midgame nest-killing too hard in 2.0

[mistermeow]

What follows here is an annoying written by a stubborn and annoying me from a week ago.
Please take it with a grain of salt













I understand that spawners were absolutely pathetic in 1.1 and needed a buff, and I don't think the new scaling based on the evo-factor is bad.

However, this leads to a problem in the base game (I wanna be able to quikly set up reliable factories before trying the DLC), namely midgame becoming way too hard.
The one thing that could clear out biters effectively, the tank, was good because its cannon and contact damage could mow through nests. But now it takes three cannon shots or half of your speed for every indivial nest, wich results in either death by lackof ammo, or death by being stranded in the middle of a sea of angry bugs. And I can't even imagine how bad this must be in a death world.

i'd suggest giving spawners lower HP but keeping the scaling

(yes I know i can just spam turrets but how on earth is a new player supposed to figure that out)

[shopt]

Or you could look at the other things they buffed for 2.0. I did and have had very few problems with nests on default settings all the way through midgame.

[Stargateur]

Something very few people use and yet it's OP, USE COMBAT ROBOTS, put a small production, use them you can easily have 30-50 to follow you early (the research is very cheap to increase the max), and they will destroy every bitter for you, while you are in your tank killing nest with canon shell.

Destroyer if you have blue circuit are very very very strong and can take tons of bitter and nest for you.

[shopt]

Yeah combat robots are what I was hinting at in my post.

Everyone wants to copy their 1.1 strats verbatim to 2.0 then when they no longer work, they say it's unbalanced.

[mmmPI]

Can only recommend robots for combat, early to mid game using the one made from red ammo, with the same bonus for damage as the red ammo, getting 20 - 50 , works very well with rocket launcher or poisong capsute to outrange the worms and kill them or the nests while the robots kills the incoming threat.

[mistermeow]

Thanks!

[mistermeow]

Also I wrote this post after getting destroyed by a giant nest cause I needed stone and this world doesn't like spawning stone anywhere.
I still think the scaling should be toned down or exponentially increased in a way to counter the exponential decrease in evo-factor growth.
I was just ranting in the original post but I do think the tank is underpowered now, wich is a bit of a problem for new players who maybe dont want to figure out how combat bots work. They're not complicated or anything and its nice they got buffed but the combat should noit be the hardest part of the game in my opion.

Thanks for sitting through my salty rant .

[shopt]

I wouldn't worry too much about your rant, there have been a few threads like this. I think yours just happened to be the one that put me over the edge into commenting about people expecting their 1.1 strats to work without any changes.

I would argue that the tank is close to fairly balanced now, and was OP in 1.1 for where it was on the tech tree.

Personally if anything was going to be OP, I would want it to be combat bots and artillery, as they are the most "factorio" combat tools IMO. You win with your factory instead of steamrolling with PLD or tank, or using leet stutter-stepping combat skills.

In many ways I think factorio would be better if they reduced the number of combat tools, and the ones left all had clear uses. It seems currently they want to throw in lots of toys, which means there are lots of noob traps. The number of new players who don't set up flamethrower turrets cause they try the crappy handheld or tank-mounted flamethrower first is a shame.

[Tertius]

By the way, the shotgun is as useless as before, regardless of being buffed or not.

[shopt]

I've found the shotgun very useful for bursting down spawners and worms early game. Also here's a video of me goofing around with the supposedly nerfed into uselessness PLD and the apparently still useless combat shotgun at evolution 0.84: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJZmOM8ndR8. (this is not how to do combat correctly, this is just goofing around)

[BlueTemplar]

Yeah combat robots are what I was hinting at in my post.

Everyone wants to copy their 1.1 strats verbatim to 2.0 then when they no longer work, they say it's unbalanced.

Isn't it more like 0.17.0 strats, with Defenders having been buffed in 0.17.46 ?

[Tertius]

I've found the shotgun very useful for bursting down spawners and worms early game. Also here's a video of me goofing around with the supposedly nerfed into uselessness PLD and the apparently still useless combat shotgun at evolution 0.84: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJZmOM8ndR8. (this is not how to do combat correctly, this is just goofing around)

Ok, at that stage of the game I will use (explosive) rockets. They're fine. They're even fun.

About the shotgun, I spoke more of the even earlier game, around the stage where it is usually unlocked (Military 1). At this stage you have heavy armor, no equipment modules (especially no shield), small biters. The worms and the biters will kill you before you get in range to reach them with the shotgun. An occasional medium biter or medium worm is instant death. With the submachine gun and red ammo, you're able to first kill the biters biting you, then attack the worms (or a nest, if you're in spitting range of just one or two worms). In the heat of the combat, the shotgun is just shooting in random directions, pure luck if you hit something, and switching between the two weapons mid-combat is something I'm unable to do. Even with the TAB shortcut, I'm just dead a second later without having shot anything.

[BlueTemplar]

Basic shotgun does require you to be very careful about acid, and so stops working with too many worms (pick them off with the machinegun).
It's better than the machinegun otherwise.

[Vulkandrache]

The Tank of all things?
That thing is unuseable crap with its unwieldy controls.
The first time i tried it i thought my game was broken because it wouldnt fire when clicking.
It took me ages to notice that the turret has to physicaly rotate! Wtf!

The handheld rocketlauncher with explosives is waaay better with just a few upgrades.
Especialy now that the ammo is even more free than it was before.

[BlueTemplar]

Yeah, going back to the main topic of mid-game, something that I just noticed :
not only the tank can now be blueprinted and has logistic requests,
it also now has a 6x8 equipment grid !! Which also gets bigger with higher quality tanks !

[SirSmuggler]

Yeah, going back to the main topic of mid-game, something that I just noticed :
not only the tank can now be blueprinted and has logistic requests,
it also now has a 6x8 equipment grid !! Which also gets bigger with higher quality tanks !

I've allways loved the Tank and the abillity to literaly run over nests and worms with it. To me it allways feelt like it was such a brief period of time where the tank was any good before the biters "outevolved" it. The equipment grid on it has realy helped a lot in that regard. A few shields in it and I can now happily continue using it long ofter the "naked" tank would be usless

[BlueTemplar]

And I guess that health increases with higher quality also helps a lot to keep it relevant for longer ?

Oh, and in SA, at some point I gave up on non-tank, because dealing with fish spoiling was too much of a chore.
But I suspect one of the other planets I haven't seen yet might have a solution to that... (please no spoilers)

[BlueTemplar]

FYI :
https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-427

During one of our playtestings we actually underestimated them a little bit, and were pleasantly surprised when the mid-game nests were giving our tanks some trouble instead of being steam-rolled like before.

(also mentions a buff of (basic?) shotgun shells and a new rebalance of combat robots - looks like defenders haven't been changed... with the other two not having been changed in the previous rebalance ?)

[mistermeow]

I just used combat robots along with the tank (I still like using it) I also complete forgot that I could use armor modules (personal laser, diacharge defense and shield) or that I should get to setting up processing units already (I still haven't done that).

By the way, using both robots and he tank is way more fun than just the tank, so ill shut up now.

[mistermeow]

I wouldn't worry too much about your rant, there have been a few threads like this. I think yours just happened to be the one that put me over the edge into commenting about people expecting their 1.1 strats to work without any changes.

I would argue that the tank is close to fairly balanced now, and was OP in 1.1 for where it was on the tech tree.

Personally if anything was going to be OP, I would want it to be combat bots and artillery, as they are the most "factorio" combat tools IMO. You win with your factory instead of steamrolling with PLD or tank, or using leet stutter-stepping combat skills.

In many ways I think factorio would be better if they reduced the number of combat tools, and the ones left all had clear uses. It seems currently they want to throw in lots of toys, which means there are lots of noob traps. The number of new players who don't set up flamethrower turrets cause they try the crappy handheld or tank-mounted flamethrower first is a shame.

I agree with all that. 1.1 was just: Litterally anything else < gun turret creep < tank < laser turret creep (with research) < spidertron with personal lasers

I've never used turret creep bacause it feels too cheap (for those who don't know turret creep means spamming turrets inside biter nest) and despite how fun the tank and spidertron are, it's nice to have viable alternatives