Feedback on Space Age's overall design

[Shulmeister]

despite loving the game and SA, I would align with OP on some of his points. Moving things from Nauvis to other planets felt like a step back. I'm sure they tried and was most likely too complicated, but I wish we could built a base on Nauvis like during 1.0, then go to space and discover many new things such as new building, new energy source, new modules, etc. Moving the techs makes SA feels like a new game, not an add-on.

What would there be to discover on the other planet if you put everything on Nauvis ?

I've tried the mod that put everything on Nauvis, but then you don't have a reason to go on other planets.

[vark111]

Give us a rocket 2.0, or legendary rocket with more space. I'm ok with the first few ones to be small. So frustrating to have all legendary stuff but you must still produce normal items for your rocket.

ooo, this is a fantastic idea. Rocket part quality doesn't even exist right now, so it could be implemented something like this:
Normal rocket: 1x capacity
Uncommon: 1.5x capacity
Rare: 2x capacity
Epic: 5x capacity
Legendary: 10x capacity

[mmmPI]

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.

This is not correct, you don't have to build LDS nor blue circuit on Gleba as you have the choice to bring them from another planet or make them on space, if for example you are seeking to reach fast the late game, it may be interesting to do so to skip having to build redundant infrastructure. If you think you have to do the same thing over and over in this game, imo it means you didn't realized yet the way to automate. I couldn't be bothered with making them on Gleba until way later in the game when i had already reached Aquilo and thought let's boost my Glebase now that i have fusion.

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.

I don't feel it's punishing, i think it's a good incentive for players to actively seek other planets, and engage in strategic reflexion past the first playthrough to know which one to target first based on personnal preference or the goal of that particular game.

I think this had not been done, there would have been no reward that would be making sense in going into other planet, factorio 1.0 gave a late game where the player was super op. The logical solution in a world that is composed of more than 1 planet is to distribute part of the technology on all different planets.

I think the fact that you need tech from say vulcanus to clear the cliff explosives on nauvis or calcite a bit everywhere is ABSOLUTLY INSTRUMENTAL in creating the need for an interwoven factory, and i can only image how terribly inefficient and simplistic is a factory where someone has made its base as a succession of disconnected level as mentionned later. I think that's mostly on the players bad play to not upgrade its factory and keep and obsolete tech vastly oversized.The similar noob trap that you often see when players builds thousands of steel furnaces even well after they have the tech for electric, because they overbuilt it mid game, and its tedious to retrofit, while being a UPS nightmare compared to the much more efficient foundries.

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.

That's very different from my experience, i had to increase the size of my platform to make space science keep up with the others, and also incorporate the asteroid reprocessing, and even add other platforms and finally have them not static anymore because i couldn't keep up. Similarly as you didn't "finish factorio" when sending your first rocket to space in factorio 1.0 you don't finish space science because you have a platform that makes a bit of it x).

I found space science not forgetable at all, as it was the one that puzzled me the most about the rate of asteroid incoming, the ratio of materials, plus all the novelty and the possibility to throw things overboard on space, this is such an unfogetable thing for everyone who had to play with mods that create byproduct that you want to get rid of ! Sure you can do that on Vulcanus too, but Space is literally the first moment when this is available it felt so great x).

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.

Given how lenghty are the many topic where people , including yourself, ask for the rails to transport power or that foundation be available earlier or that there should be power pole connecting the islands, i think it's fair to assume that the power /lightning isn't trivial to solve for everyone.

Fulgora is also the planet where you unlock quality, and the mech armor which makes total sense here given how crammed are the factory on islands and boring the area between them. And the tesla tower, which has no use on Fulgora , so clearly to be used on other planets, so as to break the idea that the planet are unrelated levels is really a clever way to tell the player. Albeit i realize not everyone did get the subtles clues hiden in the extremly good game design .

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.

I don't need spidertron on Nauvis, it's kinda the good reward from the hardest of the 3 starting planets but it's just a cherry on top of the cake, it hasn't been in the game for long and is not really necessary, it's like the OP cheese late game to me. It make sense to me that you'd get the mecha spider in the planet where enemies are spider-like. I'm grateful for the tank addition. If you think it's some "work" to unlock techs, maybe this isn't your kind of game ,as to me it seem like it's the purpose of the game, you literally make factory to create science to unlock things to make better factory to create science to unlock more things untill you don't have anything to unlock. Then you can go for bigger and bigger numbers but not all players goes to this, many stops after they have researched all the techs and a few infinity ones.

I think it's very good design to spread the milestone on different planets and judging by the speedrunners splits, it was pretty well done, giving a nice chunk of content to every planet.

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?

I think with a bit of reflexion it is possible to understand the reasons many of the buildings have those restrictions, it doesn't feel arbitratry when you understand them i felt. Most of the restrictions are on RECEIPE and not buildings, the only buildings restrictions as far as i'm aware are crusher on planets, boilers in space, and biolabs on Nauvis.

The first one is easy to remove with mods if you want to use a subefficient method of crushing things where it creates pollutions and increase evolutions. Crushers are just better used in space and this is there to guide players.

The second one is akin to the same thing guiding players toward using fuel-less power source in space given its scarcity initially.

The third one is to prevent everyone building science only on Gleba and cheesing the onl science pack that spoil.

Nothing is feels arbitrary to me, it feels on the contrary carefully planned restrictions to tailor the gameplay into a logical course.

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.

True part of the game would be triviliazed if rocket didn't have restricted capacity. In other word, the logistical challenge is part of the game , solving it and finding ways to deal with it are the purpose of the game. I feel it makes no sense to just ask for rocket productivity to be doubled and the research removed. Just increase the capacity with a mod if you want to make the game trivial for yourself ? I have no problem reaching the cap of productivity for rockets parts, they feel cheap and it feels funs scaling the number of silos.

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.

I think this is caused by a lack of imagination, you can have static platform aiming at providing ressources essentially replacing mining drills not trains, and you can have platform designed as malls, to produce items from the free ressources from space where it definitely do not serve the same purpose as train.

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.

I couldn't disagree more , the various planet in themselves constitues someting to break the repetitiveness of expanding on Nauvis forever like in 1.0.

Plus the whole idea that there are multiple surfaces addes some depth and degree of freedom in how to organize the late game factory.

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.

I disagree that the game is finished by the time you can produce high quality item at scale, that's fairly obvious given the many space platforms players posted that many of them will go the lenghy process of having EVERYTHING legendary.

Plus obviously all the people concerned by megabases, who will not leave their base composed of sub-legendary entity when some more production could be gained by improving quality.

I think some playthrough where the objective is to "reach the end" are finished by then. But that's the same as saying the game was finished after your first rocket launch in 1.0, it was true for some players like speedrunners, but clearly not a general statement. This is just a personnal opinion based on a playstyle. But not recognizing the various ways of considering the game "finished" and drawing the conclusion that the game is finished after you get the first few legendary item is wrong.

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.

It's fairly easy to understand by this point that the CPU problem could have been mitigated by improving the quality of builds throughout the game. Vertical density instead of horizontal. It is clearly much much easier to reach high SPM on space age than on 1.0

If you think the game is finished when you reach the first few legendary item, you are just shy of using the best tools proposed by the game to adress the CPU problem, but you quit just before using it , while complaining the CPU is the issue ? that's plain wrong. At this point if your CPU is at the limit and none of your base if of higher quality, i can inform you that the game actually contain some interesting puzzle that you haven't explored yet that would adress both concern.

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.

That is a very bad comparaison, you just say that in 2 days you get all the tech in vanilla factorio, and in space it takes weeks, yet you claim the progression doesn't exist in space age. Duhhh clearly it should conclude the opposite. Clearly in space age there is a feeling of progression when you unlock a planet, and its reward that you can use on previously unlocked planet, coupled with previously unlocked tech.

You seem to assimilate progression = building bigger, but that remind of the steel furnace example, progression doesn't necessarily means " more steel furnaces" at some point it means switch to electric + beacon, and later quality stuff. Each stage represent a progression.

If you barely touched any of your factories after finishing them that again relate to a terribly inneficient factory without any "new tech" used to retrofit anything and no high quality anywhere. That works if you goal is "reaching the end", but once you've done it once or twice, it's easy to have desire to make a good factory or a rare or legendary one, instead of always quiting before.

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.

Clearly wrong as the final space platform require promethium chunk processing. Whereas the one before only require player to reach the system solar edges.

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 this denotes confusion in your mind, if you are not sure the game as too much or too little content, it's imo because you are projecting 2 different finite concept in a rigid manner. A game doesn't have to be a "sandbox" or an "adventure" ,it can be both in a vast array of nuances. I think currently space age is an extremly well designed game that incorporate element of both sucessfully and your reasonning feels like reducting it (badly) to one or the other more classic genre according to your representation. But i much prefer the innovative mix that fits in between classical genre to provide something more to the player. The game has so much modding possibilities that you could add or remove content the way you want, when you finally make up your mind.

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.

I think that would terrible. I really like that there are differents planets, with cold and warm area, dead and alive, polluted and areas where you don't care. That would clearly remove lots of the game to remove the different planets. It would remove entirely the concept of smart platform that uses train interrupts to choose which planet to supply their goods. Since you would only have 2.

Such oversimplification would also mean you wouldn't need more than 1 or 2 platform with the same schedule.

I don't see how there would be a challenge to manage anything, this is just killing most complexity.

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).

You don't have to start from scratch multiples times, you can already do a platform that act as mall, i think this is caused by your playstyle. There are many more things you could be doing in game currently already such as the shuttle to easily travel travel and surface, you can have a passenger silo, and you can also have a passenger spaceship.

The proposed end-game goal is to make your factory legendary , i can understand that you are not interested into it, but it is there for many players to enjoy, and i do, i have seen enough full legendary base or spaceship on the internet to know that i'm not the only one to appreciate the end game.

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.

I can only think it would be worse if technologies weren't split amongst different planets, it would have been even quicker to reach artillery, and cliffs explosives, and thus even less time would be required to stay on different area. I think most of the time when it's too easy you don't get attached to the thing you build, i find it particularly true in editor mode, it's boring to make a full base, a small design ok, but there is less exciment working in editor where everything is cheap and quick rather than in a real game where every decision will have bigger impact.

I think it would make the game bad to facilitate access to tech that are currently very well placed along technology progression. It would only make the phenomenon you are mentionning more real.

Overall i think players feedback are interesting to read, but i'm so glad i play a game designed by the devs, and not by the players who make such feedback x).

[quineotio]

I should add, for any devs that might be reading - thank you. I'm sorry if I come across as negative. I obviously enjoy the game immensely. I've played for thousands of hours. Part of my critique is out of frustration in the moment, but I do think Factorio is an excellent game, and an excellent program in general. I'm impressed by how smoothly and stably it runs.

So once again, thank you

[The Phoenixian]

As far as Gleba goes, I generally enjoyed the theme of planning out builds in ghost mode, figuring out how everything was going to work in my head, and only then actually building them and sorting out issues as they arose. I feel like the biggest issue on Gleba isn't a generic "flatness" to the tech tree but rather how planetary resources integrate into the production line.

The bacterial ore recipes in particular are neat to work with, but they concentrate everything at the start of a standard production line, serving as an alternate to mines, rather than hooking in somewhere deeper. I think it's a major part of the problem: Everything unique on Gleba is concentrated at the start and then once it's done it's back to normal factory building.

One bacterial recipe is cool, but there's no need to solve the same puzzle twice. To illustrate how it could be different, one could semi-arbitrarily drop copper bacteria and keep iron bacteria in order to make a hole in the production chain for alternatives to copper. Especially if there's a constraint that Gleba just flat out does not have copper and every strictly necessary machine with a copper plate or wire ingredient requires some alternate machine for a similar function.

Absent recycling and it's constraints, it might be a simple as just an alternate conductive material for green and red circuits, a carbon fiber variant of low density structure, and a Gleba-specific power pole with it's own unique traits. Living in a reality where recycling does provide constraints it's harder, especially with the theory that it should be possible to land (or start) on any of the first three planets and build up from scratch.

- Copper would be outright unavailable until reaching space and unlocking the Gleba asteroid reprocessing tech. (Pulling inspiration from reality, where copper is a potent anti-microbial)
- Everything else can be attained agriculturally. Even stone has some kind of nacre growing process that can be used to farm it.
- Energy beyond electricity: Most machines have variants that flat out do not require power and those that still do have a new ways to power them (Say, a stirling engine as a replacement for solar panels, a biologic inserter that consumes nutrients, or a biologic machine with an integrated loader that doesn't need inserters to feed it at all: just feed the belt directly into the totally-not-a-maw)
- Recipes that use computation are built with a "neuromorphic chip" and thematically focus on both energy-efficient machines (likely also serving as a material source for the efficiency modules that aren't spoilage,) and parts inspired by biology. (Spidertrons, exoskeletons, Gleba-specific inserters)
- Carbon fiber and neuromorphic chips might serve as an alternate rocket part recipe, but you might not even launch rockets at all. Keep the thick atmosphere but switch Gleba from high gravity to low, and carbon fibre space elevators or diamondoid orbital towers make some sense for the carbon-heavy industry of Gleba. Or SSTO surface-to-orbit aircraft. (Orbital rings, active support towers, and Lofstrom Loops are also fun ideas dear to my heart, but are also the polar opposite of the "energy efficient" theme.) ...I'm probably getting away from myself at that point.

All that said, that's just illustrative and me having fun. The real point of feedback here is that Gleba has an issue where materials and processing chains there largely serve as replacements for mines and oil chemistry and don't integrate any deeper into the tech tree, as compared to Vulcanus, where liquid metals and sulfuric acid integrate at a bunch of different points or, especially, Fulgora where you just flat out replace most of the production line with scrap sorting.

[mmmPI]

The real point of feedback here is that Gleba has an issue where materials and processing chains there largely serve as replacements for mines and oil chemistry and don't integrate any deeper into the tech tree, as compared to Vulcanus, where liquid metals and sulfuric acid integrate at a bunch of different points or, especially, Fulgora where you just flat out replace most of the production line with scrap sorting.

This is incorrect rearding the use of bioflux. And it creates one of the most difficult challenge for many players who struggle with freshness. More of such product would have make the game too hard i think. And currently you can export carbon fiber which do not spoil !

[The Phoenixian]

The real point of feedback here is that Gleba has an issue where materials and processing chains there largely serve as replacements for mines and oil chemistry and don't integrate any deeper into the tech tree, as compared to Vulcanus, where liquid metals and sulfuric acid integrate at a bunch of different points or, especially, Fulgora where you just flat out replace most of the production line with scrap sorting.

This is incorrect rearding the use of bioflux. And it creates one of the most difficult challenge for many players who struggle with freshness. More of such product would have make the game too hard i think. And currently you can export carbon fiber which do not spoil !

I think you grossly misunderstand my point. This isn't a matter of the production lines and tech tree off Gleba, or shipping bioflux offworld to Nauvis, or that carbon fiber has uses in the late game. This isn't even about the spoilage mechanic, as you seem to think it is, nor a suggestion to have more of it. This is strictly about the repetition on Gleba.

When building a factory for self sufficiency on Gleba, bioprocessing largely functions as a replacement for oil processing and mines, and then rapidly turns into a very similar set of builds as would be seen on Nauvis.

Meanwhile, when building a factory for self sufficiency on Vulcanus, it has notable differences from how the same factory would look on Nauvis due to sulfur mines, all oil coming from coal liquefaction, and Foundries coming in everywhere for liquid metal casting.

Even more extreme, a factory on Fulgora will look and feel radically different to one built on Nauvis even if they both produce exactly the same machines and parts.

On Fulgora, the production line is flipped nearly backwards. On Vulcanus, there's one big change, but it in a way that shows up constantly. On Gleba my main experience was that working with bioprocessing was extremely fun... and then it was straight back to machines, recipes, and layouts, that had been tried and developed on other planets.

It might be different if, say, one were to put up the main quality setup on Gleba and I am contemplating doing that in my current run, but by default... it's more of the same. Hence the concept of completely removing what had been seen as a core resource from Gleba (copper) and replacing it with a new set of systems between basic resources and space. What those systems are... fundamentally doesn't really matter. Nor even the high concept of leaning into the idea of Gleba as a planet of superpowered burner machines. It's all meant to illustrate the nature of the problem: Gleba is at first very new... and then very repetitive.

[mmmPI]

I think you grossly misunderstand my point. This isn't a matter of the production lines and tech tree off Gleba, or shipping bioflux offworld to Nauvis, or that carbon fiber has uses in the late game. This isn't even about the spoilage mechanic, as you seem to think it is, nor a suggestion to have more of it. This is strictly about the repetition on Gleba.

Maybe we are both misunderstanding our points. You seemed to have said that the product from Gleba " don't integrate any deeper into the tech tree ". This i thought is incorrect as one of the product from Gleba, namely bioflux is interated deep into the tech tree, as far deep as it's required to feed biter eggs which you need for the last science pack.

When building a factory for self sufficiency on Gleba, bioprocessing largely functions as a replacement for oil processing and mines, and then rapidly turns into a very similar set of builds as would be seen on Nauvis.

I disagree and think there is a fundamental difference in Gleba and Nauvis in that Gleba late game has no incentive to expand your base ( everything comes from spoilage) , while Nauvis as Uranium. This is akin to a seablock vs a normal game to me. Hence making Gleba very unique and interesting !

On Fulgora, the production line is flipped nearly backwards. On Vulcanus, there's one big change, but it in a way that shows up constantly. On Gleba my main experience was that working with bioprocessing was extremely fun... and then it was straight back to machines, recipes, and layouts, that had been tried and developed on other planets.

There are many ways to handle Gleba's product, namely one where you continually produce and deal with the spoilage, and one where you only produce science pack when you need and don't have to do with the spoilage, and that's just basic descriptrion. There are plenty variant so really i don't understand how you can feel it is the same as Nauvis or other planets. To me it provide a truely unique thing.

It might be different if, say, one were to put up the main quality setup on Gleba and I am contemplating doing that in my current run, but by default... it's more of the same. Hence the concept of completely removing what had been seen as a core resource from Gleba (copper) and replacing it with a new set of systems between basic resources and space. What those systems are... fundamentally doesn't really matter. Nor even the high concept of leaning into the idea of Gleba as a planet of superpowered burner machines. It's all meant to illustrate the nature of the problem: Gleba is at first very new... and then very repetitive.

I made legendary blue science on Gleba for fun, enjoyed it. I can understand that like seablock since you can copy paste self contained ressource-generating blocks it can feel "more of the same from now on", but in space age you really have as mentionned many possible logic to organise your logistic / production of spoilable goods, which makes it still an addtionnal twist to seablock to me, which allows for various builds and thus break the repetitiveness.

[The Phoenixian]

I think you grossly misunderstand my point. This isn't a matter of the production lines and tech tree off Gleba, or shipping bioflux offworld to Nauvis, or that carbon fiber has uses in the late game. This isn't even about the spoilage mechanic, as you seem to think it is, nor a suggestion to have more of it. This is strictly about the repetition on Gleba.

Maybe we are both misunderstanding our points. You seemed to have said that the product from Gleba " don't integrate any deeper into the tech tree ". This i thought is incorrect as one of the product from Gleba, namely bioflux is interated deep into the tech tree, as far deep as it's required to feed biter eggs which you need for the last science pack.

*sighs* I try to raise the idea in different ways to get the thesis across and the one place at the end I'm not careful and use "tech tree" instead of "production line."

But maybe the distinction isn't as obvious as it was in my head: Allow me to put the concept this way:

Assume for a moment you start on Nauvis and go to the planet in each sentence first.

On Nauvis, to make a belt, you mine ore, smelt ore into plates, make plates into gears, and use plates and gears to make belts in an assembling machine.
On Vulcanus, to make a belt, you melt lava into molten metal, cast molten iron into plates and gears, and then make plates and gears into belts in a foundry.
On Fulgora, to make a belt, you mine scrap, recycle scrap into gears (and everything else) recycle gears into plates, and then use plates and gears to make belts in an assembling machine.
On Aquilo, you're very strongly encouraged to just ship it in, but even if you don't, you have heat pipes to deal with and they add their own subtle but far-reaching flavor to everything.
On Gleba you make bacteria from produce, feed bacteria bioflux to propagate, let bacteria spoil into ore ...and then you smelt ore into plates, make plates into gears, and use plates and gears to make belts in an assembling machine.

Even breaking from the idea of going to Gleba first, you could also, in theory, import the Vulcanus system, but even then it's just repeating what was already done.

You can swap out the craft chain for "making a belt" here with any number of other things. Compare the full production chain of sourcing all belts from Vulcanus, all Power poles from Fulgora, and all inserters from Gleba, for instance. One of these processes doesn't work the way the others do.

Even if you're just making rocket parts, there's a similar thing going on:

On Vulcanus, wire casting changes the feel of circuit production significantly, and Low Density Structure is cast from metal, for a production line that feels notably different to the usual.
On Fulgora, things are wildly different, as two rocket parts are recycled from scrap, almost straight out of the ground, and only rocket fuel is similar. (and even then, the production line is truncated, just needing oil cracking to set it up)
On Gleba, rocket fuel is the one that's wildly different... But crafting Low Density Structure and Processing Units locally is very much the same as it always was.

On Vulcanus and Fulgora, native production of rocket parts looks notably different to how it does the first time it's set up on Nauvis. On Gleba, there's repetition.

Just shipping things in or using blueprints from other worlds is possible, sure, but, to use the format of the old meme, I don't want to use blueprints and offworld shipments, I want to take this beautiful and amazing puzzle that is bioprocessing, and more puzzles like it, and take them even further.

Just focusing on Bioprocessing, sure, Gleba is unique. But it's far too walled off in it's own corner, and trying to build beyond it shows how limited it is.

This is the spirit, I think, in which you have players like Tertius saying that at first Gleba was the most fun... but then it fell off.

There is an incredibly fun *piece* of Gleba. But in the context of a full scale factory that makes everything, especially the space that lies between gathering ore and raw materials and launching a rocket, it starts to become smaller and smaller.

Hence the idea that, if you stripped out copper ore entirely from Gleba, and replaced it with something that injected Gleba processes later into that chain of production, the feel of the planet as an alternative place and way to build a factory could be improved. (Be it just Gleba specific circuit recipes, or something far more in depth like Gleba specific power poles, inserters, or so on)

More generally: It feels like for a lot of people, the most interesting planets are the ones that made the biggest departures from normal Factorio. Aquilo has no basic resources and is entirely reliant on shipments while doing it's own thing with heat pipes, while Fulgora broke the production lines. In that context, there's an idea that breaking Gleba so that "more of the same" was literally impossible could likewise have made an improvement.

[mmmPI]

*sighs* I try to raise the idea in different ways to get the thesis across and the one place at the end I'm not careful and use "tech tree" instead of "production line."

I disagree with both version anyway i'm sorry x), both the one wrote with "tech tree" and the one you corrected with "production line".
I think in both case Gleba's product are "integrated" , like you need carbon fiber for stack inserters, at the very last step of production same for toolbelts, and also to me it describe a similar situation if you swap "tech tree" for "production line" regarding how bioflux is used. The fact that Gleba's product are integrated in the "tech tree" sort of mechanilly leads to them being also integrated in the "production line".

But maybe the distinction isn't as obvious as it was in my head:
Compare the full production chain of sourcing all belts from Vulcanus, all Power poles from Fulgora, and all inserters from Gleba, for instance. One of these processes doesn't work the way the others do.

It feels to me like an arbitrary decision / personnal preference to proclaim 1 is different than all the others. Maybe i don't understand still your argument, because when i read this, it seem to be the conclusion of previous "unrelated" paragraph, like you say something about how you see things, and then you conclude so "one is different", but in what you said before, there was nothing that popped up for me.

More generally: It feels like for a lot of people, the most interesting planets are the ones that made the biggest departures from normal Factorio. Aquilo has no basic resources and is entirely reliant on shipments while doing it's own thing with heat pipes, while Fulgora broke the production lines. In that context, there's an idea that breaking Gleba so that "more of the same" was literally impossible could likewise have made an improvement.

I think sometmes it is a logical fallacy, to try and represent " more generally : for a lot of the people", i think here it's more accurate to consider different groups of players that have different interest that are sometimes complete opposite instead of trying to make an average.

Consider a situation where out of 100 players, 50 hates Gleba, 50 loves it. "generally people have a strong opinion on gleba" would be true, but an average or a general statement about wether they like it or not would not be helpful to represent things because it would be 0.

This may make more sense if you consider that maybe YOU think Gleba is "more of the same" , and someone else think Gleba isn't "more of the same".

[quineotio]

Some more thoughts.

In 1.0, the science you produced wasn't only an end in itself, but also a measure of the effectiveness of your factory. Space Age destroys the correlation between good factory design and measured output, because as long as you meet the minimum requirement of no jams, your factory will increase production automatically.

I've found it interesting to consider the breaks in consistency as a consequence of certain design decisions. Many have asked questions like those I've listed below, and the answers are generally "it's a game". But the game could have been designed around consistency first, rather than attempting to dictate a particular playstyle. If you mandate how people should do things in one place that also effects other places, and then you need further mandates if you want to maintain your imposed gameplay, and you find yourself chasing your tail.

By "dictate/mandate" I don't just mean dictating to the player, but dictating to the game. The game is what it is, and isn't what it isn't. I think part of the challenge is finding the best design that flows naturally from a consistent logical basis. To provide two conflicting examples, 1. the ammo stack and rocket capacity sizes and 2. using mines on platforms. If players export ammo to platforms I don't see the problem. It's a natural thing that people should logically be able to do, and I don't think it should be nerfed. The option to build ammo on board is still there, and I think as a designer you have to accept that people won't always do things the way you would prefer. You can encourage the playstyle you want in various ways, but it makes more sense to me to make accommodations rather than dictations. Does the game suddenly cease to be fun if people import ammo?

But using mines on platforms doesn't make sense logically and so I'm glad it's nerfed. To certain extent this is a matter of opinion of course, and reactive armour does exist as a concept, but it looked stupid to me and felt like an exploit.

Something that rubs me the wrong way is the removal of things that were previously on Nauvis. I really like the original game, and was expecting to have that but more. But I found myself enjoying Nauvis less and being frustrated by the extra hoops I had to jump through. And because I'm not having fun, the goodwill I had toward Factorio has been greatly reduced and this effects my tolerance of "gamey" breaks in logic and consistency, especially when it's easy to identify things that have been lost because of a change. You changed the way the original game (which I paid for) worked into something I like less.

Factorio is an interesting case study because the first game was made openly over a long period with constant community feedback, but Space Age was made in private. I think Space Age would be very different had its development mirrored the successful initial strategy, and likely for the better. I also understand that as a creative person most of the feedback you get isn't of high quality, and this could contribute to a dictatorial mentality - "they just don't understand". But I think the conversation is important, because it sets expectations on both sides and it forces you to justify your decisions. And if you can't justify your decisions you should change them - but doing the development in private meant that the feedback loop didn't exist.

Or you might argue that the feedback loop did exist because of the FFFs, but this is the worst form of feedback because people were commenting on things they didn't have experience with. Also, because the information came at a slow pace this built a certain amount of frustration at not being able to actually play the game. I think this contributed to the FFFs actually being a detriment to the developer/community relationship. The lesson I take away from this is that you need to be way more careful what you show in a closed development environment.

Another negative was the playtest and release of the information embargo before the game was released. Showing favoritism in this way and letting them show off contributed to sycophancy and a bias of feedback toward people with a stake in a positive review of the game. Its interesting what this does to a community. When you don't listen to feedback (or only from your stakeholders) you end up with a community of sycophants who rigorously defend the status quo (because everyone else leaves). And this is bad because it removes the normal check on one's ego, which is negative feedback from people who love you. Sycophants don't actually love the thing/people they defend, but rather seek status (or money), and thus they kill the thing they are defending by killing the community who care enough to correct you when you're going the wrong way.

I get the impression that the reason for the decision to develop SA the way it was was due to weariness with working on the game and a desire to finish things up, which I understand. I think there's ideally at least several years of development required to make SA truly "finished", but its easy to argue that SA is at least a minimum viable product. If I had to guess, SA would have a much smaller scope if the devs had the benefit of hindsight - 4 new planets is just too much. It's essentially 4 new games if you want to do it properly - at least the way they're currently implemented. But if SA had been developed openly it probably would have taken longer still.

I can sense the negative attitude coming from the way devs communicate, and I think it's an understandable consequence from the above things. You need to have a thick skin or course, but but creating an environment where bad critique is more likely than good would wear anyone down. I reported a bug recently and the response was at first to assume it was my error, followed by recognition that it was easy to produce, followed by moving it to "not a bug" with no justification, despite it being a clear inconsistency with the interface. This type of thing discourages any further reporting.

I understand that after working on a game for a long time and spending ~6 months fixing bugs you probably want to just be finished, and it must be frustrating when the list keeps growing, but I think this also is a consequence of releasing one big "patch" (the new game) rather than incremental releases. I think Factorio is far too complex to release this way. And it's lead to a situation in which the biggest release ever hasn't been followed up by any official word from the development team.

How do you feel about what you've done? Has the game met your expectations? What's your response to the feedback you've received? What do you think you could have done better? What would you have done differently with the benefit of hindsight?

From a player's perspective, I don't know what type of feedback you even want. Are you even making the game for us? Is the idea to provide a platform for mods? If that's the case, then tell us more about your future plans so that mod makers know how to calibrate their expectations and avoid wasting effort.

I find it helpful for my own thought process to write things down and communicate, and I hope my feedback provides some food for thought - if not for this game then perhaps for the next. With regard to the following questions, consider how necessary the current design choices are, and if the game could still have been fun if things were different. For example, is there really no way to make the game fun if you got stone from asteroids?

What keeps the jelly used in stack inserters fresh?

Why does crafting a holmium bar teach me how to make an electromagnetic plant?

Why can I fill in oceans of water with stone, and build on ice with concrete, but I need highy flammable lithium to build on oil ocean?

Why does recycling superconductors give me back superconductors?

Why does high quality homium and high quality stone produce the same quantity and quality of holmium solution?

Why are cliffs on Nauvis immune to explosives unless they contain calcite?

Why can't I craft a foundry unless I'm on Vulcanus?

Why can't you use the liquid tungsten you make in the foundry?

Why can't I melt iron and copper bars back into liquid iron and copper? Same with gears/wire etc.

Why can't you dump ammonia and ice back into the ammonia and ice ocean you got it from?

Why do furnaces need external heating?

Why do I need to heat the pipes containing the hot flueroketone that I'm sending to be cooled down?

Why don't crushers work on planets?

Why don't asteroids give stone?

Where is the copper hiding before you get advanced asteroid processing?

Why don't higher quality uranium cells provide more power?

Why don't biters eat Nauvis food?

Why does the ability to plant trees on Nauvis require research on Gleba?

Why can't I put Gleba soil on Nauvis?

Why can't I make carbon from wood?

Why can't you use high quality materials in normal recipes?

Why can I create higher quality chests with more space but not higher quality cargo wagons?

[Shulmeister]

TL DR :

The long post presents itself as thoughtful feedback, but much of it ultimately stems from personal frustration over a perceived lack of control or recognition, rather than a well-reasoned critique of game design. Many of the questions raised are either based on misunderstandings, ignore clearly communicated developer decisions, or expect unrealistic levels of simulation or logic in what is still a game with necessary abstractions.

The author appears to conflate personal preference with objective flaws, and their disappointment seems less about genuine design issues and more about their own unmet expectations—especially when the game doesn't align with their idealized vision or suggestions. The more conspiratorial tone (about favoritism, sycophants, etc.) further undercuts the credibility of their feedback, making it seem more like an emotional outburst than constructive criticism.

That said, while the tone is off and the logic often flawed, it's still useful to developers in one way: it reveals how a segment of players can become alienated when expectations aren’t managed well or when communication isn’t transparent enough for entitled players—regardless of whether their ideas are valid.

[Tertius]

Some more thoughts.

In my opinion, you're drifting away to general thoughts about the design process of SA. You're missing the fact the design process has been completed. SA has been released. Thoughts about the design process have been given over the course of the last year(s), today it's not contributing to the current task, which is kind of polishing the 2.0 release.
It has been hinted there will be a 2.1 release, which means there will be some non-trivial update. How to shape that update with technical feedback is the task at hand for us players. What game mechanics are good, what thing is not fun that can can be improved. These are specific things to address in a specific update. The design in general need not (and I guess will not) be changed, since SA has been proved to be a good extension in general. How to improve specific game behavior within the current design is what players expect with an upcoming release. I recommend your feedback contains specific things: what you don't like and how you like it to be improved. Constructive feedback is asked, something that can be directly implemented without a full new design process.

Of course, it's unlikely the proposal of one player will be directly implemented. Usually, there are multiple different proposals and the dev vision behind any implementation, so any change will be a merge of everything.

The long question list at the end of your post reveal small design flaws in my opinion, since these things are patches to the design to work around edge cases of the design.
For example, iron products cannot be smelted back because of the productivity mechanic. To avoid loops with generating stuff out of thin air, you need to revert the item increase that comes from productivity, but items don't have a memory from how many initial material it is produced, so any reduction has to incorporate every item. Something the recycler has been designed for, so this is the mechanic to give back any unwanted material to the previous production step. Not smelting again, since this is not universal, but the recycler is.
There are more things where you just can answer: "because of balancing" or "there is already a different solution". Your questions are of limited usefulness for the expected update, unless you suggest a specific solution that is also keeping game balance and not duplicate existing game behavior.

[mmmPI]

When you don't listen to feedback (or only from your stakeholders) you end up with a community of sycophants who rigorously defend the status quo (because everyone else leaves). And this is bad because it removes the normal check on one's ego, which is negative feedback from people who love you. Sycophants don't actually love the thing/people they defend, but rather seek status (or money), and thus they kill the thing they are defending by killing the community who care enough to correct you when you're going the wrong way.

That sound like you are putting yourself in the group of people who care enough to correct others when they are going the wrong way, and you see that as a positive and i wanted to try the exercise too :

Why are cliffs on Nauvis immune to explosives unless they contain calcite?

This is wrong, you can use nukes to get rid of cliffs, those do not contain calcite but do contain explosives. Are you phrasing the fact that you didn't know or is it an unfortunate phrasing that makes it sound like you didn't know when you are refusing to use it and instead complain yet again about something that can trivialy be solved by mods that already exist for players who disagree with the dev's stated intent in the FFF to make it an incentive to leave Nauvis when playing with the space age expansion that also features elevated rails and new cliffs generation designed to alleviate what used to be a more severe constraint with the default settings ?

Aren't you puzzled that cliffs explosive are even a thing ? i mean for consistency purposes and given the long list of loaded question, where is all the stone going when the cliffs explosive blow up ? In real life the explosive part is only the beginning of the work, most of it is the excavation. Do you think 'it's a game i want my cliffs explosive to just make a pop and the mountain disappear right away' is a proper answer when you are advocating for consistency in other domain following the same reasonning ? :

What keeps the jelly used in stack inserters fresh?

Nothing is required to keep vegetal oil "oily", in real life if you don't turn the olive into oil when it's time, they gonna rot, but if you extract the vegetable oil, then it can last for centuries as an edible or lubricant fluid, the flammable properties are also conserved which was useful for oil lamps. Do you put your cooking oil in the refridgerator in real life ? or your car's tire to preserve the freshness of the rubber ?

Why does crafting a holmium bar teach me how to make an electromagnetic plant?

The concept of trigger tech was explained in FFF 376 => https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-376

Why can I fill in oceans of water with stone, and build on ice with concrete, but I need highy flammable lithium to build on oil ocean?

Because that's how landfill is made irl i suppose for the landfill part.
Building on ice with concrete is not recommended because it sinks if the ice melt, but i suppose it isn't a risk in Aquilo, and the concrete is made for it.

Quick search on the internet :

Lithium oxide is widely used as a flux for processing silica, reducing the melting point and viscosity of the material and leading to glazes with improved physical properties including low coefficients of thermal expansion.

source : wikipedia page of lithium

My bet is that the stone used in the recipe for foundation is actually containing silica. The link with "low coefficients of thermal expansion" seem related to the fact that you can build on lava with it, while IRL that wouldn't be possible to do but i suppose gameplay > realism or "it's a game" is not a problem here.

Why does recycling superconductors give me back superconductors?

I don't know, only guessing , that look like the same as plastic and solid fuel or flammethrower ammo, but unlike rocket fuel or quantum computer. I can easily imagine it's the same than in real life were not everything can be recycled into its component with current technology, like you can't get the olives or the rubber back when it's processed and humans have to organize their logistics around this knowledge.

Why does high quality homium and high quality stone produce the same quantity and quality of holmium solution?

When i use high quality or low quality eggs, i still get the same amount of omelette at the end. If you put a rotten egg in an omelette, the whole omelette is of low quality, no matter the high quality of the other eggs. If i make the engine of your car, no matter the quality of the rest of the car, it will still be a car with no engine capable of functionning to any level of quality thus impacting the quality of the whole car. If you make a rocket to go to space, and you use cheap low quality bolts , it risk compromising the whole rocket.

Sure not everything works like this, but some do in real life like in the game. If you want to change this for yourself there's unsurprisingly a mod for it

Why can't I craft a foundry unless I'm on Vulcanus?

You need a pressure of 4000 hPA, this is a lot compared to the other planet in which the lower pressure means some metal would turn from solid to gas without molten state, sublimation.

Also in FFF 387 about the foundries :

As we've already mentioned, while it's easy to assume that Nauvis would remain to be the location of the main factory for most players, we really wanted to avoid the situation where the new planets become just mining outposts. We wanted the player to build something that feels like a worthy factory on each of the planets.

Why can't you use the liquid tungsten you make in the foundry?

I suppose this is a loaded question where you ask why there isn't molten tungsten in the game, there's quite a good reason for it if you read the most basic information you can find on tungsten, by that i mean the wikipedia page, it is mentionned that due to its very high melting temperature, instead of making liquid tungsten like your question suggest, a process called sintering is used.

I really like learning new things i discover thanks to factorio x), i still remeber playing Angel's mod and searching for the sintering oven on the internet, willing to know what it was, happy to share !

Why can't I melt iron and copper bars back into liquid iron and copper? Same with gears/wire etc.

It says in the description of the recycler, that it can reverse most process except smelting and chemestry. It doesn't say on the other machines they can recycle or reverse their process. I suppose that's like in real life, if you don't have a furnace or a foundry you can't melt back copper or iron with a torch without setting stuff on fire due to it being very hot.

I can see the purpose for gameplay, to lower quality of thing, but i it would be "bloat" as there are already many possible strategy for recycling/upcycling that are possible or if you want to get rid of quality item you don't want/need but still produced cuz mistakes happens as we're humans. Recyclers don't output fluids, so it would be a foundry thing, it wouldn't be very consistent with the rest of the game, albeit i can see a mod proposing this alongside other things that would give the player a purpose to do so.

Why can't you dump ammonia and ice back into the ammonia and ice ocean you got it from?

Consistency and gameplay, same as water like forever, and that's what your factory needs to do in an automated way in Aquilo, similar to oil processing in Nauvis, where some product can clog the system and need be transformed as part of the objective of the game.

Why do furnaces need external heating?

They don't except on the planet designed around providing heat to all structures as part of the game design ? x)

Why do I need to heat the pipes containing the hot flueroketone that I'm sending to be cooled down?

You don't need the pipes to be cooled down, you need to keep them warm, most likely to avoid thermal shock. Or maybe because that's what the planet is designed around ? x).

Why don't crushers work on planets?

It says on the description of the crusher that it require a gravity of 0 m/s-² which isn't going to be the case on any planet reasonnably. If you want to modify this you there is already a mod for this too . You probably have read this sticked post on the forum called I want to make suggestions, but I got links to mods!! Which i can imagine is reflecting the views of the devs regarding this particular kind of suggestions that are only personnal choice and very easily implemented as mod.

Why don't asteroids give stone?

I don't know but i have come to suppose that it's because you can get some in infinite amount in Vulcanus from lava, which is an abstraction for how cheap and abundant it would be compared to the cost of asteroid mining for stone to use in landfill or concrete, that would make very little sense IRL.

I haven't played a mod that does this or i have not realized it yet , i remember i asked this to devs but i don't remember their answer precisely. I may have suggested or +1 for it to be the case because i thought it would be funny to make a battering ram space ship with walls instead of platforms but that wouldn't be the first time i find something funny and other players find it very lame..

Where is the copper hiding before you get advanced asteroid processing?

I suppose it is discarded that's why you have 20% chance of getting another chunk compared to 5% when using the advanced one which discard much less rocks.
If you use a magnet to extract the iron, and discard what doesn't stick , you don't get to keep the copper, it's not hiding anywhere, just not extracted by a regular magnet, only an electromagnet can react with it.

Why don't higher quality uranium cells provide more power?

Consistency, as it is then similar to all fuels ?

I dont know if there's a mod for it, that sound unlike the other thing mentionned previously not trivial to implement, specifically for the nuclear fuel cell which are intented to burn for the same amount of times by some players that uses circuit control. And that would cause them to be potentially be heating a single reactor faster than it can transfer heat outside with heat pipes. Plus fuels are balanced around vehicule acceeleration, which are sometimes leading to counter intuitive results.

Devs pointed out currently those may be used for receipe, ( like portable reactor which provide infinite energy from them, even though that's unrealistic ).

Why don't biters eat Nauvis food?

That one is easy : there is no such things as Nauvis food, they are nutrients for plants, biters aren't plants.

Why does the ability to plant trees on Nauvis require research on Gleba?

The character is an engineer not a botanist, it's only after reverse-engineering some of the prolific Gleba's plant's life cycle that he foundd some quick enough that he could observe in a short timespan and establish his own knowledge from experiment instead of relying on its previous expertise that is of little help.

Confronted to the necessity of growing plants on a new planets, he stepped out of his confort zone and learn how to do so instead of lamenting ?

Why can't I put Gleba soil on Nauvis?

Yeah that's not how it works, you can't just put a sand in the artic and expect a few coconut trees to thrive there. I don't have precise source for this, but i have tried some less extreme case of plant acclimatation and it's not as easy as just the "soil" trust me i been engineer gardener !

Beside it was answered countless times that it would make little sense to do anything on gleba if you could grow the trees on nauvis, you'd ship them there to make the science ?
There's couple mod if you want to completly change the design philosophy of the game, but at this point anyone could quickly think this through, this question is ridiculous, it makes no sense for "realism" nor for "gameplay" to do so.

Why can't I make carbon from wood?

That's actually something that would be very annoying if it was in the game as furnace receipe because it would cause countless mistakes when the product is inserted as fuel or vice versa, this is quite comon shortcomings in mods that does that. But feel free to use to see for yourself. You could put it on the assembly machine, but that would feel out of place wouldn't it ? that would still be my prefered option.

Why can't you use high quality materials in normal recipes?

That the same omelette answer as for the previous question that was almost the same.

Why can I create higher quality chests with more space but not higher quality cargo wagons?

One was added recently, maybe they are planning on the second, maybe they think it could cause players to have trouble when their trains take forever to have the "cargo full" conditions. There are many times where players are shooting themselves in the foot, like they complain they want all quality level available at the start because they dont like the unlock system, and they think 3 quality level would be good and don't need 5, and when they play they still click and spend their science to research "epic quality" even though it's optionnal, and going to increase the number of quality level to 4 which they don't want. They don't realize how it's their own mistake and feel berated or mocked when someone attempt to explain them. They don't want to be told they play the gapem wrong even if it appears obvious that their complaints are the consequences of their own actions.

I wouldn't be suprised if devs withold certain changes and also shield the feelings of the share of their players that can barely understand the game as it is by not telling them something isn't done because it would be too difficult for average player to handle especially those too self-absorbed and ego-centric to realize they are in that share of the players.

That said, while the tone is off and the logic often flawed, it's still useful to developers in one way: it reveals how a segment of players can become alienated when expectations aren’t managed well or when communication isn’t transparent enough for entitled players—regardless of whether their ideas are valid.

It's unclear in your wording if you are implying dev's mismanaged expectations, or if player did. It's hard for humans to keep their own expectations in check, it's more about philosphy, but regarding the devs's way of handling it, it is a hard decision about "spoilers" , some people wants surprise, but others will have this unknown grows into unrealistic expectations and be disappointed. You don't ask a magician to be "fully transparent" the opposite actually, some players feel the same for video game, it's an art !

But even then devs are to me one of the example of virtue when it comes to being upfront about what's in their game with the FFFs about managing players' expectations. I was not shy on critics about the fluid system change, but i realized i'm in the minory there, and most people seem to enjoy the new one, i don't feel the need to pointlessly mention it, i believe constantly revisiting settled topics with frustration, while dismissing everyone who disagrees as ‘sycophants,’ is a lame attempt at disqualifyng other opinion without any ground. I'd like to believe that's not how adults behave. And being called this will not make me less willing to speak out for what i like

[Panzerknacker]

Some more thoughts.

Well written post mate with some very valid points, it hits right on the mark.

Just ignore these shitposters coming into polute and obfuscate your thread with endless nonsence, you really understand what's going on. Let's see how stuff will move forward with SA.

[quineotio]

Just ignore these shitposters

Thank you.

[Shulmeister]

That said, while the tone is off and the logic often flawed, it's still useful to developers in one way: it reveals how a segment of players can become alienated when expectations aren’t managed well or when communication isn’t transparent enough for entitled players—regardless of whether their ideas are valid.

It's unclear in your wording if you are implying dev's mismanaged expectations, or if player did. It's hard for humans to keep their own expectations in check, it's more about philosphy, but regarding the devs's way of handling it, it is a hard decision about "spoilers" , some people wants surprise, but others will have this unknown grows into unrealistic expectations and be disappointed. You don't ask a magician to be "fully transparent" the opposite actually, some players feel the same for video game, it's an art !

But even then devs are to me one of the example of virtue when it comes to being upfront about what's in their game with the FFFs about managing players' expectations. I was not shy on critics about the fluid system change, but i realized i'm in the minory there, and most people seem to enjoy the new one, i don't feel the need to pointlessly mention it, i believe constantly revisiting settled topics with frustration, while dismissing everyone who disagrees as ‘sycophants,’ is a lame attempt at disqualifyng other opinion without any ground. I'd like to believe that's not how adults behave. And being called this will not make me less willing to speak out for what i like

I used chatGPT to make a TL DR of the long frustrated complaint. I think it's fair to assume that it was meant for players not managing well their expectations when looking at the context.