Factorio Forums

When I first started up Space Age, the first thing I had to do was to quickly disable the menu simulations because I realized it's just immediately revealing what the new planets were like. I hadn't kept away from reading FFFs just to be spoiled here! I want to find out the planets for myself!

I think that you could check for the "planet discovery" achievements and only start showing scenarios for planets once you get these achievements.

Maybe by similar logic also add some extra simulations as a reward for completing some of the harder achievements?

I believe menu simulations are meant to showcase some aspect of the game and entice you to explore that part more.

Not showing a menu simulation to avoid spoilers can get into egg-vs-chicken situation.
If you never unlock some tech (e.g. rail signals, nuclear power, artillery, spidertron, circuit network) you'll never see a simulation showcasing them, so you might not have a reason to research them in the first place (apart from researching it for completeness sake).

There is also the issue of granularity. What is considered a spoiler? An item on belt, built entity, entity in action, setup of multiple entities, gameplay concepts/mechanics?
Does that mean that if you've never , you'll never see most of simulations?

Taking it into an extreme, a new player won't see absolutely anything.
To ever see simulation-nauvis-bus, you'll have to have experienced .

Personally, though I feel that the menu simulations in general don't give enough information about how anything is working, and you still have to interact with things in a hands-on way to even comprehend what you're looking at, I can see why someone would consider that a spoiler. I'm quite spoiler-averse myself and I also intentionally did not dig into the FFFs leading up to the release of Space Age.

I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to the planet briefings come up when you land on the planet vs. when you research the route. But then you run into the problem where many players might feel that it was unfair to not know anything about a planet before dropping on to it, which sets them up to be more likely unprepared and to not have a great time.

Or, maybe, if it would be possible, you could get the text briefing, but a second briefing with the menu simulations don't appear until you've landed on the planet and have thus been given a fair chance for the first look at the place be with your own eyes.

The menu shows way too much. New buildings, new enemies, new items. I can't understand why they choose to have these spoilers enabled by default. It ruined some parts of the game for me. Same with Factoriopedia. Why would I want to see every item, every recipe in the game. I want to discover them.

You might like my mod:

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/hide-space-age-spoilers