I have tried all kinds of approaches to destroy the enemy rocket launch pad. I brought extra artillery shells and manually aimed the captured artillery in the fuel base, but I'm just aiming at the enemy spidertrons which don't seem to die despite multiple hits. I sent 40 shells to the area thinking it was wiped out but no, you have it rebuilding as new. I tried 2 nukes to get past the defenses but it just rebuilds too fast for me to get in. I tried going around but nests are too thick. It is starting to become just painful instead of fun. Can I please have another hint? Love it all. Your stories got me happy to play the game again. Thank you.

Hi,

unfortunatly to destroy enemy spidertrons cannot be done by the artilery shells. Factorio game do not appliing the splash damage to them. The best solution to kill spidertron is to use rockets or nukes. Best way is to build your own spidertron, fill it with rockets (upgrades helps a lot) or build nukes (at least 20). The proper and big automatisation of your base is the key.

But if you have problem ,that enemy rebuilding the base very fast, just find their power plant and bomb them.

I agree this mission is hard, I constantly increasing the difficulty by each level. Are you playing on normal or easy diff.? What is now your evolution factor? Do you have problems with bugs?

Maybe the problem what I see is doubled resources consuption here on normal difficulty. This mean you must build a lot of gears or circuits to build something.

Also, there is one option to kill the spidertron (if you know the spidertron is loaded by nukes) :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H71Wq0YlITU

So many options, be creative :D

Thank you for the quick and many responses! I will need many more hours to truly automate the base and did not realize I would need to research Spidertron or nuclear bomb to complete this mission. Maybe I am not being creative enough. I am not sure how to find the difficulty level. I tried google to find it and the best I can tell you is that I did the evolution command and it says "Evolution factor: .8464, time 24%, pollution 74% and spawner kills 3%." I watched the IED video, very nice!! I am guessing that the enemy spidertron in the video is the northern spidertron at the southern fuel depot.

Spoiler alert in the following *

I found the three nukes but from your answer it sounds like I need to use the artillery to find the power plants. Thank you for explaining that those will not rebuild if destroyed. I am confused about the clue given in the story to use the artillery. I agree it is easier to attack the entrance without as many bugs which the artillery will destroy. I will try more options, and again, thank you for this amazing and fun mod!! Hoping the final episode is as good as the rest have been. :-)

Nice to hear.

yeah, agains spidertrons you must use spidertrons or nukes.
Also, you can bomb with altillery the enemy rocket silo, if you find where it is, you can save the time resarching the rest of the offensive technology.

ok, about the difficulty level, you must set it up in the main menu. Go to the New Game -> Story Mission campaing -> set difficulty level (hard, normal, easy). This works only on the new start, you cant reduce the difficulty during the actual play.

Got it done with the artillery! My only hope is that there is less profanity in the dialog. My young son was watching over my shoulder during some of the play and while you do obscure it, he is a smart kid. Otherwise a really great story, amazing building of the maps, and engaging missions. Thank you again!!

Hi this is good feedback about profanity. I did not expect, the young children will be playing(or watching) the game and the story is concepted for teens and adults. The truth is, I never wrote the age restriction anywhere . I expected 14 years old or higher will be playing the mod (I still do not expect that children knows how to install the mods). I am also do not like the profanity (I almost never speaking in bad language) but for the story was sometimes neccecary to include it to simulate the feelings of the protagonists. I think I also sometimes censored bad words for example in mission 8. Most the bad language I think is in mission 7.

I see that Factorio do not has official age rating, but disscussions mostly agree with ESRB or T for teens because of the violence.

Guys, it is in the dialog, you have to hijack the artillery train (next to it you can find shells) and use that to destroy the silo... actually it is in range where the train is parked.. so you load up the shells and hit the silo (you need some shoots to discover the exact location but the quest shows the approximately position)...

hi, it is the optional task, because the enemy base is havily fortified and to kill enemy spidertrons is hard. So you can hijack more altilery/remote and bomb enemy base and eventually you will hit the enemy silo. Also shooting artilery shell reveal the map.

Why can't I craft the artillery targeting remote if the research is unlocked?

Hi, because of the balance entire mission. Try to ask yourself. You have altillery from the start and with remote you basicaly do not need to leave the base. This is boring and you can do it in the free play then :-). Or you can aquare the remote from (spoiler alert) enemy base south-east from your base. Your call.

Yeah that is understandable. I haven't used the artillery yet this level and I'm at the point where the enemy started expanding to the Southeast so there are bases everywhere lol. I managed to stop the one that can take out the southern oil, but I'm fairly new to Factorio and I think I'm just in over my head because I can't get near the pirate base to the Northeast to get the last rocket control unit because of the spidertron and not sure I have the skill and understanding of the game (or patience at this point haha) to automate the yellow research to an efficient level that won't take me 20 hours lol. That's the only reason I was asking about crafting the remote. My play times for the last couple levels have been in the 10+ hour range, and that's not counting all the save/restarts and I'm having trouble feeling motivated. I might have to come back when I have more knowledge and understanding of the game, but I have genuinely enjoyed your mod campaign so much! Well done and thank you for putting it together for everyone! I'll be chipping away slowly =)

Edit: One more thing. I try to take out pipelines that feed flamethrowers but it doesn't seem to stop them from firing. Is that a feature to prevent it from being too easy to disarm enemy defenses? Also just found the Spidertron from your improvised IED video above lol. I'll have to see what doing that will unlock =)

I understand. Yet in this case, the remote for artillery agains the spidertrons will not help you. Spidertrons are imune to splash damage of the artilleries.

I can give you one advice. You do not need to kill the tron, you just need to survive enought to loot the chest (shield your-self). Yet another progress for yellow science in the mission is neccecary , because mission is hard and without advanced weapons like nukes, rockets, shields, uranium ammo you cant survive... One more thing. Do not aquaire the computers before you reach at least purple tech. Also it is good to expand to the west. There are huge amount of resources. Focus on weponery production.

If you beat up prevous missions, you re expert now. Not newbie anymore :D

And thank you for playing. Also if the mod is too hard for you, you can change the difficulty

This tactic is also good. If tron has a nuke :D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H71Wq0YlITU

(N/m - figured it out!)
Such a good mod - thank you again for it.