Getting wrecked by bitters in latest version of .17

[Hawk Eye]

Facing waves of 50+ bitters attacking every few minutes from every direction within first hour of game on default settings. Can't produce enough turrets or bullets to kill them all. Can't get a factory set up all my time is spent running back and forth between smelter, bullet automations and turrets. And it's still not enough. Lost base exactly 1 hour in to giant swarm. Gaint swarm kills me every time i respawn. Set up a row of 2 X 24 stone furnaces and they got demolished minutes later because i didnt have enough turrets to plop down next to them. Seems a bit excessive.

[DCYW]

Did the alien evolution got too fast for you, perhaps?.

[Hawk Eye]

I guess so. The frequency and size of attacks was astounding. 1 hour into the game and was facing 50+ swarms of bitters. Standard starter build. 8 burnerminer/stone furnaces for iron, 8 burnerminers for coal, 2 burnerminer/ stone furnaces for copper, 2 burnerminer for stone. small steam engine set-up for power. Basic automations for red science, green circuits, bullets, inserters, and conveyor belts. The observable map was saturated with pollution and I couldn't keep up with the frequent attacks. Couldn't produce enough bullets. I had a last stand with my machine gun before they finished wrecking my base. I wasn't ready for it I am used to less action in early game. I had to rebuild my iron smelters, coal extractors, and stone extractors a few times. Was enjoyable in it's own way but like I said was pretty excessive. Seemed more like a game of wave defense than factory building.

[DCYW]

Originally posted by Hawk Eye:

I guess so. The frequency and size of attacks was astounding. Standard starter build. 8 burnerminer/stone furnaces for iron, 8 burnerminers for coal, 2 burnerminer/ stone furnaces for copper, 2 burnerminer for stone. small steam engine set-up for power. Basic automations for red science, green circuits, bullets, inserters, and conveyor belts. The observable map was saturated with pollution and I couldn't keep up with the frequent attacks. Couldn't produce enough bullets. I had a last stand with my machine gun before they finished wrecking my base. I wasn't ready for it I am used to less action in early game. I had to rebuild my iron smelters, coal extractors, and stone extractors a few times. Was enjoyable in it's own way but like I said was pretty excessive. Seemed more like a game of wave defense than factory building.

Well, I recommend you start a whole new game with peaceful mode settings meaning to uncheck evolution and enemy expansion in the settings menu before starting new game.

If you want enemies still come to you, leave pollution on. So if you do enough pollution then spreads towards enemy base get your defences and offence ready ASAP.
My strategy to getting rid of them is to play around like circles, make yourself a blood bed then shoot or grenade at them.

[Hawk Eye]

Peacfull mode? That dose not sound very fun. My purpose here is to provide feedback for the latest version. If this is how Factorio is meant to be played then I'll adapt however I think this may need some tweaking. I've got 117 hours in with several wins, this is different than before

[AlexMBrennan]

Are you playing on 0.17 by any chance? I recall there being a bug[forums.factorio.com] that caused massively inflated pollution (thereby triggering attacks far earlier and far larger than intended).

If this is how Factorio is meant to be played

There's half a dozen presets so it seems misguided that only one of them is "how Factorio is meant to be played" - presumably the developers wouldn't have put these map settings into the game if they didn't want you to make use of them.

[DCYW]

Originally posted by Hawk Eye:

Peacfull mode? That dose not sound very fun. My purpose here is to provide feedback for the latest version. If this is how Factorio is meant to be played then I'll adapt however I think this may need some tweaking

I know looks boring but that is how I play.

[Hawk Eye]

yes i am on latest version and that explains alot haha

[Hawk Eye]

I've always play Factorio with default settings. This is just very different. Also I raged a bit lol

[DCYW]

Me too, but with mods on.

[Hawk Eye]

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

Are you playing on 0.17 by any chance? I recall there being a bug that caused massively inflated pollution (thereby triggering attacks far earlier and far larger than intended).

If this is how Factorio is meant to be played

There's half a dozen presets so it seems misguided that only one of them is "how Factorio is meant to be played" - presumably the developers wouldn't have put these map settings into the game if they didn't want you to make use of them.

Well as a matter of fact if you read the note next to "default settings" when you are starting a new game the note says and I quote, "how factorio was meant to be played". The game warns you if you are deviating from the default settings

[Greep]

Pollution is a bigger deal in 0.17. No because the mechanics changed, just the way the biters spawn now. Playing on a deathworld map, for instance, you're practically forced to dig by hand before turrets.

Pollute small, get turrets and a few radars, and aggressively hunt down every nest that appears in your red cloud. To kill spawns early game, plop down some turrets outside of worm range and gun down the worms as your turrets handle the incoming waves.

Don't even bother with conveyor belts until you've somewhat secured your area, plop things in automation by hand if you're using them.

---

For handling expansion waves, eventually you'll want walls backed by turrets so you don't get any sudden surprises. Early evolution biters cannot handle walls at all, so having even two turrets behind walls will hold off a surprise clump of 50.

You can also put walls just surrounding your turrets rather than your whole base if you're being cheapo xD

Edit: added more stuff.

[Hawk Eye]

Originally posted by Greep:

Pollution is a bigger deal in 0.17. No because the mechanics changed, just the way the biters spawn now. Playing on a deathworld map, for instance, you're practically forced to dig by hand before turrets.

Pollute small, get turrets and a few radars, and aggressively hunt down every nest that appears in your red cloud. To kill spawns early game, plop down some turrets outside of worm range and gun down the worms as your turrets handle the incoming waves.

Ok. I'll try that. I share my OP because I finished 2 games in .17 the last just yesterday. However today the mechanics seem to be seriously different. I lost game within the first hour to massive constant attacks

[DCYW]

DeathWorld maps could be causing a lot of hustling your defenses, perhaps. What do you guys/gals think?

My opinion about playing this game, it is really depending how you plan your defences/offences. Mining well away from enemy bases could help, other words no trespassing in polluted areas "Area 51".

[piccolo255]

Until recently, there was a major bug where all of the pollution would be absorbed by the first row of spawners ( https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-283 ). There is a limit to how often a spawner can pop out new biters, so this artificially reduced the biter spawns way, way below what they should've been. My guess is this threw off a lot of the earlier balancing, which was made around the bugged behavior. Quote from the devs:

We made some basic testing after this change, and it seems that it is survivable enough for the release, but we might want to tune the default pollution/evolution/attack modifiers during 0.17 stabilisation.

I recommend increasing the starting area size until the patch notes mention balance tweaks. Some early nest cleaning or starting in a forest could help as well.

[Hawk Eye]

Yeah I was in the desert I realize the pollution is more severe there.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1699167748
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