the planets unlocks

[Jeff]

the space age great and all, im having a blast playing it, but did anyone else also think that unlocks on the 3 planets are not properly balanced (with science packs i mean)? like on gleba you have twice amount of unlocks that you have on either fulgora or vulcanus, while they also being just better? dont get me wrong, i like being basically mecha, but when you compare it it kind of strange. Like you get a mecha suit and better roboport and a tesla turret (on a planet with no enemies lol), on vulcanus better belts and ama ignore the artillery and explosives cuz honestly we already had that in base game, and then you look at gleba and see: better quality, new manipulators, new stuff to capture bugs, better labs, 2/3 modules also there and even more... Idk i feel like the unlocks are really not properly distributed between planets, maybe its just me

[TSP]

It's some good food for thought. Vulcanus' Foundries don't become relevant for other planets unless you either ship calcite everywhere, which is expensive but Vulcanus everything is free anyway... or you unlock advanced asteroid processing from Gleba science. And don't forget Cliff Explosives.

The big mining drills are nice, really nice, but not a gamechanger.

Fulgora has the amazing recycler with which you could just turn everything to Rare with some setup, Epic once you get Gleba and Legendary once Aquilo. So once again, a feature is semi-locked just like calcite is for Foundries in Vulcanus. The EMPs however are extremely useful on Nauvis to scale things up with dramatically. Having straight up rare EMPs is a godsend over ASM3 for any of the chips.

The fact that there's soft-ties for both Vulcanus and Fulgora, linking to Gleba gives you something to say in argument for choosing Gleba, but you cannot deny going for green belts first and using recyclers on Gleba are extremely useful tools to work with spoilage.

You also mention Fulgora having new roboports, I think you're mistaking EMPs here as advanced roboports, they're not roboports but basically an extremely souped up ASM for chip production. You can read more here: https://wiki.factorio.com/Electromagnetic_plant

Also don't forget that each planet unlocks certain infinite technologies. I really enjoy Vulcanus' & Fulgora's infinite technologies.

[Vovarush]

Originally posted by Jeff:

the space age great and all, im having a blast playing it, but did anyone else also think that unlocks on the 3 planets are not properly balanced (with science packs i mean)? like on gleba you have twice amount of unlocks that you have on either fulgora or vulcanus, while they also being just better? dont get me wrong, i like being basically mecha, but when you compare it it kind of strange. Like you get a mecha suit and better roboport and a tesla turret (on a planet with no enemies lol), on vulcanus better belts and ama ignore the artillery and explosives cuz honestly we already had that in base game, and then you look at gleba and see: better quality, new manipulators, new stuff to capture bugs, better labs, 2/3 modules also there and even more... Idk i feel like the unlocks are really not properly distributed between planets, maybe its just me

fulgora em plant: 50% productivity for modules and circuts
vulcanus miners: 2x resources in patches
vulcanus foundry: 50% productivity on belt assembly

[Chindraba]

I suspect that if someone picks a couple types of 'features' to compare between planets each planet will be the winner in some category and the big looser in another. The 'balance' comes out when all the features are combined into a whole cloth.

I've done none of the planets yet, so I've no perspective from them. The balance, of the whole game, for the base game seems very well calculated. I expect that the minds which created that balance can achieve the same level of balance between the planets as well.

[Jeff]

Originally posted by Vovarush:

Originally posted by Jeff:

the space age great and all, im having a blast playing it, but did anyone else also think that unlocks on the 3 planets are not properly balanced (with science packs i mean)? like on gleba you have twice amount of unlocks that you have on either fulgora or vulcanus, while they also being just better? dont get me wrong, i like being basically mecha, but when you compare it it kind of strange. Like you get a mecha suit and better roboport and a tesla turret (on a planet with no enemies lol), on vulcanus better belts and ama ignore the artillery and explosives cuz honestly we already had that in base game, and then you look at gleba and see: better quality, new manipulators, new stuff to capture bugs, better labs, 2/3 modules also there and even more... Idk i feel like the unlocks are really not properly distributed between planets, maybe its just me

fulgora em plant: 50% productivity for modules and circuts
vulcanus miners: 2x resources in patches
vulcanus foundry: 50% productivity on belt assembly

thats why i said behind science packs, cuz i have nothing against natural unlocks you get on each planet, they are pretty chill. its just the *reward* for properly automating science pack is a little bit underwhelming, thats all

[Jeff]

Originally posted by TSP:

It's some good food for thought. Vulcanus' Foundries don't become relevant for other planets unless you either ship calcite everywhere, which is expensive but Vulcanus everything is free anyway... or you unlock advanced asteroid processing from Gleba science. And don't forget Cliff Explosives.

The big mining drills are nice, really nice, but not a gamechanger.

Fulgora has the amazing recycler with which you could just turn everything to Rare with some setup, Epic once you get Gleba and Legendary once Aquilo. So once again, a feature is semi-locked just like calcite is for Foundries in Vulcanus. The EMPs however are extremely useful on Nauvis to scale things up with dramatically. Having straight up rare EMPs is a godsend over ASM3 for any of the chips.

The fact that there's soft-ties for both Vulcanus and Fulgora, linking to Gleba gives you something to say in argument for choosing Gleba, but you cannot deny going for green belts first and using recyclers on Gleba are extremely useful tools to work with spoilage.

You also mention Fulgora having new roboports, I think you're mistaking EMPs here as advanced roboports, they're not roboports but basically an extremely souped up ASM for chip production. You can read more here: https://wiki.factorio.com/Electromagnetic_plant

Also don't forget that each planet unlocks certain infinite technologies. I really enjoy Vulcanus' & Fulgora's infinite technologies.

yeah i guess its more about planet mechanics than actual science pack unlocks, still makes me wonder if they would put something more behind science what would it be

[slothrop]

They made the Gleba unlocks way better, because feedback during beta was that Gleba seemed too hard for the level of rewards before. Gleba originally had fewer and less universally good rewards. Some people still think it is not worth it.

[RiO]

Originally posted by Vovarush:

vulcanus foundry: 50% productivity on belt assembly

As well as pipes and concrete, which also can't be given productivity through modules.

[Chindraba]

Originally posted by RiO:

Originally posted by Vovarush:

vulcanus foundry: 50% productivity on belt assembly

As well as pipes and concrete, which also can't be given productivity through modules.

Concrete, bricks, and pipes have always struck me as odd. They are placed entities _and_ intermediates. The one-off things like modules for armor, are special cases, but those three are ingredients in many of the mass-produced entities yet they are not open for productivity modules.

[puschit]

you have to deal with spoilage and relentless new aliens on Gleba while aliens are limited to certain areas or non-existant on other planets. You can't just look at the reward alone, you also need to consider what you need to do in order to get that reward

[Strategic Sage]

Serious question: why should the planets be balanced in that way? Some planets being better than others isn't a bad thing IMO.

[Quillithe]

I kinda feel like Gleba has better science pack unlocks to compensate for not having the amazing initial unlocks.

The big drill, foundry, em plant, and recycler are all really good elsewhere.

The biochamber and ag tower are....not as incredible. Especially since the ag tower can't even plant trees without research.

I guess maybe you could make a heating tower on nauvis if you didn't bother with nuclear power?


For example, better labs feel like the Gleba equivalent to Foundry/EM plant to me, but they take more work to get going.

Stack inserters and stacking belts is...fine, but are you really going to use them without doing the other two planets? I can't imagine re-engineering my nauvis base before getting big drills at minimum.

Epic quality is basically pointless before the recycler.

And although you get 2 new modules on Gleba, productivity can't be used everywhere and efficiency 3 is very marginal. Power is basically free on the other new planets and they don't have pollution so I can't imagine bothering to use a single efficiency module.

And I actually do like efficiency modules on nauvis, but they're best early AND they actually scale a lot less well.

Compare Speed 1 with speed 3. You go from +20% speed for +50% power (pretty bad) to +50% speed for +70% power. 250% of the bonus for 140% of the penalty. Speed 1 burn a ton of power for marginal bonuses, speed 3 barely are less power efficient than more assemblers.

Now look at efficiency - you go from -30% power to -50%. Only 166% of lvl 1 module.

And to make matters worse they cap, so if you just want to run a low pollution base you don't even need eff 3 modules. All they really do is counteract other modules on Nauvis if you care about pollution by this point.

Don't get me wrong, productivity modules are good but efficiency 3 are pretty bad to export.

[SciFiGuy]

...why do you think they're supposed to be evenly distributed? This seems like such a weird non complaint

[Hurkyl]

Originally posted by TSP:

It's some good food for thought. Vulcanus' Foundries don't become relevant for other planets unless you either ship calcite everywhere, which is expensive but Vulcanus everything is free anyway... or you unlock advanced asteroid processing from Gleba science. And don't forget Cliff Explosives.

When you have advanced asteroid processing, calcite is basically free everywhere -- you can mine it (along with carbon, ice, and sulfur) with an orbital platform on the planet. Or if a platform is travelling between planets, you can drop the supplies off at the endpoints.

[Odonata]

I figure that tech unlocks from planets are balanced against the native buildings being useful elsewhere. Vulcanus does seem to have the weakest science pack (still some good things in there) but the foundry and BMD arguably are the real prizes. Gleba on the other hand has easily the most rewarding science pack, but the agri tower doesn't even do anything (useful) on other planets. And the Biochamber can... upgrade parts of your oil processing. Kind of lacking.

[TSP]

Originally posted by Hurkyl:

Originally posted by TSP:

It's some good food for thought. Vulcanus' Foundries don't become relevant for other planets unless you either ship calcite everywhere, which is expensive but Vulcanus everything is free anyway... or you unlock advanced asteroid processing from Gleba science. And don't forget Cliff Explosives.

When you have advanced asteroid processing, calcite is basically free everywhere -- you can mine it (along with carbon, ice, and sulfur) with an orbital platform on the planet. Or if a platform is travelling between planets, you can drop the supplies off at the endpoints.

The part of the text you quoted from me also mentions advanced asteroid processing, yes.