Beat the game, transition to Megabase

[Saemj]

Hello Factorio enthusiasts

With my latest playtrough I wanna build a bigger base than the bases I had so far. I set out to do my normal exploring, conquering and building till i had all tech researched (except for infinite researches) and a few rockets in space. Now I wanna go bigger...

The plan is to keep the base I have now for resources till I have finished building the new one. New one should have all resources coming in via expandable train networks, huge robo networks, all floor covered in concrete, the whole area supplied with power via substations network. All the nice things.

Few things have me wondering though...

1: I play on default settings. There are tons of biters around me and the laser turret walls are allready by far my biggest energy consumption. How do you secure your megabase? 1000's of laserturrets?

1.1: Subquestion: I have a line with small (wodden) elecrtic poles around the whole perimeter and a laser turret beside each pole. Lots of overlap. If biters attack, at least 3 turrets shoot at once. Is that too much? How do you guys set up your walls?

I ll post more questions as I start to transition and the questions come up

[CJ5Boss]

To focus on the defense of the base:
At this point in the game, you probably already have Artillery and Artillery Wagons. Set up some flamethrowers, laser turrets and an artillery train and this should take care of many biter bases. You can also run some tanks through and destroy bases on your own with the tank's flamethrower and cannon shells. At least, that's what I like to do

[quyxkh]

Gun and arty turrets are king of the endgame. Research into bullet and gun turret damage gets you vastly greater DPS payback than laser turret research.

edit: Here, somebody did a spreadsheet. Take a look at the TTK tab.

[Saemj]

Gun and arty turrets are king of the endgame. Research into bullet and gun turret damage gets you vastly greater DPS payback than laser turret research.

edit: Here, somebody did a spreadsheet. Take a look at the TTK tab.

Wow, this is very counter intuitive. Thanks for the info!

Is it just for convenience (no need for ammo) that i see most people on youtube/twitch only use laser turrets once they are unlocked?

To focus on the defense of the base:
At this point in the game, you probably already have Artillery and Artillery Wagons. Set up some flamethrowers, laser turrets and an artillery train and this should take care of many biter bases. You can also run some tanks through and destroy bases on your own with the tank's flamethrower and cannon shells. At least, that's what I like to do

I will setup a patrol artillery train along the walls, I never had that actually.

[Serenity]

A lot of people probably play with biter expansion off and just clear the perimeter. If you clear far enough out of your pollution cloud they won't attack. Especially on YouTube. That way they can focus more on the actual production lines

The laser turret drain adds up, but it's manageable. At 24kW 1000 turrets is 24MW. That's a bit more than half a nuclear reactor or just ~400 solar panels

You can also add flamethrower turrets. They hardly consume any oil firing, but the pipe itself will suck down a lot. You still need lasers as backup, but you can thin them out a bit.
How good your defenses need to be also depends on biter evolution

[Saemj]

A lot of people probably play with biter expansion off and just clear the perimeter. If you clear far enough out of your pollution cloud they won't attack. Especially on YouTube. That way they can focus more on the actual production lines

The laser turret drain adds up, but it's manageable. At 24kW 1000 turrets is 24MW. That's a bit more than half a nuclear reactor or just ~400 solar panels

You can also add flamethrower turrets. They hardly consume any oil firing, but the pipe itself will suck down a lot. You still need lasers as backup, but you can thin them out a bit.
How good your defenses need to be also depends on biter evolution

I am playing on default settings for this run, I dont know exactly what that means for evolution.

There is a max, right? They dont grow harder than behemoth, right?

[nosports]

A lot of people probably play with biter expansion off and just clear the perimeter. If you clear far enough out of your pollution cloud they won't attack. Especially on YouTube. That way they can focus more on the actual production lines

The laser turret drain adds up, but it's manageable. At 24kW 1000 turrets is 24MW. That's a bit more than half a nuclear reactor or just ~400 solar panels

You can also add flamethrower turrets. They hardly consume any oil firing, but the pipe itself will suck down a lot. You still need lasers as backup, but you can thin them out a bit.
How good your defenses need to be also depends on biter evolution

I am playing on default settings for this run, I dont know exactly what that means for evolution.

There is a max, right? They dont grow harder than behemoth, right?

Biter-Spawner will suck up on pollution and if they had enough the will attack the pollution source.....

I had made it a hot topic in midgame, when i had enough resources to go on a killing-spree to push back the biter population far out my pollution area.
so it was comparatively peaceful after that.
Downside for this method is you need to protect borders ( i had a double wall with 3 lasers at every medium pole lined behind the wall with a gab so that just the range of the laser is somewhat outside in the wild to kill the biters)
Big downside is also that the evolution will be fueled very much, but in the end who cares when the biters don't come after the polution because the can't sniff it

you can have a autoclearing also if you use the ion canon mod and start a high number of ion canons, that is somewhat slower as the arty-methode but in the long run you the ion canon will win

[CJ5Boss]

I will setup a patrol artillery train along the walls, I never had that actually.

Sounds awesome. Enjoy the destruction!

[Saemj]

So why exactly dont artillery shells stack? o.O

[JimBarracus]

So why exactly dont artillery shells stack? o.O

to make transport more challenging