How can I stop or prevent alien expansion?

[DaveKap]

I'm going out to kill the bases that are causing me the most trouble but it seems like as soon as I start driving back home, another base has replaced it. Aliens expand just a bit too fast for my tastes. I understand expansion is necessary so I can continue to farm artifacts but I'd feel better knowing obliterating a location meant it would be safe for at least another 20 minutes. Is there a strategy for cleaning up a location and keeping it clean? I think the wiki says aliens expand as long as their new home isn't within "3 chunks" of the factory but I'm unsure how to tell how large a chunk is and what exactly constitutes a part of "the factory." Can I just put 1 tile of anything and assume aliens won't spawn within 3 chunks of said thing?

[DaveMcW]

Can I just put 1 tile of anything and assume aliens won't spawn within 3 chunks of said thing?

Yes.

If you want to be really cheap, press F4 -> always -> show_enemy_expansion_candidate_chunks.

[keyboardhack]

Can I just put 1 tile of anything and assume aliens won't spawn within 3 chunks of said thing?

Everything you place is considered a part of your base so you can in fact expect biters not to expand within 3 chunks of said thing, A chunk is a 32x32 square https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... itle=Chunk

You can also use the minimap to check where biters can expand.
- Press f4 and enable the option "show_enemy_expansion_candidate_chunks"
- Now press f5 and all enemy expansion chunks will now be marked with a green circle on the minimap.

EDIT: damn McW beat me to it

[Salmelu]

Or, if you want to stop them doing it, you can use a console command (I'd rather call it a cheat). I've tried it few times, when I played with max biters and didn't want them to come back.

Code: Select all

/c game.mapsettings.enemy_expansion.enabled = false