Does anyone even use rocket launcher or landmines?

[Artman40]

I don't know but for some reason, they doesn't seem to do anything that other offensive or defensive things can do better.

[Distelzombie]

Now everyone uses rocket launchers because of the atomic bombs. Also landmines are really good now.

[Vykromod]

I use rocket launcher with explosive rockets as my primary weapon. It gets really crazy with research. It's sort of a middle between flamethrower's effectiveness at killing biters and smg/shotgun nest busting.

I don't use the land mines yet, mostly because my turrets are good enough at dealing with attacks, and I just can't get myself to automate the production of mines but that might change soon, as I'm nearing max evolution.

Also, I'm now considering using mines outside my base to, say, lay minefields in areas where aliens repeatedly resettle, or to lay mines near my train tracks to prevent biters from stopping the trains. Though I got no idea how I would replace them as they get detonated in such remote places.

[SirFloIII]

Landmines are quite good if you are biterhunting with a Tank. Place them in a line some place some distance from a spawner cluster, drive to the cluster, shoot some spawners and when you tank HP get low, drive back to the Landmines and all the trailing biters go boom.

[eX_ploit]

Though I got no idea how I would replace them as they get detonated in such remote places.

With roboports, no?

[British_Petroleum]

landmines are nice because construction bots will rebuild them after they blow up. Someone said a while back that you could place a blueprint of landmines around a biters nest and watch it all blow up, but i've never tried it

[Vykromod]

Though I got no idea how I would replace them as they get detonated in such remote places.

With roboports, no?

By "remote places" I meant outside my bases. Hence, no roboports.

[mrvn]

landmines are nice because construction bots will rebuild them after they blow up. Someone said a while back that you could place a blueprint of landmines around a biters nest and watch it all blow up, but i've never tried it

Aliens destroy landmines unless they have dug them self in already. Takes too much time if you place them near aliens and are just destroyed.

Not to mention that you loose tons of construction robots and mines because they get shot down on the way (or back). That applies to existing mine fields too. When the aliens arrive in masses the construction robots fly out with new mines and get shot down. Any mine they manage to place gets attacked and destroyed.

Are they really worth it? Isn't a line of laser turrets much more effective?

[Escadin]

A problem with mines I see is that the first biters to reach them not only trigger a detonation but they also trigger your roboports. Now, all of a sudden your construction bots swarm out trying to replace and repair mines. All the while they're getting spit at from spitters who conveniently found something to destroy from outside your turret's range. And to top it off those stupid robots are now hovering above your flamethrower turret's ground fire taking damage which requests even more construction bots to the inferno and ultimately drains your entire depot from construction bots with a single vicious cycle.

I really hope a dev sees and fixes this. Mines would be awesome without all canny worms stuff to automating them.

[Distelzombie]

You could place a ammo turret and wire the insterter that inputs ammo in it to a combinator build:
-The inserter inserts one ammo when there is an attack. Sends signal of ammo=1 if read.hand=true
-This triggers a 30s timer.
-After 30 seconds you send a signal to enable the roboport and start another 30 second timer.
-The second timer disables the roboport then.

But it isnt possible to disable roboports now, I think. Even cutting power wouldnt work. Is there a feature request?

[solntcev]

You can pull robots from roboport and re-insert it when you want them to work.

[netmand]

I use the rocket launcher but it's one of the last items I tech into.

You have to be really careful when launching the atomic bomb from it... but the range with it loaded is very far. So far that you can stand far enough away to not agro a very large nest and destroy most if not all of it. Saves a ton of combat bots and other ammo I would use to clear it.

[JulianSkies]

One could, also, put their mines near their walls and deep into their turrets' range. I did that in an ore outpost and the mines seem to consistently take down a few biters. Given the dearth of power i'm going through I'm fine with less taxing on my energy grid.

[ledow]

I played one of my mini-base games (wall off in early stages, then you can use nothing outside the wall to get to launching the rocket) and I like to vary the defence.

I've played it with entirely yellow-ammo guns (launched rocket).
I've played it with uranium ammo now (launched rocket).
I've played it with lasers (launched rocket).
I've also played with landmines (blueprint a 10-deep line of them, then surround entire base walls with them. Aliens go boom as they approach, drones put them all back a few seconds later.

Pretty much, flame turrets are the only thing I haven't tried defending myself with, because they come so late, you can put all the others in place beforehand.

[mrvn]

Haven't used flame turrets either because I usually go straight to laser turret. But this game I'm going for the bullets all the way achievement. That one allows flame throwers to be used, right?

[purdueme91]

Haven't used flame turrets either because I usually go straight to laser turret. But this game I'm going for the bullets all the way achievement. That one allows flame throwers to be used, right?

Yes it does. And using flame turrets with a maze outside your walls just nukes aliens. The range for flame turret is longer than gun but they take some time to spool up. Also a way to use up light or heavy oil that you don't need. But they do have a blind spot right near them where they can't reach so if a biter makes it through to the wall then flame can't reach it.

[HurkWurk]

rocket launcher does too little damage, cluster grenades are more effective. get a mod with upgrades and other damage types to make them useful.
ive never liked mines because they dont do enough damage and they just get my construction bots killed when they go out to replace them.

flame turrets are ok, but i usually back mine with laser turrets and found that my laser turrets get the kills anyway. i dont build mazes, etc, because again, just puts construction bots at risk.

[Nasabot]

Mines are garbage, but rockets are BOSS. Ok, I am not in lategame yet but assuming the stats, I find rockets the best for ground combat. With enough research you have massive AOE damage, fast movement speed, shield, and you can kill stuff very economically.
And if you want to roflzomg everything you get atomic bombs + fast shooting speed + fast movement speed and you can clear the whole(^^) map instantly.

Yes, uran bullets in tank are also very strong, but when attacking bases you want to kill the spawner fast and after that you cluster the remaining enemies anre AOE them and for this reason rockets are very good.

rocket launcher does too little damage, cluster grenades are more effective.

No way? Rockets are much much stronger than grenades, even the cluster grenades. You also have more range, and if necessary more DPS(shootingspeed). The only thing that might speak for grenades is the self damage. Armor has high absolut explosion resistance, this means a high research aoe rocket will do more harm to yourself.

[Ripshaft]

I was super stoked to see rocket launcher on my first world a few months ago - shortly after I made a savegame called "rocket launcher f'n sucks!"
Never used mines in that run.

Though now I'm playing marathon mode in experimental branch, and the triviality of researching different weapon platforms and improvements is no longer there, which means I need to be resourceful - in this game I've been making good use of poison spheres (kills worms dead!), nades and the like. The tank feels so so much better right now and I haven't even started using tank shells yet... marathon mode rocks.

As soon as it occurred to me that I could cheaply produce vast amounts of mines to protect against bug expansion groups (which I greatly increased the size of in settings) I experienced evil giggling at the thought, and it's now one of my next objectives.



I think you need some familiarity with the game mechanics before you find the utility in some of these things. If you don't know what areas are going to get constantly attacked versus those that will only ever get attacked by expansion groups, I imagine you'd only get frustrated by trying to use mines.

I currently don't have rocketry researched so I'm not sure how the launcher holds up right now, I think my main complaint with it previously is that it just didn't feel good - you'd fire rockets down the line and it just did not have the expected impact.


Also depending on how effective the mines end up being, even in high traffic areas it may be wise to have them in marathon due to the cost of regular ammunition.

[KaitoX]

of course, explosive rockets are VERY important. For clearing trees.