[0.15.x] Massive biter armies tanking UPS

[papercrane]

I've been building a large base in 0.15 (~160 hours) and the biters are building up very large armies that aren't attacking and are taking my UPS. In this save I'm usually around 10 UPS. If I kill all of the biters with a script my UPS goes up to almost 30.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/632 ... tandby.zip

The biters do attack but there are always large biter armies just hanging out, sometimes ending up in super dense packs which tank UPS even further if I engage them.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/632 ... 4%20PM.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/632 ... 3%20PM.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/632 ... 1%20PM.png

Killing all biters with:

Code: Select all

/c game.forces["enemy"].kill_all_units()

Brings the UPS from ~9 to ~20.

Killing all biters and spawners with:

Code: Select all

/c local surface = game.player.surface
for c in surface.get_chunks() do
for key, entity in pairs(surface.find_entities_filtered({area={{c.x * 32, c.y * 32}, {c.x * 32 + 32, c.y * 32 + 32}}, force= "enemy"})) do
entity.destroy()
end
end

Brings the UPS up to only ~24, so I'm assuming that most of the slowdown is the biters and not the spawners.


[Edit] Updated with a save with the player in visual range of some of the biter armies.

[British_Petroleum]

Yes, thank you. I was going to report the same thing. I go from 19 to 60 ups when I use the kill all enemies command

edit: just updated to 0.15.16. Getting a consistent 60 ups now on the same save

[Loewchen]

@OP what version is that?

[Rseding91]

That's not a bug, biters are simply that performance intensive and the fix of a bug related to them almost never attacking meant a *lot* of them got sent at once.

[papercrane]

@Loewchen I noticed it in 0.15.13, I think and it continued in 0.15.14. I could be remembering wrong, though. I know I saw some huge armies back in the early 0.15 versions, though, so I think it was 0.15 in general.

The bug I was bringing up was more that the biters weren't attacking, not that they were tanking UPS, I can see how thousands of biters would kill UPS. Glad to hear that that biters should be attacking more often, like normal now.

[Distelzombie]

I thought they are just supposed to spawn more often now. That is increasing this problem.
Right now I have low FPS/UPS on our server because of all the biters. Its incredible how many are just sitting there! The problem gets increased because we used a water mod to place water around our base... Yea, I know. Not my idea.
Now everytime even a small army moves it destroys gameplay completely - 5 UPS: Cant move or do anything except ESC.
Right now I rather kill them all off with a command than play like this... Im sure its not intended gameplay to use commands.

I just have a slightly crappy laptop, but still.

[orzelek]

Abusing water ends like this sadly - death by UPS.

Make 4-5 tile wide landfill on it with small wall maze and fortify it - should help a lot when biters will be able to path.
Jus tmake sure they can actually path in - no full blocking with wall/gate.

[Distelzombie]

Abusing water ends like this sadly - death by UPS.

Make 4-5 tile wide landfill on it with small wall maze and fortify it - should help a lot when biters will be able to path.
Jus tmake sure they can actually path in - no full blocking with wall/gate.

We did. It didnt change much. No biter goes on attacking these places. I even build lasertowers outside all over the place. They are getting only very rarely attacked.

Walls do not block biter from attacking. I always do full fortification. They always attack. It would be a little too easy if they didnt come when you build walls all over, dont you think? xD

[orzelek]

Abusing water ends like this sadly - death by UPS.

Make 4-5 tile wide landfill on it with small wall maze and fortify it - should help a lot when biters will be able to path.
Jus tmake sure they can actually path in - no full blocking with wall/gate.

We did. It didnt change much. No biter goes on attacking these places. I even build lasertowers outside all over the place. They are getting only very rarely attacked.

Walls do not block biter from attacking. I always do full fortification. They always attack. It would be a little too easy if they didnt come when you build walls all over, dont you think? xD

From what I noticed they will try to path around the walls. So for performance purposes it might be good to let them in directly into waiting arms of heavy guns. Attacking wall is established later I think.

If you have tons of biters that did not attack at all then it might be they are attached to spawners and simply waiting there. They wouldn't cost performance then I think so maybe this one needs one more look at by dev.