Factorio Forums

I am a decent way into the game. After realizing how comvoluted my factory set up was and realizing i needed much more copper i moved a little north from my starting area to a large clearing with huge iron and copper deposits nearby. I set up my factry in a more systematic way so i could easily expand any production by using a branching tree system. I noticed that there was a large biter base (5 spawners) directly north of me as well as a couple to the east and very very far down south there was a bunch of large worms as well as a bunch of spawners. I noticed my pollution was getting close to the spawners on the north and east, so before it could reach them i suited up in heavy armor (i dont have access to anything better) and piercing rounds with level 1 damage and level 2 shooting speed and set off with my submachine gun. I drove east and took out a couple fairly easily and then recouped in my base and (after a couple attempts) took out the 5 north of me. I thought this would allow me to put down many more assemblers so i could continue with my factory which i have been rebuilding.

Unfortunately this was not the case, i set up some assemblers for electric inserters so i could make my green science but when i was setting them up i noticed that i was being attacked by biters! They came from the very far south bases apparently. Now i have no idea what to do, i reloaded to a save right before i started settiing up my assemblers for electric inserters and don't know how to continue without being attacked.... I would normally just drive down there and take them out but there are too many big worms protecting them and my machine gun is basically useless against them (because their attacks are so strong and kill me almost instantly), I dont have access to enough technology to defend myself or kill them and if i try to continue to build and research more they will come!

Surround your base with walls and gun turrets.

Early on, even a few gun turrets alone might do. I find it more time consuming to have the walls built (especially since you will easily need 3-400 for even a moderately sized base) than a dozen turrets and ammo.

I have access to the basic gun turrets but haven't built any because i didn't know how effective they were, i dont know their range or how quickly they can take down a biter,I will test some. Walls seem very expensive for how little ground they cover. Are they actually effective at keeping out biters?

You have to use them in conjunction with each other. Double thick walls can hold off swarms of biters in groups of 30, while gun turrets take them out.

Walls are expensive, but what else do you have to spend that stone on?

As far as early wall use, I lean towards small bunches of turrets surrounded by a 1 unit thick wall. It won't be long into the early game when you will want to expand and removing walls by hand is a pain. Besides, biters bee-line towards turrets.

I'm not sure exactly how far into the game you actually are, but if you are still only dealing with small biters, and not medium ones yet (you can tell by clicking on one which it is), then a few guns turrets with a 1 thick wall in front of them (doesn't even have to surround them) in the main attack area will be sufficient. Gun turrets even without upgrades take out small biters quite quickly.

There is a trick here - biters (as well as you) can 'bite' over the wall. So placing a gun surrounded by a wall is a bad idea. You need at least 1 empty space between the gun and the wall in each direction.

When the things get nasty (with biters increasing in numbers and sizes) - you`ll have to get some more advanced defenses (like mines at specifically created bottlenecks or lots of laser turrets behind a spaced 3-row thick wall or a defense fort with a wide field of wooden chests that biters will usually try to eat first).