(Noob question)How do i deal with all the swarms?

[Unranked]

Hey so i am moderately into the game(im reserching spaceships) and i got 4 trains running out of my base to get resources and the sites that they are at are under constant attack. I cant wipe out the insect bases cuz they will kill me before i kill them, i cant really kill them(got 20+ laser turrets at one base but they die over time due to all the spitters) all my defensive walls are getting breached so i have to go and perform maitinence all the time. Not having these train outposts is not an option since my base has run out of resorces. Is there something i can do to swing back and stop having to micromanage all these outposts, flamethrowers, atomic bombs or just anything tbh. Ive done my run "blind" so far(no tutorials or anything like that) but now that the bugs keep on wiping out conveyors and defences w spit its getting really annoying.

[Hurkyl]

(Researching spaceships? Do you mean flying robot frames, or the rocket silo? Are you playing a mod? Or is it something else I'm not thinking of?)

On defense, you can use construction robots to automatically repair your defenses while you're away, and even rebuild destroyed things if they have the supplies. Look for the Robotics research and its follow-ups. IIRC you get a tutorial on how it all works once you get the research.

Make sure you have enough power generating capacity -- during a large attack, laser turrets can drain their reserves and if your power plant can't keep up, your laser turret defenses will become a lot less effective.

Flamethrower turrets can complement the lasers on defense.

On offense, the tank is a good upgrade for durability. You can shoot using its machine gun (or its other weapons), and it can even just run over biter buildings to destroy them, so you can flatten a base in several passes through it. At some point bases become too large for that to be a safe option, though.

Another option for offense is to run a power line out towards the biter base and build a row/cluster of laser turrets nearby... and then another row/cluster of laser turrets a little closer... and keep inching forward until you level the base.

Another great offensive option is to equip yourself with modular armor or power armor, and fill it with a bunch of personal laser defense and shield generators (and the necessary power generation and battery storage, of course). The personal laser defense combines well with riding a tank, since all of your personal lasers will still shoot, but you get to enjoy the tank's durability.

There are other things you can research in the military tree but I don't use them very often, so I can't speak to their effectiveness.

When you get to high tech, there is artillery you can use to shell biters from long distances. Also nukes too. I haven't used them much myself (I haven't really done megabasing yet, so I'm still in the era where I can personally wipe out bases without too much trouble), but people seem to like the artillery a lot.

[Chindraba]

You should have the flamethrower turret researched. Even if it's a temporary thing to get more time to make good defenses, you can hook up a pumpjack on one spot of crude and run some pipe to the flamethrowers. One pumpjack without any help can easily run over 100 turrets, presuming you're getting a lot of attacks. Focus on the places they break through the most first. If you do nothing else really fast, you'll still have to replace a few pipes once in a while, but it will be a lot less micromanaging and you can work on a good defense with a little more safety. And, if you don't have power were there's a close oil patch, 2 solar panels and an accumulator should be enough to keep it going all the time.

[knighttemplar1960]

Walls - Set up a double layer 1 tile away from your out side row of gun turrets to keep the biters off your turrets. Then set up either a dragons teeth or minimaze arrangement so the biters and spiters have to undulate back and forth in a "S" shape pattern to approach your turrets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hM2YThrpq0U
If you don't have construction robots yet you can set out another double wall. Set it so the outside wall is 1 tile away from your turret's maximum range. Gun turrets out range all spitters by at least one tile so the spit will not hit the turrets unless they break an outside wall block.

Run a belt along the back of your gun turrets. Groups of 20 turrets work well enough. Put a chest using a stack inserter if you have it, or a fast inserter if not, to feed the belt with ammunition and then set up standard inserters to feed the turrets and put 4-5 stacks of ammo in the chest.

Put a row of laser turrets behind the ammo belt and then a row of flamethrower turrets behind that that gives you the right range that all turret types will hit targets outside your exterior wall.

Set up roboports so the exterior wall is aligned with the edge of the construction area. The robots will make repairs automatically if you supply them with repair packs and will replace broke wall blocks if you supply them with walls.

If you don't have construction robots yet add a couple extra layers of wall on the inside side of your exterior wall to make sure that the bugs can't break through quickly.

Don't make manual repairs to your walls. Manual repairs take a long time. When you make a repair run just replace missing wall blocks. That's much faster than making manual repairs.

To take out nests it depends what weapons you have available. The car is very fast and can out run the bugs. You can drive around the nest in circles watching out for obstacles and just hold down the space bar to fire the car's submachine gun. If you have grenades you can throw them out the car's window as you drive.

If you have poison capsules they have longer range than the grenades they do no damage to nests little damage to bugs but they chew up the worms quite quickly. 3 poison capsules will kill the largest worm.

Tanks is good unless you are up against too many large worms but once you get the largest bugs (green ones) then tank isn't good enough any more.

If you have explosive rockets and a launcher you can get close to the nests. When the worms raise up out of the ground that's a good place to stop. Lay out a row of 8 turrets. Gun turrets can be quickly filled by holding a stack of ammo and shift+left click across the row. or you can use a substation and laser turrets. Step toward the nests and fire rockets. Retreat behind the turrets if you start to get overwhelmed.

To help keep bugs off you, you can use the capsule robots (defender, distractor, or destroyer) which ever you have available or a mix.

[shadain597]

Originally posted by Hurkyl:

Another great offensive option is to equip yourself with modular armor or power armor, and fill it with a bunch of personal laser defense and shield generators (and the necessary power generation and battery storage, of course). The personal laser defense combines well with riding a tank, since all of your personal lasers will still shoot, but you get to enjoy the tank's durability.

There are other things you can research in the military tree but I don't use them very often, so I can't speak to their effectiveness.

I think people really underestimate the value/effectiveness of Defender bots, at least prior to enemies "big" or larger showing up in numbers. They can't run out of ammo, only time, so especially after a few shooting speed researches they can shoot more ammo than you put into crafting them.

Also, a single poison capsule can kill a cluster of small worms; you can stack 2 capsules for killing medium worms or 3 for big/behemoth. Even though they don't damage the nests they're probably cheaper than shooting the cluster of worms with red ammo, not to mention tossing 1-3 capsules requires less of the player's effort/time. Plus, poison capsules can't damage the player if they are in a vehicle, so you can liberally toss them to thin out large crowds in a big nest, or if you accidentally ram a rock with a horde trailing behind the tank.

[Khagan]

Originally posted by shadain597:

I think people really underestimate the value/effectiveness of Defender bots, at least prior to enemies "big" or larger showing up in numbers. They can't run out of ammo, only time, so especially after a few shooting speed researches they can shoot more ammo than you put into crafting them.

And they are available very early on: no oil needed.

Also, a single poison capsule can kill a cluster of small worms; you can stack 2 capsules for killing medium worms or 3 for big/behemoth. Even though they don't damage the nests they're probably cheaper than shooting the cluster of worms with red ammo, not to mention tossing 1-3 capsules requires less of the player's effort/time. Plus, poison capsules can't damage the player if they are in a vehicle, so you can liberally toss them to thin out large crowds in a big nest, or if you accidentally ram a rock with a horde trailing behind the tank.

Poison capsule are transiently useful in exactly the way you describe, but AFAIK they don't get boosted by any of the military upgrade techs, so become effectively obsolete much more quickly than the defender bots do.

[Hurkyl]

Originally posted by shadain597:

Originally posted by Hurkyl:

There are other things you can research in the military tree but I don't use them very often, so I can't speak to their effectiveness.

I think people really underestimate the value/effectiveness of Defender bots,

For me personally, I learned how to fight biters before these were introduced into the game. So in my habits for engaging bases, at best they are "supplement something that works just fine without them". I haven't yet adapted to their existence in a way where they can be the thing that makes an attack possible/efficient.

[Chindraba]

Originally posted by Hurkyl:

Originally posted by shadain597:

I think people really underestimate the value/effectiveness of Defender bots,

For me personally, I learned how to fight biters before these were introduced into the game. So in my habits for engaging bases, at best they are "supplement something that works just fine without them". I haven't yet adapted to their existence in a way where they can be the thing that makes an attack possible/efficient.

I didn't learn to deal with biters before they were introduced, didn't get the game until 1.1, Somehow I just didn't get into their use. I want to, over time, learn how to use the shooting capsules, gas capsules, and grenades in various combinations with, and maybe without, bullets and rockets. Not, necessarily to find the "best" one, but to have different options when ever I choose to. Just an aspect of the game I've mostly ignored. Remove them when they're a problem and let the walls deal with them when I don't need more space.

Of course, it's also a safe bet that I'll never be doing a deathworld map either. Biters off is quite likely, biters maxed just ain't gonna happen.

[knighttemplar1960]

Originally posted by Hurkyl:

Originally posted by shadain597:

I think people really underestimate the value/effectiveness of Defender bots,

For me personally, I learned how to fight biters before these were introduced into the game. So in my habits for engaging bases, at best they are "supplement something that works just fine without them". I haven't yet adapted to their existence in a way where they can be the thing that makes an attack possible/efficient.

Same here. I keep a stack in my rescue cars to help with corpse recovery in case of death. Their short life time means you need to set out new ones against each nest cluster you are up against and they follow you rather than proceed you. You can open the capsule in front of you which helps if you can time it before the bugs attack..

[shadain597]

Originally posted by Khagan:

Poison capsule are transiently useful in exactly the way you describe, but AFAIK they don't get boosted by any of the military upgrade techs, so become effectively obsolete much more quickly than the defender bots do.

I somewhat disagree with you here. Yes, AFAIK poison capsules don't have any damage bonuses, but also none of the enemies are resistant to the poison damage, so the effective fall-off is fairly comparable to defenders. Remember, you can stack capsules for higher DPS in the cloud. While they won't be terribly effective against behemoth biters, the same can be said for defenders prior to getting a bunch of damage/speed research done. But even at that stage of the game, 3 capsules can kill a tightly-packed cluster of worms while also weakening/killing any biters that happen to wander through it.

Depending on how fast evolution is occurring compared to your research, poison could be more efficient vs tier 3 ("big") enemies than defenders. Defenders have a base damage of 8 per shot while big biters have 8 flat damage mitigation and big worms have 10. You need a fair amount of research to get the defender damage above 16 DPS on a single big biter/worm, whereas poison capsules do that in AOE damage from the start, though obviously have the limitation of only doing damage in the specified area.

I wouldn't say that poison capsules are incredibly OP or anything, I just think they're better than we tend to realize, same as defenders. IME, it's very easy as a new player to disregard both in favor of more "conventional" weapons, like the SMG, grenades, vehicles, and even turret creep. And yet, these tools are actually pretty new player-friendly when it comes to destroying bases, because you can just focus on tossing them out and then dodging stuff, instead of shooting at everything yourself. And, used correctly/sparingly, they're pretty resource-efficient too. Prior to damage upgrades, it takes 6 grenades to kill a small worm, vs one poison, and the grenade has about half the effect radius. (though, to be fair, the grenade can damage nests too, which is a major "pro")

Obviously, there comes a point in time where a single spidertron can wipe out a big group of nests just using its equipment grid, but at that point the defenders are unnecessary too.

[Hedning]

Flamethrowers + wall is the end-game defense. It's slow and annoying to set up unless you already have automation and blueprints of all the parts.

It does sound like your 20 lasers is keeping up with the enemies and all you need are bots with repair packs to repair them. A few lasers is definitely the quickest and easiest way to defend an outpost.

A screenshot of your entire base (with current research showing) would help determine what defenses is best suited for it. Also tell us the evolution level.

[shadain597]

Also OP, if you haven't already, stick 2 or 3 tier 1 efficiency modules into each of the miners. Significantly reducing the amount of pollution each outpost generates will also reduce the severity of attack waves. As an added bonus, it appreciably reduces your factory's overall power demands. Individually the miners don't draw much, but you do need a lot of them, which really adds up.

[Hedning]

Originally posted by shadain597:

Individually the miners don't draw much, but you do need a lot of them, which really adds up.

For the same reason so does the cost of sticking modules in them.

[shadain597]

Originally posted by Hedning:

Originally posted by shadain597:

Individually the miners don't draw much, but you do need a lot of them, which really adds up.

For the same reason so does the cost of sticking modules in them.

And? Those modules, like the miners themselves, are a one-time, fixed cost. Reducing pollution, especially at outposts, can save resources in the long run by reducing the damage taken in pollution-triggered attacks, especially since OP is currently losing more than just walls. It also slows down the rate of evolution, delaying the appearance of larger enemies. Not by a ton on most settings, but that can definitely make a difference for someone who is currently struggling with defense.

I guess it's worth pointing out that each module costs more to make than the miner it is going into, so you need to be careful to keep it from getting destroyed. And that higher tier efficiency modules are terrible in terms of cost to produce vs actual benefits. Not that it's relevant to the discussion at hand, but tier 2&3 efficiency modules are one of the few things where seems like Wube actually failed at balancing something.

[Hedning]

1) Its a high upfront cost, which depending on the state where your base is at could be prohibitive. Especially red circuits are often in short supply and each module is 5 of those. You are taking the mining drill from only using a few low tier resources to using 15 red circuits each. As you point out there are lots of mining drills. In that base in particular I bet most are idle most of the time, but they would still get the 15 red circuits each. Thousands of red circuits sitting in idle miners don't seem like a good investment.

A one time cost is not cheaper because it is a one time cost instead of a recurring cost. In economics you have to take into account when the investment takes place. Even disregarding inflation $1 paid now is a higher cost than $1 paid in a year because you can use that $1 for that year to make more money. A company paying $100 today to get $1 per year forever may be a bad investment even though theoretically it is returning infinite $. It is bad again because each $1 is further into the future and thus worth less and less.

Similarly in this game investing in modules at some specific time may not see enough return to make them worth it. It is a large investment so it shouldn't be made reflexively. One mine can easily have 2-500 miners. That's 3000-7500 red circuits. Could you do something better with those?

2) Efficiency modules are less useful than their counterparts, but I don't think it is bad game design to have them cost the same. T2 and T3 efficiency modules are required if you want to offset the power/pollution cost of moduled production facilities. I don't think a lower cost would make them more popular though. They have very niche uses and all of them include lots of the other two T3 modules, so you are already able to spend a lot at that point and you can afford them.

[shadain597]

Originally posted by Hedning:

1) Its a high upfront cost, which depending on the state where your base is at could be prohibitive.

You can say that about a lot of things in-game. You know what else has a "high upfront cost"? Turrets. Gun less so, though they have a substantial ongoing cost for the ammo. But Flamethrowers? Lasers? Yeah, that's an investment too. It's not like I went and said something along the lines of "switch 100% of your manufacturing over to making tier 2 efficiency mods regardless of what needs repairing/replacing." THAT would be bad advice.

As you point out there are lots of mining drills. In that base in particular I bet most are idle most of the time, but they would still get the 15 red circuits each. Thousands of red circuits sitting in idle miners don't seem like a good investment.

Where is this figure coming from? Have you been watching OP streaming or something? Are there screenshots somewhere that I missed? Idle miners wouldn't be triggering attacks. However often the miners run, they're still putting out pollution that is triggering attack waves. Regardless of what the exact pollution value is, 60% less is still 60% less.

The only exception would be if a separate part of the base is actually triggering the attacks and the biters are accidentally bumping into the mining outpost. That seems pretty unlikely, especially since OP goes to the effort of pointing out that they need the resources coming out of those outposts. You don't get critical resources out of inactive outposts.

Instead of making a bad bet, you could have correctly pointed out that before there's enough mods for every miner, OP should prioritize placement of the mods into the most active miners. (i.e. at the back of the belt line)

Similarly in this game investing in modules at some specific time may not see enough return to make them worth it. It is a large investment so it shouldn't be made reflexively. One mine can easily have 2-500 miners. That's 3000-7500 red circuits. Could you do something better with those?

And yet, you reflexively dismissed it. Return on investment? Attack waves are damaging the outpost, even destroying turrets. Weaker or nonexistent waves make for less wasted materials, and less time for the player spent organizing damage control. Sure, you can build out more defenses, but those still have an upfront + ongoing cost.

2) Efficiency modules are less useful than their counterparts, but I don't think it is bad game design to have them cost the same. T2 and T3 efficiency modules are required if you want to offset the power/pollution cost of moduled production facilities. I don't think a lower cost would make them more popular though. They have very niche uses and all of them include lots of the other two T3 modules, so you are already able to spend a lot at that point and you can afford them.

It's not the price I'm objecting to, it's how weak they are for that level of investment. The benefits of the other modules go up by roughly 50% of the previous tier. But efficiency just gets a flat +10% boost. 30%->40%->50%. Considering efficiency is based on the building's default energy consumption, instead of whatever it is after applying speed/productivity, that's not much. Even 30%->45%->60% would be an improvement more in-line with the other mods, though I think 30%->60%->90% would be better. Or a rebalance that makes them multiplicative with other mods, instead of additive.

On top of that, the importance of efficiency mods goes down over time. By the time you launch a rocket, most buildings are far better off with a combination of productivity and speed modules, because reducing the amount of materials needed is great, but power is cheap and pollution matters less once you've gotten to infinite military tech.