How do I deal with megaspiders?

[マルコ]

I have my base in the mountain, and 3 hives with 4 or 5 of those just spawned...I tried placing IED and luring them, but it like scratched them... and lost 4 colonists in the fight too x_x
What is the effective way to neutralize or prevent them?

[マルコ]

This screenshot better illustrates the situation, you can see the hives on the bottom left... but I don't see any way to stop the megaspiders now, with 1 injured melee fighter skill 10 and one colonist incapable of violence... and IED that only does minor damage to them...
https://imgur.com/q8b01Rx

[Yippo the Clown]

Regrettably you don't seem to have the resources to deal with them the way I do, which is a handful of cataphract-armoured melees standing in front of a dozen people with miniguns in a tight corridor

[Hykal]

Well you got your melee pawn which is the right move but you really a minimum of three, one to stand right in front of the doorway and two to flank him. I can't tell what weapons you have but chances are you have options for both a chain shotgun and heavy SMGs. Failing that, grenades are an even greater weapon as long as you be mindful of the miss radius.

[マルコ]

can you link me some video with some effective way to defend against it? If I lose this base I worked so hard to build, at least I want to learn something out of it so that this doesn't happens again...

[Hykal]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBS_EfQanzg

Skip to the 5 minute or so mark. It's not particularly hard, but you do need men and a lot of guns.

You can actually zone animals in place of melee fighters, but I prefer melee fighters for the RP aspect. Besides, with the new pen system in 1.3, it'll only work with some animals, not all of them.

[Yippo the Clown]

Oh, I should have mentioned - the time-honoured classic for dealing with infestations is to lob a few molotovs into the room and close the door. Your base looks a bit too open in that area for that to be very effective, though.

[マルコ]

I think the difficulty of these evens is related to my wealth, right? In which case my mistake is that I build a place that is too pretty before having enough hands to defend it... x_x
Like that throne room with the golden throne you can see in the image, or having 400 fine vegetarian meals in store...
at this point in the game I essentially had 2 melee and 1 shooter...
The other colonists where useless in combat or non-violent
I could have dealt with 2 megaspiders and 3 spelopodes max, but not with the horde that got spawned... (5 megaspiders + the small critters)

[RCMidas]

This is not going to be an easy, or quick solution, but it might just work. First, seal up that breach in the wall next to your research lab. Then drop all the heaters in your base (except for one for your bedrooms) on that side of the door, and power them up fully. If necessary, force your colonists to stay up past their bedtime so that they do this whilst the insects are asleep.

Because that entire area is contained and beneath a mountain, it should be nicely insulated and will keep the heat in very well. Let the temperature in there rise up to about 150C and let simple heatstroke kill the bugs off.

Given how big your base is and how few colonists you had, I'd say you made the simple mistake of expanding too far without having the numbers and/or equipment to defend properly. Even the most experienced players sometimes fall into this trap from what I've seen - overconfidence, especially if you are good at the game, can lead to disaster dominoes with remarkable speed.

EDIT: Ooof, you over-enriched yourself? Yeah, that'll screw you over everytime. There comes a point when you really need to focus on getting more people into your colony and gearing them up for war over just making pretty things. The balancing act is a really delicate one and I'm not good enough at the game yet to help you with that.

[マルコ]

Originally posted by RCMidas:

This is not going to be an easy, or quick solution, but it might just work. First, seal up that breach in the wall next to your research lab. Then drop all the heaters in your base (except for one for your bedrooms) on that side of the door, and power them up fully. If necessary, force your colonists to stay up past their bedtime so that they do this whilst the insects are asleep.

Because that entire area is contained and beneath a mountain, it should be nicely insulated and will keep the heat in very well. Let the temperature in there rise up to about 150C and let simple heatstroke kill the bugs off.

Oh damn, wish I had read this sooner... I had formed a caravan and sent the 2 survivors away, abandoned the colony and settled elsewhere, so is too late for that x_x

[マルコ]

I think my main problem is that I always tend to micromanage everyone, therefore I struggle if I have more colonists than that - my ideal colony would be 6 or 7 people
Can a successful colony be made with those numbers?

[RCMidas]

Well, works for future reference anyway. Given your situation, I would argue that was the better option regardless, since the sheer wealth of that colony would continue to draw in raids far tougher than you could actually handle.

Now, regarding your micromanaging, this is something that you will likely need to work to overcome. Very small colonies are manageable, but you need to keep wealth to an absolute minimum as a result. Automating tasks is a big part of managing larger, wealthier colonies. It's as much a skill as mastering anything else in the game.

For example, specialising your colonists (and at higher levels of expertise) creative use of zones will let you manage dozens of them very efficiently, knowing what each of them are doing at any given time.

[NeglectfulNerd]

If you're going to build under mountains you're going to get infested, unless you keep the temperature under -20C, or occupy every square of every room with any overhead mountain roofs (e.g. marriage spots or whatever).

[マルコ]

the complete opposite, playing without micromanaging anyone (except for emergency "Tend to" command or combat), is it viable?

[RCMidas]

Pretty much yeah, at higher levels of expertise. You can even establish customised apparel permissions to switch between depending on what you need so as not to wear down clothing with unnecessary use - going into winter, switch to allowing parkas; going into summer, switch to dusters and shirts; going into war, switch to power armour etc.

Once you start supporting 40+ people in a single colony, leaving them to do what you've told them to is pretty much vital unless you play without fast speed at any time.

And even emergency "tend to" orders can sometimes be unneeded if you have correctly set up your colonists' work priorities, permitted zones and so forth. Even someone who goes down in a fight can be automatically rescued by colonists (or animals trained in hauling) and taken to a medical bed or their own much of the time.

[マルコ]

Alright then, I'll try the next run with no micromanagement, lets see how it goes.
Thanks