How to defend Gleba with only Nauvis tech

Factorio371 views1 favorites5 min readby Big GreaseUpdated Feb 10View on Steam ↗

The Minefield Defense


This is the strategy I found on the internet. This method of defending your base is in not entirely obvious for a simple reason.
Stompers absolutely wreck landmines. So landmines are completely useless.
The reasons why this is true is because your base when you have any turrets nearby it draws Stompers aggro when they approach. This activates their "Attack Mode" causing them to... Well... Stomp. These stomps are an area attack that absolutely annihiliates your defenseless landmines, rendering them useless.
Another is that any drones trying to repair your defenses will draw aggro as well.
However if you build your landmines with absolutely no turrets of any kind anywhere near them or within reach (Unless it's Artillery Turrets far back) for the baddies to draw aggro on, then "Attack Mode" will not be activated unless they see any drones, and they will happily walk over your minefields to blow themselves and their friends to pieces.
You must also build the minefields at the absolute periphery of your roboports reach like in the images, as the drones WILL draw aggro when they try to repair. If they are far away they simply will not be fast enough to reach the landmines as they are getting attacked, which is very good.
While this is the most boring defense you could possibly think of, it does the job very effectively. Landmines stun and deal absurd area damage at an astonishingly cheap price.
One tip is to build a green chest at each roboport requesting landmines, maybe 100. This will allow your logistics bots to help deliver landmines to the front, which construction bots can then more easily build with.

Maintenance
You should import explosives to Gleba from Nauvis then build the landmines on Gleba. Explosives require sulfur and coal, and coal is very expensive to make on Gleba. You can absolutely do all this on Gleba, but it is not going to be fast or easy making all that coal and sulfur, especially with all the spores the required farming will release, This method I have found to be the most efficient and inexpensive. Longterm the cost will not be very high due to how efficient landmines are. Beware though, you will likely need a huge amount of landfill upfront. So you better be mining all the stone you can get your hands on and converting it to landfill.

Notes
One thing of note is that Radars don't seem to anger stompers, atleast when spread out, so you can put a few at the frontline.
If you upgrade your drones to really high speeds and you start having issues due to them reaching the landmines too fast and drawing aggro, then simply put the landmine chests farther away or remove them.
Oddly enough you can build non defensive structures between the landmines and roboports without drawing aggro. Just make sure you don't have any drones going to them.
Also, level 3 explosives research should be sufficient to keep the 8 row thick landmine defense strong enough to keep your base safe at all times. Just make sure to keep a loaded tank on gleba so if anything goes wrong you can deal with it. Lastly, if you encounter any cliffs in the way, just spam some landmines around them and you should be good.

Best Alternative Method

I name this the Decoy Defense. This is the method I made completely on my own after a ton of experimentation. This atleast somewhat resembles a normal defense. Not just an ugly, boring clump of landmines. So if you really don't like landmines, then this is the defense for you.
This defense works by the flamethrowers distracting the stompers with their prescence. They also have exceptionally high health, so they can endure the attacks to an extent. While the stompers and other foes are distracted, the rocket turrets go for the kill.

Maintenance
You should expect around 3 flamethrowers to get destroyed on each attack at max evolution. They only cost iron and a bunch of products made exclusively by iron, but replacing them will cost a few hundred iron each attack. You will also need tons of repair packs and some rockets with the occasional rocket turret. It is also really expensive to set up and you should probably import some explosives for this defense too. But the upfront explosive cost is not nearly as high as for the landmine defense, and not quite as much landfill will be needed. The longterm explosive cost is higher however due to rockets efficiency.

Notes
This is legitimately the best alternative method I could come up with, it is the most economical alternative to landmines. Any other non landmine setup than this will get your base razed to the ground or an absurd amount of resources will need to be spent on replacing turrets at max evolution. However, when compared to the landmine defense: Rockets are not capable of nearly as much as landmines at the same cost, flamethrowers will get destroyed, the game will notify you each time you get attacked with annoying sounds as things break... But if you want to challenge yourself by not using landmines, this defense will protect your base at a decent cost. You can build the rocket turrets more densely too though, but flamethrowers will still get destroyed, just slightly less. Also, don't build the flamethrowers more densely than shown, counterintuitively it will just result in you losing more flamethrowers due to area damage. If you build the flamethrowers closer to the rocket turrets, then your rocket turrets risk drawing aggro away from the flamthrowers, which is not good. Lastly, it is safe to put down radars at this defense, just like with landmines.

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