I can't beat it...

[Drakken]

I have played about 15 or so maps in 1.0 at about the hardest settings that are survivable. Deathworld Marathon, minimum moisture, maximum sand, minimum trees, water only in starting area.

When I was playing 1.8 I was able to survive in 25-33% of these type of maps. Granted, it is a severe struggle, but once I am able to make it to flamethrower turrets, I gain stability. In 1.0, I can't even make it to oil processing before the spitters are taking down my base. Comparing it to my previous saves I am moving faster than ever as well.

I am just curious, did biter/spitter strength or their evolution get bumped up in the last 6-9 months? I didn't play for a while in the run up to 1.0. Thanks in advance for your replies.

I have to say I am loving the challenge but in my last run I wasn't making enough AP ammo with a full yellow belt of iron being converted to steel. That is a lot of ammo.

[DaveMcW]

Comparing it to my previous saves I am moving faster than ever as well.

That is your problem. Moving slowly gives the ground more time to absorb your pollution, resulting in a smaller pollution cloud.

Deathworld is not just about moving fast, it is about minimizing pollution.

Spoiler

Try rushing efficiency modules for -80% pollution in mining drills.

[Drakken]

Since I am playing on an almost all sand map with minimal trees, there is very little absorption of polluion.

In the past, I learned that faster worked better. Perhaps I can try a minimalist base and defend it while slowly advancing through the techs?

Not sure this will work. Since in deathworld marathon it is almost impossible to keep your pollution cloud inside of the ring of biter nests. DW/Mar starts with starting areas shrunk to 75%.

[SirSmuggler]

I am just curious, did biter/spitter strength or their evolution get bumped up in the last 6-9 months? I didn't play for a while in the run up to 1.0.

One thing that comes to mind is that they fixed a bug where biter nests would absorb any amount of pollution, resulting in your pollutiopn cloud effecting fewer bases as the closer ones keept absorbing more than they should. Something like that any way.

[DaveMcW]

The spawner bug was fixed in 18 months ago in the experimental branch and 11 months ago in the stable branch.

[SirSmuggler]

The spawner bug was fixed in 18 months ago in the experimental branch and 11 months ago in the stable branch.

Well... time flys when you play Factorio as the saying goes

[MEOWMI]

The amount of trees nearby makes an enormous difference, that alone can change the course of the run by quite a bit.

Also remember it's not just about whether the cloud reaches, it's about how much. Even the lowest amount of pollution displayed on the map view can still contain a large range of pollution (this depends on distance as well), resulting in anything from tiny to huge attacks.

How much? Well, you'll have to get a feel for it I suppose... I don't really know how to quantify it properly. Looking at the pollution tab in the production statistics will give you an idea though.

[5thHorseman]

Another thing they fixed was collisions in biter hordes. Biters used to attack one by one like in kung fu movies. Now they will attack together, more easily overwhelming defenses.

[MEOWMI]

I forgot about that horde grouping change. That's a far bigger factor than anything I mentioned, on average anyway.

[Drakken]

Yikes it might have been a year since I was playing... Or perhaps a year since I started my last run. Once I got my flamethrower turrets up the fix on the spawners wouldn't really matter. Flamethrowers kill large groups efficiently.

Thank you guys, both the spawner and collision fixes would explain the difference completely and match what I am seeing in game. Even when my base is surrounded with guns and fed AP ammo the turrets still get destroyed by large waves of bugs. If the nests used to collect large amounts of pollution that would be a huge change between versions.

With no dirt, grass, and minimal trees almost all pollution is making it out to the nests. It may be that these settings are practically impossible with that update. In the past if I randomly spawn dirt grass and more trees I don't play the map. I am looking for the toughest challenge that is still possible. However, with these changes I think that pure sand/ low trees everywhere may be more than I can handle now...

As for the going slower method. It is not a good option. However I will actively try and be more efficient and build less burner miner drills to slow the earliest attacks of biters.

At 4 hours into playing a map where I went fast, biter evolution was 58% due to time and 42% due to pollution. Keeping a microbase would just mean that I wouldn't be producing AP ammo in large amounts by the time larger biters arrived. Even though there would be less biters from less pollution, the larger biters are impossible to stop without AP ammo.

I may try a trick where I build up a large base but keep it offline, not functioning, no pollution, until my science reaches a certain level. Then I can make a sudden surge in production and output? Perhaps it may make a difference.

The thing is... on marathon it takes a huge amount of material to advance through the techs and there is literally no way to make all of that stuff without making large amounts of pollution. Especially when you are trying to do this challenge with all steam... I will also try and beeline to the modules and see if I can be more efficient. Thanks again all!!!

[jodokus31]

One thing I want to throw in, because i don't see it mentioned.
Grenades are very effective against large groups and are kind of cheap. One grenade kills all small biters/spitters in range. Problem is, that you have to be present, when the attack arrives. With first Stronger Explosives Research, Medium biters are killed with 2 grenades afaik. Blue biters is a different topic.
Maybe that way you can reduce ammo?

[Drakken]

The grenade advice would certainly work better than me using my repair packs trying to save the guns from being destroyed. However, I will have to get more practice in using them on the fly. The game doesn't exactly play like a first person shooter.

[mmmPI]

If you play with water only in started area, you are missing my favourite item against biters, that works really well alongside grenades,i want to talk about : FISH !

As long as you have a decent armor it allows you to out-heal damage taken by swarms of little biters. It also makes being surrounded and trapped less of a problem, since you can always throw a grenade at your own feet, while eating a fish, and have all the surrounding ennemies die and healing yourself in the process.

maybe using both at the same time early on you could clear a large enough area to get flammer before being overwhelmed.

I usually place grenades as hotkey "1" and fish as hotkey "2" when i need to do this early warfare to make it simple to swap, then i'm tanking the biters myself , instead of having turrets doing it; they cover my back when i retreat out of fish or grenades .

[azesmbog]

I started playing Marathon Death World version 1.0 with default settings. I managed to launch the first rocket in 94 hours. I don't know if it's fast or not, but it's harder to play than a regular game.

[mudcrabempire]

I started playing Marathon Death World version 1.0 with default settings. I managed to launch the first rocket in 94 hours. I don't know if it's fast or not, but it's harder to play than a regular game.

I... hope that it's harder.

I'm an enthusiastic MD player too, but I always use regular terrain. Don't know the border to unbeatable but trees and lakes do help a lot.
One lesson I've found very helpfull is to kill bases before pollution reaches them, instead of turtling. There's a thread containing a discussion about that somewhere, but basically, killing bases lifts a lot of strain from your factory (especially the ammo department ), and that can allow you to survive long enough to tech up until you can handle the biters.
You can place small turret camps to prevent biters from expanding into cleared area and once you've got the tech, production and resources you can set up a proper border and turtle again. It's just to survive the early-/midgame.
I'm not sure though how effective it is in deserts. Probably still worth trying though.

[ostlandr]

Wow, and I have enough trouble with biters on the regular settings.

I hadn't played Factorio in a while, then started back with 0.18. Biters got smarter and tougher. I actually "lost" my first game of Factorio- was playing with regular resources with biters on aggressive, and ended up exhausting my starting resources defending the base and didn't have enough iron left to expand to an outpost.

I usually play with biters on peaceful, but the "Bob's Enemies" mod offers a neat compromise. The natives just want to be left alone- until you try to take their land. Build a mining outpost on their territory, they'll destroy it. As Bugs Bunny often said, "Of course you know, this means war."

And if you feel really lonely, the "AAI Programmable Vehicles" mod gives you mechanical minions. You can go up against a biter base leading a platoon of fighting vehicles for a great RTS feel rather than FPS/Survival Horror.

[Brent Rine]

And if you feel really lonely, the "AAI Programmable Vehicles" mod gives you mechanical minions. You can go up against a biter base leading a platoon of fighting vehicles for a great RTS feel rather than FPS/Survival Horror.

Or if you feel like sticking with vanilla, try combat robots. upgrade kinetic weaponry though. But if you run in circles around the base you can dodge the acid pools.

[Drakken]

Some good advice has been given. However, most of it is not possible to use since I can't even make it past oil processing.

I also am trying to do this challenge without robots, lasers, or solar power. But those "self limitations" don't really matter in this challenge since the real problem is just surviving until I can get to flamethrower turrets. Flamethrower turrets can be obtained well before all of those technologies. Flamethrower turrets make all the difference in stopping large waves of bugs.

Here is the problem. An all sand map absorbs almost no pollution at all compared to dirt. The lack of trees and grass really does result in almost all pollution spreading out on the map. I have tested the early game... only building a dozen or so burner miners and furnaces with a small one boiler electric setup and doing research manually. Even with this minimal setup the pollution just keeps creeping further and further on the map. The pollution cloud always reaches to the closest spawners and starts triggering the waves of biters. In the mean time the bugs evolve anyway because the deathworld time evolution factor is rough to say the least. The key is to make it to flamethrower turrets before "evolution" causes the spitters to overwhelm the defenses.

Playing slower and more efficiently is not a viable option. I do minimize pollution as best I can. I already tear down all burner miners in the first 25 minutes. There is no more efficient way to produce resources except electric miners and furnaces early in the game. I can't be more efficient until modules and I can't get that far before being overwhelmed. So my efficiency at this point is pretty much maximized.

On marathon the cost of every item is high and to produce a potion/machine/inserter/machine/ammo etc. all has a certain very specific pollution cost to make. Every tech also has a pollution cost that drives the evolution factor up. I am trying to only research the absolutely necessary technologies to get to oil and flamethrower turrets. I am not sure all players know this, but the evolution factor is driven by all of the pollution produced. How much is absorbed by the terrain or spawners does not matter.

Since the pollution you need to make in order to research up to flamethrower turrets is fixed the only way to decrease the "evolution" is to make less other stuff or go faster.

On my latest run I have been moving the fastest I have ever gone while also having a high output of AP ammo to try and survive. My current evoltuion factor is .26 of which 58% is due to time and 42% due to pollution. I have 24 steel forges (a full yellow belt of iron plates) making steel exclusively for ammo. I am at 3:45 into the game and almost have oil processing done. However, spitters have started to arrive. While I have my early turret defenses on all sides, I only have self feeding turrets surrounding half of my base at this point.

Even when self feeding gun turrets are fully up the large groups of spitters usually kill a few turrets with each wave. It becomes a game of whack a mole trying to repair defenses while still expanding the factory. I have not gotten to military potions once yet on version 1.0. I currently am about 3 techs and military potion infrastructure short of making it to flamethrower turrets. Then I would also have to be able to build and install them around my base.

Since I do not allow myself to play a lucky spawn of a map with more dirt and greenery, It very well may be that this "all sand, minimal grass, water, and trees" type of map on Deathworld/Marathon is not possible to survive on. I will struggle on and finish this attempt but I am doubting I can really go any faster at this point. As it is, I shaved about 25 minutes off of previous attempts to get to oil processing while having a similar level of factory infrastructure built.

I do not want to give up... But those fixes that came out in .17 and .18 really upped the difficulty of the game!

[Koub]

Here is the problem. An all sand map absorbs almost no pollution at all compared to dirt.

This is untrue :

Code: Select all

Tile	           Pollution per second
Grass 1-4	   -0.0000075
Dirt 1-7, dry dir  -0.0000066
Sand 1-3	   -0.0000058
Red desert 0-3	   -0.0000066

Source

The only very determining factor is the absence of trees.

I'm far from being able to give advice for such hard settings, but how much of this time and pollution based evolution is the consequence of you definding against the biters attracted by the pollution caused by your military production ?

[jodokus31]

I recently started a Deathworld Marathon default settings in desertlike environment. I'm 5 hours in, evolution is at 40% and I'm not yet at oil, but have mil science and bullet damage 3 (The one with 1200 mil science.) Not sure, if i can survive.
I have to say, those spitters are really nasty, and I lost almost 1 turret per attack. I hope bullet damage 3 will help here.

Do you clear any bases?
I find it very helpful to clear bases, which send big waves every x minutes, to relieve ammo production and to reduce wave sizes. I'm not sure, if the evolution increase is worth it, though

Do you research bullet damage or do you go straight to red bullets?
I think normal bullets are ok-ish against medium biters, with bullet damage 2 (Although its 800 red/green in marathon). Ok, depends on the size of waves, which can be reduced by clearing near bases.
Red bullets are also extra expensive in marathon, because of 1 steel from 10 plates and they seems to be a waste against small biters/spitters.

And did I mention grenades?

Good luck!
(I think, I have to try these settings myself...)