quineotio wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2024 1:34 pm
Re: front loaded difficulty - you have to learn a lot of new things when arriving on a new planet. But then after you've learned the basics you're repeating essentially what you've already done on Nauvis. For example, the fun part of Gleba was figuring out all the new builds, but then after that you have to build blue circuits and LDS. But this is necessary because you need to launch rockets, so you necessarily need access to all the Nauvis basics. But because of this, much of the new content is actually old content and you're limited to a small number of new things.
This is not correct, you don't have to build LDS nor blue circuit on Gleba as you have the choice to bring them from another planet or make them on space, if for example you are seeking to reach fast the late game, it may be interesting to do so to skip having to build redundant infrastructure. If you think you have to do the same thing over and over in this game, imo it means you didn't realized yet the way to automate. I couldn't be bothered with making them on Gleba until way later in the game when i had already reached Aquilo and thought let's boost my Glebase now that i have fusion.
quineotio wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2024 1:34 pm
Some of the 1.0 tech was moved to other planets, and this feels punishing - it makes Nauvis worse. But if this wasn't the case, there would be even less reward for going to the new planets. For example, take away cliff explosives, coal liquifaction and artillery from Vulcanus and what is there left? The foundry, big mining drill and faster belts all replicate things you can already do and aren't necessary, which leaves tungsten, which could have been added to Nauvis. [EDIT: the new buildings can't do anything fundamentally new, because it's uncertain which order you'll attain them]. Which leaves Vulcanus as pretty empty with regard to content, and yet there still needs to be some way to produce the rocket parts, which means new recipes for basic stuff you're already making on Nauvis.
I don't feel it's punishing, i think it's a good incentive for players to actively seek other planets, and engage in strategic reflexion past the first playthrough to know which one to target first based on personnal preference or the goal of that particular game.
I think this had not been done, there would have been no reward that would be making sense in going into other planet, factorio 1.0 gave a late game where the player was super op. The logical solution in a world that is composed of more than 1 planet is to distribute part of the technology on all different planets.
I think the fact that you need tech from say vulcanus to clear the cliff explosives on nauvis or calcite a bit everywhere is ABSOLUTLY INSTRUMENTAL in creating the need for an interwoven factory, and i can only image how terribly inefficient and simplistic is a factory where someone has made its base as a succession of disconnected level as mentionned later. I think that's mostly on the players bad play to not upgrade its factory and keep and obsolete tech vastly oversized.The similar noob trap that you often see when players builds thousands of steel furnaces even well after they have the tech for electric, because they overbuilt it mid game, and its tedious to retrofit, while being a UPS nightmare compared to the much more efficient foundries.
quineotio wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2024 1:34 pm
Space science is literally forgettable. I built a platform early to make enough, and never touched it. You'd think it'd be a bigger part of the game, but it can't be because it would take away reasons to go to the planets. Annoyingly it gates certain tech (Kovarex enrichment, requester chests) that I'd like to have before launching a rocket, and it's not the gate for things it logically should be (the asteroid related techs). With the current design, it does make some sense to disallow gaining calcite until you've been to Vulcanus, but this just further points to Vulcanus being redundant - Vulcanus forces other areas of the game to be worse to justify it's existence. Everything on Vulcanus could have been moved elsewhere with the added benefit of not having to introduce new recipes (and build a new factory) for things we already mostly have.
That's very different from my experience, i had to increase the size of my platform to make space science keep up with the others, and also incorporate the asteroid reprocessing, and even add other platforms and finally have them not static anymore because i couldn't keep up. Similarly as you didn't "finish factorio" when sending your first rocket to space in factorio 1.0 you don't finish space science because you have a platform that makes a bit of it x).
I found space science not forgetable at all, as it was the one that puzzled me the most about the rate of asteroid incoming, the ratio of materials, plus all the novelty and the possibility to throw things overboard on space, this is such an unfogetable thing for everyone who had to play with mods that create byproduct that you want to get rid of ! Sure you can do that on Vulcanus too, but Space is literally the first moment when this is available it felt so great x).
quineotio wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2024 1:34 pm
The Fulgora sorting mechanic is interesting, but the planet itself has basically nothing else. The lightning/power is trivial to solve, and the limited build space doesn't fundamentally change much because you don't need much space (and it's not particularly fun). It's really only one new challenge, a few new recipes, and the need to build rockets. Ruins/scrap could have been added to Nauvis to get pretty much the same effect. As far as new tech, the mech armour is cool, but it could have been added to any of the new planets and it would have made sense. Losing roboport mk2 from Nauvis is annoying, and shields mk2 make Nauvis worse because it makes biters harder (and they already are harder because of added HP). What this meant in practice is that I felt more locked to my initial area on Nauvis, because evolution and less tools made it harder to expand.
Given how lenghty are the many topic where people , including yourself, ask for the rails to transport power or that foundation be available earlier or that there should be power pole connecting the islands, i think it's fair to assume that the power /lightning isn't trivial to solve for everyone.
Fulgora is also the planet where you unlock quality, and the mech armor which makes total sense here given how crammed are the factory on islands and boring the area between them. And the tesla tower, which has no use on Fulgora , so clearly to be used on other planets, so as to break the idea that the planet are unrelated levels is really a clever way to tell the player. Albeit i realize not everyone did get the subtles clues hiden in the extremly good game design
.
quineotio wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2024 1:34 pm
Lacking the spidertron on Nauvis also felt bad. I understand that the tank is a semi-replacement, except it isn't. The spidertron is easy to control without paying attention, but when I had to attend to my walls with the tank I had to manually drive it - around obstacles and often through the fog of war. All in all I wasn't happy about ANY of the tech being removed from Nauvis. In no way did it make the game more fun/rewarding - it just made it more work to get to the same place.
I don't need spidertron on Nauvis, it's kinda the good reward from the hardest of the 3 starting planets but it's just a cherry on top of the cake, it hasn't been in the game for long and is not really necessary, it's like the OP cheese late game to me. It make sense to me that you'd get the mecha spider in the planet where enemies are spider-like. I'm grateful for the tank addition. If you think it's some "work" to unlock techs, maybe this isn't your kind of game ,as to me it seem like it's the purpose of the game, you literally make factory to create science to unlock things to make better factory to create science to unlock more things untill you don't have anything to unlock. Then you can go for bigger and bigger numbers but not all players goes to this, many stops after they have researched all the techs and a few infinity ones.
I think it's very good design to spread the milestone on different planets and judging by the speedrunners splits, it was pretty well done, giving a nice chunk of content to every planet.
quineotio wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2024 1:34 pm
Being restricted by surface with the construction of certain buildings feels arbitrary. Even something like not being able to place crushers on the planets. Is this because functionally they kind of overlap with recyclers?
I think with a bit of reflexion it is possible to understand the reasons many of the buildings have those restrictions, it doesn't feel arbitratry when you understand them i felt. Most of the restrictions are on RECEIPE and not buildings, the only buildings restrictions as far as i'm aware are crusher on planets, boilers in space, and biolabs on Nauvis.
The first one is easy to remove with mods if you want to use a subefficient method of crushing things where it creates pollutions and increase evolutions. Crushers are just better used in space and this is there to guide players.
The second one is akin to the same thing guiding players toward using fuel-less power source in space given its scarcity initially.
The third one is to prevent everyone building science only on Gleba and cheesing the onl science pack that spoil.
Nothing is feels arbitrary to me, it feels on the contrary carefully planned restrictions to tailor the gameplay into a logical course.
quineotio wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2024 1:34 pm
The restrictive rocket capacity, especially on certain items, feels arbitrary and annoying. I understand the intention of not wanting players to trivialize the game through exporting, but in practice it just makes it harder to get into the game. The point of the game is to launch a lot of rockets and export things. It would feel a lot better if the rocket capacity was doubled, or more - which would make the early game more forgiving. The productivity for rocket parts could even be removed, leaving this as a problem to be solved by scaling. But this can't be done because you need to launch rockets from 5 different planets, so it's cursed.
True part of the game would be triviliazed if rocket didn't have restricted capacity. In other word, the logistical challenge is part of the game , solving it and finding ways to deal with it are the purpose of the game. I feel it makes no sense to just ask for rocket productivity to be doubled and the research removed. Just increase the capacity with a mod if you want to make the game trivial for yourself ? I have no problem reaching the cap of productivity for rockets parts, they feel cheap and it feels funs scaling the number of silos.
quineotio wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2024 1:34 pm
The space platforms pose an interesting design challenge, but this challenge doesn't really change and is made redundant through infinite tech. They are essentially glorified trains that you need to spend too much time building, and the hardest one to build is the first one.
I think this is caused by a lack of imagination, you can have static platform aiming at providing ressources essentially replacing mining drills not trains, and you can have platform designed as malls, to produce items from the free ressources from space where it definitely do not serve the same purpose as train.
quineotio wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2024 1:34 pm
So all in all, I think the existence of multiple new planets is actually a detriment, because the player now has what feels like artificial restrictions and repetitive gameplay.
I couldn't disagree more , the various planet in themselves constitues someting to break the repetitiveness of expanding on Nauvis forever like in 1.0.
Plus the whole idea that there are multiple surfaces addes some depth and degree of freedom in how to organize the late game factory.
quineotio wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2024 1:34 pm
Re: scaling problems, it feels like much of the design is intended to work best in the very late game - after the victory screen. Quality is a good example. The full potential of quality is only unlocked on the final planet, but then not really until you've built a large base designed around producing it. I did use quality, but I used small bot setups to produce a few select items. I can see how it could be a fun design challenge to produce high quality items at scale, but by the time you're capable of doing this you've already finished the game.
I disagree that the game is finished by the time you can produce high quality item at scale, that's fairly obvious given the many space platforms players posted that many of them will go the lenghy process of having EVERYTHING legendary.
Plus obviously all the people concerned by megabases, who will not leave their base composed of sub-legendary entity when some more production could be gained by improving quality.
I think some playthrough where the objective is to "reach the end" are finished by then. But that's the same as saying the game was finished after your first rocket launch in 1.0, it was true for some players like speedrunners, but clearly not a general statement. This is just a personnal opinion based on a playstyle. But not recognizing the various ways of considering the game "finished" and drawing the conclusion that the game is finished after you get the first few legendary item is wrong.
quineotio wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2024 1:34 pm
Unlike vanilla Factorio, I don't feel inclined to play after the victory screen - or even to repeat going through the game. The reason for this is the amount of time and busy work it takes unlock all the tools. And then the same limiting factor that existed in the original game is still there - the CPU. You can build more with less in Space Age, but you need working factories across 5 different surfaces + space platforms (and much of this replicating the same work), so I can't imagine it will be possible to scale much further than in the original game. The numbers will be higher, but this will be artificial due to infinite researches + built-in productivity.
It's fairly easy to understand by this point that the CPU problem could have been mitigated by improving the quality of builds throughout the game. Vertical density instead of horizontal. It is clearly much much easier to reach high SPM on space age than on 1.0
If you think the game is finished when you reach the first few legendary item, you are just shy of using the best tools proposed by the game to adress the CPU problem, but you quit just before using it , while complaining the CPU is the issue ? that's plain wrong. At this point if your CPU is at the limit and none of your base if of higher quality, i can inform you that the game actually contain some interesting puzzle that you haven't explored yet that would adress both concern.
quineotio wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2024 1:34 pm
Basically, the sense of progression is gone in Space Age - at least until a LONG way into a playthrough. It took a day or two for me to get all the tech in Vanilla, at which point I could work on a larger design. To reach the same point in Space Age would take weeks. In Vanilla I was building one factory of increasing size and complexity, and able to leverage what I'd built to solve new problems. In Space Age my factories are very disconnected until very late game, and the focal point is Aquillo (the place you
need to import things), and Aquillo is the smallest, least capable factory. I barely touched any of my factories after finishing them, so in practice it was like playing a series of levels rather than one big game.
That is a very bad comparaison, you just say that in 2 days you get all the tech in vanilla factorio, and in space it takes weeks, yet you claim the progression doesn't exist in space age. Duhhh clearly it should conclude the opposite. Clearly in space age there is a feeling of progression when you unlock a planet, and its reward that you can use on previously unlocked planet, coupled with previously unlocked tech.
You seem to assimilate progression = building bigger, but that remind of the steel furnace example, progression doesn't necessarily means " more steel furnaces" at some point it means switch to electric + beacon, and later quality stuff. Each stage represent a progression.
If you barely touched any of your factories after finishing them that again relate to a terribly inneficient factory without any "new tech" used to retrofit anything and no high quality anywhere. That works if you goal is "reaching the end", but once you've done it once or twice, it's easy to have desire to make a good factory or a rare or legendary one, instead of always quiting before.
quineotio wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2024 1:34 pm
Which brings to mind a contrast between a sandbox and an adventure. Vanilla is more of a sandbox and Space Age an adventure - meaning that the achievement is finishing. Except that the victory condition is Space Age is very underwhelming. I used the Aquillo tech on one platform to reach the end, and then built another in the editor to reach the shattered planet. There's self evidently no need for it, because by the time you've got it, you're already at the end. Factorio is a game about automation,
but the final space platform doesn't need any new automation to build, because you only need a small number of railguns. Much of the challenge in Vanilla is self imposed, but in Space Age it's game imposed.
Clearly wrong as the final space platform require promethium chunk processing. Whereas the one before only require player to reach the system solar edges.
quineotio wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2024 1:34 pm
So I think there is both too much content in Space Age, and not enough. Too much in that a lot of it is repetitive, and not enough in that there isn't actually much new stuff, especially if you consider that much of the function of the new buildings is just productivity. It feels like a lot of the design is wasted - which is a shame, because the new planets do have a lot going from them if taken in isolation.
I think this denotes confusion in your mind, if you are not sure the game as too much or too little content, it's imo because you are projecting 2 different finite concept in a rigid manner. A game doesn't have to be a "sandbox" or an "adventure" ,it can be both in a vast array of nuances. I think currently space age is an extremly well designed game that incorporate element of both sucessfully and your reasonning feels like reducting it (badly) to one or the other more classic genre according to your representation. But i much prefer the innovative mix that fits in between classical genre to provide something more to the player. The game has so much modding possibilities that you could add or remove content the way you want, when you finally make up your mind.
quineotio wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2024 1:34 pm
I think the expansion would have been better if it was just Nauvis + space platform + a single new planet, with the content split between these three. The infinite researches are just numbers - it would have been more interesting if instead there were advanced recipes to get better productivity. The challenge of managing an interplanetary logistics network would still exist if there was only one planet, but with less redundant work, and it would have felt more rewarding because you could put a higher volume of new resources in one place. Demolishers and Pentapods could both have fit onto the same surface.
I think that would terrible. I really like that there are differents planets, with cold and warm area, dead and alive, polluted and areas where you don't care. That would clearly remove lots of the game to remove the different planets. It would remove entirely the concept of smart platform that uses train interrupts to choose which planet to supply their goods. Since you would only have 2.
Such oversimplification would also mean you wouldn't need more than 1 or 2 platform with the same schedule.
I don't see how there would be a challenge to manage anything, this is just killing most complexity.
quineotio wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2024 1:34 pm
As far as the endgame, I think there needed to be a broader goal to work toward. I think having more happen on the space platform would have worked - building bigger and producing more - sending things up and sending things down. This way you could have added to your space platform over the course of the game rather than having multiple functionally similar smaller platforms (trains), and it wouldn't have forced you to start from scratch multiple times - the platform and planet could have produced different things. And this would have allowed for something like a space elevator to reduce transport cost - a difficult to produce late game alternative to rockets. Or perhaps a shuttle so that you can easily travel between the surface and the platform (but not cart goods).
You don't have to start from scratch multiples times, you can already do a platform that act as mall, i think this is caused by your playstyle. There are many more things you could be doing in game currently already such as the shuttle to easily travel travel and surface, you can have a passenger silo, and you can also have a passenger spaceship.
The proposed end-game goal is to make your factory legendary , i can understand that you are not interested into it, but it is there for many players to enjoy, and i do, i have seen enough full legendary base or spaceship on the internet to know that i'm not the only one to appreciate the end game.
quineotio wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2024 1:34 pm
But overall, I think there should have been less disconnected things to manage, because I didn't feel attached to anything I built in Space Age - having spent relatively little time in each place.
I can only think it would be worse if technologies weren't split amongst different planets, it would have been even quicker to reach artillery, and cliffs explosives, and thus even less time would be required to stay on different area. I think most of the time when it's too easy you don't get attached to the thing you build, i find it particularly true in editor mode, it's boring to make a full base, a small design ok, but there is less exciment working in editor where everything is cheap and quick rather than in a real game where every decision will have bigger impact.
I think it would make the game bad to facilitate access to tech that are currently very well placed along technology progression. It would only make the phenomenon you are mentionning more real.
Overall i think players feedback are interesting to read, but i'm so glad i play a game designed by the devs, and not by the players who make such feedback x).