I think I like vanilla more than Space Age

[mmmPI]

Devs added in 2.1 things like interplanteray signals transmission, plaform to platform transfer, alongside the cargobay loaders and some combinators functionnalities, and other things i'm forgotting which to me indicate that they are not trying to force one specific way to play.

They did remove space casino since the thread was opened, it's the only thing i find unfortunate, which i feel was done for the opposite reason, to make the gameplay more diverse, at the cost of removing that one fun method that is "mod-only" currently

[meganothing]

I see it this way: Factorio 1 was a huge single (sand-)box filled with 100 toys. For Space Age they decided to make about 6 boxes, called them planets and platform, but since the game should not take that much longer, they made the boxes smaller and distributed 150 toys over those six boxes, 25 on average. Even though the variance of toys is better, any single box doesn't have the feel of that huge single box.

And that is fine IMHO. Space Age is worse for mega-factory players for example, but better for players like me who I would call tinkerer. Since everyone still has the choice to play an upgraded Factorio 1 and include mods I don't really see winners and losers here.

[Rinin]

Devs added in 2.1 things like interplanteray signals transmission, plaform to platform transfer, alongside the cargobay loaders and some combinators functionnalities, and other things i'm forgotting which to me indicate that they are not trying to force one specific way to play.

They did remove space casino since the thread was opened, it's the only thing i find unfortunate, which i feel was done for the opposite reason, to make the gameplay more diverse, at the cost of removing that one fun method that is "mod-only" currently

I was talking about content that was in the game on launch. There is no reason to limit sending ammo to platform. It's a cost, it limits avaliable space and it's a risky, but legit strategy. There is no need to limit inserters to take from cargo bays. Add a cost (power for example) and let player decide what is better. There is no need to nerf lasers into uselessness in space. If anything they are logical. There is no need to limit landing pads to one per planet. There is no need to limit burners in space to forbid steam-powered ships. There is no need to force players to use ugly looking purely random patches for agriculture towers on Gleba. There is no need for a lot of planet specific building restrictions. There is no reason to limit pipe networks in size. Building pump stations is not some kind of engaging gameplay.

All those limits and more feel very artificial, they are often in conflict with logic and exist mostly to force player to play a specific way.

[mmmPI]

I was talking about content that was in the game on launch. There is no reason to limit sending ammo to platform. It's a cost, it limits avaliable space and it's a risky, but legit strategy.

So you think rocket should be able to carry unlimited amout of things to space ? You don't see the reason for why you can not send any ammo but only in limited quantity a time ? You think it is not possible to send ammo to space in a functionnal way ? i'm a bit lost there.

There is no need to nerf lasers into uselessness in space. If anything they are logical.

They are not nerfed to usefullness, they are able to destroy the smallest asteroids just fine to save ammo !

There is no need to limit burners in space to forbid steam-powered ships.
All those limits and more feel very artificial, they are often in conflict with logic

There is no oxygen in space though if anything conflict with logic it is burner in space to me x)

There is no need to lock everything behind technology, there is no need to force the player to walk on the map, there is no need to have such complicated receipe to craft things, there is no need to have some receipe takes that much time and ingredients, there is no need for ennemies in the game, there is no need for pollution or day and night cycle, there is no need for all the military stuff, there is no need for a lot of things, but it's kind of the mix of it that together makes it a good game imo, there is no need for space casino, but it'd be nice

[Rinin]

Why did I know that someone would 100% point out that burners without oxygen are unacceptable? In a game where we fly on 2D platforms, fire machine guns from behind concrete walls at asteroids, carry dozens of nuclear reactors in our pants, and break every law of physics imaginable. Working burners are not even close to being unrealistic by Factorio's standards for realism.

Most of the things I talked about are not game rules that force the player to do something. They are rules that force the player to choose one specific way when another is obviously possible. How many kittens were saved by setting a prohibitively high cost for launching nuclear rockets to a platform? It removes probably the sole reasonable purpose of having nuclear rockets in the first place - demolisher clearing.

I want to load my nukes, set course for Aquilo, and fail miserably by blowing myself up. It's fun. But everyone is funneled into making the same platform with rockets and replacing them later with railguns. Variation is artificially limited. Never had this feeling in 0.16, had it way more than once in the space age.

[mmmPI]

Why did I know that someone would 100% point out that burners without oxygen are unacceptable?

After dismissing the hypothesis of super natural power and ability to see in the future, i think you were able to anticipate this developement because you know deep down inside you that there is some form of logic in the restrictions as expressed by OP , like the tech tree is a form of restriction, but also the "thing to do in the game", the progression can only exist if you don't start with everything at the start and you have need to scale and develop but you don't like it and don't consider it is a necessity that there are there in the first place. You don't like the logic behind the restrictions, but you said they were not logical, which is different. Similarly i didn't say it was unacceptable, i said something different, i pointed out what i believe is a contradiction when complaining about "the absence of logic", when proposing something that is not necessarily more "logical".

I see it this way: Factorio 1 was a huge single (sand-)box filled with 100 toys. For Space Age they decided to make about 6 boxes, called them planets and platform, but since the game should not take that much longer, they made the boxes smaller and distributed 150 toys over those six boxes, 25 on average. Even though the variance of toys is better, any single box doesn't have the feel of that huge single box.

And that is fine IMHO. Space Age is worse for mega-factory players for example, but better for players like me who I would call tinkerer. Since everyone still has the choice to play an upgraded Factorio 1 and include mods I don't really see winners and losers here.

That make sense to me for the sense of scale mentionned in OP, but since this is tied to the existence of different planets which is the core of space age it is what it is ^^ Elevated rails is very strong if you don't play the space game to me it's just a win for everyone

That part about the intuitiveness of cargo bay interaction with inserters is new though, and i believe better since there is now a dedicated building to act as interface, it should hopefully be more intuitive that inserters can not interact with cargo bay without this dedicated building.