alien infestation spreads ridiculously fast

[Boredom_Incarnate]

Ok so I got back into the game and in my effort to compile knowledge to eventually make a guide I have noticed something.

The alien infection (the growths that turn into nests) some runs they barely happen at all and it's no issue, being controlled as you would expect to. Other runs I'm chasing spore-fog across the bottom floor for half an hour after each bad tractor beam pull or planet run.

It could be random but it feels like anytime I find the little Leviathan squids all the nests spread almost faster than you can kill them, even if the nests are for another species like Mantiz.

Side-note while I'm here, but does anyone have a concrete understanding of how the spores spread? It feels like the fog "runs" along the floor until it just decides to become the nest, but the nest seems to spread more fog before it's even got a hitbox for me to kill it. Or maybe multiple fogs can spawn in the same place and therefore it's actually one large infestation and I'm getting really unlucky with it some runs?

[Oakshield]

I have had the feeling for some time the starting location of the nests are always fixed.
In the hangar they always spawn at the right side of the harvester, usually at the 3rd open spot.
Another spawn point is between the central and left entrance points, close to where the robots can dock (looking at the harvester)
In the Tractor Beam area, they always spawn near the main terminal. One at the right side of it - when facing at it - and one more or less at the spot where you stand to operate the terminal.

As for the nests, so far I found that covering the energy nodes in the refinery and the deposit seem to help somewhat to contain the spreading. Cutting area's off with shields also help to contain the spreading; although nests are able to pass through closed doors, so not sure why shields work better.
I've found that security gates do help, but only a little. Even with turrets in the crawl space, infections are able to move from one part to the other.

As for worst infection, the squids aren't that much of a problem compared to those spiders spawning from a Helix infection.
In one of my games I had that move through a turbo lift to the deck with my biovats and storage. By the time I had managed to contain that spread, my ship was brought back to the bridge, a small corridor, two turbo lifts and the coridor to my greenhouse. No storage room, no resources nothing.

Compared to that, I prefer the squids.

Thorin :)

[Boredom_Incarnate]

Originally posted by Oakshield:

I have had the feeling for some time the starting location of the nests are always fixed.
In the hangar they always spawn at the right side of the harvester, usually at the 3rd open spot.
Another spawn point is between the central and left entrance points, close to where the robots can dock (looking at the harvester)
In the Tractor Beam area, they always spawn near the main terminal. One at the right side of it - when facing at it - and one more or less at the spot where you stand to operate the terminal.

As for the nests, so far I found that covering the energy nodes in the refinery and the deposit seem to help somewhat to contain the spreading. Cutting area's off with shields also help to contain the spreading; although nests are able to pass through closed doors, so not sure why shields work better.
I've found that security gates do help, but only a little. Even with turrets in the crawl space, infections are able to move from one part to the other.

As for worst infection, the squids aren't that much of a problem compared to those spiders spawning from a Helix infection.
In one of my games I had that move through a turbo lift to the deck with my biovats and storage. By the time I had managed to contain that spread, my ship was brought back to the bridge, a small corridor, two turbo lifts and the coridor to my greenhouse. No storage room, no resources nothing.

Compared to that, I prefer the squids.

Thorin :)

I'm almost tempted to just let it spread until it starts to grow a bit and then kill the nests rather than playing whack-a-mole with them, if it weren't for the fact that the ai is astoundingly idiotic and will die to the lowest tier of enemies easily.

[Sammy M.F Bananas]

Originally posted by Boredom_Incarnate:

Originally posted by Oakshield:

I have had the feeling for some time the starting location of the nests are always fixed.
In the hangar they always spawn at the right side of the harvester, usually at the 3rd open spot.
Another spawn point is between the central and left entrance points, close to where the robots can dock (looking at the harvester)
In the Tractor Beam area, they always spawn near the main terminal. One at the right side of it - when facing at it - and one more or less at the spot where you stand to operate the terminal.

As for the nests, so far I found that covering the energy nodes in the refinery and the deposit seem to help somewhat to contain the spreading. Cutting area's off with shields also help to contain the spreading; although nests are able to pass through closed doors, so not sure why shields work better.
I've found that security gates do help, but only a little. Even with turrets in the crawl space, infections are able to move from one part to the other.

As for worst infection, the squids aren't that much of a problem compared to those spiders spawning from a Helix infection.
In one of my games I had that move through a turbo lift to the deck with my biovats and storage. By the time I had managed to contain that spread, my ship was brought back to the bridge, a small corridor, two turbo lifts and the coridor to my greenhouse. No storage room, no resources nothing.

Compared to that, I prefer the squids.

Thorin :)

I'm almost tempted to just let it spread until it starts to grow a bit and then kill the nests rather than playing whack-a-mole with them, if it weren't for the fact that the ai is astoundingly idiotic and will die to the lowest tier of enemies easily.

Give those scrubs the heavy pistol and watch em drop bodies

[Wingnut Mcmoomoo]

Originally posted by Boredom_Incarnate:

Ok so I got back into the game and in my effort to compile knowledge to eventually make a guide I have noticed something.

The alien infection (the growths that turn into nests) some runs they barely happen at all and it's no issue, being controlled as you would expect to. Other runs I'm chasing spore-fog across the bottom floor for half an hour after each bad tractor beam pull or planet run.

It could be random but it feels like anytime I find the little Leviathan squids all the nests spread almost faster than you can kill them, even if the nests are for another species like Mantiz.

Side-note while I'm here, but does anyone have a concrete understanding of how the spores spread? It feels like the fog "runs" along the floor until it just decides to become the nest, but the nest seems to spread more fog before it's even got a hitbox for me to kill it. Or maybe multiple fogs can spawn in the same place and therefore it's actually one large infestation and I'm getting really unlucky with it some runs?

I play just on the hardest difficulty with max number of pirate ships every game i play so I end up spending alot of time chasing infestations.

The fog is probably just coded like the rest of the AI it tends to follow the same paths as like spiders and stuff and seems to want to lay its spores near places that have multiple walls (corners) but will accept the middle of a room if its ready to produce right then, You can for sure shoot the fog that spreads the spores but the hitbox is small so the laser guns are the best since they have minor aoe damage to hit the actual cloud (you can spam shots where they spawn and kill them before they even lay one thing). If you already have an infestation it will always spread faster than you can kill it for a short time till you find all the clouds/animals responsible for laying them as often its you against multiple sources of spread once you reach actual infestation territory. They can lay spores in the same spot over and over if you happen to blow up the spot under them without actually killing the cloud (i think most people kill the cloud on accident with the laser pistol aoe without realizing thats what they are doing since you can delete the cloud by shooting a clean ground). The cloud animation lags tho so sometimes the hitbox is ahead of animation from what i can tell so always shot to the next "tile" its moved too.

also all nests have hitboxes from the moment the sound FX starts, which is before any visual things show up, you can blow up a nest or spore spread before you can see it (you'll see the little bloody explosion and hear the growing noise stop), the hitbox is always much much smaller than the actual model and usually the center of the tile.

Also as an edit: Yeah the spores come in bursts because they are found only where they can spawn just like other ailens, sometimes you're in really terrible space thats just filled with bad spores and sometimes you'll be in a spore free pocket. Also once you cure a disease that spore will stop spawning for the rest of the game so it may be why sometimes you just stop having to deal with them so much as in the end the only infestation you can't stop completely is the ones that spawn aliens, all of the disease infestations can be removed from spawning forever once you cure them.

[Wingnut Mcmoomoo]

Originally posted by Boredom_Incarnate:

I'm almost tempted to just let it spread until it starts to grow a bit and then kill the nests rather than playing whack-a-mole with them, if it weren't for the fact that the ai is astoundingly idiotic and will die to the lowest tier of enemies easily.

Its cause they can't shoot at their feet with every weapon so the little ones will just murder them without turret support yeah (also they will stand in spider clouds lol), they can do pretty ok with shotguns and a couple of other weapons but most weapons on them have this downside. And its not wack a mole if you just shoot the cloud, shoot the cloud by aiming at the ground where it is with one of the energy weapons that has a small AoE (the starter pistol is the main one people use)

[Squaul]

Also it's has been a while but couldn't you transformation infestation some sort of material farms ? like letting it spread and spawn things and only destroying what overflow and soemtiems a bit more when you feel grumpy but not entirely ?