What exactly do biters target when they get aggro by artillery?

[solar plover]

For example, if I build a single turrent far away from anything, make it fire 1 round, then deconstruct the turret and leave.

Where do biters go? Do they cluster where the artillery turret was originally even though there's nothing there anymore? Or do they target a random place inside my base?

And similarly, if an artillery train does the same, and the train leaves (not getting deconstructed), do biters attack the empty rails? or do they know where to find the artillery wagon that fired the shot?

[tulip ginkgo]

I can't find any definitive information, but piecing together a bunch of things this is what seems to happen:

The biters will head to the location of the missing artillery in an Agro state. If there are any player made items in the area, they'll try to attack them. (Artillery wagons means they should attack the rails/power/stop etc)
If there's pollution they'll head to the source.
If there's nothing within range, and there's no pollution, they'll just mill around doing nothing.
There's a chance they'll convert from milling around to base forming. But I can't confirm that.

Your best bet would be to jump into a test world, open /editor and see what happens.

[solar plover]

I did a test. The biters aggro the area where the artillery was. Interestingly they only remain aggro after they destroyed stuff on a limited area/range from where the artillery was

then they just scatter and/or go back to their nest

I thought that they would keep going destroying anything that is a player building until nothing else is in range