I started looking up Landmines and related Stuff on the Internet, ofcourse in the Factorio context, and found a lot of "normal" Ideas like Wall designs and how to make sure Bots dont die replenishing them, but turns out, barely anyone is talking about the actual strategic ways of using Factorio Landmines. (with some nice exceptions)
One of the first things I want to say about Landmines is, they are cheap, like cheaper than a Magazine of Yellow Ammo even, it is ridiculous how economical Landmines are! That piece of Steel looks scary, but it is just five Iron Plates, which get divided by four!
If you dont want to deal with complicated Stuff, just put a Line of Landmines behind your Stone Wall and in front of your Turrets, so that Biters that break through the Wall will get exploded, giving you some time to repair things. Making use of Landmines this way even works with Flamethrowers, which normally burn the Landmines to death. Just make sure the Landmines are not too close to the Turrets as Spitters attacking your Turrets might splash the Landmines by accident.
Using Landmines to attack Nests is also an interesting option, sure you will lose like 80% of the Landmines you place to Biter attacks, but the remaining 20% will blow up the Nests and Worms easily. That and many Biters will be too busy trying to get rid of your burrowing Landmines to attack you. Always remember, Landmines are cheaper than Yellow Ammo!
Landmine Explosions themselves, unlike Landmines in the process of burrowing, do not aggro Biters at all, so you might be able to protect your Rail Power Poles from attacks by surrounding them with Landmines, giving you more time before you have to go fix broken Buildings and Rails.
A supposedly well known, but barely talked about, Speedrun Strat is to protect your Mining Outposts with contained Landmines, kindof like this Blueprint I eventually made does:
It replaces the Lamps that most people put in their Mining Drill Setups with Landmines, so when the Biters start to nibble at your Drills you can rest assured that a Landmine will eventually go off and protect most of your Mining Outpost! And while at it, why not place 5 more Landmines around the Miners in the spots that the grid alignment would fill in with Landmines anyway, so you get a whole little cloud of Landmines around your Mining Outpost!
Defensive Roboports are a type of Turret, you put a Roboport, add Bots and a Storage Chest full of Landmines, and then spam Landmines in its Construction Area.
- Bonus points if you power it with Solar but without Accumulators so the Roboport is only online during the Day, potentially saving you a lot of Bot Deaths, if you placed enough Landmines.
- Though even better if you make the Landmine Chest a Steel Chest and have an inserter only ever drop one Landmine at a time into the Storage Chest, so that you never get more than one Bot outside.
- That trick also works also well with Repair Packs if you extract the ones that Bots bring back out of the Storage Chest and Roboport.
Another interesting thing I noticed with Defensive Roboports is, that Spitters ofcourse attack freshly placed Landmines, and that their spit has an Area of Effect, so it is not a wise idea to have a compact wall of Landmines, and instead space them apart a few Tiles so you dont get tons of bots trying to repair the damage the Spitters do.
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Behemoth Worms will eventually pose an Issue, but you wont need Artillery to automatically defend yourself from that! Roboports with Landmines can actually fix the Issue by blowing up Expansion Parties before they even settle next to your Wall, because they have a Range of over 50 tiles!
While playing I have discovered something that might be an entirely new aspect of Landmines. I tend to have the Biter Expansion Chunks Debug Overlay ON at all times, and when I placed a ton of Landmines into a Chunk, it was still a Green Circle, indicating Biters do not care if the Chunk they expand to is infested with Landmines! Forget spamming Pipes to make a Chunk unattractive real estate to Biters, instead fill it with a few spread out or strategically placed Landmines to get rid of the Expansion Party itself!
P.S. 2.0 will make Quality Landmines more durable while they burrow, because their total Health is higher, so this may be something to think about in the Future.
I hope this helps people actually finding some helpful tips and hints about Factorio Landmines, because I had a hard time finding good Inspiration on this topic over the last couple weeks. I hope to see some new Ideas for this List pop up in the replies. ^^
Have a nice day and a grid aligned Landmine!
