Looking for a new challenge? [Veterans only]

[evopwr]

Done Bobs? Angels? K2? Dy? Py? SeaWorld? Looking for more?

I wanted a challenge. I wanted constant waves of attacks. I wanted to struggle for resources. I wanted the end game to be an actual battle.
I had tried Death World before, but I found the start to be difficult, but once you got started, it was quite boring. A simple flamethrower could destroy any 100x mob of large biters. So, I wanted the mid-end game to be a challenge.

SOLUTION
Death World Marathon + Bobs Enemies + SpaceX

You have to apply every trick in the book to achieve this. Bobs Enemies adds Tiers 5,6,7,8, and 9 enemies. The Huge enemies, Giant, Badass Behemoths, Titans, and the almighty Leviathans. I tried Rampant instead of Bobs, but it was just too much. Bobs Enemies makes it scale really well.

Polution management, and battle to get resources. Bobs Enemies really added the difficulty, but Marathon + SpaceX really extended the battle to research/build/survive.

Highly recommend this combo for all the veterans looking for something new. I think I enjoyed this more than any other mod combo.

Happy to give any tips if anyone needs...

Have fun!

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[blazespinnaker]

Do enemies attack infrastructure in Bobs? That and pheromones make Rampant pretty hard.

The one solution I've seen for Rampant is to get to oil at all costs, even if it means rebuilding from scratch. Flame turret everything. The other idea is I think there are some weapons mods which make it more balanced, which is probably the sane way to go.

The trick with SE I find is to rush cargo rockets and bail on Nauvis at the earliest. It's a bit of a death trap. The moon adjacent generally has infinite oil + lot of resources + space resource, though might be missing one resource, like not a lot of coal. You should be able to make do though until you can get that resource from another planet.

Also, if you look around, you can usually find a core mining spot on an island for vita so as not to be bothered by the natives.

Really need water born enemies.

If you do leave Nauvis, than it's much less a PvE game I think. Adding marathon though, that's pretty hard core, though if you're like me and have no problem leaving your computer on all night, maybe not a big deal. Reaching production stability with SE can be a bit tricky, so it's not as bad as it seems.

[evopwr]

Do enemies attack infrastructure in Bobs? That and pheromones make Rampant pretty hard.

Yes the enemies attack everything in Bobs Enemies, just like normal vanilla. I didnt do Rampant in the end, just Bobs Enemies.

The one solution I've seen for Rampant is to get to oil at all costs, even if it means rebuilding from scratch. Flame turret everything.

Agreed, but when combining this with Death World Marathon, it just becomes impossible to get to oil quickly (i found), hence I ditched Rampant and went with BE.

The trick with SE I find is to rush cargo rockets and bail on Nauvis at the earliest.

I think your thinkin of the SpaceExploration mod? I'm doing the SpaceX mod (https://mods.factorio.com/mod/SpaceMod), which just greatly extends the science research in the end game.

So basically the mods still keep the game "Vanilla style", but just makes it a lot harder and extends the game out too.
Megabase tactics are required to achieve the science demands of SpaceX, whilst battling huge resource drain from Expensive Mode, whilst also getting smashed by Tier9 swarms from BobsEnemies + Death World.

[blazespinnaker]

In Vanilla, biters don't seem to attack pipes and power unless aggravated. They do in rampant, which makes things a bit trickier.

Agreed, but when combining this with Death World Marathon, it just becomes impossible to get to oil quickly

Yeah, doing anything quick in Marathon is a big challenge for sure.

I didn't know about SpaceX. Apologies for the misunderstanding.

[aka13]

In Vanilla, biters don't seem to attack pipes and power unless aggravated. They do in rampant, which makes things a bit trickier.

Tbh, I would not risk any infrastructure not walled off period, ever. Just not worth it, to have to drive for 2 minutes to repair an accidentally aggroed power pole, or see a train get stuck while driving over biters.

[jodokus31]

SOLUTION
Death World Marathon + Bobs Enemies + SpaceX

Did it take 4200 hours to beat it? That's massive. Regular DW Marathon is like 40-100 hours. but Marathon probably scales brutally in SpaceX.

Anyway, sounds like a good combo. I didn't enjoy Rampant that much, either

Did you have special map settings?
Did you use landmines, flamethrowers and/or efficiency modules?

[evopwr]

Tbh, I would not risk any infrastructure not walled off period, ever. Just not worth it, to have to drive for 2 minutes to repair an accidentally aggroed power pole, or see a train get stuck while driving over biters.

Agreed. I may initially have a oil pump undefended during very early game, but its always a priority to temporarily wrap walls/defense around it, but then I always look to expand my base walls outwards to eventually encompass the outpost properly. Otherwise you just end up running around everywhere manually repairing things.

[aka13]

Automating perimeter expansion is one of most fun things to do in long runs, in my opinion.

[blazespinnaker]

Oh for sure, but I believe there's a bit of a difference between nice to have and absolutely must install flame turrets guarding every inch of the hills you're going to be dying on from the get go or otherwise you're completely borked.

It's really nutso.


TBH though, in Vanilla DW marathon, I can usually just push back biters with arty (which you want to rush) and landmines (which you also want to rush). And of course, you always have the logistics island hack if you have a map with some water and if you really want to be lazy. Regardless though, I find walls and turrets mostly cosmetic at that point.

I was thinking SE should have a PvE option (no plague) where biter meteors hit every planet and can't be completely stopped by missile defense. Force you go go fusion at some point to get the insanity to stop.

[evopwr]

Did it take 4200 hours to beat it? That's massive. Regular DW Marathon is like 40-100 hours. but Marathon probably scales brutally in SpaceX.

Anyway, sounds like a good combo. I didn't enjoy Rampant that much, either

Did you have special map settings?
Did you use landmines, flamethrowers and/or efficiency modules?

I hope it doesnt take 4200 hours...
I've spent 170 hrs so far, and thats to finish all vanilla sciences. But i'm quite slow I think.
I've now re-built my whole base for more SPM, in readiness for SpaceX. But I realised last night that I havent scaled it up anywhere near enough, and probably need to go more to a train-based-zone concept like I did in my megabase approach. So back to the drawing board...
if interested, refer mid-page 3 on thread viewtopic.php?f=5&t=62475&start=40#top

For the map settings,
I removed water and cliffs. Just a personal preference, I like a blank canvas. It makes it slightly harder to defend in early game tho, because the water and cliffs can provide a good defence barrier, so without them you have to defend 360deg.
Otherwise, the only other setting I changed was to max out the ore richness for each type. Size and frequency I left at default.
Enemies and pollution I left as default Death World Marathon settings.

I dont bother with landmines, but definitely tried to get to flame throwers asap.
I did some efficiency modules early on, but as soon as I got to solar, I swapped them out for productivity/speed, but only a small amount until I could really get my defences solid. Those higher tier enemies from Bobs are crazy!

[jodokus31]

For the map settings,
I removed water and cliffs. Just a personal preference, I like a blank canvas. It makes it slightly harder to defend in early game tho, because the water and cliffs can provide a good defence barrier, so without them you have to defend 360deg.
Otherwise, the only other setting I changed was to max out the ore richness for each type. Size and frequency I left at default.
Enemies and pollution I left as default Death World Marathon settings.

I dont bother with landmines, but definitely tried to get to flame throwers asap.
I did some efficiency modules early on, but as soon as I got to solar, I swapped them out for productivity/speed, but only a small amount until I could really get my defences solid. Those higher tier enemies from Bobs are crazy!

Thanks. It's probably wise to increase ore richness a bit. And the big space is good for huge bases.
Maybe alien biomes could be nice.

If you skipped landmines, you skipped the probably most OP defense option. With bots they are easy to replace. Even for offensive, they are huge. Place some on top of a nest and some biter will trigger it sooner or later.
Efficiency modules are also huge, as they reduce pollution and power consumption by 80%.
Flameturrets are also very good with their AOE damage to destroy huge waves.

I wonder, how the challenge would be pan out with all three options combined. Or at least either flamers or landmines.
Addtional "Armoured Biters" mod could also be interesting.

[blazespinnaker]

Yeah, if Bobs creates mixed enemies that need the full suite of turrets + landmines to repel them, that'd be fun. Fast moving armored biters to take out the land mines, mirror biters to take out the lasers, flame resistant biters... The only thing that works are uranium magazines! hah.

[evopwr]

I have to confess i've never really tried landmines. Probably a bit late in the game now. But i'll give them a try.
Also not sure how well they'll go with these enemies, as they're buffed up with high resistances compared to vanilla.
Flame is not very good with them for example. Its laser laser laser.

I thought Efficiency modules used to reduce pollution, but when I look now, it just says it reduces power consumption? So hence I didnt stick with them for very long (dont really care about reduced power consumption with nuclear)

Flame turrets definitely good for destroying large waves in Vanilla, not very good with Bobs Enemies tho.

Image below is a typical attack I get, every ~90 seconds. Lost 10 walls and 8 bots. But I've had some attacks lose over 50!
I dont normally do "checkered bollard walls" but i'd be stuffed without them in this game.

The "Badass behemoths", and "Leviathans", can take 15 lasers on them, with Tier6 damage, and Tier6 shoot speed (I need to do white science to go further), for over 10 seconds. Really tough to kill.

Here are the Vanilla Behemoths vs Leviathans. The "Badass Behemoths" are the big yellow ones. (didnt get stats for them)

Both the "Badass Behemoths" and Leviathans, one-shit-kill you, even with T2 Power armour, and 5x T2 Shields. Insta-death.

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[evopwr]

Yeah, if Bobs creates mixed enemies that need the full suite of turrets + landmines to repel them, that'd be fun. Fast moving armored biters to take out the land mines, mirror biters to take out the lasers, flame resistant biters... The only thing that works are uranium magazines! hah.

its pretty much like that
Some enemies shoot poison, some shoot acid, some shoot fire, some shoot electric clouds, some explosion, etc.

[pointa2b]

Looking for something extra spicy, complete with a story arc of vengeance and building a vast cosmic empire? K2/SE/Rampant, and have your home planet with maxed out biter settings. I play it with the following storyline/overarching plan:

• survive getting to launching yourself into space, fleeing Nauvis entirely
• rebuild a new life on another planet, regaining your strength. explore/grow to gain resources.
• retake your home planet with a vengeance with endgame military, killing every last bug in nuclear hellfire
• turn Nauvis (and its orbit) into a vast high-tech manufacturing complex

This was something I was doing until my UPS tanked, will resume this once I upgrade my PC this spring. 7000 X3D...

PS- I gave myself a large starting area so I had some sporting chance to quickly get myself situated with some adequate walls/defense before the chaos began with rampant. But feel free to not do this if you find pain and suffering therapeutic.

[DaleStan]

I thought Efficiency modules used to reduce pollution, but when I look now, it just says it reduces power consumption?

The pollution production of your crafting buildings is proportional to their power consumption. An electric furnace normally produces 1 pollution per minute. One with two EFF 2 modules only produces 0.2 pollution per minute.

[evopwr]

I thought Efficiency modules used to reduce pollution, but when I look now, it just says it reduces power consumption?

The pollution production of your crafting buildings is proportional to their power consumption. An electric furnace normally produces 1 pollution per minute. One with two EFF 2 modules only produces 0.2 pollution per minute.

Good to know, thanks

[evopwr]

Looking for something extra spicy, complete with a story arc of vengeance and building a vast cosmic empire? K2/SE/Rampant

Thanks