empires of the undergrowth leveling up tiles

The workers (and the soldiers alike) do like 10% of a shooter's DPS anyway so it doesn't matter at all if they're confused or stunned, they still act as meatshield while your shooters can nuke everything to bits completely unimpended. Also the shooters do not have a zero DPS faction because they do not need to get into direct contact with the enemy so you can build 250 of those and they will still all be able to apply their outrageous DPS without problems - they are even immune to abilities like confuse, stun and rending because they are way too far away from enemy units to be affected by those. Obviously this does not apply to the Formica rufa ants because their shooters are so ridiculously overpowered that they make everything but L1 workers (which you need anyway for gathering food) as a cheap meatshields completely obsolete. fusca) have a limited DPS they can bring to effect due to the fact that only a limited number of them can get into actual contact with the enemy - everthing more than that plus a little reserve is a complete waste of resources because these soldiers that cannot actually reach the enemy deal ZERO DPS (so at that point it becomes the better choice to upgrade the DPS of those soldiers that CAN actually reach and attack the enemy). Food is super rare to the point where you cannot afford losses.

Upgrades are only worth it in 2 very specific circumstances.

Empires of the undergrowth leveling up tiles