Feedback on Space Age's overall design
Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2024 1:34 pm
Firstly, thank you to the devs - I can see that a lot of work went into it, and the performance/stability/quality of life is amazing. I've gone through the whole game, including going to the shattered planet, and I wanted to give a review/feedback.
TLDR: I think the design of Space Age is cursed [technical term] (https://youtu.be/8uE6-vIi1rQ?si=qmdctNlGZCausu4n).
I'm referring specifically to the number of planets. The main issues are: front loaded difficulty, railroaded design, scaling problems.
Re: front loaded difficulty - you have to learn a lot of new things when arriving on a new planet. But then after you've learned the basics you're repeating essentially what you've already done on Nauvis. For example, the fun part of Gleba was figuring out all the new builds, but then after that you have to build blue circuits and LDS. But this is necessary because you need to launch rockets, so you necessarily need access to all the Nauvis basics. But because of this, much of the new content is actually old content and you're limited to a small number of new things.
Some of the 1.0 tech was moved to other planets, and this feels punishing - it makes Nauvis worse. But if this wasn't the case, there would be even less reward for going to the new planets. For example, take away cliff explosives, coal liquifaction and artillery from Vulcanus and what is there left? The foundry, big mining drill and faster belts all replicate things you can already do and aren't necessary, which leaves tungsten, which could have been added to Nauvis. [EDIT: the new buildings can't do anything fundamentally new, because it's uncertain which order you'll attain them]. Which leaves Vulcanus as pretty empty with regard to content, and yet there still needs to be some way to produce the rocket parts, which means new recipes for basic stuff you're already making on Nauvis.
Space science is literally forgettable. I built a platform early to make enough, and never touched it. You'd think it'd be a bigger part of the game, but it can't be because it would take away reasons to go to the planets. Annoyingly it gates certain tech (Kovarex enrichment, requester chests) that I'd like to have before launching a rocket, and it's not the gate for things it logically should be (the asteroid related techs). With the current design, it does make some sense to disallow gaining calcite until you've been to Vulcanus, but this just further points to Vulcanus being redundant - Vulcanus forces other areas of the game to be worse to justify it's existence. Everything on Vulcanus could have been moved elsewhere with the added benefit of not having to introduce new recipes (and build a new factory) for things we already mostly have.
The Fulgora sorting mechanic is interesting, but the planet itself has basically nothing else. The lightning/power is trivial to solve, and the limited build space doesn't fundamentally change much because you don't need much space (and it's not particularly fun). It's really only one new challenge, a few new recipes, and the need to build rockets. Ruins/scrap could have been added to Nauvis to get pretty much the same effect. As far as new tech, the mech armour is cool, but it could have been added to any of the new planets and it would have made sense. Losing roboport mk2 from Nauvis is annoying, and shields mk2 make Nauvis worse because it makes biters harder (and they already are harder because of added HP). What this meant in practice is that I felt more locked to my initial area on Nauvis, because evolution and less tools made it harder to expand.
Lacking the spidertron on Nauvis also felt bad. I understand that the tank is a semi-replacement, except it isn't. The spidertron is easy to control without paying attention, but when I had to attend to my walls with the tank I had to manually drive it - around obstacles and often through the fog of war. All in all I wasn't happy about ANY of the tech being removed from Nauvis. In no way did it make the game more fun/rewarding - it just made it more work to get to the same place.
Being restricted by surface with the construction of certain buildings feels arbitrary. Even something like not being able to place crushers on the planets. Is this because functionally they kind of overlap with recyclers?
The restrictive rocket capacity, especially on certain items, feels arbitrary and annoying. I understand the intention of not wanting players to trivialize the game through exporting, but in practice it just makes it harder to get into the game. The point of the game is to launch a lot of rockets and export things. It would feel a lot better if the rocket capacity was doubled, or more - which would make the early game more forgiving. The productivity for rocket parts could even be removed, leaving this as a problem to be solved by scaling. But this can't be done because you need to launch rockets from 5 different planets, so it's cursed.
The space platforms pose an interesting design challenge, but this challenge doesn't really change and is made redundant through infinite tech. They are essentially glorified trains that you need to spend too much time building, and the hardest one to build is the first one.
So all in all, I think the existence of multiple new planets is actually a detriment, because the player now has what feels like artificial restrictions and repetitive gameplay.
Re: scaling problems, it feels like much of the design is intended to work best in the very late game - after the victory screen. Quality is a good example. The full potential of quality is only unlocked on the final planet, but then not really until you've built a large base designed around producing it. I did use quality, but I used small bot setups to produce a few select items. I can see how it could be a fun design challenge to produce high quality items at scale, but by the time you're capable of doing this you've already finished the game.
Unlike vanilla Factorio, I don't feel inclined to play after the victory screen - or even to repeat going through the game. The reason for this is the amount of time and busy work it takes unlock all the tools. And then the same limiting factor that existed in the original game is still there - the CPU. You can build more with less in Space Age, but you need working factories across 5 different surfaces + space platforms (and much of this replicating the same work), so I can't imagine it will be possible to scale much further than in the original game. The numbers will be higher, but this will be artificial due to infinite researches + built-in productivity.
Basically, the sense of progression is gone in Space Age - at least until a LONG way into a playthrough. It took a day or two for me to get all the tech in Vanilla, at which point I could work on a larger design. To reach the same point in Space Age would take weeks. In Vanilla I was building one factory of increasing size and complexity, and able to leverage what I'd built to solve new problems. In Space Age my factories are very disconnected until very late game, and the focal point is Aquillo (the place you need to import things), and Aquillo is the smallest, least capable factory. I barely touched any of my factories after finishing them, so in practice it was like playing a series of levels rather than one big game.
Which brings to mind a contrast between a sandbox and an adventure. Vanilla is more of a sandbox and Space Age an adventure - meaning that the achievement is finishing. Except that the victory condition is Space Age is very underwhelming. I used the Aquillo tech on one platform to reach the end, and then built another in the editor to reach the shattered planet. There's self evidently no need for it, because by the time you've got it, you're already at the end. Factorio is a game about automation, but the final space platform doesn't need any new automation to build, because you only need a small number of railguns. Much of the challenge in Vanilla is self imposed, but in Space Age it's game imposed.
So I think there is both too much content in Space Age, and not enough. Too much in that a lot of it is repetitive, and not enough in that there isn't actually much new stuff, especially if you consider that much of the function of the new buildings is just productivity. It feels like a lot of the design is wasted - which is a shame, because the new planets do have a lot going from them if taken in isolation.
I think the expansion would have been better if it was just Nauvis + space platform + a single new planet, with the content split between these three. The infinite researches are just numbers - it would have been more interesting if instead there were advanced recipes to get better productivity. The challenge of managing an interplanetary logistics network would still exist if there was only one planet, but with less redundant work, and it would have felt more rewarding because you could put a higher volume of new resources in one place. Demolishers and Pentapods could both have fit onto the same surface.
As far as the endgame, I think there needed to be a broader goal to work toward. I think having more happen on the space platform would have worked - building bigger and producing more - sending things up and sending things down. This way you could have added to your space platform over the course of the game rather than having multiple functionally similar smaller platforms (trains), and it wouldn't have forced you to start from scratch multiple times - the platform and planet could have produced different things. And this would have allowed for something like a space elevator to reduce transport cost - a difficult to produce late game alternative to rockets. Or perhaps a shuttle so that you can easily travel between the surface and the platform (but not cart goods).
But overall, I think there should have been less disconnected things to manage, because I didn't feel attached to anything I built in Space Age - having spent relatively little time in each place. This also would have helped with the front loaded difficulty. New systems (i.e. spoilage/ agri tower/ soils/ nutrients) could have been introduced more gradually if they were introduced on Nauvis - and this also would have exposed the player to the new content more quickly. In addition to scaling more smoothly, I think this also would have allowed the game to scale further (beyond what currently exists), because less time would have been spent developing the basic recipes on the new planets. Also, Vulcanus and Fulgora are not particularly interesting visually, but would have worked well as biomes.
Nevertheless, I think Space Age is an achievement, and Factorio is one of the best games of all time. I've learned a lot while playing - not just about the game but about life. Thank you and I hope this feedback is constructive. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten.
TLDR: I think the design of Space Age is cursed [technical term] (https://youtu.be/8uE6-vIi1rQ?si=qmdctNlGZCausu4n).
I'm referring specifically to the number of planets. The main issues are: front loaded difficulty, railroaded design, scaling problems.
Re: front loaded difficulty - you have to learn a lot of new things when arriving on a new planet. But then after you've learned the basics you're repeating essentially what you've already done on Nauvis. For example, the fun part of Gleba was figuring out all the new builds, but then after that you have to build blue circuits and LDS. But this is necessary because you need to launch rockets, so you necessarily need access to all the Nauvis basics. But because of this, much of the new content is actually old content and you're limited to a small number of new things.
Some of the 1.0 tech was moved to other planets, and this feels punishing - it makes Nauvis worse. But if this wasn't the case, there would be even less reward for going to the new planets. For example, take away cliff explosives, coal liquifaction and artillery from Vulcanus and what is there left? The foundry, big mining drill and faster belts all replicate things you can already do and aren't necessary, which leaves tungsten, which could have been added to Nauvis. [EDIT: the new buildings can't do anything fundamentally new, because it's uncertain which order you'll attain them]. Which leaves Vulcanus as pretty empty with regard to content, and yet there still needs to be some way to produce the rocket parts, which means new recipes for basic stuff you're already making on Nauvis.
Space science is literally forgettable. I built a platform early to make enough, and never touched it. You'd think it'd be a bigger part of the game, but it can't be because it would take away reasons to go to the planets. Annoyingly it gates certain tech (Kovarex enrichment, requester chests) that I'd like to have before launching a rocket, and it's not the gate for things it logically should be (the asteroid related techs). With the current design, it does make some sense to disallow gaining calcite until you've been to Vulcanus, but this just further points to Vulcanus being redundant - Vulcanus forces other areas of the game to be worse to justify it's existence. Everything on Vulcanus could have been moved elsewhere with the added benefit of not having to introduce new recipes (and build a new factory) for things we already mostly have.
The Fulgora sorting mechanic is interesting, but the planet itself has basically nothing else. The lightning/power is trivial to solve, and the limited build space doesn't fundamentally change much because you don't need much space (and it's not particularly fun). It's really only one new challenge, a few new recipes, and the need to build rockets. Ruins/scrap could have been added to Nauvis to get pretty much the same effect. As far as new tech, the mech armour is cool, but it could have been added to any of the new planets and it would have made sense. Losing roboport mk2 from Nauvis is annoying, and shields mk2 make Nauvis worse because it makes biters harder (and they already are harder because of added HP). What this meant in practice is that I felt more locked to my initial area on Nauvis, because evolution and less tools made it harder to expand.
Lacking the spidertron on Nauvis also felt bad. I understand that the tank is a semi-replacement, except it isn't. The spidertron is easy to control without paying attention, but when I had to attend to my walls with the tank I had to manually drive it - around obstacles and often through the fog of war. All in all I wasn't happy about ANY of the tech being removed from Nauvis. In no way did it make the game more fun/rewarding - it just made it more work to get to the same place.
Being restricted by surface with the construction of certain buildings feels arbitrary. Even something like not being able to place crushers on the planets. Is this because functionally they kind of overlap with recyclers?
The restrictive rocket capacity, especially on certain items, feels arbitrary and annoying. I understand the intention of not wanting players to trivialize the game through exporting, but in practice it just makes it harder to get into the game. The point of the game is to launch a lot of rockets and export things. It would feel a lot better if the rocket capacity was doubled, or more - which would make the early game more forgiving. The productivity for rocket parts could even be removed, leaving this as a problem to be solved by scaling. But this can't be done because you need to launch rockets from 5 different planets, so it's cursed.
The space platforms pose an interesting design challenge, but this challenge doesn't really change and is made redundant through infinite tech. They are essentially glorified trains that you need to spend too much time building, and the hardest one to build is the first one.
So all in all, I think the existence of multiple new planets is actually a detriment, because the player now has what feels like artificial restrictions and repetitive gameplay.
Re: scaling problems, it feels like much of the design is intended to work best in the very late game - after the victory screen. Quality is a good example. The full potential of quality is only unlocked on the final planet, but then not really until you've built a large base designed around producing it. I did use quality, but I used small bot setups to produce a few select items. I can see how it could be a fun design challenge to produce high quality items at scale, but by the time you're capable of doing this you've already finished the game.
Unlike vanilla Factorio, I don't feel inclined to play after the victory screen - or even to repeat going through the game. The reason for this is the amount of time and busy work it takes unlock all the tools. And then the same limiting factor that existed in the original game is still there - the CPU. You can build more with less in Space Age, but you need working factories across 5 different surfaces + space platforms (and much of this replicating the same work), so I can't imagine it will be possible to scale much further than in the original game. The numbers will be higher, but this will be artificial due to infinite researches + built-in productivity.
Basically, the sense of progression is gone in Space Age - at least until a LONG way into a playthrough. It took a day or two for me to get all the tech in Vanilla, at which point I could work on a larger design. To reach the same point in Space Age would take weeks. In Vanilla I was building one factory of increasing size and complexity, and able to leverage what I'd built to solve new problems. In Space Age my factories are very disconnected until very late game, and the focal point is Aquillo (the place you need to import things), and Aquillo is the smallest, least capable factory. I barely touched any of my factories after finishing them, so in practice it was like playing a series of levels rather than one big game.
Which brings to mind a contrast between a sandbox and an adventure. Vanilla is more of a sandbox and Space Age an adventure - meaning that the achievement is finishing. Except that the victory condition is Space Age is very underwhelming. I used the Aquillo tech on one platform to reach the end, and then built another in the editor to reach the shattered planet. There's self evidently no need for it, because by the time you've got it, you're already at the end. Factorio is a game about automation, but the final space platform doesn't need any new automation to build, because you only need a small number of railguns. Much of the challenge in Vanilla is self imposed, but in Space Age it's game imposed.
So I think there is both too much content in Space Age, and not enough. Too much in that a lot of it is repetitive, and not enough in that there isn't actually much new stuff, especially if you consider that much of the function of the new buildings is just productivity. It feels like a lot of the design is wasted - which is a shame, because the new planets do have a lot going from them if taken in isolation.
I think the expansion would have been better if it was just Nauvis + space platform + a single new planet, with the content split between these three. The infinite researches are just numbers - it would have been more interesting if instead there were advanced recipes to get better productivity. The challenge of managing an interplanetary logistics network would still exist if there was only one planet, but with less redundant work, and it would have felt more rewarding because you could put a higher volume of new resources in one place. Demolishers and Pentapods could both have fit onto the same surface.
As far as the endgame, I think there needed to be a broader goal to work toward. I think having more happen on the space platform would have worked - building bigger and producing more - sending things up and sending things down. This way you could have added to your space platform over the course of the game rather than having multiple functionally similar smaller platforms (trains), and it wouldn't have forced you to start from scratch multiple times - the platform and planet could have produced different things. And this would have allowed for something like a space elevator to reduce transport cost - a difficult to produce late game alternative to rockets. Or perhaps a shuttle so that you can easily travel between the surface and the platform (but not cart goods).
But overall, I think there should have been less disconnected things to manage, because I didn't feel attached to anything I built in Space Age - having spent relatively little time in each place. This also would have helped with the front loaded difficulty. New systems (i.e. spoilage/ agri tower/ soils/ nutrients) could have been introduced more gradually if they were introduced on Nauvis - and this also would have exposed the player to the new content more quickly. In addition to scaling more smoothly, I think this also would have allowed the game to scale further (beyond what currently exists), because less time would have been spent developing the basic recipes on the new planets. Also, Vulcanus and Fulgora are not particularly interesting visually, but would have worked well as biomes.
Nevertheless, I think Space Age is an achievement, and Factorio is one of the best games of all time. I've learned a lot while playing - not just about the game but about life. Thank you and I hope this feedback is constructive. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten.
