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I’ve gone once through vanilla. I’ve launched a rocket the one time. I feel like the majority of players and blog readers are modded up the wazoo, but this expa

I’ve gone once through vanilla. I’ve launched a rocket the one time. I feel like the majority of players and blog readers are modded up the wazoo, but this expansion is not really for them. It’s for players like me who did not go beyond the base game.

laserbeam 3y ago
As it should be! An official expansion should be playable for a casual human. Despite that, as a modded wazooer, I am excited for this. Keep up the good job, wube!
alyandon 3y ago
I greatly enjoyed Factorio and even went as far as doing a deathworld. I even tried some of the full blown mod packs like Seablock, Space Exploration and Krastorio2 to extend the base game. However, they all seem to be designed with this underlying theme that you should challenge the player by making everything pointlessly grindy. I really haven't played much since but I'll probably give this expansion a try.
- db48x 3y ago
  Space Exploration goes out of it’s way _not_ to make things pointlessly grindy. Yes, you’ll need to scale your home base up more than in the vanilla game, but the space construction all involves different challenges than merely scaling out. The space sciences are each a different kind of puzzle. And it adds three new kinds of logistics network (cargo rockets, rail guns, and space ships), each with different strengths and weaknesses. Automating them well requires building circuit networks, whereas automating the vanilla networks is very much optional.
  - Aeolun 3y ago
    Space Exploration is by definition grindy since it aims to expand the base game. If I need to make one new set of space science there’s literally 5 new intermediate products I have to produce just to get that science. Those things aren’t used anywhere else in the game. Just for producing that science. That bothers me.
  - alyandon 3y ago
    Space Exploration goes out of it’s way _not_ to make things pointlessly grindy. Your definition of grindy is not my definition of grindy - maybe "pointlessly" was a little harsh on my part. It's cool though - different people have different opinions. I have built vanilla bases large enough to have a fairly significant amount of SPM so I am pretty well versed in using circuits, trains, etc.
  - oefrha 3y ago
    Yeah, Space Exploration is full of cool new challenges that aren’t “let’s make it as miserable as possible just because”. Angels, now that’s grindy.
    - jcranmer 3y ago
      My experience is that Angel's isn't all that grindy in itself--its main problem is instead that it feels excessively matrix-driven in development by itself. And there's a subsidiary problem that a lot of it ends up feeling kinda pointless (especially bioprocessing), so some of the interesting challenges it presents ends up being ignored because there's no reason to actually engage with them. The other issue is that Angel's is kind of an incomplete mod by itself, it relies on something else to actually use all the new things it makes, and that other one is Bob's [1]... and Bob's is very much complexity for complexity's sake. Most of the vanilla items in the games are instead have extra dragged out production chains for seemingly no reason other than to make things more complex, and the modpack has evolved by finding one of the few things that hasn't been touched yet and complexifying that yet further. [1] To be clear, Bob's predates Angel's by a lot, and Angel's was largely developed to create more interesting ways to make the things that Bob's added.
      - oefrha 3y ago
        By Angel’s I meant Angel’s + Bob’s, I don’t think anyone ever recommended Angel’s alone.
- candiddevmike 3y ago
  Doesn't the early game get boring? Or how do you push past it after so many playthroughs?
  - alyandon 3y ago
    I actually enjoy the early game for some strange reason and different map seeds always presented a different set of challenges (especially on deathworlds) because of water, cliffs and resource locations. I mean, sure - once you get oil and flame turrets it is basically game over for biters and that can get boring pretty quick if you always rush straight to it. Edit: Also trains. I don't know why but I can just play with trains for hours on end in Factorio.
auto 3y ago
Same boat, beat vanilla, enjoyed the experience but was ready to have my life back by the end of it. By the time Space Age launches the itch should just about be at the point of needing scratching again, so I’m definitely looking forward to this.
pmoriarty 3y ago
I play with hundreds of mods, and I'm excited about this expansion. Mods have performance and compatibility issues, and they don't always get bug fixes or updates very often. It'll be nice to have an expansion to the base game that's officially supported and which all other mods will have to be compatible with instead of the other way around. Apart from the space part, which is arguably already present in the Space Exploration mod (a mod made by a developer who got hired by Wube to work on the official game, if I'm not mistaken), this new expansion promises: "the ability to control train systems better, better blueprint building, better flying robot behaviour and many more." That sounds great to me.
- red_trumpet 3y ago
  > a mod made by a developer who got hired by Wube to work on the official game, if I'm not mistaken You are right, he even seems to be behind the Space Age expansion: > A lot of people are going to make comparisons between the Space Age expansion and the Space Exploration mod. I've worked on the game design for both: On Space Age I made the first space + planets prototype builds and plus I've been involved in most of the gameplay discussions since. On Space Exploration, well it's my mod, I made it.
  - Aeolun 3y ago
    Hoping that some of the useful features from Space Age make their way back to space exploration too.
- bombcar 3y ago
  There's also all the things changed in the base game that mods weren't able to do, but developers can. We'll find more and more about this over the next year, but they will enable even better mods.
KptMarchewa 3y ago
80 hours to finish for experienced player is still at least 4x more than launching a rocket. There is really achievable achievement for launching it in 8 hours - once you think more about how to optimize waiting early and mid game.
bregma 3y ago
I have thousands of hours in, all vanilla. I consider launching the first rocket to be the end of the early game and the beginning of the midgame.
quchen 3y ago
My mods are mostly QoL, and I’ve played hundreds of hours (well, didn’t count, bought it in version 0.14 years ago). It’s a sandbox that made me read papers on telecommunication routing for optimizing my splitters (Clos networks). You need to mod it like you need to mod Python to do a lot with it. Sure you can, but lots of us just fiddle around with it in different ways just for the sake of it.
lazylion2 3y ago
Only 18.5% of the players got the "Finish the game" (launching a rocket) achievement on Steam https://steamcommunity.com/stats/427520/achievements https://steamcommunity.com/stats/427520/achievements
- TillE 3y ago
  Yeah there's always a massive difference between who's posting a lot online vs who's just playing and enjoying the game. But you have to calibrate Steam achievements based on who's played the game for more than a few minutes. The "Eco unfriendly" achievement shows about 60% of people who launched the game played for more than a couple hours, which is quite normal. So out of those, about 30% of players finished the game.
- gergi 3y ago
  I'm more impressed that only 25.9% have been killed by a moving locomotive ("Watch your step" achievement). Those things are murder-vehicles.
  - philistine 3y ago
    I think it means a majority of players never build rail.
MaxwellKahn 3y ago
I loved Factorio, but only played vanilla. I find that every time I mod up a game (e.g. Fallout 3, NV, 4), I find the bugginess and lack of consistency just inevitably ruins it after a few cheap thrills. So I wasn't about to do that to Factorio. I'm super excited for this expansion--I miss the days playing til 5AM with my friends (and we all have work the next day at 9AM), because we literally couldn't put the game down. Brings me back to childhood.
- BlueTemplar 3y ago
  Factorio has at least one mod that is the complete opposite of buggy and inconsistent : https://mods.factorio.com/mod/IndustrialRevolution3 https://mods.factorio.com/mod/IndustrialRevolution3
  - MaxwellKahn 3y ago
    I might give it a try, what do you especially like about this mod compared to others?
    - BlueTemplar 3y ago
      I don't even especially like this mod, because I don't mind some jankiness in mods, it's just that this one is done with such care, it feels more polished than most finished games. I haven't finished it, but I really liked the very early game monowheel vehicle. Oh, also the burner lamps, and the research notifications, in fact so much I add them to all my games now, regardless of the modpack ! https://mods.factorio.com/mod/DeadlockLargerLamp https://mods.factorio.com/mod/DeadlockLargerLamp https://mods.factorio.com/mod/DeadlockResearchNotifications https://mods.factorio.com/mod/DeadlockResearchNotifications

laserbeam 3y ago

As it should be! An official expansion should be playable for a casual human. Despite that, as a modded wazooer, I am excited for this. Keep up the good job, wube!

alyandon 3y ago

I greatly enjoyed Factorio and even went as far as doing a deathworld. I even tried some of the full blown mod packs like Seablock, Space Exploration and Krastorio2 to extend the base game. However, they all seem to be designed with this underlying theme that you should challenge the player by making everything pointlessly grindy. I really haven't played much since but I'll probably give this expansion a try.

db48x 3y ago
Space Exploration goes out of it’s way _not_ to make things pointlessly grindy. Yes, you’ll need to scale your home base up more than in the vanilla game, but the space construction all involves different challenges than merely scaling out. The space sciences are each a different kind of puzzle. And it adds three new kinds of logistics network (cargo rockets, rail guns, and space ships), each with different strengths and weaknesses. Automating them well requires building circuit networks, whereas automating the vanilla networks is very much optional.
- Aeolun 3y ago
  Space Exploration is by definition grindy since it aims to expand the base game. If I need to make one new set of space science there’s literally 5 new intermediate products I have to produce just to get that science. Those things aren’t used anywhere else in the game. Just for producing that science. That bothers me.
- alyandon 3y ago
  Space Exploration goes out of it’s way _not_ to make things pointlessly grindy. Your definition of grindy is not my definition of grindy - maybe "pointlessly" was a little harsh on my part. It's cool though - different people have different opinions. I have built vanilla bases large enough to have a fairly significant amount of SPM so I am pretty well versed in using circuits, trains, etc.
- oefrha 3y ago
  Yeah, Space Exploration is full of cool new challenges that aren’t “let’s make it as miserable as possible just because”. Angels, now that’s grindy.
  - jcranmer 3y ago
    My experience is that Angel's isn't all that grindy in itself--its main problem is instead that it feels excessively matrix-driven in development by itself. And there's a subsidiary problem that a lot of it ends up feeling kinda pointless (especially bioprocessing), so some of the interesting challenges it presents ends up being ignored because there's no reason to actually engage with them. The other issue is that Angel's is kind of an incomplete mod by itself, it relies on something else to actually use all the new things it makes, and that other one is Bob's [1]... and Bob's is very much complexity for complexity's sake. Most of the vanilla items in the games are instead have extra dragged out production chains for seemingly no reason other than to make things more complex, and the modpack has evolved by finding one of the few things that hasn't been touched yet and complexifying that yet further. [1] To be clear, Bob's predates Angel's by a lot, and Angel's was largely developed to create more interesting ways to make the things that Bob's added.
    - oefrha 3y ago
      By Angel’s I meant Angel’s + Bob’s, I don’t think anyone ever recommended Angel’s alone.
candiddevmike 3y ago
Doesn't the early game get boring? Or how do you push past it after so many playthroughs?
- alyandon 3y ago
  I actually enjoy the early game for some strange reason and different map seeds always presented a different set of challenges (especially on deathworlds) because of water, cliffs and resource locations. I mean, sure - once you get oil and flame turrets it is basically game over for biters and that can get boring pretty quick if you always rush straight to it. Edit: Also trains. I don't know why but I can just play with trains for hours on end in Factorio.

auto 3y ago

Same boat, beat vanilla, enjoyed the experience but was ready to have my life back by the end of it. By the time Space Age launches the itch should just about be at the point of needing scratching again, so I’m definitely looking forward to this.

pmoriarty 3y ago

I play with hundreds of mods, and I'm excited about this expansion. Mods have performance and compatibility issues, and they don't always get bug fixes or updates very often. It'll be nice to have an expansion to the base game that's officially supported and which all other mods will have to be compatible with instead of the other way around. Apart from the space part, which is arguably already present in the Space Exploration mod (a mod made by a developer who got hired by Wube to work on the official game, if I'm not mistaken), this new expansion promises: "the ability to control train systems better, better blueprint building, better flying robot behaviour and many more." That sounds great to me.

red_trumpet 3y ago
> a mod made by a developer who got hired by Wube to work on the official game, if I'm not mistaken You are right, he even seems to be behind the Space Age expansion: > A lot of people are going to make comparisons between the Space Age expansion and the Space Exploration mod. I've worked on the game design for both: On Space Age I made the first space + planets prototype builds and plus I've been involved in most of the gameplay discussions since. On Space Exploration, well it's my mod, I made it.
- Aeolun 3y ago
  Hoping that some of the useful features from Space Age make their way back to space exploration too.
bombcar 3y ago
There's also all the things changed in the base game that mods weren't able to do, but developers can. We'll find more and more about this over the next year, but they will enable even better mods.

KptMarchewa 3y ago

80 hours to finish for experienced player is still at least 4x more than launching a rocket. There is really achievable achievement for launching it in 8 hours - once you think more about how to optimize waiting early and mid game.

bregma 3y ago

I have thousands of hours in, all vanilla. I consider launching the first rocket to be the end of the early game and the beginning of the midgame.

quchen 3y ago

My mods are mostly QoL, and I’ve played hundreds of hours (well, didn’t count, bought it in version 0.14 years ago). It’s a sandbox that made me read papers on telecommunication routing for optimizing my splitters (Clos networks). You need to mod it like you need to mod Python to do a lot with it. Sure you can, but lots of us just fiddle around with it in different ways just for the sake of it.

lazylion2 3y ago

Only 18.5% of the players got the "Finish the game" (launching a rocket) achievement on Steam https://steamcommunity.com/stats/427520/achievements https://steamcommunity.com/stats/427520/achievements

TillE 3y ago
Yeah there's always a massive difference between who's posting a lot online vs who's just playing and enjoying the game. But you have to calibrate Steam achievements based on who's played the game for more than a few minutes. The "Eco unfriendly" achievement shows about 60% of people who launched the game played for more than a couple hours, which is quite normal. So out of those, about 30% of players finished the game.
gergi 3y ago
I'm more impressed that only 25.9% have been killed by a moving locomotive ("Watch your step" achievement). Those things are murder-vehicles.
- philistine 3y ago
  I think it means a majority of players never build rail.

MaxwellKahn 3y ago

I loved Factorio, but only played vanilla. I find that every time I mod up a game (e.g. Fallout 3, NV, 4), I find the bugginess and lack of consistency just inevitably ruins it after a few cheap thrills. So I wasn't about to do that to Factorio. I'm super excited for this expansion--I miss the days playing til 5AM with my friends (and we all have work the next day at 9AM), because we literally couldn't put the game down. Brings me back to childhood.

BlueTemplar 3y ago
Factorio has at least one mod that is the complete opposite of buggy and inconsistent : https://mods.factorio.com/mod/IndustrialRevolution3 https://mods.factorio.com/mod/IndustrialRevolution3
- MaxwellKahn 3y ago
  I might give it a try, what do you especially like about this mod compared to others?
  - BlueTemplar 3y ago
    I don't even especially like this mod, because I don't mind some jankiness in mods, it's just that this one is done with such care, it feels more polished than most finished games. I haven't finished it, but I really liked the very early game monowheel vehicle. Oh, also the burner lamps, and the research notifications, in fact so much I add them to all my games now, regardless of the modpack ! https://mods.factorio.com/mod/DeadlockLargerLamp https://mods.factorio.com/mod/DeadlockLargerLamp https://mods.factorio.com/mod/DeadlockResearchNotifications https://mods.factorio.com/mod/DeadlockResearchNotifications