What to do about hives?

[gipothegip]

I have an issue in my current game (Alpha 18 unstable) where a hive spawned in my mines, and is a bit close to my base for comfort.

How am I supposed to kill these things? They run way faster than my colonists do, and are very tough to kill.

I don't want to leave them, as they'll only get to be a bigger pain and could become an actual threat, but I think I'll at least need a sacrifice (some poor soul to come along) as anyone I send out to bait them gets mauled  as I simply can't outrun them. I'll probably need rockets or something, because guns do bupkis (they have a rather high sharp resistance). So I may need to wait on this, but I'm not sure whether I can or should.

I don't build into mountains, and as such haven't dealt with these stupid monstrosities in a long time. I get they're meant to make it so mountain bases are balanced, but these bugs are the most dangerous thing for me.

The only positive is that I have deep drills and veins scouted out, so I don't really need that mine anymore, but I'm a bit worried they'll eventually grow too big, or that something / someone might agro an army of super-bugs.

[asanbr]

There are probably lots of threads about this already. Look around.

I would call in allies on the com station to function as cannon fodder, and help them out best I can (make sure you don't friendly fire them or it will get very messy).

Another possibility is to enclose all the mine entrances with strong walls (at least 3 tiles thick layer of stone and/or plasteel was needed when I did this) so that they can't get out, then light up a fire inside the mine, enclose the last entrance and burn them to death. It is some work to set up but allowed me to kill a big hive that I had no chance of fighting against.

To make the fire work, build wooden floors and wooden walls and leave wooden furniture inside the cave in some place where the insects aren't moving. As long as it's connected and all entrances are closed, the heat will spread. After you light up the fire ( molotov / incendiary launcher ), build walls to close the last entrance, then watch and strengthen the exits where they try to mine out.

[PhantomFav]

Sooner you kill them, the better it is. Please don't pretend they don't exist, I learned this in the hardest way. With the geometrical growth of the hive, the extirpation is much more difficult in few days, and after a certain trigger number (100? 150?) of mega-bugs present on map, they start their unstoppable attack! They destroy your base in minutes, tearing down walls, eating furniture, and killing helplessly all the pawns on sight.

Equip 3 pawns with molotov or incendiary launcher, and let the fire spread in the hive. A mega-bugs is too stupid to put out the fire.

P.S. prepare to lose at least one pawn in the attack.

[Snafu_RW]

Multiple miniguns work well if you have them: build a long corridor leading from the hive entrance & position as many minigun-toting pawns as you can at the far end in a 2-deep formation to avoid friendly fire issues. Then encourage the bugs with a sniper or similar after setting the miniguns to fire past the bugs at a fixed target (eg packing spot or whatever)

[Shurp]

I don't know if hives have been buffed in a18, but in a17 luring/kiting the bugs into your killbox worked fine.  Yes, the bugs can outrun your colonist, but your colonist starts with a lead, so if he doesn't have too far to go he can make it to the killbox before the bugs do.

If the bugs are a long way away you might want to move your turrets closer.  Don't forget that charged batteries stay charged when you haul them. 

[Wintersdark]

Multiple miniguns work well if you have them: build a long corridor leading from the hive entrance & position as many minigun-toting pawns as you can at the far end in a 2-deep formation to avoid friendly fire issues. Then encourage the bugs with a sniper or similar after setting the miniguns to fire past the bugs at a fixed target (eg packing spot or whatever)

Note in a18 you can fire miniguns at the ground.  Also, you can fire in 3-deep formations without FF (until the bugs reach melee range, anyways)

[gipothegip]

I don't know if hives have been buffed in a18, but in a17 luring/kiting the bugs into your killbox worked fine.  Yes, the bugs can outrun your colonist, but your colonist starts with a lead, so if he doesn't have too far to go he can make it to the killbox before the bugs do.

If the bugs are a long way away you might want to move your turrets closer.  Don't forget that charged batteries stay charged when you haul them. 

I don't have a killbox, but I did forget you can move turrets and batteries, so thanks for reminding me.

Looks like an ad hoc killbox out of my existing defenses might be what I need to do.

Burning them out is difficult because my map has hardly any wood on it, although I suppose steel might work if it's still flammable. Another issue is that it's a strip mine, and they took root where an iron vein used to be, so there's a lot of holes to plug.


Anybody happen to know what agroes them? I know damaging the hive does, but would they get angry if I tried to build too close?



As an update, I ended up requesting aid, and paying them off to make up for the relationship loss. They sent a pretty large group that dealt with them swiftly, with only one casualty, and one person I had to rescue.

I tried to close them off and get some stuff to burn, but they attacked my builder.

Numbers seem to be rather effective against them.

[Canute]

Anybody happen to know what agroes them? I know damaging the hive does, but would they get angry if I tried to build too close?

Building not, but when a pawn/animal comes too close they want to defend the hive.
Sure the defend radius is much smaller then the radius the insects would chase you if you attack them.

So you could build a wall with doors. And use this as attack/retreat spot.
Then 3 pawns with range weapons, stay at the door and shoot until the insect comes close. Retreat behind the door, repair the door and wait for the insect to move away.

[Mutineer]

I was able to deal with hives with early tribes. Just use a lot of animals as cannon folder and attack the moment they spawn.
I did suffer a huge animal loss, but my colonists were fine using bows and clubs.

Maybe it is just me, as I believe the good life of tribe should be based on owning a lot of animals so I always time a lot as a tribe.

[Barley]

The Bugs have sleeping cycles. When they take a nap, build nice walls around the infestation. Then install some pre-built heaters and cook them alive.

[Chibiabos]

Kiting is a good tactic if the bugs aren't in your base directly ... draft all your available combat colonists, make sure to feed those with low food bars.  You'll honestly want more fast-firing than heavy-firing weaponry to somewhat mitigate the bugs' fast speed.  Put your colonists near the bugs, but not close enough to trigger them, get your colonists in a firing line (positioned so there's plenty of room behind them to fall back through) to where they won't hit each other, have one colonist head toward the bugs to trigger them (ideally with a fast-firing weapon, even just a pistol or revolver for α18).  I recommend keeping a good melee fighter with a high-quality knife near your colonists as a backup, but I tend not to send them into the line of fire, only use them to attack if they are meleeing one of my ranged units.  Target the fastest bugs first (I think the small megascarabs tend to be), but don't aim to kill immediately, just go one by one to injure them enough to bring their speed down below your colonists.  Pay close attention to whom the bugs are targetting specifically, and move those colonists back first to draw the bugs through your firing line.  Bugs will panic and flee when they take too many hits too quickly; if you have injured all the bugs to the point none can outrun your colonists, switch from targetting the fleeing bugs to those actively targetting your colonists.

If you get bugs in your base directly, I like to set up multiple squads of colonists near multiple doors, to try to attack the bugs from as many directions as possible.  When the bugs start targetting one colonist, I move that colonist and the other in that colonist's squad through a door away from the fight while the other squads hose the bugs (going for the fastest bugs first, more aiming to cripple their movement speed first).  When your targetted squad's colonist is through the door and the bugs can't get to them, the bugs will eventually target another colonist that is actively shooting at them; when they start heading toward that different colonist, put your first squad back in through the door and start shooting at the bugs while your newly targetted squad flees through their door.  This depends on your base layout, of course, and how many doors are in the area of where the bugs are.  I rarely even get a colonist injured like this (but I cowardly do a lot of pausing).  Be careful to not have any of your colonists in the line of fire of your other colonists trying to shoot the bugs.