Deathworld Marathon: Great game

[quyxkh]

I think they're ceding the hardcore-combat terrain to mods, specifically https://mods.factorio.com/mod/RampantFixed — which isn't a bad thing, there will always be a boundary between base-game territory and where you can get if you keep pushing one direction or another, that's why mods exist at all.

[angramania]

But this is sort of cheesing the difficulty by stacking the map so far in your favor, and that leaves a bad taste in my mouth, especially since it's supposed to be a challenge mode.

I guess I should view it more like ribbon world, where you have to reroll maps simply because your starter ore patches spawned off-map. But still I feel like the line between "workaround for a technical limitation of map creation" and "playing your challenge settings on easy mode" is way too blurry in the case of deathworld.

Even with default preset it is possible to get nest on your starting iron patch. And this start will be harder than average DW/DWM. So is it challenge of mode or challenge of bad RNG?
From my point of view, cheesing is when you reroll dozens seeds to get ideal starting map. But not when you was just unlucky to get a very bad seed on the first roll. Average start on DW/DWM doesn't require limiting self to a few drills or manual mining. This should happen only for extreme starts like 600%/600% nests and 17% starting area size.

[BlueTemplar]

Oh yeah, is this still possible in 2.0 ?


Starting in heavy forest is such a different experience than starting in the desert that for the intended experience I suggest doing Escape => Restart until you see that the starting ores are half in both biomes.

DW Marathon was balanced around 1.1 expensive recipes which don't exist anymore in 2.0. Due to this, DW Marathon was the hardest difficulty in 1.1 but is it possible easier than DW in 2.0.

Yeah it's a crapshow I know, that's why I play 1.1.

I agree with OP too! I find DW marathon is much better for exploring early-mid game strategy / content.

Why bother learning mid-game tech if they will be replaced by late-game tech soon anyways? But personally, reaching the late game feels like having already exhausted the game content. My sweet spot is in the mid-game, where progression is not just numbers but unlocking the next shiny object, or even just that 10 extra inventory slots that I paid in blood and bottles. Normal settings don't give me enough time to experiment with various options before they become obsolete.

I only play 1.1 due to expensive recipes as a disclaimer, but I think the idea is the same.

Yeah, also note that before 0.17.60 it was just Death World + Marathon, so might even consider going back to 0.17.59 for the « classic » experience !

Or otherwise could also use the above-mentioned Expensive Mode mod, which also works not just with 2.0, but even with Space Age too !

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After all, default settings are intended for first time players, so Wube has to keep biters quite tame, even with the pollution feedback.

I started a deathworld marathon recently and am enjoying it.

The weird thing is that I've built fewer defenses than any vanilla playthrough I've ever done. I suppose the map helps, but playing "don't let pollution reach the nests" style is a real gamechanger.

Also, I finally appreciate rocket launchers now. Having both the slower pace and the urgency to clear out large nests with big worms/biters put me in a situation where the massive range really matters. Waiting for a tank to brute force my way through would have taken too long. (and now that I have a tank, I'm still playing with rocket launchers to get a better feel for them)

Also, I think I've figured out the handheld flamethrower. In the past I kept trying to use them as an offensive option, but I suppose they're only really useful for clearing out the retaliatory waves after you've used some other weapon to attack nests/worms?

That said, I wish there was something to do with the pacing of the start of the game. Not being able to run more than a couple of burner miners (and sometimes not even full-time) because you'll provoke an overwhelming attack before you can even do research is a really harsh limitation, and is the thing that usually turns me away from starting deathworld games.

Yeah, I'm playing not quite vanilla DWM, but Loup's Guide to the Galaxy (with Lignumis) Death World with for resources 50% Frequency, 50% Size, 50% Richness and 8x Science costs...
(and flame turrets forbidden, though I guess I could authorise myself hand- & tank- held flamethrowers...)

and I'm just currently in the process of researching rockets to hopefully clear a few forest & cliff-entrenched nests just as evolution on Nauvis is about to hit 83% !

[ProMeTheus112]

Oh yeah, is this still possible in 2.0 ?

Yes it's possible. And now in 2.1.7/2.1.8, biters expansions early on are massive : D it's quite a bit harder in that sense. They instead don't seem to re-expand where they have previously expanded as much. But the size of expansions is like easily x4 or x5 even early on.

[ProMeTheus112]

Actually DWM is a lot harder in 2.1.7+ now, isn't it ? Biters expand big, and they do attempt to come back in cleared areas, at least.. some of them, repeatedly. They are hard to stop as they are much bigger groups and begin creating spawners faster, and create 20 spawner bases close to your bases even in the quite early game. I suspect in default settings, now you have to engage with biters much more before you can win even a vanilla game which must be nice. And DWM is just more challenging as securing a new area is harder, threats on an established base or on your starter base are higher, establishing a defended perimeter on a large area like I was doing in previous games is harder now because you have to stop much bigger expanding groups. Feels good tbh, you have to invest more seriously into military stuff I suppose.

[radical_larry]

I'm playing a 10x science in a desert, no trees/water run. Honestly it feels like that's what the game was always intended to be.
Essential tech doesn't take so long that biters out-evolve you. Chunk pollution shenanigans are irrelevant because there's no trees to absorb pollution and sand tiles barely do anything. No hiding behind lakes from the biters or doing landfill islands later on. 10x science also seems like the sweet spot where you can't really half-ass your setup to limp along, but you also don't need to build unreasonably big before construction bots. A regular starter base will do the job. You also don't get into that weird spot where you're not done yet with the next science setup with nothing useful left to research and do whatever is left to remove it from the list.
The new changes to biter expansion feel really good as far as I can tell.