Ludeon Forums

Allright, so this is more of a question then anything else. My colony that comprises of a large base with about 7 colonists (was 8, one guy had his heart blown out from a single lance rifle round). I've had a infestation spawn in a cave a good distance from my base.

From my understanding these swarms grow and expand. At the moment there are only 2 hives (one is dormant the other is growing) 3 megaspiders and a few scarabs. I managed to throw some wooden floods and walls down around the cave entrance. Would it be worth it to light a fire inside, block it off then stand outside and wait till they try to flee? Or would it be a better idea to GTFO pack up everything that can be carried and move my colony to a new location? I have a few pieces of armor on some characters and mediocre weapons (grenades, rifles, shotguns and machinepistols) Most of my pawns are decent at shooting. Or alternatively I could simply leave them the fuck alone on their side of the map. I'd just like some advice before I continue.

There are a few ways of dealing with it.

With an indirect approach, you could hope some raiders or a caravan stray too close. It would cost you relationship with the caravan. The other risk is they grow out of hand and nobody comes to help.

With a direct approach you could try a few things. The fire like you said, but you will need more fuel. Piles of wood or wood furniture, ect. You could also try ice. Block the area in and build coolers. Crank them way down. Keep a repair man or two handy, they will want out.

Alternatively, you can build a series of deadfalls in a tunnel outside. Poke them to make them attack and fight. Trained animals really help here, they can face tank for your colonists.

Raiders or traders stumbling upon it will never happen, its too far away from any border.  There is no way I can actually build anything in the cave anymore because if I do it pisses them teh fuck off and they wreck it. Same goes for the cooling method. I'll link a screenshot of what im dealing with.

You should deal with the infestion pretty early.
If you let them grow and expand you might have bad chances against them.
Not to speak that you need to be avoid these area.

You can either seal the cave with wall/door and start fire/campfire inside.
Insect's are very senstive to temperature, and you just need to get the cave over 50C and they will die.

Or you can use the door's as retreat and fight location it you prefer to fight.

As Canute said: infestations are a problem that are best dealt with sooner rather than later.

Burning them is the easiest way to drive them out; simply seal them inside two-thick stone walls, then put some flammable stuff inside like power conduits or wooden stools. Have somebody torch those, then the room should heat up beyond 230C and everything inside will start to spontaneously combust, further driving that temperature up. The reason I say two-thick stone walls is because, if I remember correctly, insects will try to break out if they're on fire.

Alternatively, lure them out into the open with everybody using firearms, preferably with at least a minigun or two in the mix since they're excellent at crowd control if you manually aim them behind the swarm of insects. This is slightly riskier but still gets the job done.

You can build a funnel to fight them one at a time. Build a tunnel with a door at the end outside, since they aren't letting you build inside anymore. That way they won't leave the cave and go around.

When the fight starts, keep your pawns lined up behind the door frame such that the insect has to stand in the door itself to fight. You should be able to get 3 in two rows, so 6. If you have decent melee, put them up front in armor. The middle front pawn will take the brunt of the hits. Insects have the lowest defense against blunt damage, so clubs and mace over swords and bullets.

Quote from: Dashthechinchilla on April 05, 2018, 12:19:30 AM

you could hope some raiders or a caravan stray too close. It would cost you relationship with the caravan.

Pretty sure that your reputation does not change when raiders or insects kill caravan members.  unless you or one of your turrets shots them.  In fact I am raided and have a caravan visiting I always let them take the brunt of the attack and get totally wiped out or flee before I get my turrets or pawns involved.   

Quote from: greggbert on April 23, 2018, 09:10:19 PM

Quote from: Dashthechinchilla on April 05, 2018, 12:19:30 AM

you could hope some raiders or a caravan stray too close. It would cost you relationship with the caravan.

Pretty sure that your reputation does not change when raiders or insects kill caravan members.  unless you or one of your turrets shots them.  In fact I am raided and have a caravan visiting I always let them take the brunt of the attack and get totally wiped out or flee before I get my turrets or pawns involved.   

You will if one of the caravan members is incapacitated and dies from their wounds. If they are straight up killed you are ok. IIRC, when they are incapacitated they become in your care even if you don't rescue them.

The nice thing about them spawning away from your base is that you can blow everything up with impunity. If you have the tech for it, you can wait for them to go to sleep and set up incendiary IEDs and turrets, then place pawns behind the turrets and blast them with everything you've got. With luck and good positioning the megaspiders will trip the mines and then run around uselessly on fire while you spray them with bullets. If some make it through the initial salvo, allow the turrets to tank and some of them will blow up, causing severe explosive injuries. An explosion from a mine, turret, or grenade will one-shot the tiny bugs and will rip legs and appendages off the larger ones, making them slower and enabling kiting to finish them off.

Bugs are bad news but 7 pawns that can shoot with backup tech can take this infestation IF you do it now. Good luck.

Bugs dont trigger deadfalls

I always deal with bugs using temperature fighting. I ussualy try to freeze them using freezers built in my base, as at low enough temperatures the hives die and bugs become harmless. If you dont have freezers prebuilt, I just toss in few molotovs on something flamable, wall the area of and pray my colonists can repair the walls faster then the bugs chew at them  ;)

If they are outside your base, can't you just snipe them with sniper rifles? Normally they never even respond to your attacks because you are so far away.

Personally I just recolt the jelly and keep their population controlled so they dont get out of control.

I never had an infestation in my games so How big can Infestations get if you don't do anything to control it

Pretty big.
I start an infestion with 4000 points/10 hive (biggest possible with dev tools), and after 14 days i got 21.


[attachment deleted due to age]

Jesus well I guess I better start hunting and killing the bugs like everyone says in this form if I do get a infestation.

I don't get how some here say they poke insects using long range weapons: in my experience a single harm to one of them aggroes all of them in a swarm attack.
In my current game i set a natural cave for the infestation incident pretty far away from my base and half of the map has deadfall traps and ied traps, it is always a 50-50 if i have to hard counter the swarm when it begins or if i just have to kill the last 5-10 insects that make through to my external wide spreaded defences.

Quote from: giannikampa on May 08, 2018, 02:11:02 AM
I don't get how some here say they poke insects using long range weapons: in my experience a single harm to one of them aggroes all of them in a swarm attack.
In my current game i set a natural cave for the infestation incident pretty far away from my base and half of the map has deadfall traps and ied traps, it is always a 50-50 if i have to hard counter the swarm when it begins or if i just have to kill the last 5-10 insects that make through to my external wide spreaded defences.

You could poke them to death in the alphas, but now they will chase you so it's more like pulling a train of mobs in an MMORPG.  There's a lot of hitpoint beef in the large numbers though, so you really want stuff like miniguns or other DPS hoses to shred the incoming bugs.  Failing that, forcing them to path over fire (burning sandbags is pretty effective since the fire lasts a while and forces them to slowly traverse them) can output a lot of DPS too.

They are the reason I don't like mountain bases.  When an infestation spawns, at least on extreme difficulty, some of the megascarabs appear *INSTANTLY*.  There is no counterplay to this; the slowdown from melee attacks means that there's a good chance any pawn nearby that infestation is going to die.  Contrast this to drop pod raiders or mechs, where you always get several seconds to move before they land, emerge, and pick a target and it's night and day.  Those will never kill your non-bedridden pawns with zero counterplay.  Infestations can.

Infection takes on a whole new meaning in this game it's basically like real life bugs once they move in they might never come out.

Quote from: TheMeInTeam on May 11, 2018, 02:13:02 PM
When an infestation spawns, at least on extreme difficulty, some of the megascarabs appear *INSTANTLY*.  There is no counterplay to this; the slowdown from melee attacks means that there's a good chance any pawn nearby that infestation is going to die.  Contrast this to drop pod raiders or mechs, where you always get several seconds to move before they land, emerge, and pick a target and it's night and day.  Those will never kill your non-bedridden pawns with zero counterplay.  Infestations can.

IMO, infestations shouldn't occur in occupied rooms, but of course they do currently.

And why do you think they shouldn't ?
I bet you are against Droppod landing of mechanics at your dinning room too ? :-)

Reading this thread, I think I'll make a new map with caves, make a large tunnel and leave it be for infestation. Then, I'll send my colonists to train shooting, collect jelly and get some meat for kibble.

Quote from: Canute on May 19, 2018, 12:49:09 PM
And why do you think they shouldn't ?
I bet you are against Droppod landing of mechanics at your dinning room too ? :-)

Well, you bet wrong.

They way they work ATM is the bugs and hive appear out of nowhere even if people are walking through the room and using it. Obviously that is not how infestations work. They need a quiet habitat to spread and if people are using the room, that habitat does not exist. People would kill the bugs before an "infestation" event occured.

So I think there should be some rules, like no infestations where there are assigned beds or people present. Something along those lines. They should occur in storerooms and empty caves.

Bugs (infestations) are less likely to spawn in lit areas: light your bedrooms! Dig out a huge steel/rock/WHY deposit elsewhere to give them a better spawn chance 'over there' rather than 'right here'
Try not to build hospital/bedrooms under overmountain (check with the vanilla roof overlay, bottom right buttons)
Or just turn infestations off in devmode.. your choice

I think of infestations a bit differently.  These superbugs are digging through mountains constantly, looking for new homes.  When they pop into an open area they and the hives they are carrying with them tumble through the hole and land all over.

I would like it if a "collapsed hole" object were created at the same time as the insect spawn.  Actually, just filling a 3x3 space with "collapsed overhead mountain" would do.  And if your pawn was there at the time, sucks to be you :)

I really don't see why people can NOT face a simple situation like this. Packing and leaving the map to settle elsewhere will never help you improve your gameplay. Are you willing to restart your base every time an Infestation triggers?

All that was written about temperature tricks are really annoying, I cant believe people go through such hype levels for an Infestation.

I do agree that infestations should have some sort of warning, in my opinion, I would make animal dirt, moisture/water/rain play a factor. It is indeed nonsense when they spawn fully adult grown inside somebody's bedroom, specially if rooms are kept 100% clean.

For me the biggest annoyance I meet these days is when multiple hives spawn in two different locations far apart from each other and the notification letter arrow only shows one of the two sides. I had this game when a hive spawned far away under a mountain that had minerals I already extracted and used the carved space. The arrow pointed there. But also had other hives pop up almost at the opposite side of the map and inside a prison that had 2 captives. I would have appreciated multiple indicators.

The most ridiculous thing about infestations to this day is every harm they get, blame the player always (https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=33613.msg366704#msg366704).

The only tip that nobody mentioned this far is, if you do engage, do wait until they retreat all the way back to their hives, because if you wake them up halfway towards your base, their chasing length will extend like restarting their original spawn point. This of course, can be advantageous if you are good at kitting, as the farther they go, the easier to sneak by their back line and destroy the hives while they are all far away.
This is of course, good for those who build an outer city wall. And bad for killbox players. Killbox players will never truly learn how to fight.

Quote from: Injured Muffalo on May 19, 2018, 11:37:08 AM

Quote from: TheMeInTeam on May 11, 2018, 02:13:02 PM
When an infestation spawns, at least on extreme difficulty, some of the megascarabs appear *INSTANTLY*.  There is no counterplay to this; the slowdown from melee attacks means that there's a good chance any pawn nearby that infestation is going to die.  Contrast this to drop pod raiders or mechs, where you always get several seconds to move before they land, emerge, and pick a target and it's night and day.  Those will never kill your non-bedridden pawns with zero counterplay.  Infestations can.

IMO, infestations shouldn't occur in occupied rooms, but of course they do currently.

I'm not even against that necessarily.  They literally just need the same amount of time to react that drop pod raids get, and you're not guaranteed to lose someone when they happen on top of someone (unless said colonist is incapped, but this is not a problem unique to infestation).

QuoteThe only tip that nobody mentioned this far is, if you do engage, do wait until they retreat all the way back to their hives, because if you wake them up halfway towards your base, their chasing length will extend like restarting their original spawn point. This of course, can be advantageous if you are good at kitting, as the farther they go, the easier to sneak by their back line and destroy the hives while they are all far away.
This is of course, good for those who build an outer city wall. And bad for killbox players.

How is this bad for killbox players?  If the infestation is distant from the base they can pop bugs with an AR until they are committed to the killbox then duck through a side door and suck the entirety of the infestation into the killbox.  The bugs can't even shoot, so as long as you have good DPS output it's open season on insect meat --> go kill hives freely.

I often kite bugs to death on external infestations killbox or not, once they're gone the hives are easy targets.

I've even explored the viability of farming bugs on tribal ice sheet starts, but alas it's not that useful.  It's not trivial to keep temperatures high enough (sometimes you can pull it off by enclosing a vent, you don't want to use limited wood pre-electricity on this), but this biggest issue is getting them to happen often enough to provide survivable food rate.  Compared to humanlike raiders + cannibal infestations don't roll frequently enough for that to sustain a decent number of people, especially in the crucial early quadrums.

I just wanted to second TheMeInTeam; killboxes work fine against bugs.  Especially if you have turrets in them.  But even without it's not hard to duck inside when the bugs get too close.

The only hard part about killboxing bugs is if the hive is a long way from the base; the bugs will turn around and go home rather than attack.  I suppose the solution there is to build a small bunker in between for your pawns to attack from.

Quote from: Shurp on May 21, 2018, 05:21:48 PM
I just wanted to second TheMeInTeam; killboxes work fine against bugs.  Especially if you have turrets in them.  But even without it's not hard to duck inside when the bugs get too close.

The only hard part about killboxing bugs is if the hive is a long way from the base; the bugs will turn around and go home rather than attack.  I suppose the solution there is to build a small bunker in between for your pawns to attack from.

You can open/shut door juke them similar to thrumbos:

(http://i.imgur.com/fhfEgYn.jpg) (https://imgur.com/fhfEgYn)

Notice the number of times this thing's been hit.  It's never actually attacked the doors.

My main beef is similar to Yoshidas: when they spawn you can get more than one group (2, perhaps 3) in wildly different locations and it is easy to overlook the other locations when the notification arrow points to only one. However, I am confident that this will be addressed.

Ideally, I think the game would create a pocket nest several squares away from what it picks as an infestation point, and then directs the bugs to tunnel their way towards your base over a couple of hours. The observant player might wonder where that tapping is coming from.

I was reading several threads discussing the inherent uselessness of most pets as anything other than (frequently unrealistic) cannon fodder, and the reason is simply because the game does not simulate the conditions or situations for which we started domesticating and breeding these animals to begin with as a civilization. For instance, if hunting was more involved, more difficult and more rewarding (particularly at early tech levels), dogs/wolves/wargs would be extremely helpful in tracking and directing prey... whereas large cats might be trained to hunt and retrieve small prey as a semi-consistent source of food (as opposed to only when they get hungry, and then eating most of it). Housecats and lizards could be used to hunt vermin, including unseen animals (not the giant rats that are easier to just shoot), which would affect food spoilage and cleanliness multipliers in non-extreme biomes.

So... ... along those lines, it'd be super if the game telegraphed infestation points hours or a day before it popped, which could then potentially be picked up by domesticated pets given free reign to wander your mountain base. They would either alert you by barking at a wall, or for less guard-worthy pets, acting agitated when in a specific area of the base for those paying attention. This functionality could then be used in later-game technology for seismic sensors etc. etc., which would let you know when a nest had matured and started actively carving out the rock.

Murdo:

Fantastic input.

Quote from: TheMeInTeam on May 21, 2018, 01:56:47 PM
[...]

How is this bad for killbox players?  If the infestation is distant from the base they can pop bugs with an AR until they are committed to the killbox then duck through a side door and suck the entirety of the infestation into the killbox.  The bugs can't even shoot, so as long as you have good DPS output it's open season on insect meat --> go kill hives freely.

I often kite bugs to death on external infestations killbox or not, once they're gone the hives are easy targets.

I've even explored the viability of farming bugs on tribal ice sheet starts, but alas it's not that useful.  It's not trivial to keep temperatures high enough (sometimes you can pull it off by enclosing a vent, you don't want to use limited wood pre-electricity on this), but this biggest issue is getting them to happen often enough to provide survivable food rate.  Compared to humanlike raiders + cannibal infestations don't roll frequently enough for that to sustain a decent number of people, especially in the crucial early quadrums.

Basic concepts of strategical combat like:

* Keep it contained over on the loose.
* Fight on their ground over your homeland.

Applied to the game, it will vary a lot on case to case.

A killbox will get a benefit if the insectoids hive comes from the same direction the killbox entrance is. However if you map has no mountains and is flat for example. Bugs will start to dig in all directions, when they attack...and also when they retreat, some of them between 3 ~ 5 depending on how large they have grown. In best case scenarios you should be able to repair as they deal damage but in many occasions I had all the ones proficient in constructed bedridden with plague or/and malaria simultaneously. And this can be very tedious when considering another game design flaw...:

* Game flaw: (I mentioned this slightly earlier but...) Since insectoids that get any kind of harm always blame the player, when a bug dies due to either malnutrition of blood loss, their death also "re-triggers" their attack. If this happens at night, they will fall sleep again after a short time, given they encounter no combat. If this happens while their awake time...Again based on circunstancial numbers, it may become a never ending type of situation which can easily compromise your game from incoming caravans and any activity outside walls.


So, technically speaking, if your preferred method is to lure them all the way to your killbox, better ensure all of them die in that "one" long pull. I once had a super large horde that couldn't be dealt in one full day. So again, depends on scale.

This also has to be considered with other two game flaws...

* Enemy AI cannot distinguish between your "real" base and "false" bases.

This is very easy to verify if you build multiple bases, within a same map. For example, I have the tendency to "reinforce" ancient shrines, specially if their wall is of steel. If the ancient shrine is far away, to the AI, it will "look" like your base when it is not. So having a killbox may not be the best solution...specially if they split. Again, variable factor of their numbers take place. Having multiple bases within a same map can help to distract other types of enemies as they scatter, causing their power output to enweaken. But bugs are not the same as humans. So it certainly is better to fight them while they are all cloistered together...which brings me to the other game flaw.

Game flaw #3:

* Bugs pop under overhead mountains. Sometimes for again, a variable of reasons, bugs may remain unattended, and will dig out all they can. If it is a small hill, you can be very sure they will take out all stone there...with the overhead mountain...literally "floating" mid-air...(somebody call Tynan)...Physics anyone? Personally if all "ground level base" rocks are mined out... I would want to see the hole mountain crash them all like the Terminator last scene...after all they are insects...so...their low intelligence didn't prevent them from suicidal behavior.


About your second question. Hives "can" be useful in "cave" included ice sheet maps, I have done it myself already, but not in maps without the caves and glowing mushrooms, but must be very careful to not kill their tending guardians.

And again... this also brings the most notorious game flaw of all which is "Pathing"...I don't need to elaborate much do I? But I have witness countless times pawns walking "OVER" the bugs...and also, if a bug is right next to a Jelly, the pawns WILL actually punch the insectoids as in saying...."Bug, move it"...really... I can't believe these types of game flaws are left unattended....


So... returning to the question of why killbox is bad. A lot are circumstantial criterias, but generally speaking, having bugs spreader all over your map shall signal the player to stop doing that. If their numbers are small, then yes...pull them all over. I had personally managed to make insectoids go and cross from one map border to the opposing side in a 400x400 tiles map.

I'd have to imagine that the larger the insect count the easier it is to sustain damage on at least one of them and continue aggro.  If they're really egregiously huge you can probably fight in shifts too.

I mean my strategy is to build a huge wall build kill boxes (multiple) around the outside of the kill boxes (in strategic places of course) then build another huge wall around does kill boxes then repeat unless I require expansion which I am still thinking about how I am going to expand my base (lol I have so much room inside the wall). The one thing I am scared about (since mecs and raiders are super easy) is infestation since I haven't played in a mountain areas yet as I said in the previous comments so what would be the best thing to do If an infestation does develop on the inside of my base. Since I already know what to do (from previous comments) how to deal with it on the outside but not really on the inside. Yea the more I read the more frightened I am from an infestation popping out when I have no idea how to handle them. If you want to see my layout let me know so I can post a picture       

Quote from: Tober6fire on May 29, 2018, 01:22:25 AM
I mean my strategy is to build a huge wall build kill boxes (multiple) around the outside of the kill boxes (in strategic places of course) then build another huge wall around does kill boxes then repeat unless I require expansion which I am still thinking about how I am going to expand my base (lol I have so much room inside the wall). The one thing I am scared about (since mecs and raiders are super easy) is infestation since I haven't played in a mountain areas yet as I said in the previous comments so what would be the best thing to do If an infestation does develop on the inside of my base. Since I already know what to do (from previous comments) how to deal with it on the outside but not really on the inside. Yea the more I read the more frightened I am from an infestation popping out when I have no idea how to handle them. If you want to see my layout let me know so I can post a picture       

If you plan on building in the mountains and want to be prepared for infestations, pretend you're building one of those ill-advised science fiction lab complexes where genetic manipulation or wormhole/dimensional gateway testing are eventually going to produce some kind of disaster. You're going to sacrifice some efficiency, but if done properly it won't be too much of a loss. Compartmentalize your base and connect the sections with defensible choke-points or killboxes that you can stack up on at a moment's notice. You can create junction rooms at major intersections where each hallway has multiple doors side-by-side. Assuming you have enough time and enough doors to collect your troops before the bugs get out of the wing where they spawned, you can leave the doors to their hallway open and have your colonists play peekaboo through the doors from the other directions, pairing off shooters and repairers.
If you have the resources, you can trap your open hallways and have your pawns use a gated parallel path. Make sure your rooms have multiple entrances/exits, including bedrooms, for quick escapes. If you have molotovs, and your base involves a lot of stone construction, as a nuclear option you can create "burn rooms" lined with wood floors or wood furniture, connected to the "wing" hallways but walled off until you need to use them.

If you want to get really proactive, mine out more (or equally) attractive spawn-points around the map as an alternative to your base, to lessen the probability of having to deal with containment within your own walls.

I only played a mountain base once...it was so fucking boring that I had never played a mountain map ever again... In that game, I had two experiences.

* Found a room
* Opened a hidden old cave, long before it became a feature. I could hear wind blowing whenever I moved my cursor over that area before discovering it. It was like an open oasis of land.


The ancient room was somehow close to the outer side with like 5~10 tiles of stone away from the outside, I recall naming that room as "Vault" and I placed all silver and other valuables there, so just in case, I built lots of deadfall traps surrounding it, one side of the rectangle had a 3 tile corridor, and the other 3 sides had 2 tiles corridors. So I secured my precious items very well. When an Infestation took place, it happened inside a bedroom, the ocupant got downed but not killed. I waited until night, the time insectoids go to sleep, and I opened all doors heading to my vault. Then, I poked one of them and started circling the Vault until they would die from the traps. Rinse and repeated with the others.

My base was built in such a way that everybody could get out in case of a raid for combat, so there were lots of corridors in all directions. I remember I built prison cells at the deeper end, near the map border so that Jailbreaks could easily be neutralized by their long pathing needed to get out.

So my advice based on one single game would be: Build a deadfall traps room and lure them there when they pop up.

Hopefully creating a burn room for them will work better then for the mecs which don't give a ***** about the temperature being over 500 and encased in a hell of a flame .

Quote from: Tober6fire on May 29, 2018, 01:22:25 AM
The one thing I am scared about (since mecs and raiders are super easy) is infestation since I haven't played in a mountain areas yet as I said in the previous comments so what would be the best thing to do If an infestation does develop on the inside of my base.

Still mostly relevant: Bjorn's Rimworld Science https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PQFCMkkkjQ&index=10&list=PLYlBkCxUn55j1oukWQFfBFy8F31tW-JqC

I play on Cassandra Rough and my simple ways to deal with insects as an amateur:

Early game - Molotov to hive, fix structure insects try to break while accumulating heatstroke level

Middle game - Carpets in room, shoot the door with incendiary launcher, watch it spread inside, fix structure

Late game - wear power armor and fight, simply as it sounds.

If they're not enraged, the chance is lower than 1% to trigger a trap.