Eliminate Automation 1
Instead, give the basic assembler recipe to the player at the start of the game.Being forced to hand-craft 10 red science in a game that is so heavily focused on automation strikes me as more than a little silly. This could also set a bad precedent for new players (hand-crafting should be discouraged in general).
Automation 2 and 3 would be renamed to Advanced Automation and Advanced Automation 2, respectively, for the sake of consistency.
Make green science a research as well
It would depend on Advanced Automation. This is also about discouraging hand crafting (because AM1s cannot make inserters). Technologies requiring green science that don't have prerequisites reliant on green science would require this research.Additional dependencies based on recipe requirements
For example, Electric Energy Distribution 2 should depend on Advanced Electronics. Players already can "look ahead" and see researches they don't have the requirements for; having additional dependencies like this makes it a little more obvious what they need to accomplish something.Move roboport, requester chest, and provider chest to the generic Robotics research
As far as I know, there are no other unlocks in the game that can come from one of two researches, so this is a little inconsistent. Moving it to the "root" Robotics research makes a lot of sense, even if you can't use them just yet. This reinforces that both kinds of bots use the same roboports and chests.Make Uranium Processing its own research
Its requirements would be what Nuclear power is now -- Advanced Electronics and Concrete. It would unlock the centrifuge and the uranium processing recipe. Kovarex Enrichment Process, Atomic Bomb, and Uranium Ammo would depend on Uranium Processing instead of Nuclear Power. Nuclear Power itself would depend only on Uranium Processing.It makes logical sense, and would be a slight shortcut for those that don't want to invest in nuclear plants.
"Almost Infinite" researches
These require space science, of course, and requirements scale at a similar rate to "true" infinite research. Yes, these are cheesy, but very high levels of current infinite research are already cheesy. The caps would be usually well past level 100.- Braking Force. At cap, trains stop instantly from full speed. (This would be hilarious to watch.)
- Inserter Capacity Bonus. At cap, stack inserters move an entire stack of anything (+198 bonus) at once unless limited. Normal inserters would get a +1 at every five levels above the current cap of level 7. This means, even at cap, non-stack inserters are always significantly inferior to stack inserters, so you don't have a situation where fast inserters replace stack inserters.
- Lab research speed. At cap, labs complete an entire cycle in a single tick.
- Worker Robot Cargo Size. At cap, robots can carry an entire stack of anything (+199 bonus).
