It takes too long to get to new Space Age content

[iestynne]

I am a long time fan of Factorio and the Wube dev team.
I love almost all of the changes added with Space Age, per the dev blogs.
But...

I feel like the time it takes to get to the new content is just too much.

I've been rushing to get off-planet and at 25h in I have a basic space platform, but I feel very nervous about heading out to Vulcanus.
I've been careful with pollution and have cleared a safe radius around my base, but it's unprotected.
It's a minimal base, I've only made RGB science, no GMY, no bots or rails or circuit networks.
I just wanted to do the minimum to get to space ASAP, and it still took me 25h!!
If I set up walls and bots to protect my Nauvis base while I'm away, that's probably another... 5-10h? Urrgghhh.
I'm pretty busy, so 25h is already a big investment, sucking up a lot of free time (mostly time I should have been sleeping tbh).

When I land on Vulcanus, how long will I be stuck there? Can I come back to Nauvis if there's an emergency? It seems like probably not...
This is not a good feeling and seems like a miss with the DLC design.
If you can be dropped on Volcanus and bootstrap from nothing... why not let the player start a new game there, or on any of the new planets?
I think the new tech tree was just built wrong, because it explicitly gates you from this.

I'm sure I will love the game once I'm fully established on all the planets (assuming Nauvis doesn't become unwinnable while I'm away...)
But this is not a good early experience.

[nethus]

I've been rushing to get off-planet and at 25h in I have a basic space platform, but I feel very nervous about heading out to Vulcanus.
I've been careful with pollution and have cleared a safe radius around my base, but it's unprotected.
It's a minimal base, I've only made RGB science, no GMY, no bots or rails or circuit networks.
I just wanted to do the minimum to get to space ASAP, and it still took me 25h!!

25h seems rather slow to get to that point, I think you could have easily sped that up If you started with prioritizing bots first. Minimizing the pollution cloud does not help if it takes you too much time to get there, as time itself is a factor for evolution as well, as is the total pollution generated, not the size of the cloud or the absorption by spawners.

When I land on Vulcanus, how long will I be stuck there? Can I come back to Nauvis if there's an emergency? It seems like probably not...
This is not a good feeling and seems like a miss with the DLC design.

You can't lift a rocket silo into space, but you can lift bricks, blue circuits and electro motors, and assemble one on your space platform with the gathered resources. And you can lift the needed resources for a rocket as well, to have an easy route back home.
If you want to speed up the progress on a new planet, I'd ship some solar panels, accumulators, roboports, and a handful of logistics and construction bots.
My space platform produces belts as well while it makes the thruster fuel, so if I lift some spliters and inserter I have a huge starter pack if I drop on a new planet.

To handle emergencies on Nauvis while you're away: leave some tanks spread out around your base, you can remote drive them if necessary. And bots can auto supply them with ammo and fuel.

I think there's a mod that let you start a new game on a different planet, but that's probably not an option if you already spent that much time on your current save.

Good luck!

[BlueTemplar]

Minimizing the pollution cloud

Depends on what they did, you have to be careful about biter attacks not becoming too much of a drain. (Which biter bases to get rid of is also a factor.)

Doing assembly on the space platform would require dedicating space for it there though, or at least to do a second design to swap with.

Yeah, be absolutely sure you have at least a roboport + conbots in it + a logistic storage chest with other logistic storage chests in range and roboports (repair range is good enough ?) before you leave to another planet : so you can do stuff remotely.
(EDIT : An easy solution seems for them to be in range of the (logistic!) boxes you dumped your stuff in when you left the planet.)

I feel like the time it takes to get to the new content is just too much.

It's a fine line for wube to walk, some pre-2.0 players are already annoyed at too many changes to the tech tree. (I think I even saw some say it comes too early ??)

What's 'GMY' ?

For those that are time-limited to enjoy the game :
- Don't overbuild and try to always have a trickle of science instead of fully stopping your factory every time you change production.
- Liberally use saves, and save-scum to be ready for upcoming enemy attacks (after you know that they did and where),
specifically you can change the number and frequency of autosaves to something like this in your /factorio/config/config.ini :

Code: Select all

autosave-interval=1
autosave-slots=99

And, if on Linux / Mac :

Code: Select all

non-blocking-saving=true

to not have the game pause during (auto)saving.

Finally, consider playing instead without enemy expansion, or maybe even on peaceful mode.
(There are mods to change map settings mid-way.)

P.S.: Official scenarios where you start on a different planet would be very nice to have !

[kinnebian]

For those that are time-limited to enjoy the game :
- Don't overbuild and try to always have a trickle of science instead of fully stopping your factory every time you change production.
- Liberally use saves, and save-scum to be ready for upcoming enemy attacks (after you know that they did and where),
specifically you can change the number and frequency of autosaves to something like this in your /factorio/config/config.ini :

Code: Select all

autosave-interval=1
autosave-slots=99

And, if on Linux / Mac :

Code: Select all

non-blocking-saving=true

to not have the game pause during (auto)saving.

Sage advice!! I can feel myself relating to this post, but i quickly realized that overbuilding was the death of me every time, and ive gotten 10x faster
Also- If you dont want to disable biters, I might reccomend rail world as an alternate, It made me go a bit faster since I wasn't under seige and constantly looking for more resources

[Panzerknacker]

Personally don't think it takes too long. Can probably speedrun it in a few hours.

[HadesSupreme]

Unlock the tank, give it a personal roboport and some bots, set up your logistics requests, its now like you never even left Nauvis.

Also if you dump efficiency modules into your miners and furnaces you'll be so low pollution that attacks are minimal. The only "attacks" will be the periodic expansion parties that happen to go through your defenses. Walls and a complete bot network defense aren't needed, putting 8 laser turrets around all your big poles will defend against those small groups for a long time.

[BlueTemplar]

putting 8 laser turrets around all your big poles

That's still quite expensive. And the passive drain will cause pollution if from coal.

I guess less expensive than the solid wall of turrets I've seen some people do ?

[BraveCaperCat]

putting 8 laser turrets around all your big poles

That's still quite expensive. And the passive drain will cause pollution if from coal.

I guess less expensive than the solid wall of turrets I've seen some people do ?

I have an infinite laser turret to pole ratio on my space platform - I mean, it has no poles and has laser turrets!

[SirSmuggler]

Unlock the tank, give it a personal roboport and some bots, set up your logistics requests, its now like you never even left Nauvis.

Word of advice though, while you can drive the tank in areas not covered by radar, DON'T "leave" the tank in such an area. Atleast I have not found a way to regain control of the damn thing in that case

[BlueTemplar]

putting 8 laser turrets around all your big poles

That's still quite expensive. And the passive drain will cause pollution if from coal.

I guess less expensive than the solid wall of turrets I've seen some people do ?

I have an infinite laser turret to pole ratio on my space platform - I mean, it has no poles and has laser turrets!

What about your laser turrets to biters ratio in space?

[BraveCaperCat]

putting 8 laser turrets around all your big poles

That's still quite expensive. And the passive drain will cause pollution if from coal.

I guess less expensive than the solid wall of turrets I've seen some people do ?

I have an infinite laser turret to pole ratio on my space platform - I mean, it has no poles and has laser turrets!

What about your laser turrets to biters ratio in space?

Infinite also - I mean, it has no biters and has laser turrets!

[Grayhill]

I feel like the time it takes to get to the new content is just too much.

I've been rushing to get off-planet and at 25h in I have a basic space platform

The space platform is off the planet, and it's new content.

I'm a very slow player, but I also have earned all the speed achievs multiple times in 1.1 when I wanted to. I find the pace of Space Age perfect. Not only that, this game seems very forgiving about when you begin things. For example, I am planning on taking even longer if/when I begin a second play-through. Even better, it starts feeling like end game, "exciting" content relatively much sooner. The cool stuff starts rolling in from almost the start.

At the same time, I can also see how I could have done things better to get to my firs planet sooner--if I wanted, but I don't want.

If there is one complaint I have about Space Age, that it takes too long is as far from it as you can get. The pace is probably the best thing about the game for me.

Devs, if you read this thread this far, please don't change the pacing. It's great.

[TheRailmaker]

I am a long time fan of Factorio
I've been rushing to get off-planet and at 25h in I have a basic space platform

Only the space platform ? thats just blue science...
A good player can do that in 4h
We landed on the second planet after 8 hours, with a normal 4 Iron lane 90 SPM Bus

[BlueTemplar]

Just how high that bar of yours is ? As a reminder, your median Factorio player barely (doesn't) manage to get far enough to build a locomotive, and I feel confident in saying that they will never get to space (and don't know WTF a «bus» is).
Which is a bit sad, but unavoidable without dumbing down the game too much.

And if you play MP ( «we» ? ), it's a very different thing, those 4 lanes of yours — is that actually 4 belts, so 8 lanes !?! — would be overkill in solo play, where you wouldn't be able to put the new techs to use as fast as they are unlocked (on default settings at least).

[iestynne]

The tank tip is really nice, thank you for that one! I had no idea I could drive it while off-world!

Having thought about this some more, I think the right approach might be to gate biter evolution (in the Space Age mod) to only ramp up once you're bringing back resources/technologies onto Nauvis from other worlds. At that point you've got the capacity to go back and forth, so you'll be able to handle new incursions without getting into an unwinnable state.

As it is, I ended up using a lua hack to disable biter expansions until later in the playthrough when I'm ready. I also powered down my base so it doesn't generate pollution while I'm away. Now I can head straight to the new worlds without further delay... and then also take my time learning that new content before coming back.

[MisterDoctor]

TBH I felt like the game is a lot easier than it used to be. I think it's at least partly because I've played it so many times, but I think it's also because certain things are now cheaper than they used to be, though I'm not entirely clear what. (AFAIK the two primary ones are... rockets and rockets? (Space rockets and missile rockets.))

[territrades]

Just how high that bar of yours is ? As a reminder, your median Factorio player barely (doesn't) manage to get far enough to build a locomotive, and I feel confident in saying that they will never get to space (and don't know WTF a «bus» is).
Which is a bit sad, but unavoidable without dumbing down the game too much.

And that is why Space Age is a DLC, additional content you play once you finished the main game. If you cannot launch launch the rocket without the DLC, the interplanetary logistics of SA will overwhelm you without any mercy.

[BraveCaperCat]

Just how high that bar of yours is ? As a reminder, your median Factorio player barely (doesn't) manage to get far enough to build a locomotive, and I feel confident in saying that they will never get to space (and don't know WTF a «bus» is).
Which is a bit sad, but unavoidable without dumbing down the game too much.

And that is why Space Age is a DLC, additional content you play once you finished the main game. If you cannot launch launch the rocket without the DLC, the interplanetary logistics of SA will overwhelm you without any mercy.

I never launched a rocket until I played SA...

[BlueTemplar]

'Cannot' is not the same thing as «would not have interest in»...

The tank tip is really nice, thank you for that one! I had no idea I could drive it while off-world!

Having thought about this some more, I think the right approach might be to gate biter evolution (in the Space Age mod) to only ramp up once you're bringing back resources/technologies onto Nauvis from other worlds. At that point you've got the capacity to go back and forth, so you'll be able to handle new incursions without getting into an unwinnable state.

As it is, I ended up using a lua hack to disable biter expansions until later in the playthrough when I'm ready. I also powered down my base so it doesn't generate pollution while I'm away. Now I can head straight to the new worlds without further delay... and then also take my time learning that new content before coming back.

As you kind of mention, some of this is going to happen naturally as you get back to Nauvis, and start restarting production and doing new production.
(Well, one issue that might be here is the delay between you leaving, pollution then spreading, and the biters only then arriving...)

TBH I felt like the game is a lot easier than it used to be. I think it's at least partly because I've played it so many times, but I think it's also because certain things are now cheaper than they used to be, though I'm not entirely clear what. (AFAIK the two primary ones are... rockets and rockets? (Space rockets and missile rockets.))

The biggest change making it easier (though mostly for new players) has probably been the introduction of basic oil processing and some of the changes around blue / purple / yellow science, in 0.17.
Space rocket is obviously easier and cheaper now, but ends up more expensive quite soon, since you have to launch a lot of them rather than just one
(but that still feels easier I guess, especially when it's «in the background» than just a single bar sloooooowly filling up).

Did you even use missile rockets that much ??
(Oh, spidertron ? Can't wait to finally try one, never got that far in my pY game...)

And that is why Space Age is a DLC, additional content you play once you finished the main game. If you cannot launch launch the rocket without the DLC, the interplanetary logistics of SA will overwhelm you without any mercy.

You're severely exaggerating the need for logistics for most of Space Age though.
You can do a LOT with a single dinky ship barely able to survive a manual round trip :
(granted, this alone is likely to be a significant stumbling block)
the 3 secondary planets can be done naked (with some qualifications for Gleba),
and even just dropping the leftovers from platform building / automated platform repair requests helps tremendously to kick-start things.
And even for the multi-planetary sciences, a full line of 10 stacks is 2000 science !

[MisterDoctor]

Did you even use missile rockets that much ??

I use rocket launcher tons yes. rocket launcher + flame thrower + smg.