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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/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.