Factorio Forums

I've got a rocket launcher and a submachine gun. The tips for the level say to make weapons (and, presumably, ammo) quickly to attack the enemy bases.

I can get into the first small base by slowly building an advancing line of gun turrets (is there a faster way to do this than having the turret on hotkey 1 and ammo on hotkey 2, then ctrl-clicking the ammo into each placed turret?). I can build assemblers to make more smg ammo or rockets. But then I'm basically stuck. I can get within sight of the first enemy base to the southeast, but then wave after wave of enemies eventually overruns me. I can get within rocket range of the enemy spitter-turret-things, but I can't actually shoot them because my rockets always go after closer mobile enemies. I can't get close enough with advancing turrets before the waves or the enemy turrets kill me.

What should I be doing at this point? Have I missed something critical? Should I ignore the tips and try to do research, instead? I can see from the wiki and some other forum threads that there are all sorts of things that might help here, like more advanced weapons, armor, modules, upgrades, etc.

I died on that level SO many times.

Defender capsules was the key for me. Spam a ton of those and the SE base is far, far easier. In my successful run I did not bother with any sort of base at all, crafting only more defender capsules by hand. I made some use of the turrets as well, but it was mainly the capsules that carried the day.

A couple other things that might get you stuck using defender capsules: Use the hotbar and number key to deploy capsules, by having the mouse near your person, and press the number of the hotbar hotkey. Also, your defender capsules may destroy the spaceship that carries the computer (this might already be fixed in 9.0, not sure) just be careful not to let your defenders get TOO close to that far corner.

Finally, there is at least one way to avoid the hard fight and get the computer, but I won't say how here, as it seems like kind of a level wrecking strategy but like most things in factorio, there is more than one solution to reaching most goals!

Good luck!

Thanks, someone on IRC also pointed out this strategy. I had no idea what defender capsules were or how to use them, previously.

That should probably go in the tips/popups for the level.