Vulcanus

[Zhardoz]

Will nukes kill the small worms, I'm almost done reasearching it. I also already have a spidertron there but these worms restit everyrhing. I also tryded to pickaxe it.

[Fletch]

I used a regular tank with regular cannon shells against the small demolishers to great effect.
Heard that others use regular ammo-fed turrents against the small worms too.

Nukes (Atomic bombs) deal "explosive damage", and you can see the demolisher resistance stats to the different types of damage: https://wiki.factorio.com/Enemies#Demolishers

Uranium Cannon Shells may be a good alternative, as well as poison.

[Nonotorious]

Yes but make sure to shoot them in the face because the body is capable of tanking it, a single shot to the face will instantly kill a small worm.

[The Black Baron]

Alternatively I've managed to kill them with a combination of poison capsules and yellow/red ammo.
You don't even need too many turrets. Just 35-50 for keeping constant dps plus the poison DOT

[knighttemplar1960]

A dozen turrets and red bullets with damage research 10-12 will kill a small demolisher with no turret loss without you even being present.

24 turrets with uranium rounds and damage research 12 will do the same thing to a medium. First time you try you might lose 2 or 3 turrets. Once you figure out how the demolishers move and how to spread out your turrets you won't lose any.

For a large you'll want the railgun.

[Zhardoz]

So I just realised that you can't carry Nukes in a rocket. and bringing the uranium is 6 rockets. So will a tank do? If I plan it right?

[Zhardoz]

Also.is the spidertron any good against them?

[Fletch]

Originally posted by Zhardoz:

So I just realised that you can't carry Nukes in a rocket. and bringing the uranium is 6 rockets. So will a tank do? If I plan it right?

Tank with uranium cannon shells make small demolishers go away fast ;)
EDIT: do not use the "explosive" variety of cannon shells, demolishers have a large immunity to explosive damage. You want to go with the best "physical" damage weapons available.

Originally posted by Zhardoz:

Also.is the spidertron any good against them?

Spidertron weapons can only deal explosive damage? Best to avoid...

[Fletch]

Originally posted by bazhosh:

Common nukes kill small worms with one shot, but medium worms need higher quality nukes to one-shot them.

...if you hit them in the head.

Demolisher's resistance to explosive damage (which is what atomic bombs/nukes produce):

Explosion: 60% (head), 99% (body)

Their bodies are 99% resistant to that explosive damage.

[Evilsod]

You're way overthinking it if you think you need nukes.
You can kill all demolishers with red ammo and gun turrets. No need to start importing uranium.

Small demolishers I was killing with a 10x10 grid of turrets with 5 red ammo loaded each for quicker bot placement (if you were being fancy, you could increase ammo towards the front and reduce it towards the rear). Physical damage research was at the maximum level possible without unlocking purple/yellow science. Each engagement lost about 25 turrets average.

Medium demolishers, I upped the ammo count to 20 red ammo and my physical damage was around 10. Lost about 40 turrets.

Large demolishers I went all-in and slapped down 6 boxes of 100 turrets each. I was then ambushed halfway through supplying them with ammo and they still gunned it down (a few seconds after I died).

[Schobbob]

I used artillery for most of the worms except big ones, just stockpile some ammo first then manual fire

[bazhosh]

Originally posted by Fletch:

Originally posted by bazhosh:

Common nukes kill small worms with one shot, but medium worms need higher quality nukes to one-shot them.

...if you hit them in the head.

Demolisher's resistance to explosive damage (which is what atomic bombs/nukes produce):

Explosion: 60% (head), 99% (body)

Their bodies are 99% resistant to that explosive damage.

That's right. Also it depends on the current explosive damage research of course.

[Fletch]

Originally posted by Schobbob:

I used artillery for most of the worms except big ones, just stockpile some ammo first then manual fire

Artillery deals 1k physical damage, same as regular tank cannon shells -- but artillery does provide some explosive damage kick if you are skilled enough to manage to hit the thing in the head repeatedly. The trick is to lay down as much damage as possible, in the shortest amount of time possible, to overcome the demolisher's health regeneration rate.

The simplest thing I've found (for the "small" demolishers) is to drive behind it in a tank and fire a bunch of (non-explosive) cannon shells into its ass. Its dead before it even gets a chance to turn around, heh. I have a lot of research on physical projectile damage which helps.

The artillery trick sounds like fun to blast the thing away from a huge distance -- gotta get the timing right...

Originally posted by bazhosh:

That's right. Also it depends on the current explosive damage research of course.

Nukes are always fun too!

[Evilsod]

I brought a tank with me and at the level of phys damage you can get without purple/yellow, tank shells weren't even enough to overcome its natural regen.
Obviously helps in conjunction with gun turrets, though in the end I just gave up with using it tbh, even now I'm onto the medium demolishers with better research.
That may change when I start bringing uranium over for the shells, but by then I expect it's mostly large demolishers remaining, and uranium bullets are also incredibly strong.

[The Black Baron]

Originally posted by Fletch:

Originally posted by Schobbob:

I used artillery for most of the worms except big ones, just stockpile some ammo first then manual fire

Artillery deals 1k physical damage, same as regular tank cannon shells -- but artillery does provide some explosive damage kick if you are skilled enough to manage to hit the thing in the head repeatedly. The trick is to lay down as much damage as possible, in the shortest amount of time possible, to overcome the demolisher's health regeneration rate.

The simplest thing I've found (for the "small" demolishers) is to drive behind it in a tank and fire a bunch of (non-explosive) cannon shells into its ass. Its dead before it even gets a chance to turn around, heh. I have a lot of research on physical projectile damage which helps.

The artillery trick sounds like fun to blast the thing away from a huge distance -- gotta get the timing right...

Originally posted by bazhosh:

That's right. Also it depends on the current explosive damage research of course.

Nukes are always fun too!

yeah, but rather expensive to ship to vulcanos. You CAN use them there but you really don't need to if you're crafty.

[Serendipitous]

Poison capsules are enough for small ones. Tank with regular shells make short work of small ones too. Medium can be killed with tank (preferable with uranium shells) and nuke to face (aim carefully). So far i didn't manage to kill a big one with either nukes nor tank. May be i just suck at it, the first shot of nuke to the face deal decent damage, but after than i can't manage to aim properly and dodge his eruptions at the same time. Probably possible if you are good. If you are not, then just like me go for railgun.