Early game worm trouble

[icecreamman4254]

Im very early game still just started chemical science, When i see a nest close to where im expanding to my issue now is my turret creep tactic is being overcome,im constantly being spat at from out of my gun and turret range by bigger worms.this wasnt an issue before as id run and gun thru the nest dodging the worms shots to machine gun it or a few grenades it was easy to run around with a swarm of small biters on me my sidearm taking care of them.now its hard to run in to get worms and keep a swarm of big biters busy at the same time,they seem to outrange my turrets when close or the turret focuses on the biter group and the worms crush it from range.basicaly im being spat at in the face and i dont like it! Any advice?

[Chindraba]

When your turret creep gets almost to the range of the worms, but still out of range, set up some extra turrets, move forward enough to get the biters attention, then run behind the turrets and get the biters wiped out. A couple runs of that and the biters won't be a problem and you can go back to your technique for the worms.

[Dakota]

Keep the turrets out of worm range then stand at the edge of the turret range dodging worm shots while throwing grenades or shooting at the worm, the turrets are there to keep the biters from swarming you too hard. Bring fish to eat for health.

Alternatively advance in military sciences and get a tank and just roll over them with ease.

[icecreamman4254]

Good shout there with the fish i always forget to pack some when going in to a nest.
If a nest isnt right on a part of my base and i can defend oil outposts etc from scouting partys with turret and wall.what will happen if i leave it be until later when i have better weaponry? will the nest grow into some monstrosity. These larger worms and biters are really eating into resources if i dont have to face them yet as im still hand crafting gun ammo and grenades

[shadain597]

Poison capsules are great vs worms, as I recently discovered. It's like a damage-over-time grenade where 1 can kill small worms, 2 kills medium, and 3 kills big/behemoth (poison capsules can be "stacked" in an area). Get in, toss the necessary amount at the cluster, get out and wait for them to die. Note that the nests are immune to the capsule's damage, so you'll still need to clear them out. Also, the engineer is NOT immune to the poison cloud, though being in a vehicle is fine.

Defender bots are also pretty good, because they're basically hovering turrets that follow you. They only last 45 seconds, but if they spend even a third of that firing they've basically paid for themselves. Plus, letting them do the shooting means your character doesn't get slowed down and you can completely focus on dodging acid spit. While it's unfortunate that they are inherently expendable, "losing" a couple of defenders is cheaper than losing even a single turret (with ammo).

[Chindraba]

Step one, before anything else, AUTOMATE the ammo. Grenades if you need a lot of them should be too, but you can probably learn to limit how many you use.

The nest you found won't get any bigger, there won't be any new worms. The nest will keep making biters, and if it's in your pollution cloud they will keep making war parties to attack your pollution makers, or die trying. What they will do is make settlers who will make new nests, somewhere within a short range of the one they left. In time the one nest you ignored will be a line of nests you cannot ignore. However, if you can kill the nests, there won't be any new bitters from there and the worms won't move, or make new ones. You don't need to remove the worms at all, except to make it easier to kill the nests.

The nests are your target, the worms are their defenders. The biters are the demolition squad sent after the annoying sources of pollution.

I would suggest zoos, but that requires automated ammo, and a system to deliver it. That's an idea for later, but not yet.

[icecreamman4254]

Yes i think im going to have to set up a munitions line sooner or later if im gona keep encountering nests and stronger foes.
Poison capsule sounds like a great tool then i can run back to the safety of my turrets while the thing dies,and the ingredients for military 3 and the science pack are what id be churning out on an ammo line anyway.

[shadain597]

Originally posted by Chindraba:

What they will do is make settlers who will make new nests, somewhere within a short range of the one they left. In time the one nest you ignored will be a line of nests you cannot ignore.

If biter expansion is actually turned on in the map settings. It usually is, but not always. It's also worth noting that expansion only "targets" one biter base at a time, so unless this is the only active biter base on the map right now, there's a decent chance that the next expansion will come from a different base. The global cooldown on expansion varies; by default it's between 4 and 60 minutes. Evolution will shorten the average interval.

Also, expansion can take place over a somewhat larger distance than it sounds like from reading your post, which makes it seem like the new base has to be directly adjacent to the original base. A particularly tricky expansion can actually wander around a large lake from the far side to settle an area the player thought was clear.

OP, this is the danger of expansions: it's easy for them to pop up in unexpected places and start sending pollution-triggered attack waves from unexpected angles. Additionally, each new nest you have to clear is a pain, because in addition to the effort of clearing it, destroying the nests increases the evolution factor. Note that revealing additional territory can help reduce, at least temporarily, the number of expansions you have to deal with, because in addition to randomly selecting which base sends a party, where they go is random too, within a certain radius. So revealing more map does allow further away nests to be selected, and even closer nests can send a party away from the player.

I would suggest zoos, but that requires automated ammo, and a system to deliver it. That's an idea for later, but not yet.

IMO, it also seems cost-prohibitive, at least while using gun turrets. Of course, now that OP has blue science getting flamethrowers shouldn't be too much of a challenge.