Maybe some helpful hints on how to get copper because it seems hard to acquire until you can process bugs, unless I'm missing something. I've gotten into this position of needing a lot more copper, I've scoured the islands for the available rocks, but I need copper to make adv circuits to make science to get to cannonballs (4500 copper ore to make plates to make wire to make circuits) so I can actually fight the biters at sea (the only other option I see is to quickly drop wood platforms and then a turret and repair like crazy while it kills all the bugs, even then, we are looking at 10cu per turret). I assume in order to take down a nest and capture it we will have to build wood platforms around it in order to automate egg collection to take to the nearest island to process before they spoil/hatch.

No need to spoiler warning ;D

First thing. Bugs eggs is intended way to get copper. Diesel machines and bichamber don't use it in recipes, so if you switch factory to liqid fuel you will end up needing much lower amount of it (most will go into splitter and heating tower). Worth mentioning that calciner has 50% prod. So a bit more copper for the same ammont of eggs. You can also try second, harder recipe to add another step in biochamber. This way you apply building prod bonus 2 times.

Granades don't consume copper and works like charm. I think that's the thing you missed, and needed

I don't know if you landed on planet or go APS
but bugs also have 0 poison resistance so capsules are option as well. But worh mentioning that poison capsule don't dmg spawner

Finding spawner near some sort of island is also what I ended up doing on my save.

This might be a bit counter intuitive but eggs can be also burned in heating tower to void them if you can't smelt them.

Small boat also csn be placed on waterway if you need something fast with low cappacity

Getting copper is my favourite chain so far.

I plan to add floating leviathan corpse as water decorations, so you can find a bit more copper while sailing

I hope ypu find some of these tips helpfull

These are changes added in 0.14.3:
- fermented fish spoiling time is now longer (1h -> 2h)
- copper spitter egg spoiling time is now longer (0.5h -> 1.0h)

It should make farming copper a bit easier