No loader/Red Assembler, Electricity only objective.

[Ranakastrasz]

It is feasible to adjust the tutorial so that most of the special buildings are unnecessary. I can't think of a way to get rid of the reactor, but the rest are easy enough.

Add a substation in so it covers the Reactor, both assemblers, and the science lab. Make those assemblers and the science lab vanilla varients.
-Alternatively, make the reactor have a substation-like range, but only until the electricity part)
Replace Loaders with Fast/Stack inserters.

After research, and unlocking assembly machines (and electricity)
Have the Substation/Reactor power field die. Have compilatron build a pair of wooden power poles to cover the first assembler.

After you re-power all of the structures, it then continues where it was, having you make an assembler for green circuits. In addition, you can now pick up all of those structures, and change the recipes.


Several Benefits.
With the exception of the reactor itself, no campaign only objects are required.
The player sees immediately that the reactor existing isn't enough like in some games, but doesn't include two steps. Plus the damaged reactor gets to be damaged.
Shows off the higher-tech inserters, which have the same role as the disabled loaders, but actually exist.

[abregado]

We did try to use normal structures. During focus testing, players were confused when there are normal looking structures that they cannot remove.

The existing "special structures" have placeholder graphics and will eventually look like chunks of your crashed spaceship. It is part of the art design that these chunks look like they cannot be removed.

[Ranakastrasz]

We did try to use normal structures. During focus testing, players were confused when there are normal looking structures that they cannot remove.

The existing "special structures" have placeholder graphics and will eventually look like chunks of your crashed spaceship. It is part of the art design that these chunks look like they cannot be removed.

Makes sense for the structures. What about the electricity part?

[abregado]

During focus testing we did have preplaced "blue electric area" around the generator. Testers never detected why it was there, or even why they should place structures next to it. Later we would have had to teach "place poles to extend that range" anyway, and I expect they would not if they did not need to, instead cramming everything in the small space.

The most basic part of electrical networks is "extending the blue area", which thankfully only has one concept pre-requisite, being able to place structures. The very first prototype of this scenario was actually "Take 5 poles out of this box, and connect the 3 scattered solars to the lab in the centre". It worked well enough, but was abandoned for other reasons.

The reactor breaking down after some time, causing the player to need to build a newly researched steam power was also scrapped, as we felt it was better that the player build a steam setup in complete isolation, thus it is the first thing they need to do in the new area. No distractions.

Steam power is actually the biggest hurdle for new players, and not one of the "cool things about Factoro" (like belts and inserters).