Factorio Forums

This concept is very important for players, especially newbies. Biter nests have normal behavior until players build too close to them. Then they kick into overdrive and throw wave after wave of biters at you. Finding this range is currently a matter of trial and error and the difference in difficulty between the two behavior modes is enormous. Players may find themselves in a hopeless war of attrition only to learn that salvation is a simple matter of pulling a few tiles away.

Please show this behavior in some way. It can be as simple as putting a "!" above aggro'd nests to show their agitated state.

I believe the main problem is rather that the respawn rate of biters is much too high.

When I attack large concentrations of nests, I always get the feeling that I am not so much fighting the biters themselves, but rather their insane respawn rate. There is little point in killing biters, because they get replaced at the same rate that I kill them. Therefore, In my experience, the only viable tactic is to kite biters while I destroy their nests.

In my opinion, the respawn rate of biters should be reduced so that it is also a viable tactic to first kill all the biters and then to destroy their nests afterwards. For example, it should be possible to kill all biters using my jeep with hit and run tactics, which may take me several minutes if my equipment is not good yet, and then destroy the nests afterwards. Currently, such a hit and run tactic is useless, due to the insane respawn rate.

The respawn rate is tied to the pollution the nests absorb. So yea, a nest near the wall of your main factory is going to have an assembly line for biters running as rapid as your own. If you're having trouble dealing with that, just use artillery.

Aeternus wrote:The respawn rate is tied to the pollution the nests absorb.

That is incorrect. It is tied to the evolution factor, which is - among other things - based on total pollution produced. Whether the produced pollution is absorbed by nests or something else is not relevant for the evolution factor or the respawn rate. The amount of pollution absorbed by nests is only relevant for the amount of biters joining a biter group for an organized attack on a pollution source (i.e. your base). See the wiki page on pollution and the wiki page on evolution for further information.

Here is a quote from the second wiki page mentioned above:

Besides choosing what kind of biter will be spawned the evolution also influences the spawning interval. This interval (spawning_cooldown in the enemy-spawner definition) is interpolated between 360 (0 evolution) and 150 (1 evolution) ticks.

According to that, respawn rate is influenced slightly by the evolution factor. In the endgame, the respawn rate will be about double as high as at the start of the game.

The aggroing of bitters is really something that annoys me to no end in this game. There's absolutely no feedback about it, and it makes no sense that the bitters are so obsessed in hunting a mutant monkey they have never seen before, specially in the early stages of the game. From their perspective, the factory is the thing polluting their environment, not the human.

And lets not forget about how bitters reacts to trains depending if the player is in or not in it. Empty train going around? no reaction. Train with the player in it? now every bitter that sees it will totally want to wreck it, nevermind that they have no chance of catching up with it or how can bitters figure out when a train is occupied or not. Is like their behaviour was designed to be most annoying thing ever.

Going back to OP's suggestion, I would use the worms for showing when the player is too close. Worms already pop out when you're almost at spitting range, but by then bitters already got into their murder mode, so increase the pop out range. Then worms showing themselves will make the player aware that he's too close to the nest.

They can smell your ass.

steinio wrote:They can smell your ass.

It's time to introduce toilet paper and a shower to the game

Greetings, Ronny

rldml wrote:

steinio wrote:They can smell your ass.

It's time to introduce toilet paper and a shower to the game

Greetings, Ronny

That's not a bad idea. A pheromone capsule which let the biter think that the player is also a biter for some time.
Maybe thats already in the game but only activated in peaceful mode.

rldml wrote:

steinio wrote:They can smell your ass.

It's time to introduce toilet paper and a shower to the game

Greetings, Ronny

That's not a bad idea. A pheromone capsule which let the biter think that the player is also a biter for some time.
Maybe thats already in the game but only activated in peaceful mode.

Maybe it's not the spawner which aggros the biter, it's the biters itself.
They have which may define at which distance the enemies can spot players.

rldml wrote:

steinio wrote:They can smell your ass.

It's time to introduce toilet paper and a shower to the game

This has already been suggested in the following thread:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=20852 Toilet

Also related:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=49997 how to poop iron

Oh wow, it's like I'm really in 5th grade again. Thanks guys.

The respawn rate is tied to the pollution the nests absorb.

This is incorrect. Biters spawn due to two factors. Pollution generates attack waves at long range, but biters ALSO spawn in response to a local threat. The local threat behavior is blatantly obvious to anyone who attacks nests- endless wave after wave of biters pour after you. There is no VISUAL distinction as to when this actually happen, the biters simply spawn and attack just as if they had been part of a pollution wave. When you expand a base into biter territory there is a sudden SPIKE of difficulty, but the average player will never know that it's because they trampled into biter turf and the attacks are NOT due to pollution attack wave.

Lack of game feedback is generally a bad thing, mmkay?