Big worms too tanky

[Noobc0re]

Have they buffed the living fuck out of the big worms in 0.15?

My turrets used up literally over 200 mags of ap-ammo to kill one of those fuckers.

If they're going to be that insane they shouldn't spawn immediately, they should be late game.

[Jap2.0]

I'm not sure if they were buffed or not, but they might appear to be stronger than they were to you because you might have had more researches for damages, shooting speed, etc. before you found any big worms.

[Koub]

Increased the damage, range and health of biters worms.

source

[Jap2.0]

Increased the damage, range and health of biters worms.

source

It would be so nice to be able to memorize the patch notes ...

[Koub]

Reading them helps a lot, but not as much as the search function ^^.

[Jap2.0]

I guess being less lazy and searching for things would also help...

[m44v]

200 mags for a big worm means your ap-ammo damage isn't over the 10 points of flat resistance of the worm, do some upgrades.

[Noobc0re]

200 mags for a big worm means your ap-ammo damage isn't over the 10 points of flat resistance of the worm, do some upgrades.

Problem is that this is early-game cleanup. It shouldn't need upgraded ap-ammo. ap-ammo alone should just clean house at this stage.

This change made the whole endeavor pointless.

[Ranakastrasz]

Pretty sure big worms used to have 8 armor. I was surprised to learn it was 10 when i checked at one point.

[m44v]

200 mags for a big worm means your ap-ammo damage isn't over the 10 points of flat resistance of the worm, do some upgrades.

Problem is that this is early-game cleanup. It shouldn't need upgraded ap-ammo. ap-ammo alone should just clean house at this stage.

This change made the whole endeavor pointless.

Then the issue is having big worms in that early stage, not that they are too tanky. I don't remember having problems with big worms, I'm assuming you're playing in a custom world?

If you're going to nerf one of the strongest opposing units so you can creep your way out with unupgraded turrets, you might as well remove all the biters and most weapons in the game.

[Jap2.0]

200 mags for a big worm means your ap-ammo damage isn't over the 10 points of flat resistance of the worm, do some upgrades.

Problem is that this is early-game cleanup. It shouldn't need upgraded ap-ammo. ap-ammo alone should just clean house at this stage.

This change made the whole endeavor pointless.

Then the issue is having big worms in that early stage, not that they are too tanky. I don't remember having problems with big worms, I'm assuming you're playing in a custom world?

If you're going to nerf one of the strongest opposing units so you can creep your way out with unupgraded turrets, you might as well remove all the biters and most weapons in the game.

No, big worms can spawn in any biter base, even the earliest ones.

[Koub]

No, big worms can spawn in any biter base, even the earliest ones.

No.

During biter migration, medium worms can now only spawn if the evolution factor is greater than 0.3, and big worms require evolution factor of 0.5.

Source
and

Medium and large worms spawn further from the starting area.

Source

[Noobc0re]

200 mags for a big worm means your ap-ammo damage isn't over the 10 points of flat resistance of the worm, do some upgrades.

Problem is that this is early-game cleanup. It shouldn't need upgraded ap-ammo. ap-ammo alone should just clean house at this stage.

This change made the whole endeavor pointless.

Then the issue is having big worms in that early stage, not that they are too tanky. I don't remember having problems with big worms, I'm assuming you're playing in a custom world?

If you're going to nerf one of the strongest opposing units so you can creep your way out with unupgraded turrets, you might as well remove all the biters and most weapons in the game.

No, I use the default settings. It spawned immediately.

I said in the op, that if you're going to have a unit that strong it should be late game.

No, big worms can spawn in any biter base, even the earliest ones.

No.

During biter migration, medium worms can now only spawn if the evolution factor is greater than 0.3, and big worms require evolution factor of 0.5.

Source
and

Medium and large worms spawn further from the starting area.

Source

A big worm did spawn, in a default game at the start of the game. So yes they can spawn even in early bases.

[Koub]

What the patch notes say, is that there should not be a big worm spawning too close to the starting area from the game start, AND that no more big worms will spawn after initial terrain generation, as long as evolution factor doesn't reach 0.5.
Bear in mind that I don't know what that "close" is though.

If you don't see this (big worms spawning from start close to starting area, or after the game has started, big worms in new alien bases when evolution factor is less than 0.5, then, it's a bug, and should be reported as such in the appropriate subforum.

Big worms spawning very far from starting area upon map gen is WAI.

[BlakeMW]

It seems Big Worms are meant to be a near absolute constraint on your expansion, preventing you expanding outside the starting area until you've researched Military 3 - which unlocks a slew of options for wiping out Big Worms. First comes the Poison Capsule which is wormbane, the next tech can be Tank, which can effortlessly wipe out Big Worms by MG, cannon or ramming. Distrator Capsules are also effective.

There are however some reasonably effective lower tech options if you really must get rid of a Big Worm without blue science:

• The lowest tech is the flamethrower turret (50 grey). Run a pipe or run a powerline and bring a barrel of oil.
• The next lowest tech is rocketry (120 grey), you might need an energy shield or some fish to stay alive though.
• Then laser turret (200 grey), which is highly effective but nearly as expensive as military 3 so is basically the same tier of technology.

[Frightning]

It seems Big Worms are meant to be a near absolute constraint on your expansion, preventing you expanding outside the starting area until you've researched Military 3 - which unlocks a slew of options for wiping out Big Worms. First comes the Poison Capsule which is wormbane, the next tech can be Tank, which can effortlessly wipe out Big Worms by MG, cannon or ramming. Distrator Capsules are also effective.

There are however some reasonably effective lower tech options if you really must get rid of a Big Worm without blue science:

• The lowest tech is the flamethrower turret (50 grey). Run a pipe or run a powerline and bring a barrel of oil.
• The next lowest tech is rocketry (120 grey), you might need an energy shield or some fish to stay alive though.
• Then laser turret (200 grey), which is highly effective but nearly as expensive as military 3 so is basically the same tier of technology.

In my testing in my new default settings game for 0.15, the Flamethrower kinda sucks v. buildings, and especially against big worms, but the flamethrower turret outranges them (30 vrs 25?), which makes it just a matter of a little patience to kill the worm, but the personal weapon version only has 15 range, and the Big worm hardly takes burn damage. The Rocket launcher however is VERY effective against all buildings, you can 5-rocket Big worms w/ no upgrades, even just 2 damage upgrades and 4 rockets is enough. Grenades can actually damage Big worms appreciably, but are short range and still pretty low DPS, you can use turrets to draw aggro in concert with Grenades to perhaps manage even lower-tech kills on big worms. Gun turrets have their own damage upgrade line that stacks multiplicatively with bullet damage, so with all low tech (science 1+2) upgrades and Piercing ammo, the turrets should do modest DPS to the Big worms.