how to clear out biter nests

[bustling bungus]

im about 25h into my first playthrough, and i made remote iron mine/refinery. there are four huuuuuge biter nests almost right next to it, and the amount of miners operating there mean that the site generates more pollution than my main factory itself. I set up the site with better defence than is standard for my other remote resource collection sites, and even though none of the machinery has been damaged since these precautions, the biters keep breaking small walls, and im getting scared but these nests are vastly more dangerous than any ive dealt with before.

in the past, ive dealt with nest somewhat easily by just gunning down the worms giant bulbs (or whatever they're called) while circling the nest in my car as to dodge the biters, however, this strategy has proven ineffective against these nests.

so how am i ought to deal with these giant nests? im not sure how to handle them, but i cant just leave it there lest i want to lose my iron mine/refinery.

[Fel]

Tech up, especially in the military technologies.
For your defenses I don't know what you use, but if you don't use themyet, add some flamethrower turrets, they are great when defending against large groups (together with the other two turrets).

Power armor mk2 with all of the relevant equipments (portable fusion reactor, personal laser defense, shield, exoskeleton) will make you both fast, durable and more powerful at short-ish range.

Nukes can deal with whole chunks of the nests at once.

Last but not least, artillery turrets can target the spawners and worms automatically from pretty far away.
It does trigger an attack from the bitters and spitters since it only damages structures but it's the most effective way to get rid of big nests in the late game.

Since it's your first playthrough, 25 hours does not give us much in terms of informations about where you are at in terms of tech, some people take that long to even set up the blue science packs, others could already be nearing launch by that point.

[Bolle]

The question is at what tech level you are and what the evolution factor is.
Sometimes it is easier to face a couple of medium to large biters and spitters than facing a horde of lil critters.
Also it needs to be mentioned if one attacks a spawner, the attacked spawner will continuously spawn new biters/spitters as long it takes damage. (In relation to an arta hit, it spawns several at once)
But beware of the worms! Poison will quickly drain your health! Thats some nasty stuff.

So far:
I guess you will be near or at tank tech and thats what you should focus on for now. Get the early power armor, add some personal laser defenses to it, equip the tank ith some flamethrower and normal ammo and just roll.

If you have better equipment, still use the tank untill you get a spidertron but gear up with better ammo, maybe a rocketlauncher and explosive rockets and better armor and equipment.

Personal defenses workfrom vehicles aswell.


The other way would be a turret creep. You approache the nests with turrets which are covered with each others range untill you can strike the nest good enough. This technique only accomplishes the task if you creep near enough the nest that the turrets can attack the spawners and support you aswell and vice versa.

Better equipment like powerarmor, better ammo and weaponary is beneficial, too.


(The third way would be a rambo charge and will likely result in death...)

[[Ygg]Azarhiel]

As i've not seen it, there is also capsules that are really powerfull when used in addition to better equipment. They are a bit complex to produce but it worth the time invested in.

[Gorlos]

Originally posted by Mr. White Blood Cells:

im about 25h into my first playthrough, and i made remote iron mine/refinery. there are four huuuuuge biter nests almost right next to it, and the amount of miners operating there mean that the site generates more pollution than my main factory itself. I set up the site with better defence than is standard for my other remote resource collection sites, and even though none of the machinery has been damaged since these precautions, the biters keep breaking small walls, and im getting scared but these nests are vastly more dangerous than any ive dealt with before.

in the past, ive dealt with nest somewhat easily by just gunning down the worms giant bulbs (or whatever they're called) while circling the nest in my car as to dodge the biters, however, this strategy has proven ineffective against these nests.

so how am i ought to deal with these giant nests? im not sure how to handle them, but i cant just leave it there lest i want to lose my iron mine/refinery.

Just insert turrets near the nests and make sure laser turrets have power or regulars have bullets inserted to shoot the nests down. U can use repair packs to get turrets repaired.

[gegejake]

be mindful - flamethrower turrets cannot take down biter hordes alone. they have a delay before the flames actually hit so 9 times out of 10 the biters start attacking the walls/turret before the flames actually catch up. tl;dr combine flamethrowers with other turrets

[DRY411S]

A lot of replies here about attacking the nests, I'll focus on defending the mines. Killing nests is the fastest way of increasing the evolution of the biters and making their attacks stronger.

You can reduce the amount of pollution that the mines are producing, and therefore reduce the frequency of the attacks, by placing efficiency modules in the miners,

If you have advanced to robotics and have construction bots, you can build a small network to autorepair any damaged walls.

Use the map overlays to make sure that every section of your defence wall is covered by at least 3 turrets,

To make sure that the turrets don't run out of ammo while you are away distracted on another part of the factory, maybe use a programmable speaker to warn you when the turrets are running low. (This tip assumes that the turrets are belt fed and the speaker is measuring the amount of ammo in a chest that is supplying the belt.)

And like somebody said higher up, research better ammo, and improved turret damage and increased rate of fire.