I played and completed this game a couple months ago also after first playing the tutorial/demo levels. I feel like the demo levels were setup to teach to to f

I played and completed this game a couple months ago also after first playing the tutorial/demo levels. I feel like the demo levels were setup to teach to to fear and deal with the biters. As a result when I played the real game they were no big problem in the early game because I immediately invested in building walls and appropriate armaments. In the demos I felt like they were too much to handle and too easily overpowered me. In the real game things are staged so the biters are initially weak, far away, and attack infrequently giving you plenty of time to prepare for them. Biters causing damage disproportionate to my ability to blink off just wasn't a problem in the real game for me. They caused more damage over time, but by the time they did I had endless supplies of the things they were breaking and automated repair, etc. Once I automated defences (and cleared out nearby nests-- which kind of acts like a useful arcade minigame with its own strategic elements-- e.g. inching turret outposts closer to the nests), it's unusual that biter attacks took any of my attention at all -- maybe just a glance on the map if it told me something other than a wall had been destroyed. Later in the game, pressure from the biters created logistic challenges that kept the game interesting. Basically when you've mastered the ratios and the supply chains, and deployed logic to balance your fluids, and whatever-- the game can get a little grindy without some kind of hazard here and there. And keeping the weapons/repair supply chains satisfied at your outposts is a significant engineering challenge itself. Some people I've seen complaining about the biters I think didn't play the tutorial/demo levels and were just caught completely by surprise by them and massively under-invested in defence/offence. As you note-- there is peaceful mode. From reading the subreddit I understand some number of people run without the biters. I believe there are also settings you can adjust to make them less of a problem without turning them off completely. I found that some of those stressed you experienced get better as I went on, because I learn how to fix them ("oh, this again?") and aren't too starved for the basic resources needed to do so. Some tools, like construction robots also make some annoying problems a LOT easier to deal with. I felt I'd basically mastered the game once my solution to a problem in an area could be to sweep it with the demolition tool, remove everything, than rapidly churn out some novel blueprints, tile them all over the place... then be back up in running quickly and not feel like I was losing anything by wiping away the prior work.