What works for me:

1. Have radar coverage to keep an eye on biter expansion

2. Keep an eye on your pollution cloud, and reduce production (at least initially) if it’s expanding too fast.

3. Build up military tech alongside your other tech

4. Pending 3, take out biter nests that expand too close to the edge of your pollution cloud.

If you can do 1-4, biters should never actually get to your base.

Then by the time you’re ready to go off world, make sure you have a perimeter lined with turrets (and some walls to help protect the turrets), repair bots and repair kits, automated ammo production, and supply lines (belts or trains) to automatically get that ammo to your perimeter turrets.

What’s the phone number of the chicken farm? 4444719

Explanation: Cot cot cot cot c’est un oeuf!

(cot being the French onomatopoeia for a chicken’s “cluck”)