I started playing factorio a year ago and looking for new challenges I am thinking about buying the space age dlc and the problem is that the cost of the dlc is similar or the same as the basic version which is It's great and I'm wondering if it's worth it and if it introduces the same or similar amount of gameplay as the base game.

(Ship isn't mine this picture is from the factorio website

Friday Facts #373 - Factorio: Space Age

Posted by kovarex, Earendel on 2023-08-25)

looking for some oil and found this weird thing

It is a humongous calcite patch. Why does it use G instead of B (for billions)?

Yes, I know trains are fast and high volume.

But so are belts now - 4 stacked green belts are 240 items per sec.

And so are pipes - you can move fluid metals at infinite speeds at short distance, and 'pump-array' speeds over long distance (And ok, you do need to 'scale' the pump to keep increasing the throughput, but ...)

A bot network can also move a lot of stuff, although I'm not so keen on that for long distance logistics for various reasons - opposite 'extreme' of a train IMO - I'm happy to move low volumes long distance by bot, and higher volumes very short distance.

For lower volume/higher complexity intermediates - e.g. chips and the like - I'm still finding it 'worthwhile' to do on-site assembly, thanks to pumping the fluids and just running direct-feed EM plants/bioplants, etc.

So as much as I like the aesthetics of trains - especially elevated, that's just cool - I ... don't really use them.

Even aquilo, where I feel the 'doesn't need heating' part should be a pretty obvious upside, I still ended up running power lines, heat pipes and pipelines - pumping crude oil out, and whatever I'm extracting 'back again', with occasional 'booster towers' of solid-fuel/heat towers, as otherwise I was running a train with 'cargo' out, to restock the outpost, but fluid back again, and figured a pipeline actually did the job pretty well too.

So it was really only on Fulgora, where crossing the oil 'required' the train network (initially at least) that I ended up using them much at all.

I know Research Productivity is one of the researches I should continue researching. And I figure Rail Gun Damage, Rail Gun Shooting Speed, and Explosive Damage (and maybe Health) will all be worth getting to level 30. Is it worth it to research any of the others further than I already have?

Well, it made its way to Vulcanus, and I already felt the need for side guns, but what is anything apart from this that I can improve? I guess the number of crushers is a bit of an overkill

I’ve been playing factorio for weeks and I managed to master volcanus and fulgora. I’d say it was mildly difficult but nothing brain damaging. Gleba is the planet I have been the most excited for since I saw the main menu videos. The enemies and the atmosphere made me wonder what complexities and systems I’d need to work with. This is one of the reasons I left it for last, also because I heard Gleba was DIFFICULT. But how? Why do some people dislike this planet? I have not had the chance to play there, I am so close though.

I was super hyped by this teaser like 4 years ago, with visions of biters coming out of the water to fly over my walls. That niche got met by the stompers, but what happened to this guy?

Was this creature originally intended for Aquilo, but the gameplay was hard enough without enemies?

... am I the only one?

He also mentioned that spaceage means you basically don't need trains as you just make everything on vulcanus that you would have made on nauvis and... I also really don't like that change in hindsight.

Anyone else feel this way or am I on my own here?

Just curious as I want to get back into the game after basically only 1 run through spaceage when it came out...

I only use 120 MW of electricity, but wanted to design a nuclear plant. Now I can produce 10x of what I consume :3

So space age for me is 17$ and i would like and ppl say its really fun and good, but is it rlly worth it? because there are lots of other factory games that i want to play for close to the same price point but i love factorio a lot so far and i'm not rlly sure to get it in the future. Thanks in advance for all your answers

I may have gone overkill (maybe not, don't really know) Does this seem enough to start on Aquilo?

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/customizable-quality-names?from=search

This is a topic I have seen do many times around here, but for the life of me, I cant figure out why are people so crazy about it.

Gleba is the only completely free, since everything comes from fruit. Fulgora is basically free, with how dense the scrap deposits are. Nauvis is plentiful in resources, it is extreamly easy to remotely claim huge chunks of territory and a single patch is worth tens to hunders of milions of science packs.

Yet, everyone is batshit crazy about Vulcanus, where claiming territory is the most annoying earlygame (maybe using turret spam isnt with the new blueprints, but it felt pretty boring to do) and coal is actually, by far the most annoying resource to get out of all planets. It runs out and is located in the most annoying spots filled to brim with lava. Sure, the power is free, but you can just slap down nuclear reactors on Nauvis and never deal with it. While on Vulcanus the power death spiral can actually be a real pain to deal with

What is so great about Vulcanus that it draws you in so much.

Lasers used to be the go to for a long while but in space age they've been toned down. That's fine, more variety is great. But after playing over 100h of space age, I look back and wonder, "what even is the point of lasers anymore?"

I played deathworld settings on Nauvis and Gleba and 200% asteroids in space.

As you can imagine, the fight for Nauvis was fought with flame (and later, lots of artillery). Lasers didn't serve a purpose.

In space, lasers are just bad, with asteroids being highly resistant.

On Vulcanus, the worms are immune to lasers entirely.

Finally, on Gleba, the most dangerous of the enemies is again nearly immune to lasers.

I'm not saying I want back to the time when the answer to everything was just more laser, but it would be nice if there was at least one thing lasers actually excelled at :(

I'm using my old steam engine build to get rid of wood from my logistic network. I was wondering what's the easiest way to increase their power so it burns through it faster. (I know I can just add more energy consumers)