After reading some negative reviews of Space Age, I saw that it's primarily the lack of new content that causes some players to leave negative reviews, because the expansion moves some of the old tech to other planets, and the list of new items is not that large. So here are some random concept ideas and QOL that I will like to be implemented into the expansion:
• Planets should be visible from space, even if it was a blurry photo it would help a lot with immersion, and also makes it feel like you're traversing between planets rather than just going in a straight line
• Pentapods should have immunity to poison, acid and have small resistance to
• Add random poison clouds on Gleba that only damages the player (more immersion, more diversity)
Edited-in:
Extra changes that I forgot to include in the main section.
• Not related to Factorio, but to the Galaxy of Fame: Add a search feature, and a sort-by drop down and descending/ascending drop down. Sort-by could include many things, like rockets launched, player deaths, highest SPM, playtime, etc
• When in space, allow you to zoom out as far as the player before reverting into map-view. This should allow you to see your whole ship instead of only a small portion at a time
• Add something like a grappling hook to modular equipment that increases player reach
• Inform the player that width slows down the ship, not weight in tips & tricks
• Make vehicles more visible from map view, especially when exploring. Idea: make vehicles have an icon over themselves
• Make repair pack repair speed scale with quality
• A "Stop bots from moving trash" button that stops bots from moving trash slots
• A new optional "Uranium science pack" that costs 235 products and is used for mid-game technologies, but required for the final research
• Infinite rocket capacity research, which increases the weight threshold of the rocket by 100 kg. It costs all Nauvis science packs and the space science pack
• A deployable friendly creature that costs eggs and uranium (more uses for both materials, and more ways of combat)
Hot Takes:
Changes that not everyone will agree with.
• If the Aquillo enemies haven't been completely scrapped, add them as an option to include them in the game when starting a new map, but disabled by default
• Make final research required to win the game incredibly expensive (like 25k) and when you are traveling towards the edge of the solar system for the first time all biters and pentapods attack you, regardless of pollution (similar to pre-1.0's rocket defense). This should make building bigger and safer more valid
• Make cargo wagons, cars, trains, tanks, belts, and splitters speed scale with quality
• Partially correct space platform physics: Make width not affect speed, rather mass
• Increase the rocket size capacity of uranium 235 & 238, or allow 1 nuke to fit in the rocket (1 uranium 235 = 1 big mining drill? This could be for balance reasons, but 5 rocket launches for one nuclear bomb makes them using almost useless)
• Use old rocket launch animation: The new rocket launch animation makes the rocket not look like it's even moving. Maybe make the rocket move higher in the y axis before entering the clouds?
• If possible, increase ship speed by 10x, increase the distance between planets by 10x, decrease asteroid health by 10x (makes distance more realistic, and makes space platforms look like they move fast rather than slowly crawling to the destination)
• Default cliff explosive recipe mode: Some players (not me) don't like the change for cliff explosives, so there should be an option in settings to use the old cliff explosives
• A reddit post already stated this, however I will write it here: Legendary mode, disabled by default, which makes all enemy structures legendary by default