Seeking advice or recommendations: space exploration or krastorio 2?

[Jeffreyac]

Hi again.

Getting my last factory to the point where I'm thinking it's time to leave it and start something new, and considering starting a modded run. I have used some small mods before, for tweaks and QoL, but never an overhaul.

I've heard great things about both these mods, but not sure I want to tackle both at the same time, so was thinking one or the other.

I've read Krastorio 2 is the more polished, with gameplay similar to vanilla but expanded endgame, while space ex uses different planets, rockets, and space structures as new gameplay.

I had been leaning towards K2, but the rockets and planetary bases kind of intrigue me.

So, thought I'd seek advice from those familiar with these mods. Anyone have suggestions on which to try first?

[jimmyzgreek]

if you like a mod whos dev couldnt finish it, space exploration

[shadain597]

If you do some forum searching, you'll find quite a bit of info on SE for sure; I haven't noticed as much about K2. RiO in particular has typed out quite a few lengthy replies about SE, though he focused more on the cons than the pros of it. (to be fair, the mod's main page does a good job of showcasing the "pros" anyways)

Basically, SE introduces some interesting stuff, but is extremely long and requires quite a bit of effort to get the space science going--not like "this is a fun challenge" but more like "dear god why is this set up this way? This doesn't have any of the balance or elegance found in the base game!" Plus the mod creator has his own idea of how you should play, and puts a lot of effort into ensuring that you don't find a way around that--to the point of going out of his way to make SE incompatible with "cheaty" mods he doesn't like. Again, there's a lot of good stuff in the mod, going where few mods have gone before, but it's so painfully grindy that even Factorio's dev's gave up on it.

I don't really have K2 experience, but it is marketed as basically the best overhaul mod to start with, so I think it probably makes more sense to start there. Of course, you could just go crazy and start with both mod packs enabled. As questionable as that might sound, I've heard that some of the stuff in K2 actually makes SE a bit easier to manage. Speaking of managing SE, IDK how anyone plays it in singleplayer; my multiplayer group burned out even though we had several people to share the workload with, including having different people sorting out issues on different surfaces simultaneously.

[DCYW]

why not both?

[Leeux]

I'd suggest starting with a pure Krastorio 2 run first... it's complicated enough to give you some good change from vanilla, but not different or difficult enough to get frustrating.

Also it's one of the most compatible overhauls out there, as there are a lot of other game changing mods that can be run on top of it, including Space Exploration.

If you want extended end-game, I'd suggest giving the other "space" mod a try first: Space Extension or commonly known as "SpaceX", it gives you something to achieve besides just launching rockets for sake of it, and it's difficult enough to achieve that you'd want to progress into a mega base to get there. It's compatible with Krastorio too.

If you want more spice on top of it, you can add AAI Industry, which makes some of the recipes a bit harder (changes so most stuff requires some kind of engine/motor and also extends the starting "burner" phase quite a bit), but its changes mostly matters at the start of the game.

I'm currently doing my second run of Krastorio 2, this time including all the "BZ" mods (brevven mods) that add extra base metals and changes recipes to use those.

[Nico]

According to the Space Exploration description it takes 70 to 700 hours to complete it, with an average of 400h for most players, so I'd say only pick it if you really want to spend that much time on it. Krastorio 2 would surely take way less time than that.
So my suggestion would be to only pick Krastorio 2 if you want a somewhat normal length run, or if you want a really long run, you can probably just pick both since you will have enough time to get to know all of the new Krastorio 2 stuff anyways. And I at least would assume that it's rather unlikely that you would decide to do 2 Space Exploration runs, one without and one with Krastorio 2.
But I mean, you can always do a run with both mods active after doing just a regular Krastorio 2 run. Then you at least can learn the Krastorio 2 stuff independently from the Space Exploration stuff.

[mystickneon]

Industrial Revolution.

[pat]

I tried SE quite a while ago, but it was my take that it was just too much loooong research. My solution was to queue up everything and let the game run overnight. I'd prefer a project that requires me to actually do things, like set up production chains and make things.

[Jeffreyac]

Ok, thanks for the input, everyone...! (as a side note, I didn't even realize there was a Space Exploration AND a Space Extended mod - thought they were both different names for the same thing!)

I'll take a look at space extended, but K2 might be the better road for me - I think I'd like a little bit of new, but I don't know that I want to bite off THAT much just yet!

[Nico]

Originally posted by Jeffreyac:

Ok, thanks for the input, everyone...! (as a side note, I didn't even realize there was a Space Exploration AND a Space Extended mod - thought they were both different names for the same thing!)

I'll take a look at space extended, but K2 might be the better road for me - I think I'd like a little bit of new, but I don't know that I want to bite off THAT much just yet!

Yeah, SpaceX just changes the normal single rocket launch required to beat the game to 40 needed, with adding huge research requirements to the end to actually beat the game but keeps everything prior to the rocket basically unchanged. You probably can use that mod together with basically every other mod that doesn't change the end game. And even only activate it really late into the game, like once you decided to start building the rocket. So not really a decision you have to make before starting the run.
Though SpaceX might be incompatible with Space Exploration. But that's probably not a big problem.

Edit:
But SpaceX is compatible with bob and even has dependencies on it, so even uses some new items and recipes, so maybe an interesting decision to try it together with a bob&angel run.

[Jeffreyac]

So, I started a K2 play...

...probably a good thing I didn't try space exploration, or bob's or anything... I'm 4 1/2 hours into my run, just finishing setting up my basic mall!

...I'm kind of an anti-speed runner in that it takes me a LONG time to get anywhere!

I do have automated defense production, and this'll give me automated yellow belt, splitter, underground, and loader, plus inserters... so hopefully it'll bootstrap me for further expansion, but yeah, I'm more of a glacial pace player...

[shadain597]

Originally posted by Jeffreyac:

...I'm kind of an anti-speed runner in that it takes me a LONG time to get anywhere!

Don't worry, I think you are in good company; I've got an ongoing Nullius run that's reached something like 70 hours and I still haven't completely drained some of the starting ore patches. I spent a LOT of time casually putting together a cramped spaghetti factory/mall with limited throughput and only recently started on what will eventually be a megabase with trains connecting everything.

[Nico]

Originally posted by Jeffreyac:

So, I started a K2 play...

...probably a good thing I didn't try space exploration, or bob's or anything... I'm 4 1/2 hours into my run, just finishing setting up my basic mall!

...I'm kind of an anti-speed runner in that it takes me a LONG time to get anywhere!

Sure, take your time, especially with new mods I also always need ages to get anythign done, especially in new mods. and 4.5h doesn't sound that slow to me.

Originally posted by Jeffreyac:

I do have automated defense production, and this'll give me automated yellow belt, splitter, underground, and loader, plus inserters... so hopefully it'll bootstrap me for further expansion, but yeah, I'm more of a glacial pace player... :tgrin:

Regarding Loaders ... it's just my opinion, but I personally think the K2 loaders are too op. They cost basically nothing, consume no energy and just transfer a ridiculous amount of resources. That's why I personally disabled them in the mod settings and added the miniloader mod, which adds something similar, just with much higher cost and energy cost. So that they actually feel like having a fair price for their insane power. They also use the Krastorio 2 dependencies, so they're fully integreated and compatible. (The same with Space Exploration)

Btw, there are really many handy mods that can make stuff easier for you. Especially for new big mods I personally really like the helmod mod since it allows you to easily see all recipes and properly set up a plan for crafting something including all prequiisites and seeing the amount of buildings needed. Without it I often would have needed way longer to actually figure out what I have to do to get which product.
Though that was in bob&angel, I guess Krastorio 2 is far less complex. But it maybe would still be handy sometimes.

[RiO]

Originally posted by shadain597:

I've got an ongoing Nullius run that's reached something like 70 hours and I still haven't completely drained some of the starting ore patches. I spent a LOT of time casually putting together a cramped spaghetti factory/mall with limited throughput and only recently started on what will eventually be a megabase with trains connecting everything.

Hi past self, this is your future self speaking.

Keep at it, and once you reach the 250 hrs mark you'll get your first taste of 1GW of solar collector MK2 powered Stirling-engines and have the reserves to finally shoulder a somewhat proper 30 p/sec build for basic resources like graphite; plastic; iron; etc.

(Nullius is awesome!)

Originally posted by Nico:

Regarding Loaders ... it's just my opinion, but I personally think the K2 loaders are too op. They cost basically nothing, consume no energy and just transfer a ridiculous amount of resources. That's why I personally disabled them in the mod settings and added the miniloader mod, which adds something similar, just with much higher cost and energy cost. So that they actually feel like having a fair price for their insane power. They also use the Krastorio 2 dependencies, so they're fully integreated and compatible. (The same with Space Exploration)

K2 loaders aren't that OP once you realize their weakness: they're based on the Lua prototype for actual loaders -- meaning they cannot (un)load trains. Miniloaders hide a pair of super-fast inserters inside, meaning they can (un)load trains -- and yes; they take power. But that fact alone means Miniloaders are by far more OP. Power means nothing in the end-game. Esp. in K2. You can literally create a self-sustaining loop of antimatter from growing wood in green houses that consumes less power to generate antimatter to fuel antimatter reactors, than the antimatter reactors produce.
It's literally gigawatts of free power, and the greenhouses even absorb pollution to reduce your pollution cloud.

Originally posted by Nico:

Btw, there are really many handy mods that can make stuff easier for you. Especially for new big mods I personally really like the helmod mod

Helmod is the "old faithful" of the planner mods. But is actually ridiculously buggy and unintuitive. Also; its matrix solver is notoriously limited and completely soils its own pants when dealing with certain configurations of loops-inside-loops, throwing a hissy-fit and setting everything to zero.

Therenas's Factory Planner[mods.factorio.com] would be the more modern take on Helmod, with far less bugs; more intuitive UI; and a better matrix solver with better abilities to set constraints.

I started Nullius with Helmod and that is my one big regret.
Nullius uses lots of feedback loops with byproducts and I consistently find myself fighting Helmod to make the planner actually plan what it's supposed to. To the point where I just fall back on building stages of my builds ad-hoc and verifying their throughputs with Raiguard's Rate Calculator[mods.factorio.com].

For K2's level of recipe complexity Rate Calculator will more than suffice, btw. ;)