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I've sunk over 2600 hours into vanilla Factorio, and have been putting off buying Space Age because I know it'll consume me and I have things that need to be done first. However, it's occurred to me that I may not necessarily care for Space Age's gameplay style, and am looking for others to offer insight on it. Let me explain.

While I love playing Factorio over and over, I find that I enjoy the journey more than the destination. I like exploring the map, finding new resource nodes, and planning where to put down permanent roots for my bus base. I like rushing to techs like fast inserters and flamethrowers and personal roboports to help expand my factory easier and defend from biters better, even if I have to manually craft science packs to get them since my factory isn't yet set up for automated production of them.

I find that once I get to Production Science, that's when I tend to lose interest. By that point my factory is self-sustaining and comfortably defended, my rail network is up and running, and I've got modules being produced slowly but surely. The growth of the factory's tech becomes - for me, anyway - not as rewarding as the early game, and I need to scale up my input ever more to support Production and Utility Science, in the name of finally launching a rocket. And from there, meh.

I've made a 1000 SPM megabase, and enjoyed designing it for the first time and come up with a layout that I liked, but I got bored. Upscaling and expanding for its own sake in the endgame wasn't engaging for me. I like completing my bus base, making sure everything is using Tier 3 assembly machines and modules and beacons are fully saturated to maximize output, but I consider it more optimizing my base than upscaling it. When it comes down to simply "add more machines to build more science packs to support more labs to research infinite technologies faster", I start a new file.

To the point - how would my experience in Space Age be, knowing what parts of the base game I enjoyed most? Particularly, is the late-game more engaging and rewarding, and is the endgame with a megabase going to be more interesting for me?

In my personal perception Space Age is first about unlocking key technologies to get things running, then about to constantly upgrade existing production to keep up with increasing demand.
It's not about duplicating production lines to duplicate output to make everything twice as big as it was for game version 1.1. Instead there is demand for upgrading the production. If you don't upgrade, things will get slow or stay slow or you're not able to overcome some new obstacle.

Upgrading is an interesting process, because it's not about adding more assembling machines, more mines, more modules, more beacons. Instead the space footprint of your factories stay the same (they might even shrink), because you get more efficient machines, faster machines, better recipes. It's all about productivity you constantly increase. So you can do more with less machines. You unlock these machines during your journey through the solar system, and you need them to do the journey. Instead of building more, you will constantly replace existing things with better things.

It's not feasible to start big and go for the "final factory" just from the start, because it's extremely inefficient. If you start big in the early game, this will be dwarfed by the new machines you unlock later. A big field of moduled smelters and assembling machines can be simply replaced by 2-3 machines later that produce the same output with less input. So just do what is required to do the current job, but not much more. The goal is to first advance, then optimize. Not optimize, then advance.

If designing a megabase is interesting for you but after that you lose interest, the different approach might keep you interested, since you're not able to build an efficient megabase as simple as in 1.1. Instead, the journey is to get everything unlocked to be able to build an efficient megabase. It's also about finding "algorithms" to create products, because it's not as easy any more as in 1.1 to create some products.

There's more to it than just connect 4 assembling machines to first create the prerequisites, then the final product. There are products that can only be crafted on one planet but used on a different planet, so you need to transport them to other planets to use them, and transport has its own challenge. There are products that spoil after some time, so you need to design your production to handle spoilage and to transport fast enough so you're able to use the product before it spoils. Putting all this together is a very long journey.

The final step after you solved all the puzzles is probably similar to 1.1: make it everything running smooth and big. After that you probably lose interest in that map as you did in 1.1.

But the journey to this point is much longer. And if you start another journey, you simply cannot stamp down all the endgame blueprints you created during your previous run, since you don't have all the research unlocked to use them until the endgame. The challenge with a new run is how to make unlocking all research better, may be a different order to first visit the planets, so you're able to build your whole factory better than with the previous run.

I had about 1100 hours in Factorio before I got space age. What I enjoy most is figuring out the production chains and setting that up progressing to the next chain. I don't mega-base, I don't optimize the hell out of things. I played a lot of mods because of getting new production chains being interesting for me.

With that in mind, just going from nothing to the "victory" screen took 90 hours, and didn't stop after that as there was way more to do. I hardly had to revisit older builds to "keep up with production demands", as you'll be building new production chains on each planet, not increasing the size of the main one to supply the others.

So, I think you will enjoy it in the way I did. It's like the base game going from nothing to a rocket, but then 4x more to explore and do, not 4x the size you need to build everything.

Tertius wrote: Tue Dec 31, 2024 2:42 pmIt's not feasible to start big and go for the "final factory" just from the start, because it's extremely inefficient. If you start big in the early game, this will be dwarfed by the new machines you unlock later. A big field of moduled smelters and assembling machines can be simply replaced by 2-3 machines later that produce the same output with less input. So just do what is required to do the current job, but not much more. The goal is to first advance, then optimize. Not optimize, then advance.

That reminds me of another question - would you say the endgame abstracts down to more "building a megabase on Nauvis, supporting by technologies and space imports from other planets" or "building a network of bases on each planet that concentrate their output on a single planet"? I recall some machines can only be built on certain planets, so I can imagine that like, Copper and Iron Plates and Steel, I may want to have a base dedicated to their production on Vulcanus with Foundries that ships them to Nauvis, rather than a conventional mining outpost on Nauvis, but I'd still want some at-home mining for various reasons. Also, is it possible to build what would be considered a "megabase" on other planets, or only on Nauvis? Like if I wanted to make my megabase on Fulgora, I could, or do construction restrictions not permit that?

You need to distribute production. Some science packs can only be produced in specific locations (planets, or in space), so you have to distribute production. On the other hand, they need to be consumed on one location, since you need to feed them all into the same lab. Where your final lab is located is up to your preference, but I guess it will usually be on Nauvis. You need to find some kind of "weighted center" of production and consumption to find the optimal place to minimize production and transport cost. And production always spans the whole solar system, since the final research always requires products from every single location.

I cannot say how much of a megabase you build on Nauvis in the endgame, because I did not yet reach that stage. Instead of really advancing in the game, I'm studying the new combinator behavior in depth and answering all kind of questions about trains and circuits in the forum for some reason. There is so much new to learn and so much more to tell the other players! With 1.1 I joined an established game, so there wasn't much more to do than just play it, but with 2.0, I could explore all the new stuff with many people together for whom it is all new as well.

It would be a spoiler and may be even misleading if I say something like "do (or don't do) mining on Vulcanus". There are some opportunities to get infinite resources, some are surprising. So don't focus on "do this on that planet". This changes while advancing through the game. The best location to produce some product will change. You only see the big picture after you won the game for the first time.

But it's definitely a vital part of the game to build the planet-exclusive machines on the corresponding planet and export them to everywhere, where they also can be of good use. I see them even more useful on the other planets, not on the planets where they have to be crafted. After all, Factorio is a simulation, and this can be seen that you don't have to do everything yourself. Let it be crafted elsewhere, then buy it. It's about division of labor, one of the core success factors of the industrial revolution.

DrakeyC wrote: Tue Dec 31, 2024 1:58 pm how would my experience in Space Age be, knowing what parts of the base game I enjoyed most? Particularly, is the late-game more engaging and rewarding, and is the endgame with a megabase going to be more interesting for me?

I think you will enjoy SA. SA is about solving new puzzles and finding new ways. Also you will need to rebuild base more times if you seek efficiency.
Megabase is not necessary at all, but if you want it, perhaps it will be more annoying cause of space logistic.

would you say the endgame abstracts down to more "building a megabase on Nauvis, supporting by technologies and space imports from other planets" or "building a network of bases on each planet that concentrate their output on a single planet"?

Any way you like and there are more than two mentioned ways. First three planet are self sufficient, you may land(with mod you can even start on one of them) there barehanded and produce giant base without importing anything. But you may import rocket components from other planet(and Nauvis is not the only good choice) and limit production to specific science pack. Space platforms after some techs can be self-sufficient too, they can even become main production bases for quality items. Aquilo is not self-sufficient and requires a lot of imports, bases there tend to be small.

Bad news. If you were hoping someone would talk you out of buying SA, it's a lot of the exact kinds of things it sounds like you enjoy.

I think I get what you're saying. Space Age kinda killed factorio for me. It doesn't feel anymore like a fun game that never ends with a factory just forever growing... Space Age gets to a point when it feels the game is completed/done/finished.

DrakeyC wrote: Tue Dec 31, 2024 3:41 pm

Tertius wrote: Tue Dec 31, 2024 2:42 pmIt's not feasible to start big and go for the "final factory" just from the start, because it's extremely inefficient. If you start big in the early game, this will be dwarfed by the new machines you unlock later. A big field of moduled smelters and assembling machines can be simply replaced by 2-3 machines later that produce the same output with less input. So just do what is required to do the current job, but not much more. The goal is to first advance, then optimize. Not optimize, then advance.

That reminds me of another question - would you say the endgame abstracts down to more "building a megabase on Nauvis, supporting by technologies and space imports from other planets" or "building a network of bases on each planet that concentrate their output on a single planet"? I recall some machines can only be built on certain planets, so I can imagine that like, Copper and Iron Plates and Steel, I may want to have a base dedicated to their production on Vulcanus with Foundries that ships them to Nauvis, rather than a conventional mining outpost on Nauvis, but I'd still want some at-home mining for various reasons. Also, is it possible to build what would be considered a "megabase" on other planets, or only on Nauvis? Like if I wanted to make my megabase on Fulgora, I could, or do construction restrictions not permit that?

I think your definition of a 'megabase' may not be the same as some other peoples. I tend to think of them starting at a blue belt full of science in the factorio 1.1 days. 1000 or so SPM seems just a largish base. No - you dont have to, but you may want to. It is hard to be that much more specific without revealing too much and probably spoiling it.

In factorio, silo were just for white science really and doing silly stuff - first fish in orbit or whatever. For a 1000 SPM base, then maybe you made 1 or 2 (depending on how many beacons you used). In this you may end up building lots of them, but they are much cheaper to supply - maybe 1/10th?. Basically silos become like your trains stations. Some of build and supply a lot of them, and some not. n my first playthrough I made a sizable base on Nauvis pretty much following my previous factorio 1.1 design patterns. On the planets I abandoned those patterns completely for various reasons and developed a new bunch of patterns that worked well for me and I have seen some streamers do similar too.

Just consider that as you progress through SA, then the approach to the game and each planet may mean having to unlearn some old factorio habits and assumptions. Some of the production rates can be eventually be much higher per machine, so yes, eventually production rates may dwarf anything you might have done in factorio 1.1, but the actual amount of building per type of thing produced not so.

I think SA appeals most to those who like to do decent design, solve problems etc. You may find using circuits a lot more than previously as well. Not mandatory, but I find myself using them a lot more broadly than before. In factorio 1.1 a lot of my design was about filling loads of blue belts and trains etc. In this its more about elegant solutions that also have good enough production performance.

BHakluyt wrote: Tue Dec 31, 2024 8:24 pm It doesn't feel anymore like a fun game that never ends with a factory just forever growing... Space Age gets to a point when it feels the game is completed/done/finished.

My experience is the exact opposite, with the base game, I always felt the game was done/finished after I got some space science in. With SA, I haven't stopped after reaching the finish line. So much more to do, getting quality gear and quality high speed spaceships. Rebuilding my bases with all the new tech and stuff I've learned. Setting up overgrown soil production. I have doubled the amount of hours on my save after reaching the finish, and I haven't even gotten to making promethium science yet.

I've yet to get to the finish line in SA, but I've got far enough to form the opinion that the two versions develop into surprisingly different styles of game.

In 1.1 (or vanilla 2.0) it's all about optimising production. You want to convert your available resources into construction and science as efficiently as possible.

In Space Age, most resources end up either actually or effectively infinite, so efficiency of production is a moot point. Instead the primary challenge is (inter-planetary) logistics, ensuring that your (vast quantities of) useful items are delivered promptly to their desired destination.

The growth of the factory's tech becomes - for me, anyway - not as rewarding as the early game

Then I'd think you'll enjoy SA. For me it felt like playing the early game over and over (at each new planet) because you're setting things up... but with the added tools of already having conveniences like roboports and reliable power. After I got the first few researches on Aquilo I started to lose interest in the game. I've made 1000 SPM in 1.1, but similar to you, as the factory starts to get really big it's not very interesting to me anymore.

For reference I had 1000 hours in the game. I never messed with mods and never took other's blueprints without first making my own designs (even for belt balancers back in the day). What I enjoy is problem solving. My solutions are never perfect or optimized, but that's not the point. The point is to try, make some mistakes, and learn from them for the next design. If you're like me then your biggest issue with SA will probably be how many hours it will take from you :p

Based on your description of what you enjoy, you should love space age.

They added several features with the specific goal of extending the mid game, and it lasts extremely long now. We have been playing for 500 or so hours since launch on our server, and we are still not at the bottom of the end game.

Every new planet you drop on is like starting over. A fresh challenge with new mechanics and totally new solutions, plus new enemies. You will get the experience of rushing tech, figuring things out, and all that Factorio goodness...over and over about 5 times in one play through.

Everything you said you liked is amplified in the expansion. So I'd say go for it.