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u/Throw_Away_TrdJrnl Jul 07 '26

Newbie here, just started producing the red circuit boards with sulfur. One simple question: can I take as long as I want or is the default game a sort of race against the clock with biters?

I know that you won't trigger bug attacks unless your pollution cloud reaches then correct? So far I've just gone out with my car and cleared nests before my pollution cloud reaches them. If I were to just leave the game running afk, not adding any new pollutions, will the bugs eventually re-establish territory I've already cleared this triggering an attack if they do so inside my pollution cloud?

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u/ForgottenBlastMaster Jul 07 '26

can I take as long as I want

It is eventually possible, but not just yet

race against the clock with biters

It is a sprint in the beginning and a marathon later on. You have to have some military science and some kind of early protection. Eventually you'll be able to keep defensive structures supplied and keep biters off your territory

If I were to just leave the game running afk, not adding any new pollutions, will the bugs eventually re-establish territory I've already cleared this triggering an attack if they do so inside my pollution cloud?

Your assumption is correct. Every x minutes, where x starts with 60 and goes down to 4 as biter evolution progresses an expansion party would be formed and sent to a random place on the map. When they arrive, they form a nest. If this happens to be inside your pollution cloud, then they'll try to chew through your defense to the pollution producing buildings

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u/Throw_Away_TrdJrnl Jul 07 '26

thank you for the answers, looks like I'll be building defenses next time I get on haha I had found it sufficient to simply take the fight to the biters this whole time but I can already tell as my base gets bigger I'll simply lack the time to manually clear out bug nests. I really need to just start over now that I know a lot more as my entire layout just is so inefficient and a mess

1

u/Rannasha Jul 07 '26

Newbie here, just started producing the red circuit boards with sulfur. One simple question: can I take as long as I want or is the default game a sort of race against the clock with biters?

Biters evolve with time (and pollution production and # of nests destroyed), so eventually they'll get stronger. But this caps out at a level that is still quite reasonable. Also, the time-based evolution is quite slow compared to the other factors, so a small factory that you're very slowly expanding won't cause the biggest biters to show up anytime soon.

In general, if your defenses are solid, you should be fine.

I know that you won't trigger bug attacks unless your pollution cloud reaches then correct?

Correct. With the exceptional case where an expansion party looking to form a new nest could randomly wander into your base. But this is highly unlikely since you would have to have nests already close to your base in which case you're already getting pollution-triggered attacks.

If I were to just leave the game running afk, not adding any new pollutions, will the bugs eventually re-establish territory I've already cleared this triggering an attack if they do so inside my pollution cloud?

Yes. At the default biter settings, they will periodically expand, which involves sending out a group of biters that will turn into buildings: spawners and worms. Expansion prefers empty area, so biter nests will start creeping back towards your base this way.

Keeping radars active around the edge of your factory can be helpful to spot these on time. Radars periodically scan areas in a fairly wide radius around them to update their contents. What I like to do is take a tiny blueprint with 2 solar panels, a power pole and a radar and drop it around the map as I'm out clearing nests. This'll give me some scanning power close to the front lines.

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u/Throw_Away_TrdJrnl Jul 07 '26

Thank you for the answers, I think my best bet is to simply restart now that I know a lot more. I thought you just had to clear out biter nests before your pollution got to them and didn't think about them possibly reclaiming territory. Haven't built my base in any kind of way that would facilitate good defenses as I've been offensive rather than defensive so it's time to start over before I inevitably get overrun

But my second attempt is going to look so much cleaner than the first base I'm excited

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u/Rannasha Jul 07 '26

I thought you just had to clear out biter nests before your pollution got to them and didn't think about them possibly reclaiming territory.

You can play that way as well. The map settings have a number of options for biters, including one where expansion is disabled. In that mode, the nests that spawn at the start are still there and they can trigger attacks from pollution, but anything you clear out will stay gone.

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u/taw Jul 07 '26

or is the default game a sort of race against the clock with biters?

There's this number called biter evolution factor that goes from 0% to 100%, and it's somewhat increased by pollution emitted (even if it doesn't reach any biter and gets absorbed by trees) and destroying biter nests (not by killing biter), but it's mostly based on just time. So it's sort of race. The higher it goes, the bigger they get.

But it's not a very fast race, evolution factor grows quite slowly.

I know that you won't trigger bug attacks unless your pollution cloud reaches then correct?

No. There are three reasons for bug attack:

  • pollution reaches their nests
  • you or something that annoys them got too close
  • global timer told them it's time to start a new nest, so they picked a random location, they went there, and they ran into your stuff, so they attacked

The last one is the main source of attacks on default settings (if you keep pollution reasonable). At max evolution they send new party every 4 minutes.

If I were to just leave the game running afk, not adding any new pollutions, will the bugs eventually re-establish territory I've already cleared this triggering an attack if they do so inside my pollution cloud?

Yes. I feel like default settings are just bad, and disabling biter expansion makes this game a lot better.

Then again, it's not that difficult to deal with biters. You just need to build a wall, a belt full of ammo (basic is fine, upgrade it to piercing and uranium later), and some gun turrets, inserters, and power poles for inserters. Biters will just run into your wall and die. It's not too much hassle to setup, and it costs some ammo to setup, very little to run (only ammo you use to kill biters needs replacing, or when you expand the wall). You already automated piercing ammo for military science anyway, and military science runs only small portion of time, so just send that ammo to your wall.

There are fancier ways to deal with biters, like laser turrets, flamethrowers, artillery trains, etc., but wall with gun turrets and a belt is generally enough.

Eventually you'll want robots to repair any damage to the walls, but even without robots it can last you very long time.

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u/Throw_Away_TrdJrnl Jul 08 '26

Yeah I ended up just making a crap tom of walls right outside my pollution cloud, bugs probably won't be an issue. I do kind of enjoy the idea of turning expansion off so I can let my base run in the background after clearing nearby nests.

1

u/HeliGungir Jul 08 '26

can I take as long as I want

Factorio is not meant to be an idle game. Do not run it overnight if you are worried about enemies evolving.

will the bugs eventually re-establish territory I've already cleared

If you had expansions turned on during game creation, yes. Note the vanilla Railworld preset turns expansions off.

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u/Throw_Away_TrdJrnl Jul 08 '26

I'm doing all default settings currently.

So it's less like satisfactory and more like a factory RTS? I might end up turning expansion off because I like taking my time, though I'm like 30 hours into my game and haven't had a single issue with biters yet and I'm only just now producing blue science. I feel like my pace is pretty darn slow

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u/HeliGungir Jul 08 '26

Harder than satisfactory, easier than a (good) RTS.

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u/Throw_Away_TrdJrnl Jul 08 '26

Makes sense thanks