Factorio Forums

EDIT: I killed them, with exactly 69 turrets surviving.
I'm at the stage where I've researched oil and other things, but the only oil I've found so far is right next to 20 to 25 biter nests. I have gun turrets (and laser turrets, due to a mod letting me get them early). How the hell do I kill them? In case it matters, there are two groups, one of 5-10, the other of 10-15, right next to eat other. I'm at evolution 0.27, enough that every so often a medium biter will spawn.

Well, you have a lot of options. You could turret creep. You could set up a firing line with the turrets then use yourself as bait to draw the biters, making sure to cause at least some damage each trip. Car? Drive around with that, causing some damage.

What's turret creeping? Also, what would be the quickest way out of those? Oh, and my car gets totally shredded by the biters. (sorry for so many questions)

EngineerPerson wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 06, 2023 6:00 am

What's turret creeping?

The basic idea, assuming gun turrets, is: build a line of turrets (four is good) and place ammo in them. While in range of those turrets (which provide some protection), advance towards the spawners and build another line of turrets, then pick up the previous line. Repeat.

You can very quickly place ammo in the turrets by getting it in the cursor then holding Ctrl and right-click dragging over the turrets. A key to this working is having plenty of ammo (and not losing lots of it by letting turrets get destroyed). Alternatively, you can hover the mouse over a turret, then hold Z while quickly "waving" the mouse repeatedly over the turrets.

Also, what would be the quickest way out of those?

I'm not sure what you meant here.

EngineerPerson wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 06, 2023 6:00 am

What's turret creeping?

Place down a line of turrets with ammo. Advance, but stay within range of the turrets. Place down another line of turrets. Advance, staying within range of the turrets from the second line. Put down a third line of turrets. Remove the turrets from the first line. Advance, and put down the turrets well within range of the turrets you've placed last. Repeat.

Oh, and my car gets totally shredded by the biters. (sorry for so many questions)

If you're not averse to using mods, I have one that may be useful: Autodrive allows you to let your vehicles drive autonomously. Hop in, use the remote control to select a destination, and it will drive there on its own, if possible. Even if you want to steer the vehicle yourself, Autodrive may come in handy as it lets you equip vehicles with different "sensors", once they are researched. For example, if there is an enemy sensor in a vehicle that has weapons and ammo, the vehicle will shoot automatically at enemies or spawners within range. If you also have an ammo sensor installed, the vehicle will try to reload its weapons with ammo from the trunk when all weapons have run out of ammo. Once you've researched construction bots, repair sensors will be available. If you install a repair sensor, your vehicle will be repaired when it takes damage -- as long as there are repair packs (vanilla or modded) in the trunk. Before the repair sensors are available, you may heal your vehicle by letting it collide with trees (tree healing can be turned off via a setting because it is kind of cheaty).

SoShootMe; I was asking which would be able to kill them the quickest.
Pi-C; Thank you so much for the mod. It will be such a lifesaver. Or, in this case, the complete opposite.
And to both; thank you very much for letting me know what turret creeping is.
Edit: SoShootMe, as I was typing a question asking how many I needed, I noticed you said four. Thank you.

Upon closer inspection. the number seems to be closer to 40.

Scratch that, 50 to 60. A really unlucky spot for oil to be.

I get killed in seconds and I would need thousands of ammo and hundreds of turrets to dent that place.

EngineerPerson wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 06, 2023 8:08 am

I get killed in seconds and I would need thousands of ammo and hundreds of turrets to dent that place.

Yes, there were nests I spent thousands of ammo. Very large nests are very expensive to destroy.
Eat fish to keep alive during the battle. You may need hundreds of them.

How about laser turrets?

I think the solution is probably to find a different oil patch.

Goose your military research as far as you can, red ammo, land mines, grenades, explosive/physical damage boosts. Your goal is to get close enough to lob grenades and take out a nest or three without actually dying, then get away and eat fish or just wait to heal. Lather, rinse, repeat.

coppercoil; Alright. I have a small stockpile of resources so I should be set for when the resource patches run dry. Not sure. No idea how the shooting speeds and damage values quite work with them, but it might be worth a try.
DaleStan; I've been trying. Might be a good idea to get the spawners sorted, though. It'd be good to have the resources to take them out at hand in the future too.
quyxkh: I've been trying to kill all the spawners at once. Thank you for helping me reconsider my approach. I should be able to kill one or two before I die.
And to all; thanks for answering in general. It helps alot.

quyxkh wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 06, 2023 8:22 am

Goose your military research as far as you can, red ammo, land mines, grenades, explosive/physical damage boosts. Your goal is to get close enough to lob grenades and take out a nest or three without actually dying, then get away and eat fish or just wait to heal. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Researching weapon shooting speed and physical projectile damage (at least level 2) is very worthwhile. Grenades (and explosive damage research) should be too. Piercing rounds magazines (red ammo) require a lot of resources though; I think it's more efficient to stick with the (far) greater number of firearm magazines you can create for the same resource cost, at least while you mostly face small biters. Repeatedly making some progress - as much as you can - without dying is absolutely the way.

Maybe obvious, but as nobody has mentioned it: heavy armour is also a big help!

Therein lies the problem: the evolution is high enough that every second biter is medium. Also, is it worthwhile to have a mix of red ammo and regular in my inventory? Also also, I die in seconds WITH heavy armour. Would it be worth the resources to set up laser turrets outside the oil outpost to fend off attackers rather than take out the base? Or Maybe I should set up a turret wall anyway.

Finding a different oil patch may be way cheaper and faster solution even considering additional time for far explorations. Is it acceptable to you?

It is. I'm just stubborn. And I hoard resources, way more than I need. All things considered, my mall now includes piercing rounds and a laser turret dispenser. Even if I abandon this oil patch, I now have my turrets automated.

I found a new oil patch!
It has the exact same amount of biters very close to it. Most of the resource patches in my world do.

The biters are a radar or two's area away from each other, all 10-15 nests. What the hell is up with my seed?

It's official: resource patches without biter nests next to them do not exist in my save. I can find over 100 biter nests without even finding one resource patch. It is that bad.