Some complaints.

[ssyang]

Why can the foundry produce complex machines like foundries and mining drills, but not Engine units? The recipe for Engine units is simpler, requiring only iron, and from a realistic perspective, it seems more suitable for foundry manufacturing.

Why can foundries only be built on Vulcanus? Is it a limitation for the sake of balance? What is the rationale behind this restriction?

Why can’t Crushers be used on the surface?

The DLC is really fun, but it seems like a lot of logical aspects have been sacrificed for the sake of balance. Sometimes, when I try to do things naturally, I’m met with a hard restriction telling me it’s not allowed, which is quite frustrating.

[mouzy]

I think the idea conceptually is foundries are for casting metals - so they can make shaped items out of a single metal easily, like iron gears or copper cables. But something really intricate like engines requires an assembler. When you use them to make a foundry, the more delicate components (circuits) are already assembled.

From a gameplay perspective I think every building is supposed to have a niche - Foundries do a lot of stuff already and so some things like engines are saved for assemblers.

All of the planets have buildings you can only craft there - my guess is that this is so that you have to build a larger and more diverse factory there to get the full benefits of the planet. If you could make everything on Nauvis, it would be easy to treat the planets as mining outposts and just import raw materials from them. As it is now, if you want to use lots of foundries everywhere you'll need to build enough of a Vulcanus factory to be able to craft lots of them and rapidly export them. Iirc the game does give a brief justification for why they can only be built on that surface - it's kind of handwavey but for me it was enough.

Crushers are only for asteroid processing, which you only need in space. Conceptually I think they are designed to be used in zero gravity/atmospheric pressure.

[ssyang]

I think the idea conceptually is foundries are for casting metals - so they can make shaped items out of a single metal easily, like iron gears or copper cables

I agree with what you said, but now the foundry machine is clearly capable of more than just these simple tasks. It can produce complex machines like foundries and mining machines, as well as items like lightweight frames that require plastic and conveyor belts that need lubricant, and so on. If it can make such complex things, then it should be able to make engines; otherwise, it's quite perplexing.

All of the planets have buildings you can only craft there - my guess is that this is so that you have to build a larger and more diverse factory there to get the full benefits of the planet. If you could make everything on Nauvis, it would be easy to treat the planets as mining outposts and just import raw materials from them. As it is now, if you want to use lots of foundries everywhere you'll need to build enough of a Vulcanus factory to be able to craft lots of them and rapidly export them. Iirc the game does give a brief justification for why they can only be built on that surface - it's kind of handwavey but for me it was enough.

Building diverse factories on different planets is indeed the right approach, but this is achieved through transportation costs. If producing an item locally on a planet is more cost-effective than transporting raw materials to Nauvis for manufacturing, players will naturally opt for the local option. The current game already achieves this through the payload capacity limits of rockets, so there’s absolutely no need to add such unreasonable location-based manufacturing restrictions.

Crushers are only for asteroid processing, which you only need in space. Conceptually I think they are designed to be used in zero gravity/atmospheric pressure.

The crusher obviously shouldn’t require any specific atmospheric conditions to function. The same principle applies: if processing asteroids on a space platform is more cost-effective, players will naturally choose to do so. There’s no need to impose hard-coded restrictions for this.

This is my first post, and I didn’t expect that someone would actually read it and give a thoughtful reply. Thank you!