Dealing with a big hive..?

[vurt]

The hive is just getting larger and i guess they'll eventually dig into my base.. they're too dumb to see that there's a path that would take them 2 tiles apart from my base. They're digging aimlessly right now but i'm getting worried ;)

Would it be possible to sneak into the hive (when they sleep), put chemfuel all around them and then use a grenade launcher? I'd use a pawn who's really quick hehe

[martindirt]

Yes. But first close their area. Walls + stone door. If they get harmed, they will charge on you.
Go in when they sleep lit them up, and RUN!
But if you have some good armored melee guys, you can fight them face to face. Their (vanilla) AP is really low, so a plate mailed guy can tank them while your shooters killing them.

[M.K.]

^this.
IF you can wall *and roof* around them, so the hive is in a "room".
Build double walls if you can, of stone or steel.
A smallish fire of chemfuel or even wood will start superheating the room, causing all the insects to catch on fire. And both insects and hives are quite flammable!

If you do need to fight them.. Shotguns are much better than boltaction rifles.
Grenades even more so, if you can throw them safely. IED and traps work fine, even wooden traps.

[M.K.]

P.S.
If you can "room" the hive area.
you could also put a pile of fridge units on it, and cool the room down to -50c or so. This will not kill the bugs but will force them to sleep.
Easy, almost cheaty, but expensive if the nest is large.

[vurt]

hehe the nest is now super large and has tons of the buggers because i didn't want to risk anyone...

cooling it would take quite the effort + cost a ton..

killing them, i don't know.. been thinking of digging a tunnel and lure them out into my modded rainforest (which has lots of nasty animals). there would be a lot of meat to collect :)
maybe they'd just turn back though, i dont know how they work yet.

I have a fully armored melee dude with flak armor, he gets downed in 15 seconds.. had to test (not using perma-death so i can try things..)

[Tarshaid]

Originally posted by 𝓥𝓾𝓻𝓽:

hehe the nest is now super large and has tons of the buggers because i didn't want to risk anyone...

cooling it would take quite the effort + cost a ton..

killing them, i don't know.. been thinking of digging a tunnel and lure them out into my modded rainforest (which has lots of nasty animals). there would be a lot of meat to collect :)
maybe they'd just turn back though, i dont know how they work yet.

I have a fully armored melee dude with flak armor, he gets downed in 15 seconds.. had to test (not using perma-death so i can try things..)

I've read some people saying that once one a bug gets injured/killed no matter the cause, they all start rushing to your colony. So unless you only see it as a way to thin the crowd before killing them all (say pairing those with manhunters out for blood and seeing whatever's left alive), you might end up with a nasty surprise.

[MayoCulpa]

They keep multiplying up to an incredibly high limit, like filling almost half the map. All insects aggro you if they or their hives are damaged. If an infestation gets too large for you to kill (perhaps using the methods above) abandoning that map tile and starting over somewhere else is often the best move.

[vurt]

Yeah i was about to give up, perhaps start on a new tile.. but eventually i made it. A lot was thanks to my pet bugs which i decided to sacrifice, i put them in the 1 tile opening while 1 guy fired rockets at them until the hive breaks through them. Chem fuel + wooden floors + 2x iron doors to block them from breaking out from the two exists.. must have been almost 100 bugs haha

Here's the carnage:

https://i.imgur.com/nAiNAyw.jpg

It's really helpful to switch around what space your pets should occupy sometimes hehe.. i thought these pet bugs were pretty useless at first, but they proved to be life savers. 1 death only which was pretty ok, considering.

[sbhink805]

... And that is why I choose NOT to build inside mountains.

[vurt]

yes, this is the last time i will build as deep into a mountain.. and absolutely avoid places which are already hollowed out, like this area was.

[TwoTonGamer]

Wow, thanks for that screenshot. That's a lot of bugs! That could have been a total disaster.

[Chaoslink]

If you try and deal with them immediately after spawning, they're not that bad. As long as you have a few animals to tank for you, I usually use an extra muffalo or two, you can defeat them quite easily. As long as you keep your roofs under the overhead mountains, you avoid drop pod raids dropping in the middle of your base. I'd prefer having massive swarms of free pet food over hostile jerks or mechanoids dropping in past my defenses.

[sbhink805]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

As long as you keep your roofs under the overhead mountains, you avoid drop pod raids dropping in the middle of your base. I'd prefer having massive swarms of free pet food over hostile jerks or mechanoids dropping in past my defenses.

Point taken. I guess for me I've only got far enough to have drop pod raids once and that's late in the game. You could deal with dozens of infestations by that time. So for now I stay out of mountains.

[vurt]

I added 1 auto-turrent and the mini one to the area.. It seems to have stopped the infestations completely, i guess the game don't think its "worth" spawning them. It's been at least 60 days now, nothing...

[MayoCulpa]

IIRC infestations are like one a year, if that. I'd say leave the turrets up just in case.

[vurt]

Originally posted by MayoCulpa:

IIRC infestations are like one a year, if that. I'd say leave the turrets up just in case.

i had at least 2, perhaps 3 infestations, within a very short time period (a week or just days), that's why i thought i would never make a base like this again..

but yeah i have the turrets + chemfuel around the area where they probably will spawn.