How to base defense?

[gixbit]

I've been trying to find someone with this same issue but, I can't, Maybe I didn't look hard enough but, here it is. Without going into a myriad of explanation, I literally cannot defend this without losing my mind. I have a few bases but, the idea of expanding just makes me want to quit the game. This is not my first playthrough but, notably this is the first one I've done where the AI is on all medium. And the first time I've built stuff in a desert. Either way, the onslaught of attacks is driving me completely mental, If the attacks weren't bad enough you know, I can deal with that, I've got defenses down within reason and I have turrets on demand I'm supplying to all my outposts and so on but, they keep destroying the train tracks and big poles. How are you supposed to defend your train tracks and big poles? Are you supposed to put down stupid amounts of laser turrets everywhere? Or what am I supposed to do? I'm at a loss because I dont usually make it to 1.0 evolution and I just want to tear my hair out, There's no reprieve, all I hear is the warning sound that plays when turrets are taking damage. And whenever I see an destruction notification it's a railtrack. Then I have to drop everything I'm doing and go and fix the thing. I spend almost all my time fixing rail tracks. I've tried destroying nests, doesn't help. How do you just sandbox in your game without actually playing sandbox?

Maybe this comes off a little rude. Anyway, I don't even see the point of having outposts, I'm almost at the point now where i'm not going to bother making outposts, I'm just going to keep expanding my nightmare square of nightmares and just keep adding more solar panels to scale with size, instead of trying to do outposts, it's a waste of time. the biggest waste of time. Especially when all I see is 36 turrets engaged with the enemy almost constantly.

[johanwanderer]

Not sure about your exact scenario, but I generally have my entire track network covered by repair robots.

Also, there seems to be a few choke points (like the lake to the southeast). Maybe stick a radar there (as bait) and set up lots of defenses (plus repairs?)

I find the best strategy for me is to push back and wall them out. The walls will hopefully funnel the attacks into more controllable / repairable areas.

[Gandalf]

This surprises me, I've never found defence particularly challenging, especially on normal settings. However I did notice that you're playing with mods, judging from your map screenshot. From your description I'm almost positive that there have to be some in there that rebalance the enemies to be a lot harder than in the vanilla game (higher spawn rates etc.). So before you get upset about the enemies being too difficult, maybe you should play the vanilla version which has a much more forgiving balancing.

Here are a few things that work for me in vanilla games with biter settings at normal and big:

• Make sure the turrets are the first thing biters meet. If you look at your pollution on the map it should be pretty clear where enemies will be coming from. They take a straight route to the pollution source, so place your turrets to cut off their path accordingly. Biters will primarily target military buildings, followed by pollution sources. Anything else they'll leave for last unless it is in their way.
• Always place turrets in groups. At least 4, better 6 or 8 (of the big ones from 0.12). Only then will they be able to eliminate an attack quickly enough not to take damage. You don't need to place continuous lines of turrets, just having them packed densely in the critical spots should do the trick. Usually, you don't even need walls, but they can be useful for outposts that are small and far away.
• Don't worry about fixing damage immediately. You should build your defence to be strong enough to take no or very little damage from an attack so you can relax even if the occasional biter makes it through to scratch on a turret.
• Switch to laser turrets as soon as possible. They are much easier to maintain and do more damage.
• Clear out biter nests that are close. Once you're strong enough to take on large biter nests just get rid of all of them that are in or even close to your pollution cloud.
• Don't forget to research damage and shooting speed upgrades

[Adil]

Well, with your resource settings I'd say you'll have grow that square anyway.
Also, it really feels that some of the biter bases can be seen right from near the walls. It's usually wise to eliminate those.
They seem to target poles mostly if they've destroyed last combat building near them. Try setting up outposts so that the rails aren't near combat areas.
And guessing from map the amounts of turret doesn't seem all that reasonable for the time when biters go code green.

Switch to laser turrets as soon as possible. They are much easier to maintain and do more damage.

By the way, gun turrets have higher dps even when shooting behemoths biters. It' just that they lack range and health which makes them vulnerable to a horde of spitters.

[gixbit]

Not sure about your exact scenario, but I generally have my entire track network covered by repair robots.

Also, there seems to be a few choke points (like the lake to the southeast). Maybe stick a radar there (as bait) and set up lots of defenses (plus repairs?)

I find the best strategy for me is to push back and wall them out. The walls will hopefully funnel the attacks into more controllable / repairable areas.

Thats a good idea until the roboports need defense and the tracks are being attacked endlessly while the robots repair it. In addition to that I'd also have to worry about getting repair packs to each one.

This surprises me, I've never found defence particularly challenging, especially on normal settings. However I did notice that you're playing with mods, judging from your map screenshot. From your description I'm almost positive that there have to be some in there that rebalance the enemies to be a lot harder than in the vanilla game (higher spawn rates etc.). So before you get upset about the enemies being too difficult, maybe you should play the vanilla version which has a much more forgiving balancing.

Here are a few things that work for me in vanilla games with biter settings at normal and big:

• Make sure the turrets are the first thing biters meet. If you look at your pollution on the map it should be pretty clear where enemies will be coming from. They take a straight route to the pollution source, so place your turrets to cut off their path accordingly. Biters will primarily target military buildings, followed by pollution sources. Anything else they'll leave for last unless it is in their way.
• Always place turrets in groups. At least 4, better 6 or 8 (of the big ones from 0.12). Only then will they be able to eliminate an attack quickly enough not to take damage. You don't need to place continuous lines of turrets, just having them packed densely in the critical spots should do the trick. Usually, you don't even need walls, but they can be useful for outposts that are small and far away.
• Don't worry about fixing damage immediately. You should build your defence to be strong enough to take no or very little damage from an attack so you can relax even if the occasional biter makes it through to scratch on a turret.
• Switch to laser turrets as soon as possible. They are much easier to maintain and do more damage.
• Clear out biter nests that are close. Once you're strong enough to take on large biter nests just get rid of all of them that are in or even close to your pollution cloud.
• Don't forget to research damage and shooting speed upgrades

I added these mods after the fact, I was getting a big bored so I put them on, Regened the map and so on. At first I had natural evolution and bob's enemies. But, I had to turn them off as I was basically getting overrun a lot worse than I am now, Especially considering some of them do way more damage and whatnot. Now I'm left wondering if either of those mods permanently changed the AI. I have no idea how it works so I won't assume that. This map has always been merciless, From 30 minutes in I would be facing wave after wave of enemies. Lasers were my only reprieve. I got a feeling the desert is playing a part in this, look how far the pollution spreads. One of the weirdest things I notice was, I can't actually track what nests are attacking me and destroy them because half the time I got enemies flying across my screen like the sugar rush of a 7 year old with a handful of warheads. Don't get me wrong, I like the challenge, but, When I'm trying to meet them halfway and instead i have keep an eye on something cause if I don't a big pole goes down and half a base is overrun.

Well, with your resource settings I'd say you'll have grow that square anyway.
Also, it really feels that some of the biter bases can be seen right from near the walls. It's usually wise to eliminate those.
They seem to target poles mostly if they've destroyed last combat building near them. Try setting up outposts so that the rails aren't near combat areas.
And guessing from map the amounts of turret doesn't seem all that reasonable for the time when biters go code green.

Switch to laser turrets as soon as possible. They are much easier to maintain and do more damage.

By the way, gun turrets have higher dps even when shooting behemoths biters. It' just that they lack range and health which makes them vulnerable to a horde of spitters.

I got sniper turrets for my outposts, my main base ( can you guess which one that is ), just has lasers and i rarely have an issue. I'll have to revisit these strategies in my game. I might just expand the square. and plaster the ground with concrete. I did clear out a ton of the nests but, you can imagine that took a good hour and a bit based on the size of the pollution spread if you could fully see all of it. It did help the attack consistency and frequency but, it's not completely gone which means another nest probably popped up right after so all I can do is just slow it down.

[gixbit]

When I said Sugarrush, I meant the enemies are quite literally zooming across my screen. Moving at least 500% faster than they should be. It's really weird.

[Gandalf]

Yeah that sounds like something got broken.
Biters will very rarely sprint for short distances if they got lost with their path finding, but in a normal game you shouldn't even notice that.

The desert definitely makes things harder, with no trees absorbing the pollution. Still, this sounds like some things got jumbled up. It's probably not a good idea to add and remove big mods in the middle of a playthrough.

[Adil]

Now I'm left wondering if either of those mods permanently changed the AI

Yep. That's evolution. It changes expansion AI settings to simulate biters getting angrier, but unlike it's predecessor Dynamic Expansion (which is quite gentler), it doesn't really have a way of calming them down.
Reverting to vanilla settings would require typing this into chat:

Code: Select all

/c game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.min_base_spacing =3
/c game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.max_expansion_distance = 7
/c game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.min_player_base_distance = 3
/c game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.settler_group_min_size = 5
/c game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.settler_group_max_size = 20
/c game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.min_expansion_cooldown = 5 * 3600
/c game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.max_expansion_cooldown =60 * 3600

line by line.

I got my ass kicked badly myself, though I've decided to simply drop the evolution factor to zero.

[gixbit]

Now I'm left wondering if either of those mods permanently changed the AI

Yep. That's evolution. It changes expansion AI settings to simulate biters getting angrier, but unlike it's predecessor Dynamic Expansion (which is quite gentler), it doesn't really have a way of calming them down.
Reverting to vanilla settings would require typing this into chat:

Code: Select all

/c game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.min_base_spacing =3
/c game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.max_expansion_distance = 7
/c game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.min_player_base_distance = 3
/c game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.settler_group_min_size = 5
/c game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.settler_group_max_size = 20
/c game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.min_expansion_cooldown = 5 * 3600
/c game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.max_expansion_cooldown =60 * 3600

line by line.

I got my ass kicked badly myself, though I've decided to simply drop the evolution factor to zero.

THANK YOU SO MUCH for this information, This is great. I was afraid I was going to have to go mental with this. I dont mind the base settings, They were always quite aggressive, but, Like you, I'm getting completely dominated by them, I can't even leave my base. I put sniper turrets on blueprint to go and destroy all bases with extreme prejudice, unfortunately, It seems like they got smart while I was away and started destroying turrets and rails :/. It did help though, Overall.

For your own amusement, I have used the lua console to print me my settings, Normally i could take a screenshot, but, you can take my word for it instead.

game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.min_base_spacing =4
game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.max_expansion_distance = 20
game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.min_player_base_distance = 4
game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.settler_group_min_size = 60
game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.settler_group_max_size = 69
game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.min_expansion_cooldown = 900
game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.max_expansion_cooldown =1200

This is what the console returned for each of these values. Thank you for this information. I hope this reduces some of the insanity a bit. With the evolution already at 1.0, It was like adding flame starter to the fire.

[SpeedDaemon]

Also try building radar outposts. Radar, roboport with 5-10 construction bots and a stash of repair packs, provider chest with a few extra walls, turrets, etc., laser turrets on the "out"-side, and a double wall. Biters seem to love going after radar, so the idea is to use them as bait along the approach routes, and not have to wall off the whole thing.

You might also consider extending your walls from the main base east and west to the lakes, since it's a convenient choke point.

If you can, try to keep your pollution cloud clear of biter bases, either by killing the bases or reducing the cloud. That alone can reduce the attacks to almost nothing.

[gixbit]

I will definitely do that, I can already feel the extreme difference between those settings changes. Thanks again for those. I have radar in all my bases, Maybe I should put them on the corners away from the tracks.

[Husky]

Now I'm left wondering if either of those mods permanently changed the AI

Yep. That's evolution. It changes expansion AI settings to simulate biters getting angrier, but unlike it's predecessor Dynamic Expansion (which is quite gentler), it doesn't really have a way of calming them down.
Reverting to vanilla settings would require typing this into chat:

Code: Select all

/c game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.min_base_spacing =3
/c game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.max_expansion_distance = 7
/c game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.min_player_base_distance = 3
/c game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.settler_group_min_size = 5
/c game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.settler_group_max_size = 20
/c game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.min_expansion_cooldown = 5 * 3600
/c game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.max_expansion_cooldown =60 * 3600

line by line.

I got my ass kicked badly myself, though I've decided to simply drop the evolution factor to zero.

THANK YOU SO MUCH for this information, This is great. I was afraid I was going to have to go mental with this. I dont mind the base settings, They were always quite aggressive, but, Like you, I'm getting completely dominated by them, I can't even leave my base. I put sniper turrets on blueprint to go and destroy all bases with extreme prejudice, unfortunately, It seems like they got smart while I was away and started destroying turrets and rails :/. It did help though, Overall.

For your own amusement, I have used the lua console to print me my settings, Normally i could take a screenshot, but, you can take my word for it instead.

game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.min_base_spacing =4
game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.max_expansion_distance = 20
game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.min_player_base_distance = 4
game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.settler_group_min_size = 60
game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.settler_group_max_size = 69
game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.min_expansion_cooldown = 900
game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.max_expansion_cooldown =1200

This is what the console returned for each of these values. Thank you for this information. I hope this reduces some of the insanity a bit. With the evolution already at 1.0, It was like adding flame starter to the fire.

Yeah, there was a big difference in the values...

[gixbit]

Yeah that natural evolution mod must change the values, I was using that before I installed bob's mods, and I took everything off because it was getting way out of hand.

[orzelek]

Natural evolution works like that - it goes through set of stages with more or less agressive biters.
I would think it would be very painful with bob's better biters altho upgraded turrets and ammo should help.