Rail and train "immunity" needs to be explained to the player

[ikarikeiji]

The in-game Factoriopedia gives you briefings on planets. For Fulgora and Aquilo these are really misleading in one particular way.

Fulgora's entry doesn't explain that rails (and related entities like signals), and trains, are immune from lightning strikes. Back when I first set up Fulgora I assumed that they would be vulnerable to lightning, so I figured my only option was to manually ferry stuff between islands unless they were close enough for basic lightning rods either side of a gap to allow a rail line between the islands... Of course, I was wrong, and only found out completely by accident, when I placed some rails outside of the protected area and saw there was no lightning warning on it. (I then checked the wiki to confirm it. You shouldn't need to check a wiki to play a game.)

Aquilo's entry, similarly, doesn't explain that they are immune from freezing. In fact the entry explicitly says "ALL entities except electric poles WILL freeze"... so that's outright incorrect. I haven't needed rails yet on Aquilo, but I did test placing some down out of interest when the thought occurred to me, which revealed this to me. If it wasn't for my earlier experience on Fulgora I would definitely have assumed I'd need a super-long heat pipe next to them, which it turns out, I don't.

Here's a related post (but absolutely not the same suggestion) mentioning that players shouldn't need to read wikis.

PS. for clarity: I totally agree with rails and trains having this immunity, it might feel a little unrealistic/cheaty but on balance the gameplay would be far too frustrating if they didn't. I just think the text should be changed to explain this.

[Factoruser]

I think the most worse thing of the tips&tricks related to Aquilo is, that it doesn't tell you to take vast amounts of stuff with you, e.g. stacks of heatpipes, pipes, inserters, concrete etc. and everything to build a rocket silo and a rocket, to be able to escape Aquilo again.

[ikarikeiji]

I think the most worse thing of the tips&tricks related to Aquilo is, that it doesn't tell you to take vast amounts of stuff with you, e.g. stacks of heatpipes, pipes, inserters, concrete etc. and everything to build a rocket silo and a rocket, to be able to escape Aquilo again.

Actually, that I think is fine. Telling you that you need to take all these million specific items is too much handholding, you should be able to work that out for yourself. The Factoriopedia DOES sternly warn you, that if you are not prepared, you can get stranded there - that is the important part.

The comical menu background where players write "HELP" on the ground, which you'll surely have seen many times by the time you get to Aquilo yourself, also does a great job of making the point that you need to be careful there

But I think actually stranding yourself is less likely than one would think. If you can get to Aquilo, you can almost certainly remotely control whatever you need to to deliver something you forgot. And once you have advanced crushing you can just drop copper, iron, calcite, carbon and sulfur from a space platform above Aquilo. Holmium and superconductor are required for recipes but they're not required merely to escape. The main thing that caught me out is I needed to import stone and stone brick. Other than a basic nuclear reactor setup I just took a small starter pack of heat pipes, assemblers, foundries, modules and worked my way up from there with regular deliveries of the raw materials above.

And finally, if you are in the habit of making a separate save file whenever you go to another planet or do anything else particularly risky, you can just reload an earlier save if you royally mess up!

[Factoruser]

It ain't millions of items, just vast counts of concrete and heatpipes and stacks of pipes, belts, electric poles, assembling machines and 2 heating towers plus the items for the rocket silo. Mention, that you don't get iron, copper, coal nor stone on Aquilo. Recommend to take everything with you to build a rocket to return, and always take a stock of processing units and low density structures for every visit of Aquilo with you. Normally, you won't put every item of the game in rockets resp. allow to request everything from all chests on every planet. "Be prepared" is an extremely poor advice.

Further, you need also extreme counts of missiles to reach Aquilo and stay in its orbit for some time. About 1000 pieces, 400 for a safe trip back. Unlike the other planets it's impossible to build a space station. It will be erased while you're trying to build it. And supporting it with missiles or railgun ammo is nearly impossible (=> explosives production).

Of course you can / need to rollback to the savegame. But it shouldn't be this way that you try and fail again and again until you know all the pitfalls.