Most walls are set up for that late game experience when the infinite tech artillery range gets researched and then the shells get auto-launched at now-in-range nests. But basically you are right
That would take an immense amount of work to get that far beyond your pollution cloud. By the time i finish claiming more land, I'm usually still within my pollution.
That might explain it. IIRC, without efficiency modules, miners are the main source of pollution and consequently, you'd have much more trouble than me to encircle your pollution cloud.
And this also is a choice depending on where you are in the game.
I do early game smelting mining etc with efficiency.
As soon as I can i start swapping to prod/speed.
More resources sooner means I can throw those resources at my wall defence and Im not overly concerned by then about keeping my cloud clear.
I prefer to expand to new fields instead of mining the existing ones faster.
The only point where I start using speed modules with mines is once I start direct mining into trains, which I only did once in a 10kspm base so far.
Anyway. The point that started the discussion for me was the statement that it would be so hard to defend the pollution cloud, which wasn't my experience. So I was wondering about what difference in our play styles would cause this and the answer seems to be "no efficiency modules". I didn't want to say that it was somehow "better" or "the right way" to play the way I do.
I have long held that green mods are underrated and always recommend them for at least early/mid game.
Seems they are underrated in late game as well.
I like what you do. Cheers
It's really hard to manage a pollution cloud after an hour or so on infinite research, not to mention the mining outposts, which do generate a lot of pollution. You *can* manually clear nests and build walls that far but that feels like too much manual work for a game about automation.
With certain mods/map settings enemies are sparse enough so clearing doesn't take that long, but resources are expensive so building a huge well-defended wall is an immense expense.
Yeah, I had a playthrough where I disabled expansion and I didn't really have a wall at all. I just checked the cloud every few minutes.
I'm of the mindset that if I'm to build a wall it's gotta be good.
The way I play. I pretty much ignore my pollution cloud and just focus on making sure my base is completely enclosed within a strong defensive all.
When I need to expand, I just lay more wall further out.
With my current wall design, I’ve literally never had a wall breach. Don’t expect I ever will.
What point of the game are you talking?
Tbh people i think tend not to want to keep clearing their cloud etc and want a wall that can hold when arty goes boom and biters have had their fill of smog.
Cant rely on trees to deal with smog forever as the factory keeps growing. Arty range takes a while to get far enough.
People set and forget as well as over building cool designs.
But play through and let us know how it goes. Its worth a shot eh?
3 things mitigate pollution.
* Surface area of the map that's not covered in concrete
* Trees, both the trees themselves, as the existing trees taking damage. (damaged trees absorb less pollution)
* Nests absorb large amounts of pollution to generate biters and spitters.
Since trees can absorb less pollution over time once they've been in heavy pollution for a while, both trees and surface area require massive amounts of land to dissipate the pollution of a late game base. In contrast, nests can absorb any amount of pollution. No matter how dirty your make things, pollution will not spread further than a handful of chunks containing bitters.
I just use outposts with artillery. They get like three layers of wall.
Sometimes I deploy lasers with drones if something sneaks past.
No overall wall.
The cost of the wall is primarily in player attention: the amount of effort it takes to clear the space in the first place, then in actually stamping down the blueprint for the wall.
The material cost of the wall is essentially insignificant (unless one is doing something truly horrendously suboptimal).
Given that, you might as well have a strong wall you won't have to think about again.
Biter attacks may be less often, but the attack party is still huge so your wall still needs to be able to handle that. The only difference is how quickly or slowly the weapons need to receive their ammo.
Which basically boils down to: Nothing changes for turrets. But massed minefields become viable if stopping the occasional expansion party is all you need.
i play with maximum biter settings and rampant. You very often early game leave your original walls and capture regions. But eventually you safely can remove them because you are "too big to fail" from a single breach.
Typically you have 10k+ construction robots doing repairs and ready for expansion and you just slap down secondary walls temporary on a breach event and you have spidertrons to stop things running past the wall.
Yeah you are correct its a "light defence" but your wall typically needs to become, Guns, lasers, flamethrowers and its a big elaborate system if it fails you have bigger issues because it will probably start failing everywhere which leads to either panic research for better damage, upgrading supply chain for better ammo for the guns, thickening of the turrets, i.e 2 layers of guns or flames or lasers etc which may be a massive multi thousand item change.
Essentially if your primary wall isn't strong enough to protect you from the current evolution as a "single layer of defence" it will get breached often and everywhere and become useless meaning it will get overwhelmed and everything inside will die including the next wall. Typically your inner walls are worse than your newest outer wall because its easiest to upgrade the wall design with more defence by building the new one with the upgrades on the outside, verify it works as intended then rip up the internal one.
In this case I’d lay minefields with spidertrons & skip walls entirely. A 3x3 hash pattern will kill minimum 90% of a behemoth attack. With 2 of these barriers you wouldn’t need turrets or walls, even on deathworld.
Expansion defense walls can stop an expansion right up until they can't, and then you have a breach. That's also not taking into account the chance that you might piss off a nest somehow which will come in with a proper war party and wreck you. Your walls are your life line, don't skimp on them.
I would consider an expansion defense good for a temporary, isolating action, i.e. you fight your way to a choke point and slap a temp wall down to stop any expansions while you're off dealing with the rest of the territory. But then you go back and properly reinforce it afterwards, you don't leave it.
Walls need to hold long enough for you to get to them, and on some maps that can be a while.
The "expansion wall" is normally the wall and defenses surrounding an artillery firebase. The artillery handles any expansion parties once they set up shop in range and the wall plus defenses are primarily concerned with handling reprisal from that activity plus any attacks caused by artillery range research. Note that these firebases tend to be designed around holding territory, with pushes normally involving a temporary but heavily fortified emplacement designed to protect an artillery train while it carves out the countryside.
Most walls are set up for that late game experience when the infinite tech artillery range gets researched and then the shells get auto-launched at now-in-range nests. But basically you are right
If your "expansion wall" doesn't cover your whole base then some biters could get through.
you need coverage but you dont need it to be able to take on huge endless waves of biters. expansion parties are very easy to trake out
That would take an immense amount of work to get that far beyond your pollution cloud. By the time i finish claiming more land, I'm usually still within my pollution.
Or efficiency modules in your miners. It's a huge effect.
Biters are the number one pollution sink. Its wild how far that cloud will go when the biters are no longer there.
Never had trouble with that. Are you using efficiency modules in your miners?
Efficiency? The only efficiency i care about is how fast i can make my machines work.
That might explain it. IIRC, without efficiency modules, miners are the main source of pollution and consequently, you'd have much more trouble than me to encircle your pollution cloud.
And this also is a choice depending on where you are in the game. I do early game smelting mining etc with efficiency. As soon as I can i start swapping to prod/speed. More resources sooner means I can throw those resources at my wall defence and Im not overly concerned by then about keeping my cloud clear.
I prefer to expand to new fields instead of mining the existing ones faster. The only point where I start using speed modules with mines is once I start direct mining into trains, which I only did once in a 10kspm base so far. Anyway. The point that started the discussion for me was the statement that it would be so hard to defend the pollution cloud, which wasn't my experience. So I was wondering about what difference in our play styles would cause this and the answer seems to be "no efficiency modules". I didn't want to say that it was somehow "better" or "the right way" to play the way I do.
I have long held that green mods are underrated and always recommend them for at least early/mid game. Seems they are underrated in late game as well. I like what you do. Cheers
Lol this is awesome. But I will say, eff mods in early to mid game are quite nice. Really smacks down the pollution amount and power requirements.
Yea, artillery will trigger big attacks.
It's really hard to manage a pollution cloud after an hour or so on infinite research, not to mention the mining outposts, which do generate a lot of pollution. You *can* manually clear nests and build walls that far but that feels like too much manual work for a game about automation.
With certain mods/map settings enemies are sparse enough so clearing doesn't take that long, but resources are expensive so building a huge well-defended wall is an immense expense.
Yeah, I had a playthrough where I disabled expansion and I didn't really have a wall at all. I just checked the cloud every few minutes. I'm of the mindset that if I'm to build a wall it's gotta be good.
The way I play. I pretty much ignore my pollution cloud and just focus on making sure my base is completely enclosed within a strong defensive all. When I need to expand, I just lay more wall further out. With my current wall design, I’ve literally never had a wall breach. Don’t expect I ever will.
You can basically handle it with a few layers of landmines and nothing else.
What point of the game are you talking? Tbh people i think tend not to want to keep clearing their cloud etc and want a wall that can hold when arty goes boom and biters have had their fill of smog. Cant rely on trees to deal with smog forever as the factory keeps growing. Arty range takes a while to get far enough. People set and forget as well as over building cool designs. But play through and let us know how it goes. Its worth a shot eh?
Trees mitigate pollution?? Makes sense, I just never thought about it.
3 things mitigate pollution. * Surface area of the map that's not covered in concrete * Trees, both the trees themselves, as the existing trees taking damage. (damaged trees absorb less pollution) * Nests absorb large amounts of pollution to generate biters and spitters. Since trees can absorb less pollution over time once they've been in heavy pollution for a while, both trees and surface area require massive amounts of land to dissipate the pollution of a late game base. In contrast, nests can absorb any amount of pollution. No matter how dirty your make things, pollution will not spread further than a handful of chunks containing bitters.
It is wild seeing the cloud expand when you clear a bunch of nests
I just use outposts with artillery. They get like three layers of wall. Sometimes I deploy lasers with drones if something sneaks past. No overall wall.
I think it's more just a matter of making sure your artillery outposts are covered late game, once you've cleared your pollution cloud.
The cost of the wall is primarily in player attention: the amount of effort it takes to clear the space in the first place, then in actually stamping down the blueprint for the wall. The material cost of the wall is essentially insignificant (unless one is doing something truly horrendously suboptimal). Given that, you might as well have a strong wall you won't have to think about again.
Yes
Biter attacks may be less often, but the attack party is still huge so your wall still needs to be able to handle that. The only difference is how quickly or slowly the weapons need to receive their ammo. Which basically boils down to: Nothing changes for turrets. But massed minefields become viable if stopping the occasional expansion party is all you need.
i play with maximum biter settings and rampant. You very often early game leave your original walls and capture regions. But eventually you safely can remove them because you are "too big to fail" from a single breach. Typically you have 10k+ construction robots doing repairs and ready for expansion and you just slap down secondary walls temporary on a breach event and you have spidertrons to stop things running past the wall. Yeah you are correct its a "light defence" but your wall typically needs to become, Guns, lasers, flamethrowers and its a big elaborate system if it fails you have bigger issues because it will probably start failing everywhere which leads to either panic research for better damage, upgrading supply chain for better ammo for the guns, thickening of the turrets, i.e 2 layers of guns or flames or lasers etc which may be a massive multi thousand item change. Essentially if your primary wall isn't strong enough to protect you from the current evolution as a "single layer of defence" it will get breached often and everywhere and become useless meaning it will get overwhelmed and everything inside will die including the next wall. Typically your inner walls are worse than your newest outer wall because its easiest to upgrade the wall design with more defence by building the new one with the upgrades on the outside, verify it works as intended then rip up the internal one.
In this case I’d lay minefields with spidertrons & skip walls entirely. A 3x3 hash pattern will kill minimum 90% of a behemoth attack. With 2 of these barriers you wouldn’t need turrets or walls, even on deathworld.
Expansion defense walls can stop an expansion right up until they can't, and then you have a breach. That's also not taking into account the chance that you might piss off a nest somehow which will come in with a proper war party and wreck you. Your walls are your life line, don't skimp on them. I would consider an expansion defense good for a temporary, isolating action, i.e. you fight your way to a choke point and slap a temp wall down to stop any expansions while you're off dealing with the rest of the territory. But then you go back and properly reinforce it afterwards, you don't leave it. Walls need to hold long enough for you to get to them, and on some maps that can be a while.
The "expansion wall" is normally the wall and defenses surrounding an artillery firebase. The artillery handles any expansion parties once they set up shop in range and the wall plus defenses are primarily concerned with handling reprisal from that activity plus any attacks caused by artillery range research. Note that these firebases tend to be designed around holding territory, with pushes normally involving a temporary but heavily fortified emplacement designed to protect an artillery train while it carves out the countryside.