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Tower creeping: Inching in on biter bases using your laser towers. Tedious, dull, mining up old lasers and replanting them, over and over, until finally the biters are dead....

Not the same Tower Creep anymore in 9.1!

Try assaulting the biters with laser towers again, but this time, bring a blueprint, a demo plans, a roboport and a couple stacks of contstruction bots!

I have a feel this is gonna HAVE to be nerfed somehow...it is just WAY too easy to run over those poor poor biters! and not boring the way old tower creeping was in 8.8.

Haven't tried this yet but I gues it can get pretty easy.
Workaround for this might be the introduction of flying biters which are exelent in taking down your logistics and builder bots and also damn hard to be hit by laser turets. That would laregly tip the balance back to biters. Maybe even so much that new defense turet should be implemented for player (AntiAir turret ) to restore the proper balacne.

I'm fine with it being easy. To be honest I'd much rather see them add artillery of some kind rather than nerf things so that I can sit safely behind my walls while bombarding the bastards.

So do I as some end game technology. Making it to easy in the beggining makes having biters in game useless.

actually that sounds like a lot of fun compared to tower creeping.

CherryKiss wrote:I have a feel this is gonna HAVE to be nerfed somehow...it is just WAY too easy to run over those poor poor biters! and not boring the way old tower creeping was in 8.8.

Easy nerf: give worms a longer range than turrets. I thought that was already the case, and had based my strategies on it, but apparently I was wrong.

Big worms outrange lasers, but when you build 50 in 2 seconds, the worms don't stand much chance :}

Yeah I just got back from mowing down a few upsized biter bases...especially once you have enough power to continuously fire 100 lasers, you're pretty much unstoppable. I think the only real hurdle is that first initial push out to expand. My next game I'm planning to try out "Death World" with biter base size and richness maxed out...possibly even increase frequency too, not sure yet...literally just cover the planet in red haha. See if it is possible then!

You need an absurd setup to do this and you'll still lose laser turrets to massive nests and big worms. Have you actually used this method or just the concept. I was wondering about it myself, but worried about getting everything set up outside aggro range while still being able to push in the a biter camp.

End-game, I don't even bother dragging laser turrets offensively. Combat shotgun with piercing shells and Power armor MK2 with the right equipment is much easier. Run in to nest, kill spawners with shotgun, run from horde while recharging shield.

It seems they plan to have long range artillery, so tower creeping will become obsolete.

(ps. anyone else notice the railgun under filters).

syneris wrote: End-game, I don't even bother dragging laser turrets offensively. Combat shotgun with piercing shells and Power armor MK2 with the right equipment is much easier. Run in to nest, kill spawners with shotgun, run from horde while recharging shield.

You forgot destroyers <3. Even just 20 of them deal massive damage. Run in, shotgun down the spawners/worms while the destroyers kill everything.

I've used it, big time and lost almost no turrets at all...like I said, when you drop 50 in a batch, nothing much lives long enough to kill a turret, especially when that 50 is backed up by the last 50 you dropped, and maybe the 50 before....

As for "absurd setup"...being able to completely skip military and armor makes up some for having to research to construction bots. But old style tower creeping can accomplish this too, it is just far more dull than going in well armed and ripping stuff up

But I'll admit at this point I'm just goofing off, delaying the win to have fun continuing to research, expand, and destroy those poor aliens. I'll likely get enough military to have my way with the aliens that way, too, but I'm just shocked at how smoothly, and fast, a tower push is with construction bots. Wish I could borrow Mal's recording setup to demonstrate on YouTube

I'm still waiting for a bit of love and appreciation for the humble gun turret that has that whole series of early-to-endgame upgrades.. yet bears no advantage at all against lasers. Logistics won't re-arm them (unless you do a requester chest for everyone), they don't deploy with ammo, twice the size as a laser, consume materials for ammo, and have to contend with biter armor..

But.. yeah, blueprints institutionalize offensive towering as the most effective, least fun aspect of mandatory combat in factorio.

I'd prefer keeping the nests easily destructible. Biters seem like the kind that would rather drown the player in a tide of chitin than evolve a sophisticated answer. Maybe for every nest that is destroyed, 2 more will start attacking the player.

Swadius wrote:I'd prefer keeping the nests easily destructible. Biters seem like the kind that would rather drown the player in a tide of chitin than evolve a sophisticated answer. Maybe for every nest that is destroyed, 2 more will start attacking the player.

Biters 'grow' based on a few factors.
- They will naturally attempt to expand, periodically sending out 'runners' to establish a new base.
- Time played in general, they will grow larger.
- Player tech level (wierdly) will make them grow larger, faster.
- Destruction of nests will cause them to get tougher.
- Having intense levels of pollution can cause rapid mutation. Productivity chips, by this nature, can quickly become the engineer of your own demise.


However, the rapid/instant respawn rate of nest defenders, plagues of worms, and the general feeling that you, the player, should have a hand in their destruction, make most bases unapproachable. Most bases can only be conquered by 'Offensive Towering' and having swarms of bots, especially if there are large worms present. The player himself exists only as a central point and suffers general impotence when it comes to fighting beyond the submachine gun/shotgun phase. At which point, it's all about power armor, stacking exoskeletons, and generally having the bots and towers play the game for you (taking the fun of combat away from the player)

And that's generally on medium/average settings, not even deathworlds.

Zourin wrote:However, the rapid/instant respawn rate of nest defenders, plagues of worms, and the general feeling that you, the player, should have a hand in their destruction, make most bases unapproachable. Most bases can only be conquered by 'Offensive Towering' and having swarms of bots, especially if there are large worms present. The player himself exists only as a central point and suffers general impotence when it comes to fighting beyond the submachine gun/shotgun phase. At which point, it's all about power armor, stacking exoskeletons, and generally having the bots and towers play the game for you (taking the fun of combat away from the player)

And that's generally on medium/average settings, not even deathworlds.

Well said. I would say Offensive Towering OR having swarms of bots...most certainly both are not needed together, and either works well alone, but the rest is spot on. Early game feels fairly satisfying, shooting up a few worms personally rather than having turrets doing everything, and long before bots are even possible...I'd really like to see a combat system where the player was a bit more central, or at least, COULD BE central, without all the automated bots and turrets required in order to kick some biter butt.

Zourin wrote: However, the rapid/instant respawn rate of nest defenders, plagues of worms, and the general feeling that you, the player, should have a hand in their destruction, make most bases unapproachable. Most bases can only be conquered by 'Offensive Towering' and having swarms of bots, especially if there are large worms present. The player himself exists only as a central point and suffers general impotence when it comes to fighting beyond the submachine gun/shotgun phase. At which point, it's all about power armor, stacking exoskeletons, and generally having the bots and towers play the game for you (taking the fun of combat away from the player)

And that's generally on medium/average settings, not even deathworlds.

I don't see a problem with this. He's a puny human against alien dogs with armour so thick it can stop piercing machine gun rounds. He's no space marine. Also, having to use turrets and robots keeps with the theme of a man who doesn't have much power himself. His only purpose here is to build the stuff that ACTUALLY does the work (i.e. the factory). Making you use turrets / bots keeps with that theme. ;p The man himself is somewhat weak, but with his technology helping him, he's deadly.

liq3 wrote:I don't see a problem with this. He's a puny human against alien dogs with armour so thick it can stop piercing machine gun rounds. He's no space marine. Also, having to use turrets and robots keeps with the theme of a man who doesn't have much power himself. His only purpose here is to build the stuff that ACTUALLY does the work (i.e. the factory). Making you use turrets / bots keeps with that theme. ;p The man himself is somewhat weak, but with his technology helping him, he's deadly.

Damn...you're right too... hmm, now I don't know anymore good point though

liq3 wrote: I don't see a problem with this. He's a puny human against alien dogs with armour so thick it can stop piercing machine gun rounds. He's no space marine. Also, having to use turrets and robots keeps with the theme of a man who doesn't have much power himself. His only purpose here is to build the stuff that ACTUALLY does the work (i.e. the factory). Making you use turrets / bots keeps with that theme. ;p The man himself is somewhat weak, but with his technology helping him, he's deadly.

I agree, well said. Combat might be a bit dull at the moment, but it overly fits the theme (and there will be a lot of changes, see the proposals section).

You're all alone, against hordes of though badass Aliens.... well, actually you are the alien, but anyway. You start with next to nothing and use the bit of technology and knowledge you brought with you to survive in a hostile world.

BTW, in all 4 freeplay games (medium settings) i've never once resorted to "Tower Creep". Very early in game combat might be though, so just avoid it until you have the means to fight. Don't overexpand, try to keep pollution down. Don't destroy every forest that happens to be close to your base, rather think of them as shields. When you expand, take biter activity in the area into account. Eliminate small nests with Defenders, Grenades and a simple Shotgun/Machinegun if you have to. Spawn rates of big worms close to the player starting location have been reduced, so most nests, even the medium sized ones are doable once you get modular armor, a single exo and a combat shotgun.

Zourin wrote:

Swadius wrote:I'd prefer keeping the nests easily destructible. Biters seem like the kind that would rather drown the player in a tide of chitin than evolve a sophisticated answer. Maybe for every nest that is destroyed, 2 more will start attacking the player.

Biters 'grow' based on a few factors.
- They will naturally attempt to expand, periodically sending out 'runners' to establish a new base.
- Time played in general, they will grow larger.
- Player tech level (wierdly) will make them grow larger, faster.
- Destruction of nests will cause them to get tougher.
- Having intense levels of pollution can cause rapid mutation. Productivity chips, by this nature, can quickly become the engineer of your own demise.


However, the rapid/instant respawn rate of nest defenders, plagues of worms, and the general feeling that you, the player, should have a hand in their destruction, make most bases unapproachable. Most bases can only be conquered by 'Offensive Towering' and having swarms of bots, especially if there are large worms present. The player himself exists only as a central point and suffers general impotence when it comes to fighting beyond the submachine gun/shotgun phase. At which point, it's all about power armor, stacking exoskeletons, and generally having the bots and towers play the game for you (taking the fun of combat away from the player)

And that's generally on medium/average settings, not even deathworlds.

Did you quote the wrong person ? I don't really see how your post relates to mine.

have a look at my youTube https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=8&t=2560

Construction time would be nice nerf for this. But I think first we need some alternative to offense with towers in mid game, like tanks, artillery and bombers.