Hey, I've been playing this mod a bunch, I have a 100+ hours savefile. I've been using default settings, and I'm starting to strugle a lot with these leviathan biters that starts appearing after 0.97 evolution.

Up until that point, the aliens have been a struggle, but it was fun and manageable. The pollution in this mod tends to be pretty extreme, so I'm being attacked a lot, and the evolution increased very fast. I've checked and pollution amount to nearly 80% of evolution of my save.

The minigun turret has been a very nice answer, I've been able to defend myself using pretty much only these.

But since the leviathan have started appearing, it feels like the save is becoming unsalveageble. Some of these are fine, the leviathan snapper is not too bad. The frost and toxic spitters are sometimes nasty with their long range. If they get into a position where only a few minigun can shoot them, they can do some damage. But the real problem are these frost and explosive bitters, every single time one of these spawns, they are gonna blow a giant hole in my defenses. Four rows of minigun with uranium bullets is just not enough to stop them.

I'm not too sure what I was supposed to do to avoid this situation. Better tech would definitely help, I'm currently at the computer age and have the science packs up the computer simulation one. To me, it kinda feels like I've bricked this save because I wasn't efficient enough with my pollution to reach one or two more science pack at this point.

Or maybe there is something a bit off about the balance at this point. I tried to minimise pollution most of the way, using solar energy for as long as I could. I did start using the efficient turbine generators at the point where even covering most of my base in solar wouldn't be enough.

I also got very surprised at these leviathan suddendly appearing. It is pretty cool, but it also feels bad to loose a base after that much investement.

I'm suggesting maybe changing something around this point of the game. Maybe change the evolution curve so these leviathan show up much further. Or adding some reaally big gun or something that could deal with them before getting to the space stuff. Maybe add some warning about their existance in the informatron.

Anyway, thanks for reading my rant, I still had a nice time overall, nice mod.

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There is a mod startup setting called Enemy difficulty ladder which can adjust the stats of all non-gleba enemies.

Check the Informatron page for specific information and maybe try setting it to Merciful.

Using a variety of turrets, including T1 tesla coil/acidthrower for slowdown, T3 walls for supreme damage resistance, Flamethrower with Kerosene, Heavy oil, etc for higher damage multiplier, Exotic magazines(Compound, etc) in the Miniguns for the highest damage output, Rocket artillery to keep spawners further and soften up encroachments, can all help.

Thanks for your answer. I noticed you added the Enemy difficulty setting somewhat recently, I didn't have it on my save. I updated the mod, and it seems my save went to "Tempered".

I experimented a bit, it seems to help. The spitters and the big spooder bugs are way easier to take down with bullets. The only one I have a big problem with is the leviathan frost biter. They still have 41k hp and 12/75% phys resistence in Tempered. And the actual problem is their insane death explosion.

Before frost biter
https://i.imgur.com/SuwEGO5.jpeg

After frost biter
https://i.imgur.com/yqZmvuF.jpeg

I've looked at tesla turrets, and I'm a bit puzzled at how they would be useful with their very low range. They get outranged by any of the leviathan spitters. Their stats are not very impressive at all, I didn't even research them. Do they have some hidden stun or something ?

The compound bullets seems like it could be a good solution. I did consider them, but they are very expensive to make. I don't think I can reasonnably replace all my uranium bullets by these.

I could try to design a system where I have miniguns with compound bullets just to take care of the leviathan, and uranium for everything else. Or I could add flamethrowers. Still, all my defenses would need a major logistic redesign, and it's very tricky when these huge holes keep happening.

Tempered is the mildest enemy stat reduction, try the other's—Mercy in particular has additional stat ceilings/reductions on the late-game units.

Tesla turrets have something like 100 upgrades which eventually extend to the Fulgoran tesla coil turret—death explosions, instant death, stuns, critical hits, and capstone upgrades with dramatic effects.

Your walls would work a lot better spaced out from the turrets, possibly with layers separated by hollow space—and use the higher tier walls.

Using a single type of turret in excess might be more difficult than a mixture—admittedly a departure from how vanilla plays.

All of the Exotic magazines are a dramatic upgrade from uranium ammo—Do what feels right v0v

Hello,

I wish I could get difficulty to Merciful in my current save, but the setting is in the startup section, the game says it would require a game restart. Can I get around that with a console command maybe ?

I'm not sure spacing things more would help that much. On the normal aliens for sure, but the problem is that on-death explosion of the leviathan frost bitter, it's pretty much a nuke. So the further I extend things out, the more attrition I'm gonna take. I did try the tesla turret, and by the time they are in range, they are already pretty much in the explosion radius.

I also tried the acid and flamethrower turrets, and they are helpful. I have one question about them, does their slowing effect stack together ?

Thanks for your answer

Startup settings can only be changed from the main menu's mod settings menu before loading your save.

Putting a second layer of walls the radius of the explosion + 1 tile further away will minimize attrition.

Slowing effects stack.