But that's just Revengeance. Voila, you're in hardmode!

As of Night turrets, if you are looking to reduce their great effectiveness, try slowing their projectile or lowering its homing capabilities. Combination of these are the things that player in pre-HM usually lack, and harder bosses are usually those who evade your shots and outrun your bees.
Three playthroughs already? Wow, you must really enjoy this mod. Should you do a fourth playthrough, I hope I updated the mod again with even more content to use.

As for Revengeance and Death mode, maybe Night Spikes have to be used, because they're capable of higher DPS compared to Night Turrets. I'm not sure how well that would work against the WoF however.

If I nerf the Night Turrets, I could see into making those changes. I'll keep them for now given the trend of Night weapons being very powerful pre-hardmode.
 
Three playthroughs already? Wow, you must really enjoy this mod. Should you do a fourth playthrough, I hope I updated the mod again with even more content to use.

As for Revengeance and Death mode, maybe Night Spikes have to be used, because they're capable of higher DPS compared to Night Turrets. I'm not sure how well that would work against the WoF however.

If I nerf the Night Turrets, I could see into making those changes. I'll keep them for now given the trend of Night weapons being very powerful pre-hardmode.
Yes, it is quite enjoyable. Some actually fresh experience, more relaxed gameplay where i don't need to both aim and dodge during boss fights, or worry about juggling accessories to maximize summon damage (this gets old fast - it's nice sentries don't need that)... Or worry about just how sometimes useless pre-HM summons are. One of their, and summons overall biggest problems is that they prefer to stay closer to player, forcing said player to nearly shove self into the boss face for summons to take a hint. Sentries don't waste time running around. They get the job done. That's nice.

But that's mostly just me having too much free time recently. And having terrible time management skills.

Btw, that's probably the biggest strength of the sentries.They are the longest weapon player have, far surpassing sniper rifle and whatever else, probably even only weapon that is fairly effective against foes outside player screen. It takes most of the dangers far away from a careful player.
(One of those three plays was with two of my friends. If battle was looking too rough (usually due to fps issues, some mod-affected bosses just love to throw particles around.), i could just equip menacing boosters, pop sentries in the area and watch the battle on minimap. That wasn't actually bad. It was like watching soccer game, with only difference being that enemy team is showered with lead from half dozen of pain dispensers, and me sometimes quoting Mr. Dell Conagher. I built that.)

And now i'm thinking about healing "sentry", that boosts regeneration and gives ammo and mana discounts to players within its range. It could even be multi-leveled? If there's none, left click summons it. Further left clicks power it up, taking up sentry slots and giving it bigger range and probably other boosts, and right click removing it. But that sounds complicated to code in.


About using night spikes, well, with Revengeance WoF I prefer to run at least a screen ahead of it, dropping turrets and shooting something in it's general direction, just to have more time to avoid lasers and have some distance buffer once it starts to run faster than me.
 
I hope this expands into a fully functioning AFK Trap Tycoon Mod
I've still been thinking about ways to slow down enemies with gooey blocks or use all kinds of wiring shenanigans to have them fall into a pit of lava

How about a Portal Turret?
I mean not like the machine guns...but a turret that will teleport enemies to another area (most likely into the firing line of another turret)

I think a lot about tower defence games, and i'm fond of Plants vs Zombies. I think there could be some potential in something like the Snow Pea which will do less damage but will slow enemies down. I like the idea of fully controlling the environment with keen placed turrets and other traps

right now I just dig holes and have them outside my base while I am inside building or organizing chests
 
And now i'm thinking about healing "sentry", that boosts regeneration and gives ammo and mana discounts to players within its range. It could even be multi-leveled? If there's none, left click summons it. Further left clicks power it up, taking up sentry slots and giving it bigger range and probably other boosts, and right click removing it. But that sounds complicated to code in.
Eeeeeeerectin' a dispenser!
 
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