I got to space and am lost.

[Gorb]

Character can't move. I can't build, only thing I could do is go back down to the planet. I really thought there would be something that explains this under tips and tricks. What am I supposed to do?

[MisterDoctor]

Character can't move.

your character can go up to the platform to use it for transportation purposes, but AFAIK can't do anything while there but be a passenger. all interaction with the platforms is done remotely.

before you have a travel platform you probably would build a science platform and optionally resource platform(s).

after that you'd probably aim for a travel platform which is a bit more challenging. once you have a good travel platform, then you would send your character up to it to travel.

it's completely up to you how many platforms to have, how big they are, and what their purposes are. (there are many challenges involved that I am specifically not mentioning.)

[IsaacOscar]

Haha, I did the same thing. If you want to go to another planet:

1. Build gun turrets on the platform (make sure they have ammo), you can either make more ammo on the platform from iron ore obtained from metallic asteroid chunks, or launch the ammo from Nauvis
2. Research thrusters
3. Build thrusters on your platform, making sure you're platform will produce fuel for them.
4. Research one of the "planet discovery" technologies (under the thrusters)
5. Launch yourself at the platform
6. On the platform, add a stop for the planet you want (it's just like a train), and press the "play" button
7. There's a button on the bottom right of the minimap called "drop to planet", you'll want to click that
8. Wait, and hope you don't run out of fuel (or the platform will go back to nauvis) or get destroyed by asteroids (you will die if your on the platform).
9. (optional): while in orbit on the new planet, you will be constantly bombarded by asteroids, so you might want to send your platform back to nauvis to conserve ammo.

A tips and tricks would have been helpful.
I was especially confused by the "asteroid defence" one. I put some turrets on my platform orbittin nauvis, but they didn't shoot anything (since the asteroids on nauvis are too small), so I got rid of them. Then when I finally tried to travel to another planet, I died.

[Gorb]

"Done remotely". Bots don't work?

[qoalabear]

Bots aren't usable on space platforms, but the platform itself performs construction/deconstruction requests.

Everything is built with remote view and letting the platform fill all the ghosts.

[Gorb]

Thank you. Guess I shouldn't have gone to space...

[mmmPI]

Thank you. Guess I shouldn't have gone to space...

You would have missed the rocket animation ! But it can make sense that you regret going into orbit if you can't go to another planet yet as there is not much to do with your character and things to do on the platform could have been done without the character on the platform.

At first i thought it was frustrating that you can't walk on the platform with your character, and quite annoyed to not have an "inventory" when building, the need to pick everything from the hub everytime was destabilizing, but when attempting in editor to have my character walk on the platform , i got even more frustated that i couldn't walk because of pipes and crammed assemblies and chemplants ...

[IsaacOscar]

Well there's a mod that let's you walk past things: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/squeak-through-2

[Gorb]

At first i thought it was frustrating that you can't walk on the platform with your character, and quite annoyed to not have an "inventory" when building, the need to pick everything from the hub everytime was destabilizing, but when attempting in editor to have my character walk on the platform , i got even more frustated that i couldn't walk because of pipes and crammed assemblies and chemplants ...

Yeah I hit this point and I guess I'm just burned out. I'm going to go play some other games for a while. I'm honestly wishing I had just played Factorio 2.0 and that my current save could transfer to that.

[IsaacOscar]

Yeah, it took me ages to get to another planet, then took me ages to get back (as my platform got destroyed by asteroids). My current platform now has lots of gun turrets and uranium ammo, so it doesn't get hit by asteroids at all.

It's best to think of Space Age as a post-game DLC I think, so if you find the base game too long, I wouldn't suggest it.
So far I'm really enjoying Space Ago though, but I'm playing it very suboptimally, so I've got a lot of time when I'm not even researching anything as all the technologies I have yet to research are locked behind planet-specific science packs, and it takes quite a while to set up a base and everything on another planet.

[NineNine]

Yeah, sending myself to space was my first instinct, too, namely because that's what you do on Space Exploration (Factorio 1.1 overhaul mod). But, I figured out that you don't need to go to the platform to manually do stuff.. because you don't have to. It's a different mechanic than the base of the game, but I think it's pretty well done.

[mmmPI]

At first i thought it was frustrating that you can't walk on the platform with your character, and quite annoyed to not have an "inventory" when building, the need to pick everything from the hub everytime was destabilizing, but when attempting in editor to have my character walk on the platform , i got even more frustated that i couldn't walk because of pipes and crammed assemblies and chemplants ...

Yeah I hit this point and I guess I'm just burned out. I'm going to go play some other games for a while. I'm honestly wishing I had just played Factorio 2.0 and that my current save could transfer to that.

I meant that walking on the platform is of little benefit due to the lack of space to do so , it wasn't a useful use of editor from my part there. And that it took a bit of time to get used to pipetting things from the hub inventory.

You could later land back on Nauvis with your character if you didn't meant to go to space that early and continue on Nauvis. I researched all technologies i could before leaving nauvis for my first solo game, i went slow to get used to things. Factorio is for entertainment to me, not burning out !