Combat robots useless?

[Zhab]

It takes forever to kill even one behemoth bitter with a combat shotgun and piercing shells. You need some sort of helps to attack the base while you're dealing with the bitters / spitters. Then again, it's not supposed to be easy

Shotgun science upgrades say otherwise. I absolutely chew through everything with a fully upgraded combat shotgun + piercing.

I don't even need robots.

That does not sound right. Does your statement include the new level 4 bitters (green color) ? Quick math tells me that it should take around 53 seconds at best to kill a level 4 bitters with a fully upgraded combat shotgun + piercing.

[MeduSalem]

That does not sound right. Does your statement include the new level 4 bitters (green color) ? Quick math tells me that it should take around 53 seconds at best to kill a level 4 bitters with a fully upgraded combat shotgun + piercing.

Actually it's way faster than 53 seconds to kill a single Behemoth Biter with a combat shotgun+piercing. It's more like 10-20 seconds depending on if all the pellets hit and how fast you can tap the space bar.

But that said it just takes too long to get rid of the hordes of Behemoth Biters that are going for you, so it doesn't pay off to do it.

One Behemoth Biter has 2000HP and therefore equals 10 Big Biters... so if 10-20 Behemoth Biters come for you, you basically can't do anything about them other than retreating to your laser defense. In my opinion they have little bit too much HP, because even 8-16 of the new laser turrets with each equaling 4 of the old laser turrets have a hard time killing everything before they get to gnaw on the walls/turrets. Not even remotely mentioning how much friggin energy it takes to support that amount of laser turrets needed to actually stand a chance.

Behemoth Spitters on the other hand are actually pretty easy to defeat even if they have 2000 HP, since they always stop to try spitting at stuff, which they can't if you keep on moving or pushing them away with belts.



But on a sidenote I hope that the Behemoth variants are the last and final stage of those bugs. Recoloring the same thing and making it bigger, giving it more HP isn't the way to go about the problem of the enemy getting too easy at some point. Altough I understand that especially for multiplayer games or slower computers it becomes more important to reduce the quantity of low level enemies in favor of a few more tougher enemies to increase the overall game performance.

I saw similar stuff happening in other games, especially RPGs, where they just increased the level and thereby toughness of the enemies instead of creating more enemy diversity which required more diverse strategies due to how it is just way easier to change a level cap than to create more content. In the end all this results in is creating a constant marathon-like increase in level creep (my coined word for the opposite of power creep, which I use when a game gets out of balance due to increasing enemy level scaling) and strategy becomes less and less important than just pure damage numbers. Due to how boring that kind of thing becomes one can't get around to create more enemies and weaponry but that gets also increasingly more difficult, thanks to the cheap cop-out in the first place, because adding new variants of enemies and weaponry that actually matter and fit in balancing-wise later on is near to impossible with too ridiculous enemy scalings, which then often leads to what is finally called power creep (older game content becoming sub-par compared to the new) in a desperate attempt to make the new content more appealing. The ongoing overall process of forced min-maxing results only in one working solution that outperforms everything else, which is not really a strategy or choice but rather the mandatory way on how to deal with the problem, like can be seen in Factorio already with Laser turrets being mandatory due to their advantages over gun turrets and it will be a hard time convincing people of using an alternative because of the way how people are used to laser turrets being the best and thanks to lacking enemy diversity that require rethinking, which will only be resolvable by making new enemies and turrets outstanding over the existing ones.

[Zhab]

One Behemoth Biter has 2000HP

Actually, Behemoth bitters have 5000 HP and a resistance to physical of 8/20%. It is Behemoth spitters that have 2000 HP and no physical resistance. I guess this explains the time difference.

On an other note, does tapping space bar actually shoot faster than holding it down ? If yes then the devs need to fix that. Kinda defeat the purpose of specific firing speed.

[kovarex]

One Behemoth Biter has 2000HP

Actually, Behemoth bitters have 5000 HP and a resistance to physical of 8/20%. It is Behemoth spitters that have 2000 HP and no physical resistance. I guess this explains the time difference.

On an other note, does tapping space bar actually shoot faster than holding it down ? If yes then the devs need to fix that. Kinda defeat the purpose of specific firing speed.

No it doesn't.

[Zhab]

No it doesn't.

Well there is no arguing with a dev I guess. My eyes must be seeing things. The following comes from this youtube video.



Did it change recently or something ?

[ratchetfreak]

No it doesn't.

Well there is no arguing with a dev I guess. My eyes must be seeing things. The following comes from this youtube video.



Did it change recently or something ?

he's talking about the shotgun shooting speed

[Zhab]

he's talking about the shotgun shooting speed

OH ! Yeah... that would explain it . I was pretty confused there. On one hand I have a dev insisting that biters do not have 5000 HP and on the other what I consider pretty solid evidence that they do.

But it was about the space bar taping thing. I see I see. Sorry about that.

Well on that case thank you very much kovarex for confirming that space bar taping does nothing. I certainly wasn't expecting a dev answer and certainly not this quick. You guys impress me everyday.

[MeduSalem]

One Behemoth Biter has 2000HP

Actually, Behemoth bitters have 5000 HP and a resistance to physical of 8/20%. It is Behemoth spitters that have 2000 HP and no physical resistance. I guess this explains the time difference.

Well I feel sorry that I started the confusion, I meant 5000 for biters and 2000 for spitters. Somehow I'm more used to deal with the Spitters lately because I'm killing the Biter nests first to avoid having to deal with their toughness for more than once, so their HP number has been burned into my eyes already.

The shooting speed still holds true, you can kill a 5000HP Biter with the shotgun in something like 20 seconds or so, but you'll be tapping spacebar like a maniac. It's so not worth it, because it feels like you don't even hurt it for the first 10 seconds until the HP turns into yellow.

[Zhab]

The shooting speed still holds true, you can kill a 5000HP Biter with the shotgun in something like 20 seconds or so, but you'll be tapping spacebar like a maniac. It's so not worth it, because it feels like you don't even hurt it for the first 10 seconds until the HP turns into yellow.

And yet... according to the dev tapping space bar does nothing... Hmmmm.

[johanwanderer]

And yet... according to the dev tapping space bar does nothing... Hmmmm.

Just hold down the spacebar. No reason to tap it.

[MeduSalem]

And yet... according to the dev tapping space bar does nothing... Hmmmm.

Just hold down the spacebar. No reason to tap it.

Yeah, you can perfectly hold it down as well like ohanwanderer wrote, but I will never do that because it's generally a bad habit. It's one of the kind I don't want to get too accustomed to because I'm playing shooter games as well when I'm in the mood for more action. There holding down the trigger endlessly until everything is dead mostly isn't a good strategy.

For one reason it also isn't that good in Factorio, because if you hold down space you will change to walking speed and then Biters/Spitters will catch up with you. With tapping the spacebar repeatedly you can basically almost avoid the slowdown, or at least match the speed at which the Biters/Spitters approach you so you can keep your distance all while shooting almost as fast or at least unnoticably slower.

So without doing any detailed math on it you may hit a Behemoth Biter with ~100 damage per shot with combat shotgun using piercing shells (yeah I stood next to one and shot right into its face triggering all his nearby friends who savagely killed me while I tried to read the HP numbers). If every pellet hits and if the 5.2 shots/second for the Combat Shotgun are to be trusted you'd be hypothetically be able to kill a Behemoth Biter in about 10 Seconds of continuous fire. That said if every pellet hits. So you'll probably inflict much less damage per shot due how some pellets miss thanks to the cone and aiming inaccuracy and if you are tapping too to keep the bug at a distance it will take even longer. Of course that didn't take into account its ability to self heal over time.

[Zhab]

So without doing any detailed math on it you may hit a Behemoth Biter with ~100 damage per shot with combat shotgun using piercing shells (yeah I stood next to one and shot right into its face triggering all his nearby friends who savagely killed me while I tried to read the HP numbers). If every pellet hits and if the 5.2 shots/second for the Combat Shotgun are to be trusted you'd be hypothetically be able to kill a Behemoth Biter in about 10 Seconds of continuous fire. That said if every pellet hits. So you'll probably inflict much less damage per shot due how some pellets miss thanks to the cone and aiming inaccuracy and if you are tapping too to keep the bug at a distance it will take even longer. Of course that didn't take into account its ability to self heal over time.

Well that is 23.48 seconds of continuous fire. I did my initial math in 0.11. Redid my math again in 0.12 and I get 23.48. Which is much closer to what you initially said. Two possibilities. my initial math was wrong or shotgun damage changed in 0.12 to make up for increased turret damage or perhaps so that fighting behemoths by yourself is more bearable.

Which ever the case, I should have checked my math one last time before posting about kill times...

Math

Base pellet damage = 6 + 7.2 = 13.2

Minus resistances
13.2 * 0.8 = 10.56
10.56 - 8 = 2.56

Overall damage for 16 hits
2.56 * 16 = 40.96

Damage per second (DPS)
40.96 * 5.2 = 212.992

Time to kill
5000 / 212.992 = 23.48 seconds (not considering natural healing)

This is assuming that you can spend 23+ seconds in the face of a behemoth bitter

[MeduSalem]

Well that is 23.48 seconds of continuous fire. I did my initial math in 0.11. Redid my math again in 0.12 and I get 23.48. Which is much closer to what you initially said. Two possibilities. my initial math was wrong or shotgun damage changed in 0.12 to make up for increased turret damage or perhaps so that fighting behemoths by yourself is more bearable.

Which ever the case, I should have checked my math one last time before posting about kill times...

Math

Base pellet damage = 6 + 7.2 = 13.2

Minus resistances
13.2 * 0.8 = 10.56
10.56 - 8 = 2.56

Overall damage for 16 hits
2.56 * 16 = 40.96

Damage per second (DPS)
40.96 * 5.2 = 212.992

Time to kill
5000 / 212.992 = 23.48 seconds (not considering natural healing)

This is assuming that you can spend 23+ seconds in the face of a behemoth bitter

Somehow the math has to be off a bit... because if you walk right up to a Behemoth Biter and shoot it once and watch its HP then it takes away somewhat about 90-100 HP on a full hit and not only 40.96 like the math says it should... The 40.96 are more true if not every pellet hits due to the spread or simply missing the shot.

Did you consider that the Combat Shotgun gives a 20% bonus?

[Zhab]

Did you consider that the Combat Shotgun gives a 20% bonus?

No, I did not. Kinda important.

New math

Base pellet damage = 6 + 7.2 = 13.2

Two option here. Depend on how the game is coded.
13.2 * 1.2 * 0.8 - 8 = 4.672
13.2 * (1 + 0.2 - 0.2) - 8 = 5.2

Judging by how the game handle multiple modules, let's go with second option.


Overall damage for 16 hits
5.2 * 16 = 83.2

Damage per second (DPS)
83.2 * 5.2 = 432.64

Time to kill
5000 / 432.64 = 11.56 seconds (not considering natural healing)

Kill time of 11.56 seconds. I think we have a winner. but it still only 83.2 damages per blast. Not quite in the 90-100 range you are claiming. Anything else I forgot ?

[MeduSalem]

No, I did not. Kinda important.

New math

Base pellet damage = 6 + 7.2 = 13.2

Two option here. Depend on how the game is coded.
13.2 * 1.2 * 0.8 - 8 = 4.672
13.2 * (1 + 0.2 - 0.2) - 8 = 5.2

Judging by how the game handle multiple modules, let's go with second option.


Overall damage for 16 hits
5.2 * 16 = 83.2

Damage per second (DPS)
83.2 * 5.2 = 432.64 ............. changed to 83.2 instead of 40.96

Time to kill
5000 / 432.64 = 11.56 seconds (not considering natural healing)

Kill time of 11.56 seconds. I think we have a winner. but it still only 83.2 damages per blast. Not quite in the 90-100 range you are claiming. Anything else I forgot ?

Corrected a minor copy&paste mistake in the math at the DPS.. xD

Yeah, that's getting more close to reality now... but still something has to be missing or has been changed... because you may check for yourself ingame if you dare to get killed (at least I took some for the greater good). At this point I may consider that the way the math works is outdated on the wiki or that there might be a bug in the damage calculation ingame, because it's perfectly possible to do 100 dmg per shot with a perfect hit, at least if the HP display doesn't lie when hovering over the biter. Probably something only the devs may give a valid explanation about.

I guess we have been off-topic enough though... let people focus on the combat robot issue again, as interesting as damage mechanic discrepancies may be.

[lancar]

I guess we have been off-topic enough though... let people focus on the combat robot issue again, as interesting as damage mechanic discrepancies may be.

My thoughts exactly :p

I was thinking about this thread last night when I was clearing nests in the lategame. I've researched almost everything, the factory just doing the Follower Upgrade chain because there's nothing else to do with the science packs.
And the nests, while the really big ones do take some time to work through, generally don't stand much of a chance to my droid armada. I found the most efficient strategy is usually not to even fire the Combat Shotgun at all! That way, the biters don't immediately start chewing on you and instead go for the robots more often. An army of around 50-80 robots chew through pretty much any biter nest of medium size (even the ones full of mostly Green evolution ones). The big nests with acres of big worms take longer and can kill you in a few seconds if you're too reckless, but I found that "swinging" the robot cluster around like a slingshot is a great tactic for getting them in there and clear the towers for me.

All in all, I'd definitely say that Combat Robots are absolutely still viable. By the time the Green Evolution biters comes along, you should already have gone far enough in the research tree that making a large droid army is not prohibitive at all.

[Adil]

An army of around 50-80 robots chew through pretty much any biter nest of medium size (even the ones full of mostly Green evolution ones).

Each, at a negligible price of around 250 irons, 220 coppers and 100 of gas per 5 of them as opposed to 500 and 50 used by shotgun and around thousand for reusable laser turrets.
And that brings the thread in a loop

[lancar]

An army of around 50-80 robots chew through pretty much any biter nest of medium size (even the ones full of mostly Green evolution ones).

Each, at a negligible price of around 250 irons, 220 coppers and 100 of gas per 5 of them as opposed to 500 and 50 used by shotgun and around thousand for reusable laser turrets.
And that brings the thread in a loop

Never said even once that Tower Creep wasn't more resource-efficient.
This does not make droids useless in any way, shape or form. You pay for the speed and convenience of a drop-down army, available anywhere in the world.

[Grimtongue]

I end up using Distractors as my primary combat robot because it is cheap and doesn't count towards the follower limit. Through most of the game (the first 40 hours), I used Distractors while driving the tank. I used the tank cannon to clear the nests and worms, while the Distractors take care of the hordes.

I'm now 60 hours into a playthrough of version 0.12 and I can finally use large armies of Destroyers whenever I want. With 50 Destroyers following me around, I can walk straight through alien bases. I still use rockets and Distractors to take out the worms in the larger alien bases. As long as I don't run ahead of my robots, I don't get targeted by anything, so I can launch rockets with impunity. I haven't seen many of the new aliens, but they die fast enough when there's just a few of them.

[voyta]

Never said even once that Tower Creep wasn't more resource-efficient.
This does not make droids useless in any way, shape or form. You pay for the speed and convenience of a drop-down army, available anywhere in the world.

Talking about convenience, fill your powerarmor with personal roboports, your inventory with couple hundred to thousand laser turrets and you can simply force-paste a blueprint that covers the whole enemy base, which gets obliterated in seconds. There are some logistic bot losses (including the materials they happen to be carrying) in case there are huge numbers of worms, but still lower than guaranteed resources lost when using actual attack bots.
If you want to avoid losses, or you are taking bases which actually cover whole screens, you can also take it "slowly" pasting strips of towers and waiting for them to clear out what they have in range, until you paste another strip.
This works even in 100+ hours games with evolution factor basically maxed. Why carry around handheld weapons when your factory itself is a weapon of mass destruction