Factorio Forums

Greetings,

I am at the blue science pack phase of the game and I feel like I need to expand my base. Sadly my base is surrounded by huge nests. I tried to go out an eliminate them with no success. I was wondering what the trick is, if any, to clear these nests?

The trick is to get power armor, shields and combat robots.

Another method for if you don't have power armor, shields, and combat robots yet is to turret creep. The main method by which this works is to run power out to just short of the agro range of the bitters chilling around the nests. Once there you put down a medium power pole in their range, and plop down a bunch of laser turrets. If the turrets are able to hold then begin advancing by putting down another power pole in front of your current line and more turrets. It's best not to pull up a line of turrets until their not firing anymore cause of the line(s) in front of it are able to handle things. One thing you can do is use various cheaper capsules as well as maybe a tank and it's cannon to help with the nests when you get very close. Make sure though that if you're turret creeping, that your power grid is able to support continuous fire from your turrets through multiple day/night cycles. If it's not able to, bad things.
If you don't want to turret creep, a method I used with the tank in my latest save was to get just close enough to snipe down a nest or more with the cannon and then book it back to my base so the defenses their could deal with the bitters trying to eat me.

The tank can be quite good unless the nests are super big, in which case you will just get surrounded and die. Power armor and combat robots are usually the best, but pretty expensive to get.
However, Distractors capsules are not all that expensive to make and work wonders. If you use them while also being in the tank, it can work really well. Just throw them on top of the spawners and do what you can with the tank. Even if you have to end up suiciding yourself it can be worth it. Just make sure to put all your important stuff in a chest before you leave the base! :p

Lasers first for turret creep attacks to get rid of nearby nests that are bugging you early game. The more you practice this the easier it gets. I used to mess about with walls for this procedure but i don't bother anymore - I just make sure I've got 100 or so lasers in inventory and lay down 20 odd per pole. Next is capsules - poison capsules are great for dealing with worms and distractor capsules are good for keeping the biters off your back while you deliver the poison to the worms and then for destroying the nests. Later power armour equipped with a fusion reactor and loaded with shields plus destroyer capsules allow you to murder biters and their nests wholesale by just sauntering up to them and tossing the odd poison capsule in to deal with any big worms whilst the destroyers reduce everything else to mush.

I don't use tanks etc personally because i am useless at driving them, always turn the wrong way at the crucial moment etc.

Trolling with the turrets seemed to work well, thanks

Just in time too, my base ran out of iron ore

Now that we have the tank my approach is turret creep paired with tank - creep turrets to just out of range of the worms - but within the range of the tank's cannon. Park tank next to turrets. Use cannon to start engaging nests & worms - when biters and spitters come out to attack the tank they get chewed up by the turrets. Now the tank can start inching forward to target more nests & worms, then back up to the turrets when the biters/spitters start to get heavy.