Factorio Forums

I've been playing the game since it released several times, and I keep having the same annoyances when it comes to the combat in the mid-late game.

Simply put, destroying larger biter nests before rushing to Laser Modules, Spidertron or Artillery is an utter slog. Even with Modular Armor or Power Armor with several shields in it, a handful of Big enemies kill me in seconds as Biters surround me and Spitters bombard me. I can't use the Tank against anything but the smaller biter nests, because its too slow to avoid the acid of Worms and Spitters and once it gets tagged and slowed they all pile on and it goes down in seconds. Slowdown capsules are handy in niche situations, but they only slow the enemies coming at me now, not the next wave that's spawning, and they don't stop the worms.

For clearing nests, I fall into a pattern of "run in, chuck poison capsules at the nearest cluster of Worms" or if the nests are closers, "use the rocket launcher to destroy one or two nests". Either way the next step is "run away as the enemy rushes out because as previously mentioned, I can't stand my ground". Rinse and repeat over and over and over until the nest is finally cleared. It regularly takes me more than half an hour, sometimes up to an hour, to clear one big nest, and I have to savescum it because a handful of Big Big enemies can swarm and slaughter me in a few seconds.

It's dull and tedious and takes a lot of time, but I don't know what else to do. The submachine gun is way too weak without multiple upgrades and only deals scratch damage to Big Biters, the Shotgun is useless against normal enemies, it takes several Grenades to kill Big enemies when it's easier and more efficient to shoot a quick spurt from the flamethrower and let the fire kill them. Explosive Shells from the tank are effective, but the tank itself is still slow and easily overwhelmed. Explosive Rockets are nice but slow to fire and deal splash damage to me, so they're risky when a lot of enemies are surrounding me.

Am I doing something wrong? I don't feel like larger nests with Big enemies are meant to be impenetrable strongholds I have to whittle down over an hour of real time until I get the end-game tech, but I don't know how else to tackle them.

- Turret Creep won't work, as I said ballistic damage is pathetic without multiple upgrades
- I'll give capsules a try but I dunno if they'll make THAT big a difference
- Land Mines take a moment to burrow so I can't do it offensively, but I'll try pre-laying them to speed up destroying the retaliation waves

Turret creep is done with enough turrets to get overwhelming firepower. If 20 turrets aren't enough then you are behind on your mil tech though.

Distractors do just that, send them in in front of you so they target them first, and keep spamming them out. And let destroyers and turrets and land mines work on them while they are distracted.

You can lay down hundreds of landmines very fast, they can't destroy them all before they get armed. Spam mines faster, bring thousands. They are cheap to produce. And when the enemy is stunned you just plant more around them and around the enemy base. They won't be able to take a step without getting stunlocked and taking like 3 more mine explosions every time. Easily deals with behemoths. Land mines are like distractors with how they distract the enemy, deals more damage than anything else and like slowdown capsules with how they restrict movement. And unlike capsules they are cheap and have no cooldown so they are ultra powerful if you just spam an insane amount of them.

There was good advices already, but i would add flamethrower !

When you run around the big nest in circle, you throw poison capsule at max range to kill the worms, and use the flamethrower to spit some fire on the spawner.

When the nest is finished and there is only a swarm of them running, you can fire while running backward at those following you.

Depending on your upgrade the cheap "defender capsule" can be very strong too, if you have researched physical damage and robot follower count, having a swarm of them constantly following you while doing that running in circle thingy adds a lot of damage of a third type ( after poison and fire ).

You need enough legs to outrun the biters, shield are not very strong when you are stuck in acid, legs is the way to survive, and personnal laser defense can help too, very strong mid--late game, but require laser upgrade. (

In late game depending on ennemy density , instead of flamethrower, one can use the explosive rockets, not the regular one as they do not have AoE, and even the atomic bomb as ammo for manual combat, but at this stage artillery train can do the job too, if you slowly creep with it, and protect it with strong defense , less risk of auto-kill

Trying out mines offensively, never made much use of them in general, and WOW yeah, they're amazing! Definitely gonna bring a few thousand with me on future expeditions

And if you can't stand biters altogether, you can disable them at map generation (or through map editor in a running map). There are a few settings about enemies that might ease them up.

About fighting with the tank. If you have a personal roboport equipped, construction robots and repair packs in your inventory, the tank is being repaired even during battle. It's a bit expensive, because the bots get eliminated slowly, but usually it helps to kill off one enemy location of nests and worms. Biters following you can be shot by running away and firing backwards.
I set a bunch of gun turrets just outside of the aggro range, then aggro some enemies and try to strip them off there, then again focus on nests but being careful to not drive through any remaining acid puddles. As long as you manage to avoid acid puddles, the tank is faster than any enemy.
Then go straight for the nests and worms, ignore biters and spitters, because biters and spitters respawn as soon as you kill them.

By far the easiest way I've discovered is rocket launcher by hand with a wall of turrets at your back just outside of worm range. Jiggle back and forth to prevent worms and spitters from hitting you while the turrets kill the melee biters. Don't attack biters at all and fall back to turret coverage if you take too many hits.

Overwhelming spam of defender capsules works too.

Mid-game I find the tank with defender and poison capsules does the job fine. Drive rapidly towards one edge (tangentially) of the nest, throwing out a few defenders. The defenders' job is mainly to keep the mobile bugs (biters and spitters) off your back. If you are really keen you can lob a cannon shell or two at worms or spawners as you approach, but I rarely bother. As you go past the nest, toss a couple of poison capsules at the worms, then open the range as fast as possible. Repeat. There should now be sufficiently few worms that you can simply crush them and the spawners beneath the bronze-shod wheels of your chariot treads of your tank. A roboport in modular armour helps with running repairs on the tank.

Late game things don't change much. The poison capsules are gradually left behind in the arms race, but the defenders get better and are now supplemented by a bunch of personal defence lasers in your power armour.

(Infinite game is of course totally different: multiple spiders with auto-firing chain rocket-launchers rapidly make mincemeat of even the largest bug cities.)