Kill the biters

[ghostraggia]

How i'm supposed to fight the biters when they are like 20 and me only one?
i have only unloked mk1 amor and portable fusion reactor with alien orb.. i can't kill them all alone and when i use gun turret like a fortress took me too time and sometimes i fail cause the enemy spawn too fast and too many!! any ideas?
As usually, sry for my english

[Psycho0124]

Only 20?

Try the exoskeleton equipment in your power armor (you can place more than one to go even faster). You'll be fast enough to avoid getting hit by anything but the worms.
Add in a couple fusion reactors and then pack the rest of the space with Energy Shield MK2s.
Try the combat shotgun with piercing ammo for defense/raids and use destroyer capsules for leveling enemy bases.

[greaterix]

Only 20?

Try the exoskeleton equipment in your power armor (you can place more than one to go even faster). You'll be fast enough to avoid getting hit by anything but the worms.
Add in a couple fusion reactors and then pack the rest of the space with Energy Shield MK2s.
Try the combat shotgun with piercing ammo for defense/raids and use destroyer capsules for leveling enemy bases.

tbh it's a very good question, and a catch-22 situation.

the majority of what you suggested requires the pink research pack, which in turn requires alien orbs, which in turn requires killing the bases, which in turn requires the majority of what you suggested etc etc.

The only way I managed to get the orbs was by "laser turret turtling" my way to the enemy bases, which tbh is painfully slow + boring and a cause for many "i'm bored, /quit".

it really did reduce me to 10-15min sessions as I really couldn't be assed.

the big creepers take next to no damage from a shotgun upgraded as far as you can without pink research packs, or flamethrower/exp rockets, so you can't kill them quick enough before they respawn.

and the worms are just OP without mk2 shields, even then still a big pain.

[Psycho0124]

tbh it's a very good question, and a catch-22 situation.

the majority of what you suggested requires the pink research pack, which in turn requires alien orbs, which in turn requires killing the bases, which in turn requires the majority of what you suggested etc etc.

The combat shotgun doesn't require pinks. Shotgun damage/shooting speed up to level 4 is pink-free. Modular armor doesn't need pinks. MK1/2 shields don't require pinks either. Exoskeleton is also pink-free.
Granted, you'll be stuck with solar power in your suit until you get 40 artifacts to get MK1 power armor and a Fusion generator but that's only a tactical limitation; just hit-n-run the bastards.

The real crux of the issue is time: The enemy is evolving.. If you rest on your laurels too long, the enemy can become too powerful to attack. Factorio may look and feel like a sandbox but there is definitely an arms race going on as soon as you start a new survival game. If you wait too long to get what you'll need, or don't research far enough with what you have, you'll end up falling behind and being forced into turret-creep strategies like you describe. I agree, not fun.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not being dismissive of the question or your concerns about my answer. I do agree that the enemy progresses a little too fast for new players in the current balance and you can get cornered easily (I've had to abandon several unwinnable games). I just don't think the game would be as fun if it weren't always pressuring you to advance.
Ideally we will eventually have a difficulty slider/setting to give new players time to learn the game before being swarmed with big biters/worms/bases. In the meantime, there are "peaceful mode" and enemy base settings in the map generator folks could (and probably should) use to climb the learning curve.

[kovarex]

I agree that the conclusion should be, that the enemy evolve speed should depend on difficulty settings (and/or should be configurable when starting the game)

[ssilk]

Ideally we will eventually have a difficulty slider/setting to give new players time to learn the game before being swarmed with big biters/worms/bases. In the meantime, there are "peaceful mode" and enemy base settings in the map generator folks could (and probably should) use to climb the learning curve.

To set the difficulty is one way, but another is to see much better, how they evolve. Because you don't get in touch so much to them I think we need more indicators, what's going on.

The simplest way is just a balance-meter, which shows, how good your weapons could beat the last wave.

Another way is ... Complicated, but more natural. In real life we see with every big animal also small animals, which life on them. Some good example are sharks, which have small fishes as neighbors, which clean them. Or hippos, which have birds, which clean their mouths. Or scarabeus which take the excrements. Those animals are always coming with big animals. And biters are big animals and the bigger they get, the more of those smaller animals we have.


For example, some of them like the cables between he poles and hang on them and if they get too heavy the cable breaks.
Others misinterpret the warm accus as biter, climb on them and try to clean it and it explodes. Something simple like that. They don't want something bad, it's their nature you disturb.

Anyway: with growing biters the smaller animals also become more and those "accidents" happen more often. This is the indicator for you to to keep care.

[BurnHard]

On easy difficulty I would link the evolve-speed to the number of spawners killed. So the biters evolve only then, when the player collects some artifacts. And at normal and hard it stays a race against time.

One other important thing: Use the best productivity modules available in at least the science labs and the Alien science pack assembler. It helps to greatly reduce the number of needed artifacts.

[ssilk]

Another idea was, that the dead bodies of the biters are used to evolve. https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... 456#p15420

[BurnHard]

Another idea was, that the dead bodies of the biters are used to evolve. https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... 456#p15420

Well that wouldn't help unexperienced players at all. Imagine a factory that is attacked from time to time due to pollution. The biters would evolve, but the player would not have gotten any alien artifacts at all.

[greaterix]

The real crux of the issue is time: The enemy is evolving.. If you rest on your laurels too long, the enemy can become too powerful to attack. Factorio may look and feel like a sandbox but there is definitely an arms race going on as soon as you start a new survival game. If you wait too long to get what you'll need, or don't research far enough with what you have, you'll end up falling behind and being forced into turret-creep strategies like you describe. I agree, not fun.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not being dismissive of the question or your concerns about my answer. I do agree that the enemy progresses a little too fast for new players in the current balance and you can get cornered easily (I've had to abandon several unwinnable games). I just don't think the game would be as fun if it weren't always pressuring you to advance.
Ideally we will eventually have a difficulty slider/setting to give new players time to learn the game before being swarmed with big biters/worms/bases. In the meantime, there are "peaceful mode" and enemy base settings in the map generator folks could (and probably should) use to climb the learning curve.

I honestly had no idea the enemies evolved - thought they were constant throughout lol xD

That makes most of my point mute - I was referring to power armours, piercing shotgun shells etc etc which didn't even tickle the creepers - now I know why.

I think an easy way to solve the issue of getting overwhelmed by the evolution is allow the corpses to be processed at a high rate - maybe along the lines of 250-500 corpses : 1 alien orb - so that you don't "have" to go out and hunt if you don't want to as the combat currently is imo the worst part of the game.

[ssilk]

want to as the combat currently is imo the worst part of the game.

Well. There are very different opinions about that and it is in my opinion because of
- missing tutorial
- missing info in wiki
- not "seeing", that they evolve (and how much)
- not being able to control that evolution

@BurnHard: The dead-bodies are just an idea. I know, that there are some missing links, but on the other hand I feel, that this is a somehow useful idea, because using the memories of dead biters to evolve is a kind of idea, which could explain their evolution (not why, the why is the pollution - this won't change, but the how is the using of dead bodies).

Perhaps like so: To get the memories they need to plant an egg in the dead. The egg becomes a larvae, which "eats" the dead body. Then it becomes a worm and tries to go "home" (wherever this is). Only when he arrives there, they can evolve. So there is a chance to get an egg in the state before it is eclosed.

So my conclusion: We need something to dig into the earth to eventually find an egg in that state or to kill the larvae. Some kind of bot, maybe a new type?

[BurnHard]

@ssilk My ideas were just ment to be a quick fix for 0.9 difficulty etc.. At the moment I don't bother with real balancing values, because I am sure there will be fundamental changes in enemies and so on until the RC. Your ideas are interesting nevertheless, but they will need more time to implement I think (You are surely aware of this).
Another possible solution would be to add a small drop percentage of orbs to medium and big biters (maybe 1% or less), but this is dangerous for balance, you could really farm them with a turrentfortress near a large base -> infinite supply.

[ssilk]

Yea, your idea with the drop percentage could be the first stage of implementation. But not the biters should take the eggs (I like eggs better than orbs) with them: The worms take it! No need for grafix, because they are underground. They wander with the biters. And they come up, when the biters are attacked or are attacking.

Against the farming: If you are too strong, no worms come along, or they take only eggs with them, if there is already a worm around without. Or if you are too strong, you will kill the eggs, too. Something like that.
Take in account, that fighting their "cities" should evolve them very fast, because many dead biters, many experience and you can't avoid that the worms come and lay eggs.

And of course I'm aware, that not everything could be implemented at once. Makes no sense, because things, which depends balancing will have an impact, that could only be estimated, if there it could be tested. For example:
- The first implementation would be: When biters are attacked, in some cases a worm pops up. In some circumstances he has eggs.
- The second: The worm comes along with some biters (invisible)
- The worm gets a bit visible. Something like the sandworms in dune for example.
- There are more intelligent algorithms, when they have eggs and when not
- Dead biters smell
- Worms can smell and try to plug eggs.
- Visible remains of that
- Some stages, Larvae etc.
- We are enabled to dig with something, new bot?
- Worm comes back and rises evolution
You see, it's possible to split this idea into several parts and this is also the way, how the dev-team works. Nothing more is needed to say, it's their job to split that, if they want it. If not, it's also no problem: I have many more ideas depending this.

[Psycho0124]

I would love to see something like this:

Cruise over the piled dead critters outside the walls and for every corpse ground up, you get a small chance that the harvester will extract an artifact (maybe some other valuable item?).

[ssilk]

Yes, but think: the worms had brought the eggs, and now watch over the breed. when you dig for the eggs, they will shoot. And they will only bring eggs, if the area is covered by other worms. Maybe too hard, but something in this direction, because it's very natural, that they protect the breed.

[ShaiTan]

I find the best way to kill Biters spawners is by using a car. You take a fully fixed car and find a nest without worms (it is possible), Then you ram the thing with the car, the car lives with low health and the spawner dies, then all that is left is to run away to your fortified bunker until the biters chasing you have died. Fix the car and repeat. I was able to get enough artifacts for Mark 2 Armour this way.