Infestation are not OP. They die like any other raid.
What are your armors?
What are your weapons?
Not unless you wait for seasons for them to spiral out of control first! And if you do that, you can always pack up and resettle the same hex.
One way to avoid infestations is to have the base be very cool. Like "need a Parka just to work" cool. This might cause issues with "Sleeping in the Cold", but it is a valid tactic to deter them.
Well it depends. Most of the time when I first encounter them, I have pants, shirts, and maybe some capes with bows and clubs for weapons.
But my big fear revolves around later-game experiences where the people in plasteel plate armor with warhammers and teams of chain-shotgun people behind them not even being able to put a dent in the starting population of a hive.
Capes are neither good armor nor good thermal resistance. They have a glaring lack of Blunt protection
For armors, you want dusters made from leather or full plate armor.
As for the lategame: Initial Infestations scale to colony wealth and population, same as all others. You success is what makes them powerfull.
I appreciate the tips, but I also know how things scale. My issue is that compared to other raids on the same colony, Megaspiders alone are usually more numerous than enemy soldiers. And a single megaspider, alone, is more difficult to fight - even with blunt damage focus, than three enemy soldiers combined.
I guess the issue I have is that when fighting bugs, melee is guaranteed. When I am fighting literally any other raid type, my goal is to whittle it down with sniper rifles before it can get close enough to be a threat. Infestations and mechanoids are usually the only raids where any colonists get hurt, but mechanoids feel conquerable, while infestations feel like I just need to get everyone in a caravan and leave.
I suppose what I really want to know is how to engage 3-4 megaspiders per colonist in melee without anyone losing their eyeballs or limbs.
I'm currently hoping my tunneler tribe will be able to use the leader combat bonus and melee specialists to do it, but starting out, my tribe is too small to justify having a melee specialist since they have so many restrictions on work type and we need a LOT of mining, growing, and constructing being done.
3-4 Megaspider per colonist while you haven't researched electricity seem a lot.
Do you still have 5 pawns at this stage? So, we are talking about 15-20 mega spider infestation here, right?
The first infestation I get are usually 1-2 hive, 3 max. And each Hive spawn 1 or 2 megaspider plus few smaller insect. No more than that.
Maybe your colony wealth somehow get out of control? How old is the colony? What is your wealth ? Which difficulty level ? Do you use any mod?
Anyway, at this stage, all you can do is fight at the door. You can use tamed animal (Just zone the area in front of the door and force all your animals that can go there. For exemple, elephants are pretty good damage soaker if you can get your hand on one) so it's not your colonist that is going to lose eyeball or limbs. =oP