Could you take a look at this saved game file Veden?

I'm at a point where the bugs have basically covered every square inch of land north of my base; maybe minimum expansion distance needs tweaking?

I basically can't do anything - swarms / attacks of biters are happening so fast I don't have a chance to repair my infrastructure to give me a fighting chance.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OLiBkLBzgvVHynPaGKgdqFp1A8akew-A/view?usp=sharing

I noticed some unusual movement patterns in the north area that should be reduced in the next version.

Otherwise the enemy base just north of your forward operating base on the iron ore, has two hives in it. Not sure if you noticed them but they spawn spawners and worms around themselves.

I'm not really seeing any other issues.

You are going to need a lot more turrets, bullets, and walls.

Did you add Rampant mid game?

I did not - I started with Rampant, and everything was fine until the last hour or so of game time - I wish there was a way to smooth out the seemingly asymptotic difficulty; I love the AI and the new enemies, but hitting a Swarm Wall is rough.

I'm going to reload what I hope is a save early enough that I can get up there and try to clean out the hives; I'll see if that makes a difference.

and try to clean out the hives; I'll see if that makes a difference.

Killing hives is a big deal, however you will need to eventually automate your defenses somehow like with an ammo belt and/or resupply train. You have oil too and so flame turrets go a long way in helping to preserve your ammo.

@Veden if you think it fits and have the time it would be cool if Hives were clearly visible at a glance. This is outside our walls and there are a bunch of hives in there but figuring out which are hives vs nests requires hovering over each to check: https://i.imgur.com/ZsrnXe4.jpg

Hives are easy to notice. They are way bigger even comparing old small evo hives to high evo nests. And that's make a challenge to run around swarms looking for a hive. The only reason to use other weapons besides shotgun vs everything :-) .

Looking at that image do you think you could circle all the hives?

If Veden feels that hives being hidden is part of the balance I can totally understand that.

and try to clean out the hives; I'll see if that makes a difference.

Killing hives is a big deal, however you will need to eventually automate your defenses somehow like with an ammo belt and/or resupply train. You have oil too and so flame turrets go a long way in helping to preserve your ammo.

@Veden if you think it fits and have the time it would be cool if Hives were clearly visible at a glance. This is outside our walls and there are a bunch of hives in there but figuring out which are hives vs nests requires hovering over each to check: https://i.imgur.com/ZsrnXe4.jpg

I was actually thinking about this - the visibility of hives. I reloaded an older save and am doing a lot better after getting an artillery turret up there to slap down the hives in advance.

If I'd known, say, 30 minutes of gametime ago that there were hives being made / encroaching on my base, it would feel a lot less like a surprise when I start getting 60 swarms a minute, and therefore a lot less like an asymptotic curve in difficulty.

If there was some kind of option to alert on the map and mark a hive after it spawns, I would turn it on and set the difficulty for Rampant up from .9 (which is where this save has it) to 1.0 or 1.1.

Yes, I could kill all the hives starting with closer ones, then farther ones. Hives are dangerous ONLY when player comes near them or allows pollution to reach them. All the other time they quickly produce small number of worms/nests around them and stop. Rocket launcher has a range enough to never see how hives defend themselves :-). Then retreat to walls - advanced flamethrowers kill any amount of attacking biters if one protects them from inferno.

According to screenshot that was a provoked growth without a clear defense strategy - with unknown reason, maybe to have some fun. I can't use the gamesave provided as it requires a big amount of mods I never install. With my mods setup only map centre is shown with no electrified radars at perimeter walls. Can't find the place where this screenshot was made - can you help me to find it?
With evo 98% player should have a bunch of space science military upgrades to purge everything with ease. Then Factorio is about economics. Healthy economics -> enough energy, oil, iron, copper and coal to kill anything that settles nearby your walls+2 chunks away.

I suppose such nests density can also naturally grow far away from starting location zone and discovered AFTER exceeding 90% evo. But it should be really very far away, after millions of resources consumed.

This is what I see in the save https://imgur.com/a/Qc3J9Em . It's 77% evo, no hives can be found so far (probably I don't know where to run for them). But why such turrets are used? I get rid of them after getting chemical science as a second step. Gunturret mk2 is much stronger - I upgrade to them much earlier than start using piercing ammo. Yellow ammo + mk2 turrets is ok till evo 70% unless physical/troll factions are nearby. Maybe because K2 was used in this save - it unbalances game with making turrets and weapons much stronger at the very beginning. Can't recommend it for warfare factorio play.

Ok, found it - https://imgur.com/a/yaItuEB

That's a LOTR meme. You can't go out and simply build a mine post without flamethrowers, automated gunturrets ammo inserting, without going out sometimes and purging unwanted neighbours.
Biters eat pollution and make more nests. In vanilla deathworld they will nest once and quickly destroy your outpost. In Rampant they do it the other way, they enjoy and thrive around you.

I see no problems in Rampant here. Two hives here, one hive there. Just take a rocket launcher and show them who's a boss on the planet now. Or change Rampant mod settings - try to turn off New Enemies to balance out.

To be clear, my screenshot is from my own game and not from the save file Locane posted.

Its only purpose was to show that, at a glance, it's difficult (probably impossible) to determine which is a hive and which is a nest without hovering over it.

What dag_ said.

Really, Rampant's difficulty wall could be curbed with more information - had I known that I won't start noticing problems until it's too late unless I'm actively tamping down the nests, I wouldn't have had multiple play throughs with an unbeatable swarm.

It's not mod difficulty. Unless peaceful map setting your outpost will provoke real problems by feeding biters with pollution without any mods. There is nothing to fix in Rampant here now. If you want a curbed difficulty - try to play Rampant without New Enemies at first.
Why do you need to detect hives from a far when there is no difference be it a hive or a common nest? You'll select to feed it with pollution or not? To survive one shouldn't allow nests to eat pollution at all. The next step you'll want to see settled nests in the dark areas.

dag_, if you want a special beautiful design for hives - make it and offer. But it should look like local fauna.

Guys, this mod is for MORE warfare(!) difficulty. For everything else there are plenty of nice mods: Bob's mods, Angels mods, Pyanodons, Krastorio2, Space Exploration...

dag_, if you want a special beautiful design for hives - make it and offer. But it should look like local fauna.

Oh geez dude, I made a minor comment/suggestion for Veden to consider. I don't know who you even are.

Spending time on graphics isn't high on my list.

If you have some easy suggestions maybe.