Stuck after 35h playtime?

[XFX-Freak]

Hi everyone!

I am just facing a little problem and after reading a lot in this forum I don't get rid of the idea of being stuck

Following situation:
The first 32 hours I spent building a base, securing ore supply and what it takes to get a well running economy.
BUT I never tried to fight yet. By now, as I read, big biters spawn just because of the play time and the pollution.
Without any artifacts I have researched as much as possible, but now there is no way for me to take down even a single spawner because of the big biters around it.
Because of the lack of artifacts, I can not get a power armor or the fusion reactor and, most important, I can not research any other upgrade (better shotgun bullets, better robots and so on).

So is it possible, that in this situation one gets stuck? I have been trying to get a few artifacts for more than 3 hours now and did not get ONE^^
Any idea how to solve this?

I really would like to be able to keep playing this game and not start again

Thanks for every idea!
XFX-Freak

[FishSandwich]

What have you tried so far? A pretty good strategy if you don't have power armor is turret crawling, ie put down about 20 laser turrets near a biter base, and keep pushing forward by putting new turrets in front of the old ones.

[Calico]

No, you aren't stuck. Even with "only blue" research levels biters shouldn't be a big problem.

1. Build a factory for "Distractor capsules". Build around 25-40 and keep a good supply around for later use.
2. Build a Servo Armor. While certainly no match for a "real" Power Armor it still offers some protection. Install shields, some batteries and solar cells into it. You can reuse those on a power armor later.
3. Grab a Gun (submachine with a few upgrades and loads of bullets). Combat Shotgun later.
4. Find a "small" biter nest not to far from your base. 3-4 spawners should be doable, prefer some without big worms.
5. Get close to it and start throwing defender capsules at max range before you get aggro from the big biters. The distractors can take some hits and deal laser damage themselves which badly hurts even big biters. They do not count against your follower limit.
Keep trowing while you keep moving, running in circles until you get in range of the nests. use your submachine gun to maximize your damage to the nests, but try to not catch aggro from big worms and biters while unlaoding the distractors unto the nests.
6. (optional) Run back to your base defense to kill any biters remaining that follow you.
7. Get alien artifacts from the now destroyed nests and focus research on better means of killing biters.

The key is to destroy nests as fast as possible after the start of battle. Distractors will provide coverfire and keep aggro away from you but you still have to take out the nests rather fast or more biters will spawn.

[Xecutor]

There are a few strategies that you can use. For example:
1. Turret creeping. Bring electricity as close as possible to enemy base and put 10-20 towers there. Put next electric pole closer to base and another set of towers. And so on.
2. Car cicling. Clear the area around enemy base of trees. Then just circle around the base and close to shoot the spawner as soon as you see an opening.
Also, you can crash into spawner with car (at high speed). Car have more hp. Just make sure to not hit biter on the way...
3. Basic modular armor is available to you. You can add exoskeleton to it with some batteries and portable solar panels. That should be enough to outrun big biters.
Machine gun with piercing rounds will kill spawner very quickly. Make defended outpost nearby, close in, kill one spawner and run back
Also, you can use distractor bots - just throw them on top of spawner, and they will bring it down.

[XFX-Freak]

Hey!

Thanks for the answers so far!

@FishSandwich: The turret crawling didnt work, no smaller nests in range and the big ones (15+ nests) overran the turrets (30+) without noticing them

@Calico: Thanks for this! I will try out the distractor capsules later, didnt see them in crafting list... Defenders are useless here especially with only 5 of them following me.

[Calico]

Hey!

Thanks for the answers so far!

@FishSandwich: The turret crawling didnt work, no smaller nests in range and the big ones (15+ nests) overran the turrets (30+) without noticing them

@Calico: Thanks for this! I will try out the distractor capsules later, didnt see them in crafting list... Defenders are useless here especially with only 5 of them following me.

It's really mostly a race for loads of DPS. The longer the fight goes, the more biters spawn, so focus on a huge amount of DPS fast and you should be good. Distractors provide loads of DPS, if you bring enough. Your real enemy arent the biters...it's the spawners. Like Xecutor added, you can also include a single exosceleton into the servo armor, allowing you to outrun the big biters when retreating. One tip when using them: they eat lots of energy (compared to the tiny outpout of solar cells) so don't insert it into your armor until are ready to start your attack run. A few MK 2 batteries should keep it powered for atleast 30-40 seconds, allowing you enough time to kite biters that aggroed you while you throw distractors all over the base. A small defensive battery close by will save you a long trip home. a dozen lasers, some double thick walls should be enough.

[Xecutor]

@FishSandwich: The turret crawling didnt work, no smaller nests in range and the big ones (15+ nests) overran the turrets (30+) without noticing them

First you put walls right outside of coverage range of newly placed medium electric pole. Then you put turrets inside walls keeping 1 space distance from walls.
A lot of work, yeah, but it works.

As an overkill strategy: Use (heavily defended) roboport to instaplace set of walled turrets.

[XFX-Freak]

Thanks a lot guys you saved my game!

Distractor-capsules worked fine and with destroyers its just running through

@Xecutor: You are right, I had double walls and a lot of turrets inside and it would have worked if I hadnt run out of energy... problem were the 25 nests constantly respawning and so the turrets draining my energy to 0.

[Calico]

Thanks a lot guys you saved my game!

Distractor-capsules worked fine and with destroyers its just running through

@Xecutor: You are right, I had double walls and a lot of turrets inside and it would have worked if I hadnt run out of energy... problem were the 25 nests constantly respawning and so the turrets draining my energy to 0.

Glad to be of service.

[Xterminator]

Glad you got it worked out! I was in a similar situation in my 2nd play through. But I just used distractors as well, and got it done. But as you said, once you get destroyers with upgraded damage and follower count it becomes easy mode.

Once you get that stuff, and combat shotgun with piercing rounds and upgraded damage on that you should be able to walk through like 20 spawners with ease. Also one tip, for turning your artifacts into packs, especially in the beginning when you have a limited amount, use a level 3 automation machine and load it full with the highest level productivity modules you can aford. You will be surprised how many extra packs you get.

[-root]

Good job on unsticking yourself!

[SHiRKiT]

Poison Capsules and Slowdown Capsules, combined with Distractor Capsules can destroy literally ANY base in vanilla game. Get yourself a car and the game goes easy mode.