Factorio Forums

nzer wrote: Sat Mar 14, 2026 12:13 am No, I understood the context. Spotting an expansion party allows you to kill it before it creates a new nest or eats anything.

That's unreliable, the biters can decide to settle just 1 second or like 3 tiles after entering radar range, leaving you in practice no time to intervene, that makes even less sense to claim you can intervene before they nest to me.

Certainly not "almost always".

nzer wrote: Fri Mar 13, 2026 11:56 pm You can almost always spot the expansion party or new nest in the radar range before they've actually done anything.

No, at least attacking party you can make sure they will cover a certain distance before firing by keeping a large revealed area around your defenses. But if you have more than a couple radar, and the one north ring a bell when you're fiddling in the south, even attacking party will have ample time to do damage before you can react in my experience.

Anyway you can try for yourself using a speaker connected to the combinators of the previously linked mod.

mmmPI wrote: Sat Mar 14, 2026 12:30 amthe biters can decide to settle just 1 second or like 3 tiles after entering radar range, leaving you in practice no time to intervene

A freshly formed nest that hasn't yet sent out attackers is an excellent time to intervene and a perfect example of why this kind of thing would be useful.

mmmPI wrote: Sat Mar 14, 2026 12:30 amNo, at least attacking party you can make sure they will cover a certain distance before firing by keeping a large revealed area around your defenses. But if you have more than a couple radar, and the one north ring a bell when you're fiddling in the south, even attacking party will have ample time to do damage before you can react in my experience.

That doesn't matter. The attacking party is by no means guaranteed to hit one of your radars on the way in, so it's still entirely possible for them to be detected far enough in advance for you to reduce the damage the inflict. And that's literally the worst possible scenario for a feature like this; if instead you happen to be on the same side of the factory already, or if it's an expansion party rather than an attacking party, early detection is useful.

Regardless, I don't think you'd use something like this to detect biters that are already deep inside your pollution cloud. I think you'd primarily use it to detect new nests close to the edge of the cloud.

nzer wrote: Sat Mar 14, 2026 12:13 am No, I understood the context. Spotting an expansion party allows you to kill it before it creates a new nest or eats anything.

nzer wrote: Fri Mar 13, 2026 11:56 pm You can almost always spot the expansion party or new nest in the radar range before they've actually done anything.

nzer wrote: Sat Mar 14, 2026 6:28 am A freshly formed nest that hasn't yet sent out attackers is an excellent time to intervene and a perfect example of why this kind of thing would be useful.

I understand you want to bring in some contradiction on this thread but it appears stubborn and disconnected from logic to me. Which one is it ? you kill nest before they settle or not ?

In my experience it's a noob trap to try and manually do what the artillery are for before you unlock them.

And what's wrong with using the mod then ?

mmmPI wrote: Sat Mar 14, 2026 12:02 pmI understand you want to bring in some contradiction on this thread but it appears stubborn and disconnected from logic to me. Which one is it ? you kill nest before they settle or not ?

None of those statements are mutually exclusive. You can often spot an expansion party before it creates a nest. You can also spot it as it's creating a nest or shortly after, which is an excellent time to intervene before it sends an attacking party. You're being overly pedantic, presumably to avoid acknowledging that this could actually be a useful feature.

mmmPI wrote: Sat Mar 14, 2026 12:02 pmAnd what's wrong with using the mod then ?

There's nothing wrong with the mod. I'm disagreeing with your claim that the behavior itself isn't useful.

nzer wrote: Sat Mar 14, 2026 12:13 am No, I understood the context.

Clearly you didn't x) You now talk about spotting new nest when the context was mitigating damage from attacking party. Over the course of your different intervention you slitghly changed the claim and now it's unrelated to the sentence you quoted.

nzer wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2026 10:20 pm There's nothing wrong with the mod. I'm disagreeing with your claim that the behavior itself isn't useful.

And you explained why which i told you wasn't convincing for me, namely you mention a different situation than Khagan, you describe hunting new nest when they show up, which is what the artillery does best, it was also pointed by Rseding, i don't see anything new or useful you are adding. Sorry if you think it's pedantic, but i have to insist you misunderstood the context of the sentence you quoted initially, and none of the argument you've been adressing to me are in any way convincing me. It's like a noob trap what you describing to me, where you make the game prompt you for manual action, when instead you should automate as much as you can the defense. You can have the opinion that it is useful, that your own right, but i can guarantee you that telling it to me repeatdly isn't. ^^

nzer wrote: Fri Mar 13, 2026 11:56 pm You can almost always spot the expansion party or new nest in the radar range before they've actually done anything.

No, that makes no sense as an argument to justify your opinion for me. It's just plain wrong.

If you have a picture of a map view at the stage when you think you would use the radar alert to inform you that you have to manually go and clean a nest and think it's useful feel free to illustrate

nzer wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2026 10:20 pm You're being overly pedantic, presumably to avoid acknowledging that this could actually be a useful feature.

lol no, i played more than twice 5000 hours there are stuff that i stopped doing because it's bad, tedious, useless, or noob trap for some, and here we have one imo, you can try with the mod if you think it's useful, but even those that created it explain in their usecase something unrelated to your arguments, namely it's mentionned to trigger artillery train departure or switch off laser turrets, stuff that are automated actions, not manually going to clean a nest. If i thought it was a useful feature the way you describe it i would say so, that would have been better received than my actual answer, but that's not what i think and i'm not going to pretend.

mmmPI wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2026 10:37 pmYou now talk about spotting new nest when the context was mitigating damage from attacking party.

Nothing the other poster said is specifically about an attacking party rather than an expansion party. They talked about biters entering the factory, and eventually doing damage. That happens in both cases. And it doesn't matter anyway, because the suggestion that discovering an attacking party at the edge of your pollution cloud is no better than discovering it once it's reached your factory is patently absurd. In an early- to mid-game factory you can easily cover most of the factory's breadth with a car in the ~15 seconds of early warning that gives you.

mmmPI wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2026 10:37 pmIt's like a noob trap what you describing to me, where you make the game prompt you for manual action, when instead you should automate as much as you can the defense.

Automating defense in the early- to mid-game is an enormous waste of time.

mmmPI wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2026 10:37 pmIf you have a picture of a map view at the stage when you think you would use the radar alert to inform you that you have to manually go and clean a nest and think it's useful feel free to illustrate

Literally any factory where you have radar coverage at the edge of the pollution cloud.

mmmPI wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2026 10:37 pmlol no, i played more than twice 5000 hours

We all have thousands of hours here, bud. If you think it takes 10000 hours to form a valid opinion on something like this, I would say that damages your credibility more than your playtime helps it.

nzer wrote: Sat Mar 21, 2026 2:01 am Nothing the other poster said is specifically about an attacking party rather than an expansion party.

I am fairly confident about the meaning of the sentence i wrote and that you quoted when you started what i feel is a pointless argument and i when i say you are talking about something different , you develop an argument that i believe is incorrect, but also not the context of the sentence you quoted.

nzer wrote: Sat Mar 21, 2026 2:01 am In an early- to mid-game factory you can easily cover most of the factory's breadth with a car in the ~15 seconds of early warning that gives you.

You keep repeating that which isn't true, it is possible biters nest right at the same moment as they enter the radar range, and at 3 differnt location at the same time.

And even if you could realiably expect to do kill nest as alerts pops, you'd turn yourself into a wack-a-mole player instead of a factorio player imo.

nzer wrote: Sat Mar 21, 2026 2:01 am

mmmPI wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2026 10:37 pmIf you have a picture of a map view at the stage when you think you would use the radar alert to inform you that you have to manually go and clean a nest and think it's useful feel free to illustrate

Literally any factory where you have radar coverage at the edge of the pollution cloud.

That isn't useful to illustrate what you consider a factory in a early game stage when you feel the suggestion would shine.

nzer wrote: Sat Mar 21, 2026 2:01 am We all have thousands of hours here, bud. If you think it takes 10000 hours to form a valid opinion on something like this, I would say that damages your credibility more than your playtime helps it.

interesting how you started to add personnal attacks at the end of each message, tells a lot about what you seek on the forum

mmmPI wrote: Sat Mar 21, 2026 4:03 amI am fairly confident about the meaning of the sentence i wrote and that you quoted when you started what i feel is a pointless argument and i when i say you are talking about something different , you develop an argument that i believe is incorrect, but also not the context of the sentence you quoted.

Like I said before, I'm fairly confident you're just being pedantic. OP suggested a feature for radars that you argued against, I'm arguing for why I think it could actually be useful. That's how conversation works. You're welcome to stop responding if you're not feeling it, no one's forcing you to post.

mmmPI wrote: Sat Mar 21, 2026 4:03 amYou keep repeating that which isn't true, it is possible biters nest right at the same moment as they enter the radar range, and at 3 differnt location at the same time.

And even if you could realiably expect to do kill nest as alerts pops, you'd turn yourself into a wack-a-mole player instead of a factorio player imo.

Catching fresh nests before they've had a chance to spawn attacking parties isn't a problem, it's exactly what you want this kind of feature for.

And pre-artillery, basically any degree of static defense isn't worth the time it takes to set up. Your pollution cloud isn't big enough to justify it compared to taking five minutes every hour to go kill one or two nests.

mmmPI wrote: Sat Mar 21, 2026 4:03 amThat isn't useful to illustrate what you consider a factory in a early game stage when you feel the suggestion would shine.

I'm not hunting down a screenshot for you. You know what an early game factory looks like.

mmmPI wrote: Sat Mar 21, 2026 4:03 am interesting how you started to add personnal attacks at the end of each message, tells a lot about what you seek on the forum

Literally the first thing you said to me was "I don't think you understood the conversation." Then you accused me of wanting to be contradictory and called me stubborn and disconnected from logic. And you straight up "lol no"d me in the quote my "personal attack" was responding to. Sit down and chill out.

If you don't want me to comment on your use of playtime as an argument, don't try to use it as an argument.

nzer wrote: Sat Mar 21, 2026 5:37 am Literally the first thing you said to me was "I don't think you understood the conversation." Then you accused me of wanting to be contradictory and called me stubborn and disconnected from logic. And you straight up "lol no"d me in the quote my "personal attack" was responding to. Sit down and chill out.

it does appear that you missed the point i wanted to make in the quoted sentence when you said you disagree with it what else can i say ? It's still the case that you appear not understanding the argumentation.

nzer wrote: Sat Mar 21, 2026 5:37 am I'm not hunting down a screenshot for you. You know what an early game factory looks like.

Yeah i know how mine look like, but people play differently, in my save game it would be like playing a whack a mole game, so it feels what you suggest is a noob trap, wasting time to kill nest that can and will respawn , and making the game spam alerts for this ? hell no , even in the mod that implement what you are talking about it's not used for this purpose but rather explained that is meant to trigger automatic actions, not calling the player for endlessly removing new nests manually, it would have given as mentionned an idea of when you think it's "early-game" and be a example for your argument if there was such situation.