re: Bioshock.
I’ve killed one mostly through sheer luck. Now I’m in the second area… Neptune’s whatever, and there’s a Big Daddy right past where you come out of the bathysphere.
Anyway, how do you kill those felchers? I’ve tried lightening, I’ve tried the machine gun… they just eventually kill me very painfully.
The best thing i’ve found is the shotgun with the electric buck. If you don’t have that yet, I would say lure it into an area where you’ve got some hacked turrets.
Well, I’m playing on Easy setting because I usually suck at FPS. So I guess YMMV.
Easiest Big Daddy kill I’ve had was in a bar with a balcony - he came in while I was up above, I pulled out the grenade launcher, three shots and he was toast.
Mostly I use ElectroBolt or the freezing plasmid, alternating with shotgun or machine gun (keep your aim low, it kicks like crazy). Keeping them immobile is key. When you have to reinject, run away, duck and weave. Keep your distance. Remember to heal regularly. And for Og’s sake make sure there’s nothing else in the area to come after you during the fight!
Armor-piercing bullets in the machine-gun are the best way to weaken those big bastards and then finish them off with the grenade launcher.
Yes, grenade launchers. Then once you get the crossbow, incendiary bolt headshots do the trick quickly. Keep your Electric Shock plasmid at the ready to stun him when we charges (Bouncers).
You know they won’t attack you if you don’t mess with them, right? Plan your attacks carefully. Later on you’ll get weapons that you can set traps up with (proximity mines and trap bolts. Cyclone trap can be used to guide them too since they’ll avoid it. )
The one in Neptune’s Bounty can be tough since you don’t start out with much. Engage him in the first large area, where there’s a muddy area between two wooden platforms. I’d suggest either waiting until you get into the upper area so you can shoot from high ground[sup]*[/sup], or crawl into the area under the docks. If you’re well-armed, you can go up against him by dancing around one of the capstan things on the dock. It can be tough, though, since you need good aim, and have to make sure there’s plenty of space behind so the mines/grenades won’t kill you.
[sup]*[/sup] It’s not a particularly effective strategy, but using TK to catch the turret rocket bombs up there, and then shoot them down at folks below is kind of fun.
If you do it right, you can lead them into battle with another Big Daddy, which is quite fun to watch. Kill the loser and take your reward - though you usually won’t get the Little Sister out of this. Enrage can work to soften them up against other enemies if you’re careful about it.
There’s another plasmid you can get that helps with that plan:
Hypnotize Big Daddy is available if you save the Little Sisters - Tenenbaum gives it to you as a reward. Unfortunately it’s not as useful as it sounds, since they won’t attack until you’re actually hit or being fired at. And any accidental damage (shock on touch, splash from shotguns) will turn him against you. Good for ‘boss’ battles, though.
My favorite technique is to use security cameras against them. They tend to take out turrets pretty easily, but the flying bots distract them quite nicely if the ceiling is high enough. It gives you plenty of time to fire away or reload.
Enjoy the game - I got about halfway through, then my antivirus software screwed up the executable, and I can’t reinstall due to a patch server problem.
Was it AVG? It just screwed me. I had checked “heal” and it basically quarantined Bioshock.exe. Restore didn’t work. But uninstalling AVG did 
I’m back to playing now.
It certainly was. I’ll give it a try and be eternally grateful if it works.
Funny… Big Daddies kick my ass, too!
I talked with my husband about this, and he agrees - grenade launcher (get the upgrade that protects you from blowback when you can) is the way to go.
However, he also killed two BDs with only plasmid power and a wrench. Because he’s insane. He said it takes a long time, but it’s doable.
If you go down that path, the wrench becomes incredibly strong towards the end of the game.
I don’t have a grenade launcher yet, so that’s out.
What makes the wrench so powerful? I have to say, the most fun I’ve had with this game so far is zap-n-smash. I just love doing that.
There’re three different tonics that improve your wrench skills. Sportsboost makes you swing (and move) faster, Wrench Lurker gives you a stealth bonus and extra damage when attacking someone from behind, and Wrench Jockey gives you a general damage boost. All of these tonics have an upgraded version, and you can have the original and the upgrade equipped at the same time, increasing your bonus even further. Add in Bloodlust, which heals you every time you deal melee damage, and you’re pretty hard to kill.
Once you get it, the crossbow makes Big Daddies your bitch.
Unfortunately I’ve been ripping the guts out of every little sister I see, so there’s no bonuses there for me. But it’s totally worth it 
Wrench Jockey 1&2, Sportboost 1&2, Cold field 1&2 and Bloodlust. The only problem with this is that I keep smashing BD’s into little pieces and can’t get their money. Also, this set up is absolutely hilarious in Fort Frolic when you have to fight off the splicers after the 3rd picture. I crack up swatting spider splicers off the ceiling in one hit.
Well, since there isn’t any penalty for dieing, a patient man can just lure the Big Daddies to sleep with a little chin music from Sweet Lady Wrench.
Exactly. Your opponents retain all the damage you have done to them even after you die and respawn, so you can eventually kill anything if you are patient enough. It may take a while but you can eventually take out anything in the game after pounding on it enough, even if all you use is the wrench.
Yeah, I figured that out eventually. I think my problem was that I was re-starting from a saved game after I died. Once I figured out that the respawn penalty was just about nothing, and the mobs retained their damage, the Big Daddies got WAY easier.
I usually just cheese my way through by going somewhere the Daddy can’t follow, like a crawlspace, and then plinking away at him until he goes down.
I found a pretty easy way to take them down in Neptune’s Bounty. Near the Gatherer’s Garden (the one in the big room with the turret) there’s and area with partly torn up grating on the floor. If you lure a big daddy over there then you can duck under the grating. From there, you can hide in the safe part, lure him over the grating with a potshot, wait till he stops paying attention to you, then run underneath him on the grating and shotgun him. Then duck back into the safe part and wait till he loses interest again. Not the bravest solution, I will admit, but it does work.
In the next area you get the chemical thrower, which has the electric gel. If you get the ammo conservation upgrade, it takes about 100 units of electric gel (if you do the research) to kill a Big Daddy with pretty much no risk to yourself. You can make electric gel in the U-Invent machines.
Hope that helps!