OC by @[email protected]
I've been playing space age with 0 evolution increase over time (killing bases still increments it). So I've been eager to work around biter bases and pentapods.
Biter spawners can all be blocked by a pattern like the image; surrounding them with walls or solar panels or pipes prevents spawning. (This is intended behavior.) What is not mentioned anywhere afaik is that this also seems to prevent biter expansion from that base.
The same is only partially true for pentapods! Small egg rafts only spawn wrigglers (at low evolution?), and it seems you can block them off as in the image above. I have yet to see one try to expand from a surrounded small spawner.
In both cases, surrounded spawners seem to absorb a small amount of pollution/spores, be unable to spawn anything, and sit passively. No attack triggered.
But (regular) egg rafts are different. They spawn stompers and strafers which can spawn and stand directly on top of the raft. I tried and failed to prevent this spawning by packing the space with spider-trons. Also, given enough time a surrounded egg raft will eventually expand (afaik, it seems to spawn a wriggler in a crevice which then attacks its way out. I've never seen it just spawn a wriggler).
Relatedly: Stompers and strafers can stand between tiled solar panels, but not walls. Stompers only damage buildings with each step if they are aggresive.
Why solar and not walls? Why not use the least expensive material?
On Gleba? Solar panels are the cheaper material.
How so? There's plenty of rock, or at least I've found enough. You use the big miners and get tonnes of the stuff from small patches. I haven't done the math, but... I've always got boxes full of bricks and walls, and idle miners.
Steel and computer are essentially infinite, of course, so technically I guess you're right. I just... have way more wall on Gleba than I could ever use.
I don't know how you manage. All of my stones go toward train tracks and landfill, and I still need to import more to keep up. I'm even using enriched resource settings.
Belts. I have no trains on Gleba, it's all turbo belts. So far, I haven't expanded so far on Gleba that fruit is spoiling on the belts, except when they back up, but if that happens I'll just move processing closer to the fields. What with spoilage management, I've found density is itself an issue, so spreading out to multiple smaller bases is easier. It helps that the native wildlife isn't a robust or aggressive as Nauvis; Nauvis encourages building a giant wall around a mega factory (IME), but Gleba I find it's easier to spread out. Energy being essentially unlimited, I just sprinkle laser turrets around for peace of mind, and a Spidertrons hanging out for just in case... but, really, the most dangerous the wildlife has been is when something got wedged in egg production and spoilage led to outbreaks. It's been ages since one of those happened. Gleba isn't Fulgaris, but it's pretty peaceful, at least around my bases.