Hi

Love the mod, makes enemies more relevant which is great. But how do you actually survive this mod?

I have played 12 hours on a K2 run and had some difficulty making it this far, but the base was secured and I was going into tech which would help me to claim more land, and then the next moment I just have this never-ending wave of enemies running over my base....

What is the strategy to actually survive?

For "pure" K2, the comfortable level of enemies is 7 + evolution slowed down by 2 times. Anything above Level 8 (any mod-pack) is at your own risk.

The main thing is to push the hives out of the polluted area at the first opportunity. At the beginning of the game, these "bugs" are much weaker than the standard ones.
If about 55% of the evolution the hives actively absorb pollution, then even the rampant arsenal will not kill even the default enemy level.

As for the high levels of evolution, there needs to be a mix of all types of damage.
For example, if you do not put turrets, then nuclear biters will easily break through the protection. If you don't put lasers, the base will be killed by juggernauts (but the immersite ammo will solve this problem). If there are no flamethrowers, then the spawner faction will become a huge problem

Regarding the endless waves: as long as the player does not destroy the bases, the attacks go about 1-2 per 1-3 minutes (in addition to pollution attacks). With a low evolution %, there are very few biters in these attacks, but they go to vulnerable places. But after mass "sweeps", you need to be ready to fend off a serious counterattack. More nests killed - longer counterattack. You have to be especially careful with artillery. Also, each rocket launch slightly enhances the attacks forever

Briefly, my tactics:
1. Put 1 turret at key objects
2. Kill the nearest hives, prevent early settlement
3. Put the initial outposts slightly in the distance to intercept the siege
4. Having established a mass production of ammo, kill all the hives in the area, find bottlenecks on the map and put a chain of outposts there
5. You are safe for a long time. By 40% of evolution, go out into flamethrowers and deliver oil to outposts (yes, it may be far away). K2 turrets kill fire faction well, so the only danger is T4 Brutal biters. I recommend burning out their nests with a hand flamethrower.
6. it is highly desirable to obtain green modules and solar energy in order to reduce the evolution from the pollution produced. The higher the evolution - the stronger the "smart" attacks

On the deathworld, everything is much more difficult. There - to act according to circumstances, but I would increase the starting resources. if you play without reloads, then the deathworld wins more often than I do.

Regarding the situation in the current game: you need to help the defense if it does not cope on its own. After a while, the bugs will calm down.
It is advisable to see exactly which factions are coming. If Brutal comes, then at least flamethrowers are needed (ideally, lasers). Ordinary turrets will cope with the rest.
Of course, I assume that technologies for damage have been researched

Thank you for the response.

I did not change any levels of evolution, I will check what the levels are when starting my new game.

My defenses consisted of turrets and flamethrowers and were working towards lasers when I got overrun. In the early game I did not really kill a lot of nests, just what I needed to get the creep needed for the research.

Seems like the best start would be to rush the pollution filters available in K2, just to prevent the bitters from absorbing and evolving too quickly?

no. The pollution absorbed by the filters has no effect on evolution. It is necessary to reduce the pollution produced.
However, filters help to weaken the intensity of attacks from pollution.
You can type the command "/evolution" in the console and see what influenced evolution the most and take appropriate measures

"I did not really kill a lot of nests, just what I needed to get the creep needed for the research" - by this phrase, I conclude that the perimeter is built near the base. This is very dangerous for the player

Yes, the base was small with the perimeter close by. The idea was to have a small base until I get to the tank, then I was going to claim enough land to build a larger base.

What is the benefit of having the perimeter further away?

I checked the evolution 0.6865 (Time 41%) (Pollution 46%) (Spawner Kills 13%), this was with almost 13 hours played.

I wouldn't count on a tank). He can't handle these biters.
Fortunately, there are many other ways in K2.
Pros from the perimeter "away":
1. do not have to think about how to take away the territory from stronger biters
2. more area that can be polluted
3. biters are less willing to attack the perimeter, beyond which there is nothing "tasty"
4. the presence of a player near the nests can provoke attacks by itself, if he is far away, this factor is removed