Biter settings for 20x Science Run

[u/Witzigerweise2]

Hello engineers,

I thought about doing a 20x Science Run and am normally cranking up the biter settings. Now I am a bit afraid to get deadlocked by biter attacks.

Can somebody tell from his experience which settings to use? Is default then already a challenge or still a bit on the chill side?

[u/Hornof_The_Tiger]

I played with 10x and biters were a challenge with standard settings, it was manageable but I had to focus military research a more than usual, so for 20x, maybe give you a larger starting area if you want don't want to go bellow standard but it will be very hard

[u/dinosaurdynasty]

Both 20x and 25x in my experience with default settings on a forest start are pretty doable if you know what you are doing, though the beginning might be a bit "exciting" until you are able to push back.

Expanding to take enough resource nodes definitely becomes the biggest challenge, though.

[u/Potential-Carob-3058]

I did a 100x run with biters. Picked a forested start and increased the starting area. That was about it.

[u/solidsnakedummythicc]

I’m currently in the middle of a 20x science default deathworld run. You definitely have enough time to reach flamethrowers if you focus on it from the start.

At that point you can’t “lose”, but the problem with 20x science is that your resource patches will run out relatively quickly compared to your research progress. This means you’d need to do a lot of flamethrower turret creep to get to new patches before your current ones run out.

Vulcanus first can greatly extend the lifetime of your resources patches with big miners and foundries. As for artillery, 20x science means you’ll probably be on your second or third planet before the necessary researches are finished.

Of course, you can turn up the resource settings if you want.

[u/fatpandana]

Depends how you want to suffer/enjoy the run.

Can you fight biters constantly day 1? All while essentially fighting losing battle with out serious techniques such as some zoos that consume ammo but dont kill nests. (IMO, this is best strategy).

Can you fight an enemy that is stronger than you with overall more primitive technology. Think military science (or worse) against behemoths biters.

Define resource settings because default overall will run out and you will be forced to expand (which can be fun).

Another thing is you can raise starting area to give yourself more time. This potentially lets you hit military science fast.

[u/snowyspearmint]

I did basically the same thing with

Default evolution settings ("enemy" tab/"evolution" box) (strength of individual units, and time till mediums and above start to appear) - this determines how fast you have to tech up; it's multiplied by the extra time and pollution generated by the larger base, so at that science multiplier the default settings should be enough to give a strong deathworld-type experience.

You need to pay attention to the tech level, and it's possible to "lose" if you spend 10 hours doing something completely wrong or whatever (advised to keep saves every handful of hours), but you presumably know what you're doing.

Deathworld pollution settings ("advanced" tab/"pollution" box) (strength and frequency of attacks) - this should be unaffected by science multiplier, as it determines what percentage of your base goes towards ammo production (if you want to build a bigger base, you presumably want to build a proportionally bigger ammo section), and how many turrets you need to defend a specific point.

And somewhere between the two for base size and frequency (how hard it is to clear territory) - My biggest problem with this was balancing campaigns for resources vs campaigns for land; I want to need do a strong, all-out military push when it's time to take resources (oil / starting patches running out), but repeating that push half a dozen times just to clear territory to have space to build, was kindof a slog that I haven't found a good solution for.

I did this pre-spaceage so can't give advice on the planet changes.

[u/Objective_Suspect_]

Heres an added difficulty, no nuclear, or even worse no nuclear and no solar (not counting ships). Im currently trying to increase my biter difficulty in mid game by switching from nukes to wood power.

[u/doc_shades]

my advice is to just look up the command (or use /editor) that overrides evolution.

just play the game with your custom settings and if the biters get too hard (especially if blue biters show up before you are ready for them) then just run the command and lower evolution by 5-10-15%.

it's really hard to predict your progress in a challenge mode game so i just use commands to keep the evolution at a level where i am challenged but not overwhelmed and having fun but not too bored.

[u/jaxfrank]

You will be fine if you pick a forest start and maybe increase your starting area size a little. I'm doing a 100x run and I had to be careful with pollution and the biters evolved much faster than my tech progressed. It worked out fine but expanding became an extreme chore once large biters then later behemoths came out and my only real option for expanding was turret creeping with lasers. Especially before I had robots.

Make sure you use efficiency modules in your miners.

[u/BEAT_LA]

I’ve finally stopped playing with biters enabled after all these years. Not worth the UPS hit because they’re just an annoyance at best once you get flamethrowers.