Turret on island disappears biters

[BlakeMW]

A gun turret placed on an island along a biter attack path will cause all biters to disappear as they try to attack it (and they all do). Presumably this is because when the biters attempt to engage the turret the game deletes the biters for trying to attack something they can't reach.

Since the turret requires no ammo in order to provide this protective function it is an extremely effective way to neutralize a nest without destroying it, or protect against attacks along an attack corridor, also these small islands are pretty common and attacks tend to be funneled along coastlines so this trick can often protect against 60%+ of attacks. This exploit stops working with small spitters because the spitters destroy the turrets.

[Oxyd]

There have been quite a few changes to the AI internals in 0.13 and the problem shouldn't be as bad then.