Early game defence tips wanted

[Peter34]

The sandbox game mode seems to me to be either too easy or too hard. If I set the aliens to never attack first then it's crazy easy. If I don't set that option, then they come and gank my butt way before I'm ready, even on the next-to-largest starting area. And I think opting for the largest starting area is too cheesy.

What to do? How can I know what direction they'll attack from? I don't have the resources to set up a 60 turret perimeter all around my early game factory. I've decided to change the savegame interval from 40 to 15 minutes but I'll go and change it once more to 10 minutes. That way, next time I get ganked, I can hop back 10 or 20 minutes in time and try to set up some turret clusters there. But I'm not even sure if that'll help. I'm not sure that if I go back to an autosave they won't just come from a different angle, bypassing my turret cluster.

Is the game just wildly out of balance, forcing players (who don't enable the "Han always shoots first"-option) to spend most of the first 90 minutes on building turrets and not really getting a factory going? Or am I doing something wrong? Any tips?

[sillyfly]

Scout around your base, to see where the alien nests are. Build a radar pretty early to keep your surroundings updated.
Keep a close eye on the amount of pollution that reaches every nest.
You can eliminate small nests (1-2 spawners, no worms) with only regular bullets and a few turrets, though it is much easier with Armor Piercing rounds.

Don't be deterred by losing a few miners or assembling machines - you can rebuild them, and pay your revenge later

[Peter34]

Scout around your base, to see where the alien nests are. Build a radar pretty early to keep your surroundings updated.
Keep a close eye on the amount of pollution that reaches every nest.
You can eliminate small nests (1-2 spawners, no worms) with only regular bullets and a few turrets, though it is much easier with Armor Piercing rounds.

Don't be deterred by losing a few miners or assembling machines - you can rebuild them, and pay your revenge later

Part of the problem was, I lost half a dozen Steel Chests, containing a lot of Iron Ore from Electric Miners I had just set to gather passively, for later. Oh, by the way, I cheat a bit early game, give myself a bunch of "gifts", including 150 Steel Chests, so that I can start with Steam/Electricity right away, skipping the Burner Inserter/Miner phase, and also so that I don't have to gather Wood for Chests and Poles. But after that I play straight.

Maybe part of what provoked the early attack, given the Large starting area I had chosen, was that I had all those extra Miners running? And also 36 Furnaces. 12 on Iron Ore that were all running, making a lot more Iron Plates than I needed, and 12 on Copper Ore not all of which were running, but probably 4 or 5 since they were supplied by 3 Electric Miners, and the last 12 Furnaces being on Steel production not running yet since I hadn't finished inventnig Steel.

I also had 10 Steam Engines, although I'd guess 6 or 7 of those didn't actually need to run, and so can't have produced significant pollution. But lots of Electric Miners, and far more Iron Furnaces than needed.

[Peter34]

Oh, by the way, what really shocked me was that the first attack wave was huge, like 15 or 20 aliens, if not 25. And after I cleared up that (which was quite difficult) and built a single cluster of 4 Turrets in the direction the aliens had come from, 5 minutes later there was another even larger attack.

That doesn't fit my experience from when I played a lot in November, because back then the first attacks would be small, 2-5 aliens per wave.

So that's part of what makes it scary, depressing and offputting. That they've now started to come en masse to gank me, early game. Why is that?

[sillyfly]

Well, mining and processing more than you need is a good recipe to produce lots of pollution and attract unwanted attention!
I'd say - don't buffer (at least not so much!) until you can afford to defend yourself properly.
I also don't like the initial stage, but at any rate I can get to electricity in <10 minutes, with only ever having about 4-5 total burner miners, and no burner-inserters.
Having unused boilers/steam engines does not contribute to pollution, so it shouldn't be a problem. But I'd definitely say - don't put ore into chests in the beginning. Put it directly into furnaces, or only use the belt as a buffer.

[Xterminator]

Well, mining and processing more than you need is a good recipe to produce lots of pollution and attract unwanted attention!
I'd say - don't buffer (at least not so much!) until you can afford to defend yourself properly.
I also don't like the initial stage, but at any rate I can get to electricity in <10 minutes, with only ever having about 4-5 total burner miners, and no burner-inserters.
Having unused boilers/steam engines does not contribute to pollution, so it shouldn't be a problem. But I'd definitely say - don't put ore into chests in the beginning. Put it directly into furnaces, or only use the belt as a buffer.

Pretty much this... Once you get the process down, you can get to electricity in under 10 or 15 minutes with very minimal amount of burner miners, and pollution. As for the attacks... Just scout out before you even start building anything, and see where the bases are by you, and expect attacks from those general directions if pollution hits their base. Honestly, after researching Automation, I would go for mility 1 and armor 1, then lie logistics or whatever else you usually do. But with normal armor and a sub machine gun, you should be able to hold off sizable attacks for a while by yourself, provided you have enough ammo. :p
Then just start setting up little walled turret outposts in the direction the attacks normally come from, and proceed from there.

[safan]

Maybe part of what provoked the early attack, given the Large starting area I had chosen, was that I had all those extra Miners running? And also 36 Furnaces. 12 on Iron Ore that were all running, making a lot more Iron Plates than I needed, and 12 on Copper Ore not all of which were running, but probably 4 or 5 since they were supplied by 3 Electric Miners, and the last 12 Furnaces being on Steel production not running yet since I hadn't finished inventnig Steel.

I also had 10 Steam Engines, although I'd guess 6 or 7 of those didn't actually need to run, and so can't have produced significant pollution. But lots of Electric Miners, and far more Iron Furnaces than needed.

absolutely this. I play with medium start area and standard aliens and i don't get attacked before i get to laser turrets.

I have 6 iron furnaces, 2 copper furnaces and 1 steel until then. Also 6 boilers and 5 steam engines. (the steam engines don't produce pollution, the boilers do.

until your defence is up, don't overproduce.

[Peter34]

I went back and loaded an old same-map save game (because there are some things to like about that map, and I know the alien attack mode is configured like it should be), and I was a little bit less ambitious this time, not running a tonne of Electric Miners I didn't need. The first attacks came a bit later, but more importantly they were much smaller, only half a dozen aliens or less, instead of the 15 or 20 (if not 25) of the previous attempt. I was able to kill them (also a 2nd attack wave of similar size) and set up a few Gun Turret Clusters.

But I have one serious problem now: How do I make ammo for my huge Gun Turret defence system? Or rather, what kind of ammo do I make?

Previous time I tried, I just made normal ammo, because I was actually under the impression that Gun Turrets couldn't use AP ammo. Then when browsing the wiki, I saw something that suggested to me that maybe they could, and I tried it, and they can.

I can make AP Ammo, but it takes forever to make just a single stack (because Steel production is gimped). So I set up 4-Turret clusters one at a time, with only 50 ammo each, 10 per turret and 10 reserve in the chest, otherwise I won't have a good enough defence perimeter in time.

I can make lots of regular ammo fast, but that just means I'll end up stuck with half a Steel Chest-full of garbage I won't need and can't recycle, once I finally have enough AP ammo to use that exclusively in the Gun Turrets.

What to do? Is there some recycling option that I'm not aware of, in the unmodded game? We're talking huge amounts of yellow ammo that eventually becomes trash, and which won't be used but will be in the Turrets (and their Chests) just in case it is needed.

Since those two early attacks, I've taken out one nearby alien nest which I think may have launched the attacks, and so far there hasn't been any attacks since then. But I've built a lot of Electric Miners since then (trying to improve my Steel production) and that's gotta provoke the aliens to attack more often and more fiercely.

So I'm in a dilemma. I can waste a lot of Steel Plate on contingency yellow bullets that will never be used and can't be recycled (even at huge wastage factor, AFAIK), or I can sit there and hope the aliens won't attack, while I slowly add one Gun Turret cluster at a time, every time I have 50 AP Ammo to spare. (Science is progressing nicely, though.)

[ssilk]

So, when your Problem is not having enough gun turrets, I would stop any other activity ang go straight for turrets and ammo. Aitomate the filling of the turrets, stop researching.

[Overread]

AP bullets you really only need once the biters start to send out the really big bugs - up till that point regular ammo should be fine in the guns. So yes use regular ammo early on when you've not got the production setup ready to provide AP bullets and then switch over once you've got AP production up and running smooth - you can let the guns just shoot through your regular ammo to use it up.

Generally I try to find choke points on the map that I can build walls and defend between - like a gap between two bodies of water. That cuts down on the amount of space you have to defend and gives you some natural barrier walls (water) for free. Next step is to establish a defensive line with automated turrets and ammo production. A simple setup of each gun having its own inserter coupled with a belt running past that carries the ammo to it from the factories. If you set the belt so that its in a loop (either run it back alongside itself if you've not got a base that allows a loop to go all the way around or run it all the way around your base) that way any ammo that reaches the end (which it will when you're not under attack) just gets fed back to the start again and goes around. The factory will keep pumping out ammo till the whole belt system is full (or it runs out of resources).
This way if there is one segment of the wall that gets hit more than the others the ammo will always feed around to fuel that point, rather than sitting in the belt after that point doing nothing.

This way is also easy to change over to AP bullets - you just change the factories feeding the belt and the regular ammo gets used up in attacks. The only time to worry about it is if you go a long time with no attack on that front, then it can be worth going in and taking out the regular and swapping it over just to avoid the larger biters eating through (although typically biters charge direct from their hive so if nothing hits a certain spot for a long while chances are there are not nests nearby to be a threat on that side).



Note biters hate radar dishes so I tend to build them later. Make good use of scouting and then build up good defence before building radar

[Peter34]

The problem is, AP Ammo gives 2.5 times as much damage as regular Ammo. That's a huge difference, and is what makes it tempting. Also I don't know of any way to recycle the unused regular Ammo, once I'm able to produce enough AP Ammo.

[DaveMcW]

Unused obsolete equipment is not a problem. If it bothers you so much, put it in a chest and press C.

[Overread]

The problem is, AP Ammo gives 2.5 times as much damage as regular Ammo. That's a huge difference, and is what makes it tempting. Also I don't know of any way to recycle the unused regular Ammo, once I'm able to produce enough AP Ammo.

I tend to just burn through it. Let the guns run out. Getting to AP ammo and producing it isn't too hard is you research and build up for it from the out-set. So I've never really found myself sitting on a vast over-supply of regular ammo. If you are chances are you might be devoting too much time and resources to that area and you want to re-think how things are armed up.

I find I'm generally having a factory produce and then manually re-filling gun-points (or just making in my inventory in a spare moment) until I hit the AP stage; by which point you can start to think about more long-term defence and thus setting up belts and guns and choke-points.

[GoldenredDragon]

My take on early game defense is, build walls. Lots of walls. Two layer thick walls if you can.

And I don't bother with gun turrets. My early bases are usually compact enough that I can get *there* in time for manual defense, while the walls are slowly chipped away.
And something I do too, is wall in my structures, by unit production. Meaning if I have a five assembly machine block for circuit production, with its belts and inserters and all, well that whole 12x12 (approximate) area is walled in, and I use underground belts to get the stuff in and out. And later on gates for myself. Doing this all over the factory (well all over once gates, otherwise navigation is a nightmare) makes it so biters never get far, and they can never directly access something critical.

Also radar, at least one. Lets you check on the pollution levels far away, and see where the attacks are most likely to come.

G.R.D. (But by then, it's usually blue science and laser time for me, so not really early game anymore)

[ssilk]

My take on early game defense is, build walls. Lots of walls. Two layer thick walls if you can.
And I don't bother with gun turrets. My early bases are usually compact enough that I can get *there* in time for manual defense, while the walls are slowly chipped away.

Smart-ass-mode: You should think about that, cause otherwise you permanently loose focus and this costs in the end much more time, than setting up some turrets - especially if you automate the filling of the turrets. In my opinion is placing two lines of walls wasted time, especially from production time view. Much more efficient to place first only one line of wall (or none and instead house in the turrets only), then some turrets (in the beginning it is enough to place just one turret per 10-12 tiles). And when you know from where they are coming, you can place more walls and turrets and begin to automate the filling of the turrets.

And something I do too, is wall in my structures, by unit production. Meaning if I have a five assembly machine block for circuit production, with its belts and inserters and all, well that whole 12x12 (approximate) area is walled in, and I use underground belts to get the stuff in and out. And later on gates for myself. Doing this all over the factory (well all over once gates, otherwise navigation is a nightmare) makes it so biters never get far, and they can never directly access something critical.

This is something I also don't understand. I just put some turrets in. Cause turrets attract biters like magnets. They want to destroy it, before they destroy anything else. It is very seldom, that such turrets are destroyed, cause most biters are wounded from the first wall and the biters are coming one by one.

[Overread]

Because of the larger armoured biters turrets are never a wasted investment. The ammo is, but that can be lost quickly by killing more biters, but the turret itself remains valid and indeed is needed in defence otherwise the bigger biters will cause you trouble if you rely upon laser defence alone.

Your point that manual dealing of biters early is valid - its certainly possible to deal with them early on, but they can be a pain.

I prefer to stick down a handful of turrets along common attack paths and a wall around them too. As said above the biters will not run past them; they'll go right for them so if the turrets are along their common attack path it will soak them all up. This leaves you free to focus on building and working on the factory rather than having to rush back. It also means you can go on a long distance jaunt and not find your base smashed to bits upon return (or have to suddenly invest in building defence when yo uwant to be building something else)

[Peter34]

How can I know (see) which pats the Biters and Spitters have taken to reach my base?

In my most recent game, I'd sometimes find Alien incursions in strange places, like I'd sit there thinking "how did they get to this point, why are they only attacking this built item fairly deep inside my base, having ignored and run past other built items on their way to it?" At one point I placed a four-Gun Turret "cross cluster" right smack dab in the middle of my factory, because that was there the aliens would most often attack me, even though it seemed very, very strange.

Is there some way to see the paths they've taken to get to me? The equivalent of spreading a huge amount of flour on the terrain, so I can see their foot prints? Knowing which spawner nests they come from, and what path they take to reach me, would make the early game a lot easier, in terms of setting up Gun Turret clusters at just the right spot, instead of total guesswork.

[ssilk]

Use debug mode https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... Debug_mode

show_target
show_paths

[faloun]

How can I know (see) which pats the Biters and Spitters have taken to reach my base?

In my most recent game, I'd sometimes find Alien incursions in strange places, like I'd sit there thinking "how did they get to this point, why are they only attacking this built item fairly deep inside my base, having ignored and run past other built items on their way to it?" At one point I placed a four-Gun Turret "cross cluster" right smack dab in the middle of my factory, because that was there the aliens would most often attack me, even though it seemed very, very strange.

Is there some way to see the paths they've taken to get to me? The equivalent of spreading a huge amount of flour on the terrain, so I can see their foot prints? Knowing which spawner nests they come from, and what path they take to reach me, would make the early game a lot easier, in terms of setting up Gun Turret clusters at just the right spot, instead of total guesswork.

Their behavior is to head to the largest source of pollution and destroy it, and they only aggro if they sense pollution, so any colony that's under the pollution cloud is a potential source of them (hit Alt to show pollution on the minimap). Remove all the nests underneath your pollution cloud and you won't be attacked.

If you want to find out the exact path they are taking you need to get some radar dish coverage so you can see individual enemies moving on the minimap. Next time you hear the alarm chime, immediately press M and bring up the map. Usually, the last few stragglers are still moving, so you get a good idea of where they're coming from. From there, trace their steps back to the nearest nest within your pollution cloud, and you're 99% likely to find the source.