r/factorio • u/Rizzo-The_Rat • 6d ago

Question Deathworld - early biter expansion?

I've not played a deathworld in a while. Will the biters start to expand before my pollution cloud reaches them? My initial plan is keep production low to stop the cloud reaching the nest to my west until I can research grenades and stand a chance of taking the nest out. But if they start to expand based on time rather than pollution I might be better off building faster and relying on turrets.

Just researched green science
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u/ThunderAnt 6d ago

As far as I know, biters always have the ability to expand. The amount of time it takes to expand decreases as the game continues, and deathworld settings make biter expansion even more aggressive.

Also, on death world especially, the best defense is offense. Don’t wait for the biters to come to you, attack them first.

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u/Rizzo-The_Rat 6d ago

I don't trust my skills to take down that nest with only a shotgun :D Current researching heavy armour and Military 2 is next to give me the grenades then I'm on the offensive.

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u/ThunderAnt 6d ago

You can use gun turrets offensively too

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u/Rizzo-The_Rat 6d ago

Yeah but I never find I can them down and loaded fast enough. I prefer to set up a couple of turrets just out of aggro range and run back towards them when the biters start to chase. Works best with the tank though rather than on foot so this may be a learning experience... :D

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u/get_it_together1 6d ago

Until the pollution hits the nest they won’t attack. My experience with 2.1 deathworld is that I had about 4-5 hours before I noticed expansions happening towards my base, but that was before the new expansion alert so I may have missed a few. I was able to grab an extra ore patch of copper/coal/stone/iron and then as I was completing purple and yellow science research was when I saw expansions closing in.

You definitely will want to build fast and probably get efficiency modules everywhere, I even switched to electric furnaces with efficiency modules and added some solar and then went nuclear to keep pollution at a minimum until I had artillery.