My Thoughts on Space Age

[DrakeyC]

I've not fully "finished" SA yet, but I'm at the point where I can head to the edge of the solar system and have researched all the tech except for the infinite production ones.

On the one hand, the first visit to each new planet was engaging and recaptured that Factorio experience. Having to come up with new factory layouts, learn new mechanics, and exploring these new worlds was a blast. I often got confused or frustrated by it, but I did when I first played the original game too.

But, that is unfortunately the limit of my praise - the planets are well-designed, mostly. The rest of the DLC, I don't have criticisms, exactly. I wanna emphasize that I didn't dislike Space Age, but once the novelty of the new planets wore off, I've a lot of nitpicks. And a lot of them boil down to one of two points.

The first point is that the actual implementation of the planets fell into a trap I was hoping the DLC would avoid - they're just stapled onto the end of the vanilla game. I was surprised by how much of the vanilla tech tree is still accessible before ever launching a space platform. A few things were moved later in the game, but not too many. The planets primarily exist to allow you to unlock new structures which are almost universally better versions of vanilla ones (not a criticism at all, I love how OP they feel), and then become an outpost for science packs and occasionally those new items.

The bottlenecking of rocket silos in particular really quashed any fun of building on the other planets, because mass-producing anything on them and exporting them to other planets is going to take a lot of time and resources. The cargo restrictions on rockets seem particularly tight, sometimes with no reason behind them except for "the devs consider them too good". Like, I could see a future playthrough where I visit Vulcanus early and set up a belt array there to exploit the infinite supplies of Iron, Copper, and Heavy Oil. But transporting them all back to Nauvis? Seems more trouble than it's worth.

And that leads me to my second point of critique - the developers clearly intended this DLC for the super-players, the 10k SPM ones with megabases that slow down their PCs. And it hurts because, while I'm not inexperienced, I'm not one of those players. And I pity anyone who jumps into SA without that level of experience. They clearly expect you to have a huge base covered by logistic bots to supply you with stuff across planets, and to know how to use the circuit network and filters and ghost building to control your factory indirectly. And again, I knew how to do that, but it's bothersome that they presume you'll be doing it before trying to go into space. Again, they seem to be presuming that players will have read their FFFs leading up to Space Age and understand stuff like new ghost building controls, free red/green circuit lines, etc. While this was a problem for me, it stuck out to me as something that makes SA daunting for new or casual players.

But that super-player critique manifests in another way that does hurt my ability to enjoy SA: scale. I do not have it in me to build an interplanetary network of megabases. I built a 1000 SPM megabase once for the challenge of it, calculating ratios and coming up with layouts of machines and how many belts I need, etc. With SA's new machines and Quality and new mechanics, I don't know what the "baseline" SPM would be for a megabase now, and I don't wanna know because just thinking about it is daunting. There's so much complexity, so many bottlenecks to transporting science packs (not just silos, but also platform speed, cargo capacity, balancing resources on those platforms, etc), and so much high-speed, high-performance machines to set up, that it's off-putting.

I plan to reach the edge of the solar system this weekend, and I dunno when I'll come back. I replayed the vanilla game yearly before Space Age, and usually play for a month or so before I get bored and drop it. With Space Age, I dunno. I can't put my finger on exactly why, maybe someone else could articulate it, but I don't get the same satisfaction from my endgame base in SA that I did in the vanilla game. I look over my base as-is, and see all the obvious ways big and small it could be optimized, and I just feel tired. I've barely changed my base on Nauvis since I launched my first platform, mostly just replacing my assembly machines making circuits with electromagnetic plants. Everything feels like it takes so much longer and/or is occurring at such a bigger scale in Space Age. And the result is that I just feel small and out of my depth.

[Hurkyl]

Two minor asides.

The other planets aren't tacked onto the end per se: while that is an option, you also have the option to start going to space before diving into purple/yellow science. And there are a couple of achievements that even encourage doing so: one directly for for doing other planet research first, and another indirectly for using artillery to kill your first biter base.

The rocket limits, for what it's worth, are mostly based on the total cost to make the item. But with some items green-lit to have larger stack sizes. And I guess some with smaller.

[DrakeyC]

Originally posted by Hurkyl:

The rocket limits, for what it's worth, are based on the total cost to make the item, outside of certain items specifically green-lit to have larger stack sizes

I find that dubious; the first three tiers of belts all cap at 100, but Turbo Transport belts cap at 50, and Iron Plates and Gears both cap at 1000.

[Chindraba]

Some of what you have as 'nitpicks' are partially what I'd feared would be the case. The tacked onto the end, which might be more slapped onto the side, for the new planets. As noted, you can go there early in the game and finish the tech tree for Nauvis later. Still, which ever one you go to first, and how soon, you still make a merry path through the star system to Aquilo, and beyond. Quite a few paths to choose from, but much less than the choices on Nauvis alone, base game or SA. In the end, you will use every one of them, and it seems you shall use every tech. The base game can be won without ever once crafting a combinator or mining a rock of uranium. There are multiple paths, and not all must be visited at all.

I've not made a megabase, in 1.1 or 2.0, and other than doing so once to say "done that" it's not a big bucket list thing. I did want to get the 8-hr rocket badge, and figured to make it a 100% run in the process, and once is enough for that. Dedicated nearly a year to that project. Then the DLC made 100% into something like 48%. I gather that's more a function of how Steam handles achievements, and was unavoidable. Still sucks. Now I'm doing what I expect to be my one SA game. The 100-hour, and 40-hour, badge won't be even attempted. The 8-hour, in SA is much easier, and already won. In 2.0 base it would have been the same as 1.1, and not done.

My plan was, and still is, to complete SA one time and then return to the base game, with elevated rails, and probably spend the rest of my mortality in that mode. Quality is not, yet, off the table, but it's also not a strong contender. My goals in the game are self-made, and nominally pointless for others. As an example, my next project is to attempt a recreation of the flying junctions in, and around, Clapham Junction. That was my first thought when elevated rails were announced. The ramp length and limited rotations will prevent a "copy" of it, but the spirit and complexity of it ought to be matched.

I want to see, and experience, what SA has, and to appreciate the work they've done on it. I don't expect that it's where I'm going to spend my time, however. A trip to see the Seven Wonders of the World would be fun, but not the way to spend the rest of your life. (Of course, now that they added the Galaxy, I just have to add one more star there as well.)

All things a possible, granted. Probability, however, is a different thing. I've yet to get bored with 1.1, and the changes to improve 2.0 only make that less likely. I've not fallen, yet, for the trap of skipping on life to play the game, but I do spend 95% of my spare time there. The undertaker is going to have pry the mouse from my cold hand. Of course, he's also gonna have to wait a while - I'm busy.

My suggestion for you is, after you've 'finished' the game, experiment some with the end-game science. It ought to give you one last puzzle to solve with the collecting and processing of the asteroids for it. No target production rate or research level. Merely the experience and the personal knowledge of having 'solved' the final puzzle.

Then, turn off SA. If you like trains, or use them enough that the elevated rails are either more fun, or better for your factory, keep that on. Otherwise, turn that off as well. Quality - no clue or suggestion, but you've dealt with it enough to know if you're 'with it' or not. When you come back each year, stick with the base (+/- rails/quality) and just set your own goal or project. Odd things like each block makes something and takes in only raw ores, making every intermediate 'in house'. Or, reverse that, and have every intermediate out-sourced and any given block takes in only the ingredients of one recipe and ships everything out - even the wire for circuits is out-sourced. (That one is a challenge bigger than you'd think.) Use nothing but trains, or nothing but belts, no matter how far it is. You can even use the map to make art. It's been done. When this year's project is done, go on to other games until next year.

Space Age is, in reality, just a super polished overhaul mod. They did great work on it, and made the engine so much better to handle it. Kudos indeed. Still, overhaul mod it is, and you can treat it the same as SE or any other such mod.

[DrakeyC]

Yeah, I'm gonna make a note to look into mods after this for sure. I'm playing without atm for achievements but am curious what modders have done with it.

Another note I forgot in my initial post - it's disappointing that each planet is, for the most part, standalone. Like, there's uses for their unique buildings on other planets, but aside from elevated rails and foundations, nothing you unlock on Vulcanus is all that useful on Gleba or Fulgora, etc. I'd like to see more intertwining tech there, convey through research that we're learning how to make use of what we learn on one planet on another.

Oh, and re:Quality, I'm enjoying it but it's absurd how much waste you end up with having to brute force it with recyclers. I've had machines on planets going for a huge chunk of this playthrough, have produced tens of thousands of objects, but only a handful are Rare or higher. Especially with items that can only be acquired from liquids, it's a real pain. On the other hand a lot of the Quality items feel unintentionally OP, especially crafting machines. Doubling or tripling their crafting speed without any drawback makes Speed Modules useless.

[Chindraba]

I often use QoL mods, or other 'decorative' ones like train trails or honk. Overhauls, however, I've avoided. Simple point is that with my personal projects, I've yet to tap the potential fun in the base game and don't need the add-on stuff. Some, like the bounce-pad one, look fun (funny) and bumble bots was entertaining for a bit, but content changes really aren't needed, yet, for my playing.

[DrakeyC]

The mod I've really missed is the Rate Calculator; select a group of machines and get a pop-up displaying the intakes and outputs of them all and the relative ratios. Makes factory design SO much easier.

[Hurkyl]

Originally posted by DrakeyC:

Doubling or tripling their crafting speed without any drawback makes Speed Modules useless.

You can use both. Speed modules are a multiplier on the base crafting speed, and quality buildings have a better crafting speed, so they combine very effectively.

And especially when you start including higher quality modules and higher quality beacons. You spend all that effort making legendary productivity 3 modules, and you squeeze as much benefit as you can out of them by putting them in quality crafting machines and laboratories powered by quality beacons loaded with quality speed modules.

Improving all of the components is, I believe, much more effective than just focusing on one or two dimensions.

[Hurkyl]

Originally posted by DrakeyC:

have produced tens of thousands of objects, but only a handful are Rare or higher. Especially with items that can only be acquired from liquids, it's a real pain.

FWIW, with a pair of quality 1 modules in your assembling machine 2, it's a 980:18:2 common:uncommon:rare+ ratio when crafting a common recipe. 98:2 uncommon:rare+ ratio when crafting an uncommon recipe.

(be careful not to use speed modules, since those give negative quality%)

(by rare+, I mean to include epic and legendary quality in that figure if you have those unlocked)


I think the intention is to have three phases:

• Early on, the intention is that you are only supposed to be getting a handful of higher quality items, to be used where they might have the most impact, such as space platforms. (I focused my efforts on research productivity, and was probably the first time I ever bothered with beacons on my labs, and maybe even the first time I ever prioritized the research)
  
• Mid-game, you start focusing on getting high quality quality modules, so you can dramatically improve the quality%
  
• Late-game, with the better buildings and top-of-the-line modules, you can now focus on the mass production of quality items

At least, this is my takeaway from how it all works.

[knighttemplar1960]

I'll chime in here. I was a megabaser in 1.1. Always optimizing always trying to scrimp that last bit of extra UPS. The changes to the engine made that less of a concern. I have a bigger megabase on Nauvis, using more bots than ever before, and have not yet even dented the UPS limit, so optimizations aren't part of the fun any more and I don't think I'll ever take the time to get the base large enough to need to start to worry about optimizations. Even when I was megabasing my UPS would start to drop at 5k SPM and I would just start a new save on a fresh world.

I'm at that point now and can't decide If I want to start a new run or go on with infinite techs and get all my machines on Nauvis to legendary quality. I've been waffling back and forth and have been playing other things instead.

I'm not interested in expanding my achievements tally except for those I've earned accidentally. I won't be focusing a specific run on acquiring more.

I took my tech on Nauvis all the way up before leaving the planet. Its possible to get the planets (mostly) self sufficient from scratch but its much easier to import materials and set up instead of repeating for each planet. My one true megabase is on Nauvis. I have a half megabase on Vulcanus and a half megabase on Fulgora. Gleba and Aquillo are just outposts.

That is similar to the way I played 1.1. I made each science pack in one specific location bringing each required resource in by train and moving the finished packs to my labs. I've done Space Age the same way. Nauvis produces all the science packs it can and I import the planet specific ones from their home planet. I treat space platforms as more complicated trains that I get to design myself and each planet is a subfactory that produces its science pack and small amounts of other planet specific items. Vulcanus is my mining and smelting planet/subfactory. It provides mineral resources for itself and all the outer planets that have a need. Fulgora is my advanced oil subfactory. It produces all the oil products I need for the outer planets and plastic for Vulcanus.

Rockets don't have to be a bottle neck, just build more rocket silos. They can be spread around the planet easily. The real bottle neck is the single cargo hub. You have to plan for it and place it in the center of where the imports need to be because you can only have one per planet.

As far as the circuit network and train interrupts go, yes they are more complex and can be helpful if you want to take the time to learn how to use them (I've seen a lot of people over engineer their rail networks just so they can use the interrupt feature and then get stuck on something because they did that) but no, you don't have to learn how to use them. Its possible to set up a factory with just a few wires and not a single combinator. I used a lot of combinators on Gleba but I could have just made an over producing brute force beast with a huge sewer system and gotten the same results using nothing more than wires and logistic chests.

Quality is similar to other module set ups in game. Optional but they can be very helpful if you want to reduce the size of your factory while maintaining the same through put or if you want to increase production and expand further. The changes to the engine made that optional (not required to save UPS) unless you intend to push it to the breaking point.

You never had to calculate ratios and you still don't. Just lay out machines until you use up all of one of the inputs or saturate the output. If you are using up all the inputs and still don't have enough product use blue prints and make more of the inputs. On all the planets except Gleba that works. The machines shut off once you are maxed out on storage. On Gleba you can just keep expanding until you are over producing all the spoilables you need and trashing the surpluses.

Each planet unlocks new techs, new weapons, and new machines. You'll need the new weapons on Gleba and your platforms and they are helpful on Nauvis. You'll need some of the new techs for new materials but you don't have to have any of the new machines except biochambers. You can keep using the earlier tech and every thing will still work or you can upgrade set ups and use new machines/add quality and still progress. Its totally optional.