Large Demolishers

[Auron]

Best way to deal with these?

Seems like they have too much hp and regen for a normal "Turret Array" strategy to kill. I build some artillery, but it seems that the damage values of the artillery shells aren't nearly high enough to actually do anything to large demolishers. (I havent actually shot artillery at them yet, I'm just judging this off the written damage values)

Do I just need to nuke the hell out of them?

[argrond]

5-6 nukes if you are hitting in the right spot fast enough.
Maybe rails, do not have those.
Nukes seem preferable since they are available much earlier.

[Svetlonio]

Unless there's some trick I don't know, nukes don't do anything to the large ones. By the time the cooldown wears off and you can launch another rocket, it has already regened to full health.

They do 1-shot the small ones and 2-shot medium ones if you're fast enough that they don't have time to aggro on you. The regen seems to kick in only after they start chasing. But on the large ones, you can get them to like 80% health tops with the first 2 rockets, then they stay at full health.

[Serendipitous]

Originally posted by Svetlonio:

Unless there's some trick I don't know, nukes don't do anything to the large ones. By the time the cooldown wears off and you can launch another rocket, it has already regened to full health.

They do 1-shot the small ones and 2-shot medium ones if you're fast enough that they don't have time to aggro on you. The regen seems to kick in only after they start chasing. But on the large ones, you can get them to like 80% health tops with the first 2 rockets, then they stay at full health.

They do apparently if you hit them in the face. If you just hit something near the body, they shrug it off.

[Hurkyl]

According to the wiki, all three sizes have the resistance

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

[Svetlonio]

I do aim at the face, but it doesn't really make a dent and it's not for lack of trying. Maybe there's some way to get it done if you're more skilled but given how expensive it is to get nukes on Vulcanus I say it's not worth it. I'm going to try the artillery barrage suggestion next.

[Serendipitous]

Originally posted by Svetlonio:

I do aim at the face, but it doesn't really make a dent and it's not for lack of trying. Maybe there's some way to get it done if you're more skilled but given how expensive it is to get nukes on Vulcanus I say it's not worth it. I'm going to try the artillery barrage suggestion next.

Well i shoot nuke into big one and it did put his health in the yellow. The problem comes after when i have to dodge and shoot at the same time, and frankly i suck at that, so i either dodge and miss or hit and die. Does seem to be possible in theory.

[🆄🅽🅲🅻🅴 🅹🅾]

For the large Demolishers, I use an upgraded tank, (speed and shields), running on nuclear fuel and with Uranium shells. I just wait in a nice clear spot directly in the worms path, and when it gets in range just start shooting while reversing. Takes 12 to 15 shots to kill it, with some practise maybe less. Next time I will try a tail attack.

[argrond]

Nuke is the easiest way to deal with those, but not the most convenient I guess. 2 common or 1 uncommon+ nuke per worm is enough at tech level 14. I believe with tech level 16+ even 1 common nuke will be enough.
Teslas and rails may help as well I guess, but that will most likely not be that easy.

[Running Rat]

To answer OP's question: Use a handheld railgun and shoot them in the tail multiple times. Get as close as you can and hit as many segments as you can with each shot.

If you do not have a railgun, use this death trap https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/1gxy946/big_demolisher_deathtrap/

[Ext3h]

Firing artillery with an auto clicker (set to >50 clicks/second) is the earliest possible option to defeat Big Demolishers.

Invest just a little bit into Artillery Firing speed (first 3-4 levels), and then set up 40+ artilery train wagons. (They can store a lot more shells internally, compared to a stationary artillery turret including a chest next to it.) You need enough artillery wagons to be able to fire at least ~25 shells per second in order to just outperform the regeneration, but going beyond that will reduce the number of shells by a lot. ~100 shells/second should be your performance target.

Killing a demolisher this way takes around 200 shells (each shell deals 1.5k damage to each segment hit, if AoE procs slight less) if you can deliver them all in the same second.

You can't outpace the regeneration without an autoclicker, free spinning mousewheel trick and anything related, unfortunately. Continous drag-fire has been (accidentally?) removed from the controls with the 2.0 update.

Don't try it either if you don't have enough artillery. Your artillery will catch aggro, and you will not be able to aim again once the Demolisher speeds up on route to you!

[malogoss]

Originally posted by Ext3h:

Firing artillery with an auto clicker (set to ~50 clicks/second) is the earliest possible option to defeat Large Demolishers.

First big demolisher I killed, it was with gun turrets and red ammo. We have those before artillery.

Edit: and to be 100% clear, I kited the worm to the turrets by throwing a few poison capsules.

[Ext3h]

Originally posted by malogoss:

Originally posted by Ext3h:

Firing artillery with an auto clicker (set to ~50 clicks/second) is the earliest possible option to defeat Large Demolishers.

First big demolisher I killed, it was with gun turrets and red ammo. We have those before artillery.

Even at infinite damage research 10 (since you said "earlier"), that's just an effective 1k DPS per turret: (8 * ( 10/s * 2.5) * 10) * 0.5.

So ~25 turrets that all need to be in range simultaniously, just to match regeneration. Only about 1 second worth of range before the turret is gone. So you'd need around 300 fully filled turrets all in range to beat a Big Demolisher with just gun turrets before you take losses. The math doesn't really add up, even if you pack the turrets tightly in a half circle and you kite the Demolisher straight into the center, you could only fit ~125 turrets that are all in range.

Might actually check out, but that requires a lot of delicate kiting to actually pull that off without a total loss of all those turrets. Or a lot more Physical Projectile Damage research. Like level 13-14, which already puts you a few hours further into the game..

[malogoss]

Originally posted by Ext3h:

Originally posted by malogoss:

First big demolisher I killed, it was with gun turrets and red ammo. We have those before artillery.

Even at infinite damage research 10 (since you said "earlier"), that's just an effective 1k DPS per turret: (8 * ( 10/s * 2.5) * 10) * 0.5.

So ~25 turrets that all need to be in range simultaniously, just to match regeneration. Only about 1 second worth of range before the turret is gone. So you'd need around 300 fully filled turrets all in range to beat a Big Demolisher with just gun turrets before you take losses. The math doesn't really add up, even if you pack the turrets tightly in a half circle and you kite the Demolisher straight into the center, you could only fit ~125 turrets that are all in range.

Might actually check out, but that requires a lot of delicate kiting to actually pull that off without a total loss of all those turrets. Or a lot more Physical Projectile Damage research. Like level 13-14, which already puts you a few hours further into the game..

I won't redo the math now. I did it once, before trying for the first time, and it added up just fine.

What level was my phys damage tech then? Honestly, I don't remember exactly. If I have to guess, 8 or 9. Maybe 10?

My blueprint was made of 130-140 turrets, a rectangle around 16 turret wide and 8 turret deep or so, with a 1 tile space between each, each holding 30-40 ammo, I did not want to risk running out of ammo. My guess is, 25 ammo per turret would give the exact same result, a bit less is probably fine if one was to min/max it like a maniac.

So yes, that was about 5k ammo in my turrets which is a lot. But what else is infinite iron and copper good for? So I did that.

Those 130 or so turrets killed the worm, I lost about 30 of the front ones in the process, grabbed the remaining ones, and I moved to other things. Worth noting, I did well at kiting the demolisher right in the middle of that turret build, with the poison capsules. It's really easy. If one somehow screws it up by having the worm come from the side, maybe it barely dies in the end, but I would not bet on it. Even if it died, that would be a lot of turrets gone for no good reason.

This way to do it is easy to test, if you don't believe it. I just gave plenty of details on how it was done.

Edit: you got the DPS wrong by about a factor 2. At level 8, the DPS is what you calculated for level 10. And I know your final x0.5 is for resistance. At level 10, supposing only 3 layers of turrets are firing, the big demolisher dies in about 4 seconds.

[argrond]

Just brought 40 teslas of different quality, electric damage at 11 level.
Quickly get past demolisher, place blueprint with those near his tail. It's not fast enough to turn around and do his annihilation, collapses faster. Just bring at least 10 teslas of rare quality or better, to do enough lightning splitting.

[oyssoyss]

I prepared 4 railgun turrets and epic solar panels and accumulators array to power them.

and big one gunned down by 1 shot.

totally unsatisfied. they are too strong for other weapons but too weak for railgun.
I find I could kill big one with one shot only using hand-held railgun. no need to prepare those arrays at all.

I am not fighting a big demolisher. it's even not feels like a fight. it just a unlocking. you got the tech and they die.

I saw in factoriopedia there are legendary demolishers? where I could find them?