I am not sure if this is the right spot for this, but here we go.

I am up to mission 8 and I simply have been unable to get across to the second base. I have tried probably about 20 times from the same save game point, but I feel I am missing something. The spidertron just gets really bogged down from the spitter shots that you can't really avoid. Yes, I have tried to keep to where the nukes carved a path across. I had like 129 grenades and while they help, it simply isn't enough when you get a huge pile of spitters on you and you can barely crawl. I am not exactly a Factorio rookie, but I am no combat genius either, although I managed to get to this point on the previous version, meaning that all the scenarios were on hard.
I would like to continue this excellent series, but at this point, I am pretty frustrated with it. Any help or guidance would be appreciated. Thanks.

Hi,
are you playing on the hard difficulty? If yes, I did not properly tested this mission on this difficutly so maybe I did it too hard.

If you are playing on normal or easy difficulty, you must just follow the nuked path. Sometimes the nukes miss their original target so you can end up in the dead end but if you are watching closely on the map, you can see some areas without bug presence like forests or lakes. Try use this terrain to proceed to target location. Also explossives rockets, granades, poison capsule should help you. Sometimes is neccecary to little bit clear the path but if you bassicaly keep moving on the middle of the map, you should always reach your target.

I also recomend to join the discussion on discord. :-)

Thanks for the reply. I was using the previous version before you added the difficulty levels. Another stupid question would be where can I change the difficulty level for mission 8? I don't mind restarting the mission if necessary for a different difficulty level. I will see if I can find you on Discord at some point. Thanks.

Yes. After update you should have access automaticaly to normal and easy difficulty. Only hard difficulty you must play whole campaign again. (Note, on patch 2.3.1 is Mission 8 still easier on normal difficulty then before. See the changelog)

The difficulty level you can choose in the NEW GAME -> story mission campaign menu (right next the mission selection)

Discord channel link is here in the mod description

I suggest to research as many tech as you can, protect the base with flamers then proceed for the next base.