The cost of the rocket

[Recon777]

Well, I finished my first game of Factorio recently, and I had a blast. I had it set to max aliens and quite a few resources, and my base ended up being very tight because I had to fight for every bit of real estate. It was very cool. I even got a decent little rail system going in the base with 5 trains and probably 8 or 9 different stops. I found the balance overall to be quite good, and I could tell that the game has undergone extensive playtesting. I ended up researching absolutely everything except robot follower count 7 and higher.

So, once my research was done, I set about building the rocket. When I first looked at the quantities it would take, I thought to myself that this would be quite a challenge and take a long time - possibly depleting my local resources entirely, forcing me to expand through the alien hordes to tape into remote resource fields.

Unfortunately, I discovered that the rocket wasn't actually that hard to build. I didn't have to expand at all. I was anticipating having remote mining operations all over to bring in and process all the raw materials. But it didn't take much time and suddenly the rocket was in space.

I'm wondering if others here think the rocket is too cheap. Or perhaps there ought to be further goals than just building the rocket. Perhaps something like a massive Anime style weapon that you have to construct before the aliens breed their Godzilla biter that comes and rampages your base. Some kind of goal where you feel there's something at stake for you to finish before terrible things happen. Because really, the 3rd tier bugs aren't that much of a challenge once you've got your base surrounded by fully upgraded laser turrets.

Incidentally, I'm doing my 2nd playthrough with less resources and less aliens, and I'm finding it a LOT easier. To the point where I'm cruising through the progression with just my initial resource patches and making tight decisions on the most efficient way proceed. The base is very streamlined, unlike last time where I had no idea what I was doing. It's still fun to design, but I can tell that there's not really going to be any sort of challenge here. It's still fun, but it would be nice if there was more to shoot for.

[Shokubai]

There are a number of options out there to give you things to push for. As for the Rocket requirements...there is debate here but I think it fits as an initial goal but I agree there could be more. Things like using the rocket to start a starbase was one...Do some reading HERE

Anyway, some things to add depth and challenge.
Mods
Marathon
Bob's Mods
Victory Research
Dytech

You can add challenge by setting arbitrary game types like
Launch 100 rockets
No Logi Bots
Bases everywhere(subdivide your production to bases supplied by train)
Max biters settings
No pocket crafting

You can use mods like
Resource spawner overhaul and Insane Resources to add flexibility to the games resource generation.

Just some thoughts to give you some new goals to work towards.

[huwp]

The rocket is adequately difficult to build, I think! Check out the ion cannon satellite mod, it makes building rockets very satisfying!

[TruePikachu]

Currently, 85,288 copper + 101,535 iron + 9,950 coal + 5,425 water + 32,175 gas + 10,500 solid fuel makes 100 rocket parts + 1 satellite + 1 copper cable (lol).

The 32,175 gas and 10,500 solid fuel can be produced from 43,530 crude oil minimum; using advanced oil processing and cracking all the heavy oil to light, and using 10,500 light to make the solid fuel and cracking the rest to gas, you get 0.5 spare gas, 1.5 spare light oil (which can't be cracked down), and 1.0 spare heavy oil (which also can't be cracked down). This process takes 37,380 water.

[siggboy]

The 32,175 gas and 10,500 solid fuel can be produced from 43,530 crude oil minimum

You get quite a bit more if you use productivity modules (of course that does increase pollution and energy cost if you want to maintain the production rate).

[Hannu]

Rocket is quite easy if you think that it ends the game. But at least I think that sending the first rocket begins an end game phase which is maybe the most interesting, at least when I have done building process couple of times and learned best ratios and layouts. After you send the first rocket you can for example make a factory which is able to send 2-4 rockets per hour (there are a mod which automates launching). I think that one rocket per 15 minutes is relatively nice size. You have to bring resources by trains and have tens of furnaces, large production cells with couple of tens of assemblers and some blue belts but it is not impractically large. Building of the huge megabase is just replicating of such smaller units. But of course it is up to you what do you want and what your computer can handle. Just do not think that sending the rocket ends the game.

[Hannu]

The 32,175 gas and 10,500 solid fuel can be produced from 43,530 crude oil minimum

You get quite a bit more if you use productivity modules (of course that does increase pollution and energy cost if you want to maintain the production rate).

You can reduce raw resource consumption of the rocket to 1/4 - 1/2 by using productivity 3 modules. Just putting 4 prod3 modules to a rocket silo decreases needed parts from 100 to 72 and cuts consumption of every resources by 28 %. It is probably the most efficient place for modules in Factorio.

It costs energy, pollution and room, but at least with normal settings energy and room are practically unlimited (even if you use coal plants like I do sometimes to get more resource flows, trains and action). My evolution factor increases typically to maximum soon after I begin rocket launches so I do not have to care it anymore. In that phase of the game I have easily resources to enclose my base and mining areas with a triple wall and continuous line of laser turrets to make a ridiculously overkill defense against behemoth enemies and I can also make hundreds of defenders and destroyers to clear enemy bases when I need more room or resources.

[TruePikachu]

For anyone interested, I redid the calculations with productivity modules.

[siggboy]

For anyone interested, I redid the calculations with productivity modules.

This is useful, can you maybe re-run it assuming steel furnaces? (ie. not prod3 in smelters, it's not straightforward due to steel smelting).

[bobucles]

The real cost of the rocket is the hours you spent learning how all the pieces fit together to build your first spagh-- I mean factory.