Cliff Explosives Feels Terrible

[Roflhouse42]

I just started a new playthrough of space age. Was super excited to dig in and get going only to find this monstrosity. Cliff Explosives are now locked until late game!?!? This feels awful. Like I feel like I have to restart and disable cliffs... I hate to be negative especially sense I just started, but omg I don't know if I can do 10s of hours of gameplay without cliff explosives and I want achievements enabled. My excitement feels like it just died...

[welldown]

I'm not a fast player and I've yet to reach other planets (mostly because I'm taking it slow, I have the technology), but I have not been bothered by the cliffs. Don't know, if they are more forgiving, but they look better and actually offer some strategic advantages now, compared to 1.1. I suggest give them a try and if they really bother you, then getting to vulcanus is not hard, thats early midgame mighr be wrong here, but i think yoy only nees vulcanus for yhe explosives.

[FasterJump]

I think that usually there are no cliffs in the (large) starting area. Maybe you're building very big early on? Don't be afraid to make your base spaghetti. It doesn't need to look like 1 big rectangle, especially early on.

[ManaUser]

Give it a chance, because the new Nauvis terrain generation makes cliffs a lot less annoying IMHO. I'm almost to space and so far having to detour a couple of rails around them is the full extent of the inconvenience they've ever caused. They're now something you can easily see on the map and plan around, instead of annoying little obstacles that crop up unexpectedly.

[dead-duck]

THere was a FFF post about their new algorithm for generating cliffs that is supposed to make them less of annoying and more useful. Pretty interesting stuff that you can imagine most developers not bothering to think about

[jamiechi1]

I found that the best thing to do in this game is to disable the cliffs. They are useful for blocking Biters but that is it. And lately, I have been disabling the Biters as well.

[picklock]

For those who find the new unlock of cliff explosives in Factorio: Space Age annoying or who want to build your base on Nauvis safely and to your liking without being hindered by cliffs before you leave the planet, I have created a mod.
You can find it here.
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/PickNauvisCliffExplosives

[Splitframe]

It's not resource efficient, but if you have a cliff that really grinds your gears you can just Chernobyl it.

[shopt]

I'll agree that cliffs are far less annoying than they were in 1.1.

Personally I'm a fan of the new system where I don't have the tech to turn everything into an endless flat plain from the green science stage, and I have to actually adapt to the map.

[emk]

Yeah, I did a rail world start, because I like trains.

The nearest cliffs are way out past my most remote mines. There's a huge flat area to build on, mine from, etc.

The only way the cliffs on my map would have been a problem is if I'd tried to build huge city blocks and stackers for dozens of long trains right out the gate.

But there's no point in mega basing on that scale without foundries and other off world techs. A 30 to 60 SPM base with bots, automated mall and the ability to launch rockets regularly is enough to go explore other planets.

I might feel differently if map genetation had placed any cliffs close in.

Now, Vulcanus cliffs are a whole different matter. You get a medium-sized flat space to build, and around that there are cliffs, lava, and other sorts of bad news.