Factorio Forums

Why?

Because normal Steel armor is good enough to get rid of small-class biters and spitters & their nests until you can afford Power Armor. You barely take any damage at all from them when wearing it.

I only ever used the BMA once, back when I was new at the game and didn't know much about it. Since Processing Units are not needed in the factory for any science, you don't naturally build into making them. Only when you're almost done with the basic factory layout and start working on modules do you start looking into Processors, and that can take quite some time.
And like I said, once you do, you quickly find that making the leap directly to Power Armor isn't hard at all.

If the Basic Modular Armor did not use Processors it would become available as a good alternative much earlier, and might actually see some use. Even basic batteries and shields (which do NOT use processors) might be useful as something other than an intermediate product into getting the mk2 variants.

I agree.
The material and research cost of Basic Modular Armor is much too close to the cost of Power Armor. For the small additional expense, it's better to just directly craft the Power Armor, skipping the basic. In version 0.12.1, the basic modular armor is further obsoleted by the tank.

Agreed, I think BMA should use advanced circuits since you're going to have to make them for blue science. That way Steel doesn't become useless and BMA provides a nice, cheap alternative to the power armor, allowing players to use the Energy shield and night vision.

BUT, if BMA doesn't use processing units, then the solar panels shouldn't also use processing units, otherwise the armor would still be useless because there is no way to charge it.

Solar panel modules should also not use processing units. They are the basic power production module and very weak, they should use green circuits at most. Needing solar panels is already enough of a requirement.

I actually forgot about the solar modules :p

But yea, the whole BMA outfit should be doable with, at maximum, red circuits. Blue should only be needed for the mk2 modules and power armor.
Also, I think the solar modules shouldn't use a whopping 5 actual panels to make. It's kinda silly, especially since their crafting time was increased.

Yeah, count me in on that.

I'm also guilty of skipping ahead to Power Armor, sometimes even to Power Armor MK2 if the biters aren't too far developed yet, because of how the Basic Modular Armor just takes too many resources for what it is worth. At the point you get the factory to produce Processing Units you are basically "meh, wait for Power Armor to make it worth the investment".

So yes, the Basic Power Armor shouldn't require Processing Units. Advanced Circuits are perfectly fine.

The same applies to the Solar Panel Modules. Advanced circuits should basically do the trick.

Sounds about right. The only time I have made it outside my first playthrough was when playing with the .11.x version of Dytech and being way behind on the biter evolution scale. I needed the shield units to be able to even have a chance at surviving. But since the evolution factor has been scaled down in .12, I haven't had the need for this and generally skip straight to the powered armor. Once you set up the factory to create the blue circuits, it really is just a matter of time before you can get the powered armor instead.

On a slightly side note, I have recently been playing with Bob's mods, and really liked how he continued down the line of regular armor in the tech tree. You can get some pretty beefy non-modular armor at higher research tiers, or go down the modular armor path for the neat gadgets.

I think, this is a good idea.

I agree with the reasoning.
Also I'm currently in a new game and slowly getting annoyed with how long it takes until I can use the personal roboport. It's one of the greatest recent additions in the game and yet you have to wait until you're practically done.