Friday Facts #427 - Combat Balancing & Space Age LAN

[XT-248]

It’s the other way around, 1 watt = 1 joule / 1 second.

Eh. Whatever. The mislabeled units don't impact the original point.

The original point is that lowering the base damage hurts the scaling.

Now, the losses of power efficiency between post-adjusted and pre-adjusted base damage at maximum laser shooting speed at 6 energy weapon damage level (pre-space) are calculated. Energy weapon damage 6 level gives 230% cumulative modifiers. Both post-adjustment and pre-adjustment are assumed to have 240 kW energy demand.

30 base damage * ( 100% + 230% ) = 99 damage per shot for the 240 kW energy demand.
10 base damage * ( 100% + 230% ) = 33 damage per shot for the 240 kW energy demand.

That is still a straight 66% loss post-adjusted in power efficiency compared to pre-adjusted power efficiency, and I don't need to do any complicated math as 99 divided by 1/3 is 33.

You didn’t need to do all this math obviously. Upgrades are relative thus, 66% reduction is 66% reduction, with or without upgrades.

I decided to do the math because someone made it sound like a 'more efficient' scaling post-adjusted value regardless of what they meant to say.

That’s just base tech. Shooting speed upgrades keep energy per shot the same so, power consumption increases.
Damage upgrades however, keep energy per shot the same too thus making lasers more efficient. Much more efficient.

The whole point is to illustrate that a 66% loss in base damage is also translated to really an expensive exponential upgrade path (2^N ensuring million-plus science pack cost to unlock higher energy weapon damage repeatable tech).

This clashes with the personal laser defense being 'much more efficient' without indicating how it would be 'more' post-adjusted value.

23 * 240 kW (max laser shooting speed) = 5,520 kW/5.5 MW.

The new 'Space Age Fusion Reactor' can provide about 6.25 MW at Q5. I can only begin to guess the new optimized loadout without knowing how big the new Space Age Fusion equipment is.

I can tell you right away that there aren't enough personal laser defense modules in that example you gave to out-demand the new 'Space Age Fusion Reactor's' power yield.

I can only wonder why are you directly comparing vanilla PLD to a Q5 reactor.

Okay. Let me try to rephrase the original concept in a much more concise and cleaner way.

Vanilla Post-Space-Age Q1 Spidertron with a new Space Age Q5 Fusion Reactor can power more than Q1 23 PLD modules (assuming that I can fit all of that in a single spidertron, which is a big assumption since the Space-Age-Fusion Reactor equipment size is unknown). There is sufficient room to increase the energy cost for PLD modules to make it harder to stack in the way WUBE doesn't want it to be and allow the PLD's baseline damage stat to be a little higher than the planned post-adjusted damage value.

The proposed balance changes only further highlight the downside of the PLD damage nerf, as it will most certainly negatively impact anyone who opts out of quality mechanics while owning Space Age or doesn't.

*Anyone who was relying on PLDs to wipe everything moving around. You may be surprised but, not everyone does that. The loadout I shown is cool but, I made it well after the rocket (and I’d never risk using that outside a spidertron) and more for fun than anything.

The offensive/clearing-nest spidertron, in a group, build I mentioned earlier (1 x Fusion Reactor, 3x PLDs, 6x Shied Mk II, and 1x walking extension) is what I use primarily in the vanilla end-game to clear dense nests.

I don't use anything else much except for Artillery to clear really dense areas.


I know people who are in real-life mobility challenged who rely on PLD as 'back-up,' while their spidertron build main damage dealers are explosive rockets, as they are incapable of moving their mouse in a way to target and kill hostiles in the same way I can with PLD-only spidertron squadron (dancing to dodge worm/spitter range glob to get in close and kill them).

I also know of people who won't use laser turrets (MU pow3r gr1d can't handl35 1t!!!!) and already devalue PLD as 'too expensive research-wise' despite its being the versatile tool currently in vanilla Factorio.

I could go on and on.


Assuming that I think everybody uses PLDs only is just an assumption that happens to be inaccurate.

I challenge you to find an alternative option without using mods that can do something equivalent without ammunition/needing-logistics, any potential chance of friendly fire, and dealing with mobile local fauna in the attacked area while attacking.

My understanding is that pretty much the entire point of biters existing is that they are a resource sink and require you to set up supply lines/logistics to deal with them.

Excuse me?

That is a bold claim, and I will explain why it is bold.


There are multiple deathworld run through by various YouTube/Twitch that use only a single oil pump jack and flamethrower turrets wall to survive long enough to reach the end-game.

Example by Michael Hendriks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvRyhh9FJLY - Tag line Factorio "The Ultimate DeathWorld Challenge" - Maximum biters, No starting area, and further the Pure DeathWorld Preset: no cheesing other settings!

I don't like deathworld challenging runs and don't do them myself, but at the same time, I am aware that this strategy is possible through an absurdly high area of DPS in exchange for a few units of crude oil.


In vanilla Factorio, Laser Turrets are somewhat expensive "resource-sinks" once built due to idle power drainage and the required energy to fire a laser shot (800 kJ or 800 kW over a second). There will be a new Tesla Tower in the Space Age, which is supposed to be more energy-intense than laser turrets.

However, there is a break-even point when the player has enough of any of the following options or mixed: solar energy from cleared areas, Nuclear Energy, or the new Fusion Energy (FFF #420). The opportunity costs for energy spent on defense come down, allowing players to stay on defense with minimum to no non-energy losses while utilizing primarily laser turrets or laser turrets mixed with other turrets.

[Niyu.Cuatro]

There are multiple deathworld run through by various YouTube/Twitch that use only a single oil pump jack and flamethrower turrets wall to survive long enough to reach the end-game.

Flamethrower turrets are also in dire need of a nerf. I would personally make them use fuel faster. So they are more expensive to use for the same ammount of damage.

[mmmPI]

My understanding is that pretty much the entire point of biters existing is that they are a resource sink and require you to set up supply lines/logistics to deal with them.

That seem something obvious to me too

Also artillery is easier to use if you can't click fast or precisely, not PLD.

And saying one can use also flamethrower to me just shows that there are many ways to deal with the biters and as such little reasons to complain about the nerf of PLD

[gnutrino]

There are multiple deathworld run through by various YouTube/Twitch that use only a single oil pump jack and flamethrower turrets wall to survive long enough to reach the end-game.

Flamethrower turrets are also in dire need of a nerf. I would personally make them use fuel faster. So they are more expensive to use for the same ammount of damage.

A start would be not allowing them to use crude oil so you had to actually set up refining and choose which oil fraction to use for them. it's like if turrets could fire chunks of raw ore at the moment not to mention that IRL even the lightest crudes are too viscous to work effectively in a flamethrower. And yeah, they should really need more fuel/s, at least as much as the hand held flamethrower (which iirc takes the equivalent of 10x the fuel/s + some steel for the ammo).

[Tertius]

And saying one can use also flamethrower to me just shows that there are many ways to deal with the biters and as such little reasons to complain about the nerf of PLD

Yes, flamethrowers are nice because they put fire on the ground even if you did miss an enemy, and by dodging around the fire you're able to exploit the enemy pathfinding. It's also a strategy to build a flamethrower turret nearby, then lure a large biter group from a large nest group. You walk below the shooting fire and don't get hit, but the enemies behind are. After that, you have a few seconds before new enemies are spawned in larger numbers, so you have time to comfortably fight worms and nests.
However, you don't always have flamethrowers/flamethrower turret infrastructure. When it's necessary to explore enemy territory to uncover and find the most promising resource fields, I do this by foot and sneak between the nest groups. If I accidentally pull enemies and get hit by a spitter attack and am slowed, it's the PLD that helps surviving. Otherwise it's a death far out in enemy territory, and it's almost impossible to recover the body. And I want to explore in the first place, not handle enemies in this moment, so I just want to get rid of any followers with as less hassle as possible. And for this, a PLD nerf adds tedium. It becomes probably necessary to change between 2 different armors. One with building support (roboport etc.) and one with explore support (PLDs, shields, etc.), in case it's not possible any more to use just one armor for both. If you want to explore, you have to first retrieve the armor from where you left it the last time, then go exploring, then change back afterwards. That has no gaming value.

[KuuLightwing]

And saying one can use also flamethrower to me just shows that there are many ways to deal with the biters and as such little reasons to complain about the nerf of PLD

Well, a lot of them have rather significant downsides. Handheld weapons all suffer from the issue of slowing you down as you fire them. Drones deploy slowly, and quite frankly the best ones are the defender drones that don't scale terribly well into the endgame. Destroyers I genuinely tried, but wasn't impressed at all. Best weapon is the spidertron rocket launcher as it has good splash damage, good damage output due to the firing rate and you can use it on the move without slowing down, and unlike other vehicles it's way more agile and isn't completely halted by obstacles.

There's really not that many solutions in the endgame. It's artillery, which comes with it's own problems, or spiders with either rockets or PLDs + rockets. Nuke can be kinda used, but you need PLD with it, because swapping between ammunition types in spidertron is too slow and annoying, so if you load in nukes, you don't really have any other weapon. Can use nukes on foot and hop into the spider after, which has its own issues.

As far as I'm concerned PLD alone isn't even the best endgame weapon currently, it's more of a supplement for the spidertron rocket launcher, and endgame combat without spidertron is probably not even a consideration, so all the handheld weapons are essentially obsolete by that point. Drones are the only ones worth considering because you can use them with the spidertron. But drones are supplementary by design and slow to deploy.

[mmmPI]

Artillery is the best way to do if you want passive playstyle imo


But the argument that some player can still play the game using only flamethrower i think is illustrating that there are many way to do differently than with PLD

Offensive landmines comes to mind and the new tesla turret or gun may also act as superior version of artillery for turret creep expansion or PLD for manual combat

[KuuLightwing]

Artillery is the best way to do if you want passive playstyle imo


But the argument that some player can still play the game using only flamethrower i think is illustrating that there are many way to do differently than with PLD

Offensive landmines comes to mind and the new tesla turret or gun may also act as superior version of artillery for turret creep expansion or PLD for manual combat

Artillery works, yes, but as I said before, it's not without issues - namely relatively short range and thus having to rebuild outposts often to continue clearing the area. Also manual targeting IMO is a bad mechanic. I like the ability to send shells where I want, but I don't like that I have to do that if I want to use full range of the artillery - it's primary example of something being tedious over being challenging. It's a rather "safe" option when it comes to clearing area, but it still requires a lot of manual input, as opposed to be automated.

Regarding some player using the flamethrower, that depends on what that player does with the flamethrower, cause personally I don't see how is that not going to be incredibly slow and tedious, so the question is - what settings they are playing on, what evo level, and what were they trying to achieve. I don't doubt they were able to achieve it, but I feel like for the situation I envision when talking about these, it won't be enough.

Some players were able to build fully functional bases without using belts or bots, or some are playing without trains, that doesn't mean there's something necessarily wrong with either of those systems. They had different scope and different goals.

[Tertius]

Regarding some player using the flamethrower, that depends on what that player does with the flamethrower

I use the flamethrower only until artillery is unlocked. Once artillery is unlocked, this is the only weapon I use to expand the base and I will never again walk near nests or enemies.

[X3KJ]

PLD is actually the hardest thing to use against bigger nests... Having used a spidertron with just lasers against nest is kind of torture and laborious. It's way easier to just artillery them, or deploy a 4x spider army with rockets. With rocket speed buffed, they are even better now. So why exactly is PLD nerfed so hard? Spiders with just lasers dont really work, because they get too much damage from worms before they can do anything.

Combat robots are just totally lame. Not only because you have to spam click them yourself to launch. Drone things that do a bit of pew pew look utterly boring. Give me actual robots with legs that fight biters and get turned into scrap metal by them in return. That's what i want.
Click big red button. Robot army of 200 deploys and walks Star-Wars-Clone-Wars / Starship trooper esque against the enemy. 10 come back alive but successfull. This is the kind of automated combat i would give up PLD for. Spinny fly drones that follow you around... What's the rationale that i should walk into combat myself, just so these things know where to follow?

Just building more artillery and dropping shells is boring as f, when you already have dozends of them. It may be fun in the beginning because of "revenge"... basically a big middle finger to the biters that have annoyed so much. But beyond that it's very boring.

[XT-248]

There are multiple deathworld run through by various YouTube/Twitch that use only a single oil pump jack and flamethrower turrets wall to survive long enough to reach the end-game.

Flamethrower turrets are also in dire need of a nerf. I would personally make them use fuel faster. So they are more expensive to use for the same ammount of damage.

I called it out in my first post as something that needs some form of balance adjustment.

(relative to flamethrower turrets, which needed some form of nerf a decade ago)

One of the reasons that I don't use flamethrower turrets is that I fully expect a nerf at some point in the future.

[GregoriusT]

But the argument that some player can still play the game using only flamethrower i think is illustrating that there are many way to do differently than with PLD

You can go without weapons entirely honestly, at least if you max out the starting zone size, and make sure there is lots of Trees, you will have an easy time winning the Game if you can do Spoonless reliably.

And with Earlygame Weapons only (SMGs, Shotguns, Grenades and Gun Turret Creep), you could even skip the starting zone tweaking and the Trees thing and do it in a waterless Desert, as long as you diligently clean out Nests/Expansions near your Cloud, you can even skip building Defenses entirely!

The reason PLD is used inspite of this is because Players often do not like the Stress of Speedrunning the Game, and prefer just building their Factory.

It is way more common for the Factory Building focussed Players to do PLD, because it is a low effort "gotta get the job done" type of weapon with lots of accessibility for people that cannot fight well.

While the Combat Focussed ones know well enough what they are doing to confidently exterminate Biters with all the Fun Weaponry at their disposal and a ton of Shields.

Also now i kindof wish that at least the Machine Gun Turrets on the Car and Tank would be fully automatic without needing to press the shoot button, like the AAI earlygame Turret on Treads. (at least if there is 2 Players, only one needs to focus holding their mouse towards the biters)

[KuuLightwing]

I use the flamethrower only until artillery is unlocked. Once artillery is unlocked, this is the only weapon I use to expand the base and I will never again walk near nests or enemies.

Before artillery and spidertrons I usually use tank with maybe some PLD or defender capsules, depending on the stage of the game. Flamethrower I usually build, but end up barely using. It's definitely strong but requires me to be on foot, which is dangerous with aforementioned speed reduction. Tank flamethrower honestly kinda sucks. When I am on foot, I actually prefer the rocket laucher especially since you can outrange some types of worms with it.

[Vesperon]

PLD is actually the hardest thing to use against bigger nests... Having used a spidertron with just lasers against nest is kind of torture and laborious. It's way easier to just artillery them, or deploy a 4x spider army with rockets. With rocket speed buffed, they are even better now. So why exactly is PLD nerfed so hard? Spiders with just lasers dont really work, because they get too much damage from worms before they can do anything.

Combat robots are just totally lame. Not only because you have to spam click them yourself to launch. Drone things that do a bit of pew pew look utterly boring. Give me actual robots with legs that fight biters and get turned into scrap metal by them in return. That's what i want.
Click big red button. Robot army of 200 deploys and walks Star-Wars-Clone-Wars / Starship trooper esque against the enemy. 10 come back alive but successfull. This is the kind of automated combat i would give up PLD for. Spinny fly drones that follow you around... What's the rationale that i should walk into combat myself, just so these things know where to follow?

Just building more artillery and dropping shells is boring as f, when you already have dozends of them. It may be fun in the beginning because of "revenge"... basically a big middle finger to the biters that have annoyed so much. But beyond that it's very boring.

Bigger nests in late game can be reasonably efficiently cleared just with PLDs. One group of spidertrons goes first (just close enough to draw attention, but not to take a lot of damage) and a second group comes just a little bit later and has much easier time quickly killing a lot of spawners, also moving around the nest to not catch too much acid (for me, driving the second group directly is easier and more convenient than trying to control both groups remotely). Of course artillery is less tedious on a big scale, but to do this for a while can be relaxing and satisfying. And even after the nerf, in very late game with high-quality spidertrons and PLDs, this might still be an efficient way of clearing (maybe it will make sense to give some spidertrons rockets if spawners won't be melting very quickly).

So why is PLD nerfed so hard? Even if we ignore quality, PLDs are just so powerful and efficient that they make everything else more or less obsolete (at least until artillery is ready, and maybe except rockets if using only one spidertron). That probably wasn't fully intended in the first place (the D stands for defense, not for melting whole nests for free after the initial cost), but I guess that the devs just focused on SA rather than doing rebalancing in 1.0/1.1.

It certainly will be possible to destroy whole nests with PLDs, but depending on player's equipment vs. evolution, it could become very slow. Mainly because of the nest buffs rather than because of the PLD nerf - a power armor MK2 can easily carry 12 PLDs plus 3 legs - it still will be a powerhouse in mid game, especially against biters (4 PLDs in 1.1 do a lot of damage, with a few upgrades from research). So we will be incentivized to combine more weapons to help those PLDs a bit. There are cheaper but slower ways, like rockets or poison capsules. Or more aggressive approach, like cluster grenades or distractors (the stationary bots). Even just going in an armor full of PLDs and spamming fish might work well until evolution gets too high.

Yes, clearing with artillery on a big scale becomes quite boring. But every other method takes more effort and eventually becomes boring as well.

[XT-248]

There is something that would help mitigate the negative effect of PLD low base damage. I was inspired by the recent posts about combining different weapons on Spidertron.




Source: https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-410


Using the check box on 'Ignore unlisted targets' on the Spidertron's PLDs might let me selectively ignore the worst targets, in terms of time to kill or TTK, for PLDs and save it for artillery turrets or rockets if it is possible to select ignore/prioritization individually for each set of weapons.

IE: Rocket -> Target anything that doesn't move, but do bigger worms first until there is nothing else, and ignore the smallest mobile HP targets. PLDs -> target small biters in terms of HP first so as not to waste rockets on them too much and ignore anything that has laser resistance or too much HP.

Then, I might be more incentivized to mix weapons where it makes sense to do so.

[K4G]

Wow, those are quite radical combat changes. My main worry here is just the fact that the game really does not need to become any more difficult than it currently is. Yes, experienced players may appreciate a challenge, but this is meant for all players, and I'd rather have the default settings be more on the easy side. Yes, lasers are kind of too powerful, even on a casual level, but that's only in comparison to other weapons, not really in comparison to enemies. On that note though, I do like the changes to cannons, robots and rockets.

(Remember, this is about the non-expansion game. That also means the quality mechanic is not as important for these considerations.)

Some longer thoughts:

Biter bases are so much more challenging with these changes. To begin with, their only weak point so far has been the nests themselves, but now you won't even have that option. Presently, the main challenge with enemies is only slightly in the combat itself, and much more importantly, in the logistics of ammo and weaponry, as well as the challenge of managing your own time as the engineer. In the mid-late game, it would kind of suck if being there "in person" no longer really had as much of an impact, and that you had to rely on artillery or flamer turret creep instead, or that it always required nukes.

Speaking of which, were there any changes to nukes? The area of effect damage from nukes already has problems killing behemoth biters with a similar HP pool, and I wonder if nests don't become much more durable against them too now. Also I kind of feel like personal lasers should have more range if they're this much weaker (nest HP, nest resistance, worm HP, laser base damage). Up until now, the main huge downside that lasers have is their range, and even something like mass speed + laser Spidertrons was still always worse than mass speed + rocket Spidertrons, even when you consider the fact that the shorter laser range meant you could manipulate them to focus fire on nests. The proposed changes also mean that the engineer becomes a lot more vulnerable, since something like 10 behemoth biters would take a long time to kill with lasers (uranium rounds + machine gun helps but only slightly).

That aspect of balance is also ignoring the subject of player turrets, so to just briefly outline the current situation there: Laser turrets are stronger than gun turrets, both in damage and range and setup, be it turret creep or pure base defense. Flamer turrets are hilariously much more powerful still, only hindered by their need for a wall (and the potential existence of behemoth worms). Mind you, I still think the current base game is well balanced, despite the potential for improving balance and gameplay depth.

The biters are not cozy and now they want to make life even less cozy for you in your cozy corner. That said if they are going to be OP or tanked up. Then gibs us at least better guns so we can have fun trying to melt the Bugs please WUBE. The COZYNESS must grow

[KuuLightwing]

Bigger nests in late game can be reasonably efficiently cleared just with PLDs. One group of spidertrons goes first (just close enough to draw attention, but not to take a lot of damage) and a second group comes just a little bit later and has much easier time quickly killing a lot of spawners, also moving around the nest to not catch too much acid (for me, driving the second group directly is easier and more convenient than trying to control both groups remotely). Of course artillery is less tedious on a big scale, but to do this for a while can be relaxing and satisfying. And even after the nerf, in very late game with high-quality spidertrons and PLDs, this might still be an efficient way of clearing (maybe it will make sense to give some spidertrons rockets if spawners won't be melting very quickly).

So why is PLD nerfed so hard? Even if we ignore quality, PLDs are just so powerful and efficient that they make everything else more or less obsolete (at least until artillery is ready, and maybe except rockets if using only one spidertron). That probably wasn't fully intended in the first place (the D stands for defense, not for melting whole nests for free after the initial cost), but I guess that the devs just focused on SA rather than doing rebalancing in 1.0/1.1.

It certainly will be possible to destroy whole nests with PLDs, but depending on player's equipment vs. evolution, it could become very slow. Mainly because of the nest buffs rather than because of the PLD nerf - a power armor MK2 can easily carry 12 PLDs plus 3 legs - it still will be a powerhouse in mid game, especially against biters (4 PLDs in 1.1 do a lot of damage, with a few upgrades from research). So we will be incentivized to combine more weapons to help those PLDs a bit. There are cheaper but slower ways, like rockets or poison capsules. Or more aggressive approach, like cluster grenades or distractors (the stationary bots). Even just going in an armor full of PLDs and spamming fish might work well until evolution gets too high.

Yes, clearing with artillery on a big scale becomes quite boring. But every other method takes more effort and eventually becomes boring as well.

Sending two groups of spiders like that is hardly what one would call a simple solution. Definitely an endgame option when you can afford building multiple spiders with equipment grids. It's probably works well as you can build arbitrary number of spiders but if you are doing that then it's arguably warranted if you are clearing nests easily at that point.

The real culprit there is not PLD, is the spidertron. There's only two things automated spidertrons could use for offense - PLD and rockets. So "it's better than other options" isn't really saying much, because all other options just can't be used at all for that strategy. The only alternative is rocket laucnhers, and I would hazard a guess loading those spiders with rockets would prove to be an even better solution, and it's not all that difficult to mass produce rockets.

So it looks strange to me that it's said that PLD apparently deserves nerfs because it's better than other options, and what's used as an example is the strategy that isn't even compatible with other options aside from actually just one. No buffs to robots, cannon shells or shotguns would change that. If lasers become weak, then solution would be to just ditch them, install more shield and load spiders with more rockets. If you want to solve this issue, then solution would be to either nerf spidertron to the ground, which IMO would be a bad idea, or allow spidertron to use different weapons as a customizable weapons platform or something.

[Vesperon]

Sending two groups of spiders like that is hardly what one would call a simple solution. Definitely an endgame option when you can afford building multiple spiders with equipment grids. It's probably works well as you can build arbitrary number of spiders but if you are doing that then it's arguably warranted if you are clearing nests easily at that point.

The real culprit there is not PLD, is the spidertron. There's only two things automated spidertrons could use for offense - PLD and rockets. So "it's better than other options" isn't really saying much, because all other options just can't be used at all for that strategy. The only alternative is rocket laucnhers, and I would hazard a guess loading those spiders with rockets would prove to be an even better solution, and it's not all that difficult to mass produce rockets.

So it looks strange to me that it's said that PLD apparently deserves nerfs because it's better than other options, and what's used as an example is the strategy that isn't even compatible with other options aside from actually just one. No buffs to robots, cannon shells or shotguns would change that. If lasers become weak, then solution would be to just ditch them, install more shield and load spiders with more rockets. If you want to solve this issue, then solution would be to either nerf spidertron to the ground, which IMO would be a bad idea, or allow spidertron to use different weapons as a customizable weapons platform or something.

You're right regarding the endgame solution with groups of spidertrons. I should have structured my post more clearly. My claim that PLDs make everything else more or less obsolete is meant generally, not specifically for late game. Then I mentioned how powerful PLDs are in the mid game, when spidertrons are not available yet and evolution isn't very high. An armor full of PLDs causes nests to melt so quickly that we're not incentivized to use anything else.

[KuuLightwing]

You're right regarding the endgame solution with groups of spidertrons. I should have structured my post more clearly. My claim that PLDs make everything else more or less obsolete is meant generally, not specifically for late game. Then I mentioned how powerful PLDs are in the mid game, when spidertrons are not available yet and evolution isn't very high. An armor full of PLDs causes nests to melt so quickly that we're not incentivized to use anything else.

I am more focused on the endgame, because that's where these changes would be the most detrimental for me, for sure, but also there's a problem with "midgame" is that it's harder to define. Endgame state is more or less clear - high evolution level, max non-infinite tech research, maybe some infinite too, access to power armor Mk. II, spidertron, artillery, and so on. But midgame could be very different for different players - some would rush power armor mk. II, some would take their time and use lower tech levels for longer.

Personally I start using significant amounts of PLD only at the endgame. My "mid game" tactics include tank with maybe some PLD, but I never really felt that it let me just walk through the nest, I mostly use it to fend off biters defending the nests, and use the cannon to destroy the nests themselves. I even use defender capsules sometimes.

[sarge945]

In my opinion, the problem with the combat isn't that enemies need better stats, the problem is how exploitable the enemies are. The combat mechanics themselves need a rework to make the enemies more dangerous overall, rather than a simple buff in stats. Hopefully Space Age/2.0 will introduce more types of enemies that can fill in for the weaknesses of the current biters. Having to pay for DLC to have a worthwhile combat experience sucks though, so hopefully some changes come with 2.0 as well.

Even if spawners were made 5x tougher, the tactic for most of the midgame into the late-game before spidertrons and portable laser guns is the same - drive around in a tank, circle strafe the colony, and you can kill everything with impunity. The tank is basically unkillable as long as enemies are chasing it because it can outrun most enemies in the game. If you do take damage you can simply drive away and repair the tank with repair kits much faster than the biters can regenerate themselves. It's more tedious than it is difficult, and increasing enemy stats will just make it even more tedious, not harder.

The biters need a more direct way to stop the tank in it's tracks, so that they can damage it. Like enemies that can "blink" in front of the tank and attack it in it's path, or better tracking for spitters to hit where it's going to be. They currently track right now, but it's very easy to avoid.

I think with some balance the personal laser defenses can be fine, since they theoretically already require good positioning and risk to use effectively, they are just too powerful to really present a proper risk. The tank is pretty much unkillable in the midgame if you stay on the move.

ALSO, a QoL feature request: Please allow the "Toggle Personal Roboport" button to have 3 states, Off, On and Smart

Off and On are the same as now, whereas Smart will automatically disable the personal roboport if there are biters within a small distance, and re-enable it the rest of the time. This will prevent construction bots trying to repair the players vehicle and getting destroyed constantly.