0.18 DeathWorld

[falk]

Here's what works for me on deathworld marathon:

1 - Get a map with forest as a starting biome. Trees help a lot with pollution.
2 - Get a map with an iron ore patch you can expand to not too far away from the starting area. An early iron mining outpost can be of great help. Use belts to bring this iron into your factory. Don't wait for trains.
3 - Don't bother with pollution in the first minutes of the game. Try to get a decent iron production and automation quickly. Automate red science, transport belts and yellow ammo (maybe iron gears and green chips too).
4 - While doing number (3), periodically scout around the enemy bases and shut down any waves preparing to attack you. It is very important to not let these attacking waves get too big. The handgun, a few fishes and running around is usually enough to kill these waves. Just remember to attack them before they grow too big.
5 - Once you have the items in number (3) automated, a few turrets (5 should be enough) and some ammo (100+), start eliminating any enemy bases that are absorbing your pollution.
6 - Continue growing your factory, producing more turrets, more ammo and eliminating any enemy base that is absorbing your pollution.

I find weapon damage upgrades to be vital. I like getting to +2 weapon upgrade to fight medium biters and +3 upgrade with red ammo to fight big biters. Fighting big biters with yellow ammo and low upgrade is a huge waste of time and resources.

The first hour or so can be very difficult and deadly. But once you eliminate all of the enemy spawners that are close enough to absorb pollution, you get a lot of breathing time to grow your factory and the game gets a lot easier after that.

For the mid-late game, efficiency module everything that makes pollution, get solar panels and do whatever you can to reduce pollution emission. And of course, continue eliminating spawners that are absorbing too much pollution.

[Jap2.0]

I keep getting the suspicion that up to a certain perimeter length, regular manual repairs and refilling with ammo takes less time than the time it takes to build these sorts of self-sustained defenses.

I'm inclined to agree, although an automated defense system does take out the factor of human error/not paying attention and lets you put a little more attention elsewhere.

[bobucles]

I keep getting the suspicion that up to a certain perimeter length, regular manual repairs and refilling with ammo takes less time than the time it takes to build these sorts of self-sustained defenses. And I also usually switch to lasers ASAP to avoid needing that kind of stuff (among other reasons).

To be fair, you can manuamate anything with enough players.

Edit: Forgot my link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hgvIhMkgKU

[leadraven]

Hello, I don't want to create a new topic for this, so I'll ask here:
I'm going to start vanilla (or with some QoL mods) Deathworld Marathon x10. Do you recommend any other settings customization? How Railworld fits with Deathworld?

[Xeorm]

Hello, I don't want to create a new topic for this, so I'll ask here:
I'm going to start vanilla (or with some QoL mods) Deathworld Marathon x10. Do you recommend any other settings customization? How Railworld fits with Deathworld?

More iron is always nice, since that's what you need initially to build the infrastructure and for ammo.

[bobucles]

There is a very difficult early game point where you need to advance beyond bullet ammo and get flame throwers before blue biters hit the field. Most biter evolution comes from generating pollution, and marathon 10x mode means you'll be producing 10 times as much to climb up the tech tree. If the biters grow too big too soon, you can end up getting slowly ground down into nothing.

If the growth curve seems too difficult, consider changing the pollution evolution factor in the options.

[Lunruj]

Have there been changes between 0.17.69 and current experimental (0.18.15)? It seems to me it is harsher but perhaps it's the map?

[Deadlock989]

Have there been changes between 0.17.69 and current experimental (0.18.15)? It seems to me it is harsher but perhaps it's the map?

Biters stopped colliding with each other in 0.17.70. This results in more "swarming" in many cases, so more of them arrive at your defences at once instead of having a long dribble of them.

[Lunruj]

Have there been changes between 0.17.69 and current experimental (0.18.15)? It seems to me it is harsher but perhaps it's the map?

Biters stopped colliding with each other in 0.17.70. This results in more "swarming" in many cases, so more of them arrive at your defences at once instead of having a long dribble of them.

Thanks, that seems to be the explanation. What a dangerous little change.

[ravigames]

You mean you tried DeathWorld before the biter pathing changes in the later parts of the 0.17 release cylce, right?
Technically, from 0.17.79 to 0.18, there were no actual changes on the biters.

Mine is at same version. Should i upgrade ? What you say ?