Battle is frustrating

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Mauslag PIngman
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Battle is frustrating

Post by Mauslag PIngman »

I've been fighting biters with my tank and laser turrets. I'm not thinking that this is brilliant fighting so far. The range on the cannon is so short and you don't get a green disc of range like you get with the grenades so you don't even know if you're going to hit your biter nest when you fire. That's aggravating. HIt one nest and millions of them come swarming out. It'd take all day to shoot them with the tank cannon.

I set up lasers and then lasers closer and they come swarming out. They can spit that acid a long way and it does a lot of damage. Building a wall doesn't protect from acid so basically, you lose a lot of laser turrets unless the turrets have more range later and you have to research. Seems like I should be able to make some kind of trap instead of trapping myself. I think I was doing better just taking the tank in there with the flame thrower and then driving away when it got bad. Then the day night cycle is so fast now. All of a sudden the lights go out. The land mines are a joke. They just get spit on and wrecked in a 2 seconds. Can't I cover them with ceramic or something? It'd be cool if I could set up turrets and landmines with robot tenders that wash the acid off and do repairs or send in multiple burrowing laser turrets that infiltrate the nest complex and kill from within while I drive around killing from outside with the flamethrower.

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MEOWMI
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Re: Battle is frustrating

Post by MEOWMI »

Killing large nests is difficult initially, but becomes easy when you amass large amounts of resources or learn the tricks. I definitely agree some of the weapons seem like bad choices. However, it's a question of what one considers a good resource investment. The only big things I feel like the community agrees on are that personal lasers are powerful and in endgame it's a mix between nukes and artillery.

The acid is by far the worst enemy: getting hit by it twice or thrice in a short timespan makes you so slow that you'll be almost unable to escape. Dodging it is of utmost importance when facing large enemy bases. It also wrecks stationary vehicles and players faster than anything conceivable (short of pvp or teamkilling). It's a very big change to how the enemy projectiles used to work and almost something I would consider changing: the old system seemed more sensible and more balanced.

Personal laser defenses are amazingly efficient and powerful, so I suggest using at least some when you get a chance. Pair them with a car or multiple exoskeletons, then once you get your dodging skills up a bit, you'll become able to pretty much destroy any biter base, given some time. Cars allow to add more personal lasers but exoskeletons make dodging easier. The tank is slow and in endgame it is far more important to be able to dodge more hits than to be able to tank more hits, as even the tank becomes comparatively fragile.

You can build wall of laser turrets just outside of worm range and use it to kite biters. Although the nests will replenish dead biters at a steady rate, this will still weaken their defenses and allow you to more easily destroy the nests.

For very late game, nukes are a very great option as they speed up the process immensely despite their initially high cost; Time is the most prime resource in Factorio. They also take the difficulty out of combat. Theoretically artillery is probably more time efficient in megabases since it can be fully automated but as a personal weapon nukes are unmatched.

I consider the tank cannon nearly useless (along with combat bots) - somewhat ironically for a tank - so I would agree that balance changes are welcome. The cluster shells might be useful in a few situations when you upgrade them a lot but I've not really ever bothered. Normal shells will only do minimally more damage than a second or two of laser fire. Same with machine gun (but not machine gun turrets which are immensely powerful in late game).

Mines are pretty much only good for defense and almost never for offense because of the deploy time. Even then they seem somewhat inefficient despite the potential for AoE damage. Rocket launchers are good when upgraded to one-shot nests: a good long-range pick weapon, but slow for whole bases. Grenades are probably similar to rockets but lower tech, lower range and higher damage.

Mauslag PIngman
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Re: Battle is frustrating

Post by Mauslag PIngman »

I haven't done any purple or yellow science yet so I've got the less spacious armor. Room for only 2 exoskeletons and my roboport doesn't work. Apparantly doesn't have enough power with just batteries. It needs the personal fusion reactor that I haven't researched yet.

The artillery is weird. It doesn't lob. It just shoots straight across and hits anything in the way like a tree or a bug which wastes the ammo if you want a nest. Switching weapons with so much going on is difficult. An audible cue might be nice.

Yea, i noticed that with the acid slowing me down. Interesting but mostly annoying. Still can't fire the flamethrower while dodging. Gotta stop and shoot I believe. It'd be more satisfying if I could lob a barrel of something flammable and highly destructive/explosive without drawing the hordes and then hit the barrel with a grenade and watch the martian guts fly, especially if there are multiple barrels to hit or chain reactions. Its just that I've done it the old way millions of times with 2500 hours of factorio. Its repetitive. I definitely want to do chain reactions.

The mines need to be made of ceramic. Its pointless to put them out if they're just going to get puked on and wrecked. It doesn't even slow anything down. They're supposed to be buried even if it looks like I can see them. And what about the dangerous, trainable birds on this planet? I heard they can carry explosives into the middle of colonies.

Before the big update I was playing with the flame turrets. Beautiful weapon, but way to many negative qualities like their tendency to burn their own base. Great looking, especially at night.

One new thing. I found its nice to bring the electric poles up to the battles so that when I drive away the lasers can quickly wipe out the followers. Never needed that before.

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Re: Battle is frustrating

Post by Squelch »

One of the most common tactics is to turret walk. ie approach the nest just out of range and build turrets in front of each other as you advance. The first shots will cause a biter rush, but the turrets behind will take them out when in range. A nest takes a short while before it spawns a full complement of bugs, so allows you to approach little by little. Pick up the rear turrets and add them to the front as you go. Eventually, you'll be able to destroy the nest.

My favourite tactic is to build a couple of redoubts (small well armed forts) a little away from each other. Then use the car to make a strafing pass of the nest (keep your pointer in the nest's general direction while firing) as you go from one redoubt to the other. Any biters that you kite (trail behind you as you drive or run) can be dispensed with by driving around your redoubt and letting the turrets pick them off. Don't get target fixated and linger too long trying to kill a single nest. It will fall after a few passes. When you pointer is over a target in range, it will highlight. The nest has a compass rose like outline around it.
It may be worth preparing the ground before you make this kind of attack by clearing trees and rocks so you don't get slowed or worse, crash and stop. Keep just out of range of the biters as you clear. Placing redoubts with overlapping firing arcs works well too.


Things to take:
Armour - every little helps, but movement (dodging) is the real answer
Fish - They replenish your health. Assign them to your quickbar for ease of access and fall back to a redoubt or outrun the biters while you heal if possible. (car for speed here)
Car - It's fast and the machine gun can do good damage. Most importantly, it can transport the rest of the supplies in this list.
Ammo - Plenty of it, it always runs out at inopportune times. Load the car up with extra so you can replenish between skirmishes.
Repair packs - Turrets and Vehicles will get hit at some point, so repair them between skirmishes
Shotgun - Useful for clearing approach and escape paths. The early shotgun is slow firing, so don't be tempted to use that alone on bitiers. It will knock nests out, but be careful of respawning biters while doing so.
Construction bots and personal roboport - Let the bots repair for you while you reload or heal if you have room in the armour. Be careful not to let the bots get destroyed by turning off the roboport until it's safe.
Personal laser is another option in a car if you have it, but watch the power reserve

Laser turrets are powerful, but as you point out, have limited power reserves and need a very good supply otherwise. It can be very easy to get carried away and deplete any power reserves you might have. Not only does that suddenly stop the lasers from firing, but can, if connected, stop your base from working. You need that ammo right?

Whatever you do, don't attempt to tank it out toe to toe. You will die and retrieving your inventory from that corps is not always possible if it's overrun by angry biters.

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Re: Battle is frustrating

Post by wobbycarly »

I would add poison capsules to the mix... as you're driving past the nest, toss a few in there. That'll take out the worms and make the nest easier to wipe out when you come back again. The biters and spitters will still follow you out, so you still need some redoubts or similar to bunker behind to repair your car/eat fish.

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Re: Battle is frustrating

Post by Pi-C »

wobbycarly wrote:
Thu Feb 20, 2020 5:57 am
I would add poison capsules to the mix...
I'd already begun wondering that nobody mentioned those. Quite effective, that's what they are! Drive by the edge of some big colony, hurl in a couple of poison capsules to slowly kill the worms, and go away. Leave a trail of poison capsules behind you, and while the enemies chase you, go in circles yourself, always through the same old poison clouds -- thus forcing the enemies to remain in the area of effect and take damage from the poison for as long as possible.

I've cleaned some bigger nests (10-20 spawners, some medium/big worms) that way last night. It's not directly a cake walk, I actually died several times. However, my tank was only loaded with piercing ammo and explosive rockets (no flamethrower yet, and for some reason I'm still wearing only heavy armor). Also, I must confess I play a heavily modded game, and among the mods I use is Autodrive (I'm collaborating on this mod, sorry for the plug!). Autodrive has two features that make single-tank raids easier: Vehicles with the right equipment will shoot automatically at enemies (including worms/spawners) in their range, and they will automatically reload or change weapons once they've run out of ammo for the current one, so you have your hands free for steering the tank and throwing out poison capsules or grenades. Also, vehicles will auto-heal if you hit trees or your own structures. Thus, there's no need to withdraw to a safe place in order to get out and repair the vehicle if trees are nearby. (Yes, this may be a bit cheaty. On the other hand, I also have Schall Alien Mutation and Armoured Biters in my game, so I don't feel bad about the easier-driving cheat.)
A good mod deserves a good changelog. Here's a tutorial (WIP) about Factorio's way too strict changelog syntax!

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Re: Battle is frustrating

Post by Nemo4809 »

Mauslag PIngman wrote:
Thu Feb 20, 2020 2:15 am
The artillery is weird. It doesn't lob. It just shoots straight across and hits anything in the way like a tree or a bug which wastes the ammo if you want a nest.
Works fine for me. Anytime there is nest or worm within its automatic firing range, it lobs a shell over to kill it. I never had it miss ever.

As for how I dealt with biters in general ... I basically turtled in my base. When I had to clear nests I run out with combat drones, shields, and the SMG then pray I have enough firepower to kill them before they kill me. That or have artillery kill them as I hide behind my laser lined walls then move the lasers and walls forward when the coast is clear - and hope I don’t get a visit from biters in the mean time.

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Re: Battle is frustrating

Post by Serenity »

I find the rocket launcher to be very useful these days. You need a lot of rockets initially (they improve greatly with research), but they outrange the spitters

Mauslag PIngman
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Re: Battle is frustrating

Post by Mauslag PIngman »

Thanks to the replies in this thread I tried making 3 exoskeletons, 2 portable fusion reactors, laser defense and lots of poison capsules and I've been running right into the nest complexes and decimating the worm clusters. Its actually fun and new to me. Got me out of a rut so thanks to all but especially Meowmi and Squelch. If I drop a radar nearby I can watch the after effects of the capsules from a safe distance.

Repair robots take horrific loses following tanks into nests. Do defenders or anything protect them?

I think I accidentally deleted some cliffs with robots by using the deconstructor.

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Re: Battle is frustrating

Post by Khagan »

Mauslag PIngman wrote:
Thu Feb 20, 2020 2:15 am
The artillery is weird. It doesn't lob. It just shoots straight across and hits anything in the way like a tree or a bug which wastes the ammo if you want a nest.
I assume you mean the tank cannon, rather than the actual heavy artillery. Yes, it's a direct fire weapon. So (mostly) are real tank guns.
Mauslag PIngman wrote:
Fri Feb 21, 2020 3:13 am
Repair robots take horrific loses following tanks into nests. Do defenders or anything protect them?
Yes they do, and no they don't. And when each one dies, it also takes not one but a whole handful of repair kits into oblivion with it; the kits are very cheap, but a stack can evaporate very quickly, and finding yourself with none left for a heavily damaged tank is Not Good. Some people turn the roboports off during battle.

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Re: Battle is frustrating

Post by MassiveDynamic »

I like personal lasers with machine gun ammo in the tank with poison capsules and destroyer bots.

Alternatively 6 exos with personal lasers and shields and penetrating shotgun ammo.

Or nukes, but beware of the small difference between the range and AOE on the nukes or else you’ll barbecue yourself.

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ptx0
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Re: Battle is frustrating

Post by ptx0 »

i really like defender and distractor capsules, i think they provide some utility all the way into the end game. the distractor capsules stand in place where you throw them, so you can toss them into the face of some worms and leave and they have a life long laser friend.

the defender capsules are excellent when you are kiting several behemoths. they stay behind you and you can slingshot them into the centre of a nest to aggro it, with practice.

they're like having more personal lasers.

but really, also, the distractor capsules are perfect for exactly what you'd think - distracting a nest. mega nests can take several nukes to take out, so throwing some distractors (like 12 or 24) nearby for them to run into before hitting your redout will take several more out without a risk of dying.

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Re: Battle is frustrating

Post by Mauslag PIngman »

I think the problem is that I never automated the various capsules and my inventory is usually over stuffed. I'll have to give your ideas a try. I did try nukes a few months ago with the rocket launcher. It worked nice but when it gets hectic it is very easy to kill yourself.

I noticed that biters no longer have a lot of activity when viewed through the map radar view. The worms wiggle a little. Previous versions of the game there were lots of bugs scurrying around. I suppose that means less work for the computer. That's good..

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Re: Battle is frustrating

Post by netmand »

Mines take time to set after they're laid... Mines are not really an offensive weapon but are great at holding defensive lines.

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Re: Battle is frustrating

Post by ptx0 »

netmand wrote:
Fri Feb 21, 2020 6:10 pm
Mines take time to set after they're laid... Mines are not really an offensive weapon but are great at holding defensive lines.
mines also make a great vanilla enemy presence indicator. keep a roboport stocked with mines and when the number of conbots dips to replenish them, you have some buggies.

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Re: Battle is frustrating

Post by Mauslag PIngman »

I've automated poison capsules and I'm getting better at the battle. My 4 personal lasers are tearing them up without me even having to aim and I've got 4 exoskeletons so I can get out of most situations. I think I might be moving faster than with the tank.

Is there no way to use flame turrets effectively? I like those things, but its a lot of work to bring power, a rail line, lots of oil and pipes and some flame turrets and then they just don't have the range to beat the spitters. Nothing looks cooler than a bunch of flame turrets at night, but I can't find a practical use for them in my invasions. If they had double the range and or some kind of temporary invisibility that might make it worthwhile.

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Re: Battle is frustrating

Post by Xeorm »

Mauslag PIngman wrote:
Sat Feb 22, 2020 3:33 pm
I've automated poison capsules and I'm getting better at the battle. My 4 personal lasers are tearing them up without me even having to aim and I've got 4 exoskeletons so I can get out of most situations. I think I might be moving faster than with the tank.

Is there no way to use flame turrets effectively? I like those things, but its a lot of work to bring power, a rail line, lots of oil and pipes and some flame turrets and then they just don't have the range to beat the spitters. Nothing looks cooler than a bunch of flame turrets at night, but I can't find a practical use for them in my invasions. If they had double the range and or some kind of temporary invisibility that might make it worthwhile.
Flame turrets are really really good at killing bunches of units. I don't use them in normal games though. There's just not enough biters. Death worlds though I find they're the best. There's nothing quite like getting your first flamethrower turret up with those settings and watching the biters just melt.

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Re: Battle is frustrating

Post by torne »

Flame turrets are really good for defending your walls from attacks (since they do AOE damage), but they're not really useful for attacking, no.

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