I can't beat it...

[freeafrica]

I am just curious, did biter/spitter strength or their evolution get bumped up in the last 6-9 months? I didn't play for a while in the run up to 1.0. Thanks in advance for your replies.

I'm a fan of hardcore mode as well, around 4 months ago I've beaten DWM w/ desert / no laser / no solar / no logistics. I've set up to do it w/o dying/reloading the game. I've made it on the 7th try.

Lemme know your map seed / settings (post a map-export pls), I would like to give a go, to see if it's really that bad.

[freeafrica]

I am just curious, did biter/spitter strength or their evolution get bumped up in the last 6-9 months? I didn't play for a while in the run up to 1.0. Thanks in advance for your replies.

I'm a fan of hardcore mode as well, around 4 months ago I've beaten DWM w/ desert / no laser / no solar / no logistics. I've set up to do it w/o dying/reloading the game. I've made it on the 7th try.

Lemme know your map seed / settings (post a map-export pls), I would like to give a go, to see if it's really that bad.

Lol, I've just seen you've posted there @Drakken. :] I see you've tuned up the settings of DWM quite much. Maybe I'll give a try for that.

[Drakken]

Yes, you are correct, the sand does absorb pollution, and I knew that. Sorry I phrased it that way... I suppose I meant to say it absorbs the least amount of pollution possible? After all, the map has to be made out of something. And yet, dirt with grass on it absorbs about 3 times as much pollution. Trees, or the lack there of, is obviously much more of a factor. I do not cut down a single living tree when I am playing unless it is in the way, which is rare enough considering how few spawn at the lowest settings.

Attacking spawners might be the answer. Although I am not certain exactly which bases to destroy to make the waves smaller. Looking for some input here as I am running around so frantically that I rarely spend time watching how enemy bases behave. Not to mention I haven't played as much since Wube fixed the spawners and biter pathing/AI.

Is the key to keep bases separated by a certain distance so their waves don't group up together? Or do the waves pick up additional troops as they are travelling which means you have to keep bases from lining up along paths on their way to your base? Does a single base with 5 spawners send as big of a wave as one with 20? Does each base have its own count down timer or is it map wide trigger? Are the waves dictated only by time or when the group reaches a certain size? I have read the wiki and game settings but the explanations seem vague to me.

It is particularly devastating when several waves attack together or in very close succession! At a certain point when it becomes whack a mole and I am running around replacing guns and repairing walls I know I don't have much of a chance.

I tried clearing bases on a couple of runs but recently just killing 20 spawners added 10% to the evolution factor in 10 minutes of battle at 3.5 hours into the game. Yikes!

I have tried both methods of researching... Upgrading ammo damage/shooting speed and not. Not upgrading the ammo got me closer to getting the flame turrets but I am not certain that is the best method.

Perhaps not upgrading to steel furnaces and doubling my resource output (and pollution output) and staying with regular furnaces/half the electric miners is the way to go? Also staying with yellow ammo which is much much cheaper might be the answer? At least until I get the flamethrowers out?

If I cut out the AP ammo, I will only make a small amount of steel which will be needed for the oil processing.

I will load an earlier save and see if this might be the solution.

Thanks to everyone for the input and discussion!

[Drakken]

To @freeafrica, yes good work on your DW/M run. I will try and post a link to my start once I actually achieve something. I have now tried about 20 maps with these settings and lost them all.

Obviously, since I am trying to maximize difficulty with default DW/M settings and just maximizing the terrain difficulty on top of it, I do not try the maps that give me a lucky green start with lots of dirt/grass nearby since you can't set them to "none" any more in the map generator. Trees are always at minimum but fewer seem to spawn in the sand than in the areas of dirt? Although I can't be certain of that.

I also limit myself to 2 individual oil sources within the ring of enemy bases. Not oil patches... but 2 individual oil spots. I play with the oil "size" setting on the map generator to achieve this. Having a ton of oil very close in the past seemed to make things too easy and I would never need to expand. This makes the late game more challenging.

However, since 1.0 came out, the late game has been the least of my concerns! It is comforting to see I am not the only Factorio player that likes pain! Great chatting.

[jodokus31]

Some comments / questions about the map settings:
- Only water in starting area means very few fish (~100 - 150). That's very dramatic
- Sand maps have almost no coal rocks, it seems?
- What do you mean with 2 oil spots "within the ring of enemy bases"? Do you mean in the whole map preview? Or only in the nearest ring of bases?
I have changed preview size to 36, so that I don't see that far (for exploration). There are most of the time at least 2 oil patches with min. 3 spots in this small area, sometimes far, sometimes very near. If you use the default 96, it seems very hard to get only 2 oil spots?
- Do you change other resource settings?
- I saw the comment about Lazy Bastard in the other thread. I once made a mod (not published), which just adds some basic intermediates on start. This made lazy bastard possible.
Namely: 10 electric circuits, 40 iron gears and 10 pipes.

Here are a screenshot of terrain settings. Are those correct?

terrain

dwm_terrain.png (29.33 KiB) Viewed 5520 times

[Drakken]

Yes, coal rocks do not show up in straight up sand, but you do get a fair number of regular rocks. Coal rocks do appear in desert which is sometimes mixed in a little.

The 2 oils spots are individual oil spots on the ground. Not a patch that may have a dozen or more oil spots.

Oil never shows up in the actual starting area. I just make sure I have a clear path to these 2 oil spots and there are no biter bases in between that I would be forced to destroy. So inside the ring of biter bases best describes it. However, with the new map generator there doesn't seem to be as well defined of a starting area at all. Many times enemy bases are sitting right on top of the starting resource patches or very near the only water.

I have increased the richness of the resources to 200% and iron to 300%. This is just so I don't run out of resources in my starting area once I actually survive the original onslaught. Because that would make me very sad... Since you can only place so many miners on a patch of a certain size this isn't really affecting my survivability in the early game.

Those settings are correct except that I also turn cliffs down to a minimum in frequency and continuity. This leaves some on the map as a nuisance, but none long enough to slow down the biters/spitters or to use as a natural defense.

Once I actually win with these settings I might just try using your mod to get lazy bastard at the same time. However, I can't even imagine how hard that would be!

[mudcrabempire]

Attacking spawners might be the answer. Although I am not certain exactly which bases to destroy to make the waves smaller. Looking for some input here as I am running around so frantically that I rarely spend time watching how enemy bases behave. Not to mention I haven't played as much since Wube fixed the spawners and biter pathing/AI.

Is the key to keep bases separated by a certain distance so their waves don't group up together? Or do the waves pick up additional troops as they are travelling which means you have to keep bases from lining up along paths on their way to your base? Does a single base with 5 spawners send as big of a wave as one with 20? Does each base have its own count down timer or is it map wide trigger? Are the waves dictated only by time or when the group reaches a certain size? I have read the wiki and game settings but the explanations seem vague to me.

It is particularly devastating when several waves attack together or in very close succession! At a certain point when it becomes whack a mole and I am running around replacing guns and repairing walls I know I don't have much of a chance.

I tried clearing bases on a couple of runs but recently just killing 20 spawners added 10% to the evolution factor in 10 minutes of battle at 3.5 hours into the game. Yikes!

I have tried both methods of researching... Upgrading ammo damage/shooting speed and not. Not upgrading the ammo got me closer to getting the flame turrets but I am not certain that is the best method.

Perhaps not upgrading to steel furnaces and doubling my resource output (and pollution output) and staying with regular furnaces/half the electric miners is the way to go? Also staying with yellow ammo which is much much cheaper might be the answer? At least until I get the flamethrowers out?

If I cut out the AP ammo, I will only make a small amount of steel which will be needed for the oil processing.

I will load an earlier save and see if this might be the solution.

Thanks to everyone for the input and discussion!

They key is to not let pollution reach the nests except in very small amounts. Otherwise the waves just get too big and wash over your defenses. I don't know if it's possible to keep the whole cloud clear on these settings, but the more aggressive, the better. At least until you are strong enough to handle arbitrary wavesizes (flamers and mines, basically). I know killing bases increases evolution a lot, but still better than dying.

I recommend at least ammo damage 1. It reduces ammo usage against small biters to 3/4 and against small spitters to 2/3. It should pay off. AP ammo tends to be a bad deal in terms of resources/damage, so I try to avoid it unless the extra damage is absolutely necessary.
You can check the ammo consumption reduction per damage upgrade per enemy but last time I checked it was good? Not sure. Better calculate again.
For the price of shooting speed 1 you can make 24 turrets. For the price of shooting speed 2 it's 160. Shooting speed 3 is worth 1470 turrets. You decide when you want to get the upgrade and when you just want to add more turrets.

Until just now I thought steel furnaces would produce less pollution than stone ones... I was wrong. Double speed plus double pollution gives same pollution per craft. So they're probably a waste of good steel.
They require half the fuel, but that's not really the limiting factor here.

[Koub]

Until just now I thought steel furnaces would produce less pollution than stone ones... I was wrong. Double speed plus double pollution gives same pollution per craft. So they're probably a waste of good steel.
They require half the fuel, but that's not really the limiting factor here.

Indeed. However, you can cut off by 80% their pollution with 2 level 1 green modules (that cost basically nothing). It might help keep your pollution cloud under control until you get flamethrower defenses.

[jodokus31]

Until just now I thought steel furnaces would produce less pollution than stone ones... I was wrong. Double speed plus double pollution gives same pollution per craft. So they're probably a waste of good steel.
They require half the fuel, but that's not really the limiting factor here.

Indeed. However, you can cut off by 80% their pollution with 2 level 1 green modules (that cost basically nothing). It might help keep your pollution cloud under control until you get flamethrower defenses.

I'm confused. 2 efficiency modules in which machine? and not 2*30%? and cheap until flamethrower defence? I thought, you first get flamethrower and then modules, which are not cheap at that point

@Drakken: Thanks for the information regarding map settings. I started and it just feels a "tiny" bit harder... Had to clear the first expansion base, which spawned right next to my base
I think, bases which soak up fast a lot of pollution produce bigger waves. It seems to me, that it's not so much difference, how many spawners are there. This expansion base had 2 spawners, but it produced huge waves. But no idea, how it really works

[Theikkru]

[...]However, you can cut off by 80% their pollution with 2 level 1 green modules (that cost basically nothing)[...]

I'm confused. 2 efficiency modules in which machine? and not 2*30%? and cheap until flamethrower defence? I thought, you first get flamethrower and then modules, which are not cheap at that point [...]

You are correct; the efficiency 1 modules (30%) only come into play for electric furnaces (and not steel), which is chemical science (later than flamethrowers). Efficiency 1 are definitely worth it, but they're best used on the drills first, where you CAN get the pollution down by 80% (because you can fit 3).

[Koub]

Yeah sorry, my bad. 3 in the miners for a -80% pollution, and still 2 in the electric furnaces for a -60%. Still pretty useful for the low cost.
The way biters work is that the less pollution reaches the spawners, the less the spawners aborb pollution, which in turn means less biters spawn to attack you.

And the less they attack, the less you have to invest resources into defending against them.

[Drakken]

The thing about efficiency modules is that they require advanced circuits. Getting those produced comes well after flame turrets can be built. However, I do use them in the miners once I get that far into the game.

The question is, I know it decreases the electric being used by the miners by up to 80%. This decreases the number of boilers needed and reduces pollution. Does it also decrease the pollution the miners do directly? I didn't think that was true at all?

[Theikkru]

[...]
The question is, I know it decreases the electric being used by the miners by up to 80%. This decreases the number of boilers needed and reduces pollution. Does it also decrease the pollution the miners do directly? I didn't think that was true at all?

Yes it does. IIRC the reason is that pollution generated by a device is calculated based on its energy consumption, so things also produce less pollution when power is low. You can verify this by looking at the pollution tooltip on something after you add an efficiency module.

[Drakken]

Thanks for the info. You would think they would mention that in the wiki. That might be kind of important.

[Zavian]

Thanks for the info. You would think they would mention that in the wiki. That might be kind of important.

From https://wiki.factorio.com/Module

Note that changing a machine's energy consumption directly affects how much pollution the machine generates. This is the case because the pollution production rate is directly linked to the machine's energy consumption, so this applies even when power is produced in a pollution-free way.

From https://wiki.factorio.com/Pollution

Modules that list "+x% pollution" increase pollution multiplier, not a flat pollution rate. Final pollution value is (pollution multiplier * energy usage multiplier * base pollution), meaning heavily boosted buildings are likely to account for most of the pollution produced in a factory.

[jodokus31]

Efficiency modules 1's are just insane. While efficiency modules 2 & 3 are already too expensive. There was a thread a while ago about this....

I found something regarding biters attack groups
https://wiki.factorio.com/Pollution#Native_life

Higher pollution values decrease the time it takes for biters to join the attack force. After a certain amount of pollution is absorbed the spawner sends one of its biters/spitters to a rendezvous point. Every 1 to 10 minutes (random) the mustered biters launch an attack. If not all biters have arrived at the rendezvous point by that time, they will wait up to an additional 2 minutes for stragglers.

[Serenity]

Does it also decrease the pollution the miners do directly? I didn't think that was true at all?

You can easily see that when looking at the pollution cloud of a mining outpost. Normally they are huge. But a field of mining drills with efficiency modules has a very localized pollution cloud. Also helps a great deal with defense because it doesn't attract biter attention

[freeafrica]

To @freeafrica, yes good work on your DW/M run. I will try and post a link to my start once I actually achieve something. I have now tried about 20 maps with these settings and lost them all.

Would you please share a map-export string you play on? I would really give a try w/ my tactics. :]

During my plays I've found that building a circular belt for feeding yellow-gun-turrets is really important. You'll distribute ammo evenly, and if a turret gets destroyed, you only loose <=10 ammo. Note, you can use an inserter to feed a turret from another turret. That way I go for a two-lined automatically feeded yellow-turret defense.

I never go for `AP` ammo in the early game. I found its better to invest in Ammo dmg research compared to producing `AP` ammo.

[jodokus31]

To @freeafrica, yes good work on your DW/M run. I will try and post a link to my start once I actually achieve something. I have now tried about 20 maps with these settings and lost them all.

Would you please share a map-export string you play on? I would really give a try w/ my tactics. :]

You can try this:

Code: Select all

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Cp+gIUg/CgWQlsFIQWcABJQP0N5DGGeSRnAgAFYbfs<<<

Preview

dwm.png (32.86 KiB) Viewed 5282 times

Although, I'm not sure, oil setting is correct

This is the map, where I try my luck, currently.

[Drakken]

Code: Select all

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DEID5qVwEZBaAEHkATU30Aeo6a42zQAUTy8fQ==<<<

This is a recent map I tried.