TL;DR
Devs try to improve UI in many ways, i suggest putting running Factorio world as a background of menu.What ?
Image says more then thousand words, video even more!This is my world running as a background, it's blurred and darken a bit to make it less distractive to player. This world in background could be any world, for new players could be world made by Factorio team that looks cool, for players that had played already - player's last played world. UPS of it could be decreased to 20 to make it slower, and to keep FPS on high enough level even on slower PC (this map is quite zoomed out and blurring real-time image can significantly slower the main menu).
Why ?
I think it looks nice especially for new players that comes to game and have to wait for all assets to load (first time this may take a while), this would be cool view instead of seeing static image in background. First impression is VERY important. For more 'veteran' players this would be nice effect to see their factory for very far away even in the main menu, before they start even playing.I was inspired by main menu of M.A.R.S shooter and 8th wonder of the world game. Also sorry for by bad English
