Thanks for the feedback and the caveat that it’s in alpha/experimental. People usually assume that the mod is near finished, but really large sections of the mod are in a placeholder state waiting for that section to be overhauled. Fortunately most of the things you dislike are placeholder content. I’ll try to summarise some of the current roadmap. Most of the real “exploration” content will be added quite late (0.8 or later), because it needs to fit around the activities and capabilities of the player at various points in the game and I want those to be better defined first. Exploration is also content-heavy over systems-heavy, so it is something I can get contributors to help with but the other systems need to be more solid first. For example the ruins, things keep breaking when the mod changes so I really want to have the other systems stable before adding more exploration content. Exploration is also mixed in with some things that will happen with a robot faction. The mod already has a lot of PvP features (like meteor defence shooting enemy delivery cannon projectiles, umbrella vs energy beaming, etc) and the robot faction is intended to give you a way to fight with (or make peace with) an enemy with similar inter-surface capabilities and weapons. In 0.6 the biggest limitation is the temporary planets system. Currently all planets are one planet type that has a random climate and random resources, there’s nothing really “designed” about their experience beyond processing 1 resource. Version 0.7 has a lot of different planet types and each one will have more intentional gameplay. That’s not just environmental challenges and unique terrain, but also a decided set of available resources that can be used together for a local factory. Where 0.6 has 1 main resource with a linear process + some random (often useless) secondary resources; 0.7 will have a primary resource and some guaranteed secondary ones that are not just used for processing the main resource but also to make local science. (And yes, that literally does include lakes of sulfuric acid for specific planets). Some planet types will have a dedicated building (sometimes replacing a space building) which can only be built there, like a magmaworks, vitamelange arboretum, or an oceanic tower, which will also be needed for the associated science. 0.7 doesn’t have any science tiers (1-4), every science pack is named (asteroid, stellar, radiation, genetic, neural, etc), and half of them require a small base somewhere specific such as an asteroid belt or planet type. This means that roughly 40% of the current space science packs are moving to the ground so when you go to an iridium planet it’s not just a mining base, you’re also doing one of the material science packs there. This general tech structure is already in place, but the exact recipes are still in flux and something I will be trying to get more community feedback on later. There are also things like more toys from bio sciences, jump clones, reasons to go to other star systems, less grind, etc. but that’s a list too long…
Ok, this gets me really exited for the future of the mod. I played 0.5 with a bunch of friends and looking at the changes of 0.6 we didn't really feel like we needed to play it again. Reading your planned changes for 0.7 though, definitely gets me super exited to play again. This already is imho the BEST mod in existence for the BEST game in existence so thank you so much for your work
Love the mod so far. It drags in places but its already the best overhaul mod for factorio. I hope you have the opportunity to get more people helping with the mod, since I worry there's a decade of development left if you do it all on your own! Cheers.
A lot of you wanted my thoughts on the mod as a whole, so here they are. I really did enjoy my time playing it and it's only because it has so much potential yet uncovered or yet unfinished that I got so passionate about it. Space Exploration remains a great mod and I eagerly await what's the come, even if it does mean I might need to revisit it at some point. Please don't blacklist me Earendel.
Interestingly enough I kind of disliked the Nav mode due to how it was implemented. Basically if you pinged a location you always got dropped in to it, which was not great if you literally just wanted to know locations on a map, rather then what exactly was there. Also I or anyone else never did find a way to reliably quickly exit Nav mode in a single key stroke. Which could make it sometimes a bit more involved to get out of it. Now in many cases this doesn't matter that much, but in for instance high stakes military operations it turned out a bit of a drag and at times a little dangerous. But I guess in the end you can kind of put it under what the review said, it's a very interesting feature with fantastic abilities to it, but it's got some rough edges that get in the way of smooth playing at times.
@@Gh3ttoboy You'd think so, you'd think so. But if you say pressed M before that, because you really needed to know where the ping was as an actual location, then you could be in for a several key press exit scenario. And you'd best not mistake when you're actually out, because else there is a chance for more looping if you say you wanted to use map view for something after nav.
Same, and with the jetpack too. I think I'm just going to keep the jetpack installed for all future overhaul mod runs. Tightly packing my buildings and pipes together is part of the fun for me, so removing getting stuck as a punishment for playing that way ironically raises the challenge cap.
As someone with the inability to form my own opinions I shall take everything in this video as gospel and shall constantly spread it to others about what you say as objective fact. Thank you for enlightenment.
my favorite example of this is, i once said i enjoy Click even though it has really shitty adam sandler humor, and someone just linked a big joel video essay on why click sucks and that was their entire response
"Late game space exploration is like getting stuck in traffic" agreed 100%. I'm about 250 hours in, on a group playthrough that's been going on for over a year and a half. there's been a ton of incredible moments in the mod - going to orbit for the first time, designing your own spaceship, arcospheres, and so on. but now we're at the phase where we're just waiting around for the research to slowly tick by since so much naqium is required. it's been a great ride, but yeah this video really captures all the frustrations we've felt over those 250 hours
Almost the same problem here, except our group save is stuck in the "OK now get to tier four of every science part". It feels like this big pile of recipe after recipe that doesn't really give you anything except a science chip, increasing the load on the bot network (because I do not want to deal with the huge amount of speciality one-off items that would need to be belted to three other random facilities in different chains), and in general just taking A long time
I mean, if the mod developers are looking for feedback from someone, you should be towards the top of that list, you cataloged your whole experience through the whole run step by step, they can just compare that to the experience they were expecting to give people and see where they failed and succeeded, on top of you having played other mods and factorio for so long, big ups to your opinion
It's amazing how accurately dosh predicted the expansion in the part from 6:55 to 7:30. Space age is exactly that. More isolated planets, science that can only be produced there.
the sphere organizer was truly something of beauty. I don't know if that's what the devs intend or you are just a genius but I'm too dumb to figure that out. thanks for playing through so I could see what the endgame looks like.
you could do it without circuit conditions using just buffer chests, but that would require about double the number of spheres to make work, maybe more.
I can definitely agree with the Nauvis point - I really messed up early game in terms of biter management and was actually forced off the planet and never bothered coming back. In essence, I had to figure a way to salvage the game while hiding in orbit. Eventually I chose Calidus' asteroid belt for my entire base, which very quickly fixed the lack of logistical problems. Because I had to deal with things like limited oil from methane, I had to actually take time to plan my moves because there wasn't any fallback (short of reverting to a much older save). Also, I played with an air filtration mod which could inefficiently convert pollution to light oil/water, and light oil to coal. This was actually quite fun to test because factories would sometimes rely on properly recapturing pollution and dealing with byproducts. Definitely shook things up from the standard "resources in, resources out" style of planetary factories.
I'm amazed it's possible. I got into a similar situation 300 hours in. And looking at all the other planets seems impossible to exist in because of too many lacking resources.
@@SourceFaNNatic really cool playthrough it sounds like. I want to try this mod before the dlc comes out and I’m curious what mods you used and what difficulty settings you used?
The idea of having cargo rockets come after space ships really resonated with me. For me messing around with space ship designs was the highlight of SE.
The idea of starting with a broken ship, and repairing it to go to space is such a great starter goal. That would totally encourage exploration as well
Aww sweet! Glad to have a fun cap off on this excellent series. Thanks again for all your hard work on this series, it's been very appreciated, and I hope you make a lot more content, whether it's more Factorio or more indie games like Towerclimb.
I would LOVE more indie games. For some reason Dosh gives me this weird nostalgia feeling for games ive never played or even experienced and makes me fall in love with them
Rewatching this after playing Space Age for a bit, it's interesting to see that your request for more isolation in the multi-surface logistics was actually answered
I'm currently a little over 100 hours into my second SE playthrough (my first one being abandoned around 80 hours), and while I'm not as far in as you are, you've echoed a lot of my feelings thus far. I... *admire* Space Exploration more than I love it. It fills a desire that AngelBob couldn't, which is the hunger to see massive eight-lane belts fill up once you turn a factory on. AngelBob had too many little things to build, which led me to gravitate to a cell structure that, while sort of cool, just didn't hit that Big Dispatch Serotonin urge. I love the scope. I love the planning process of figuring out what I'm going to need on a new planet, carefully assembling all my materials, making sure everything on Nauvis is working without supervision, setting off, and swearing as I learn I forgot something basic. There's a lot to love, but to bring it back to AngelBob - in AB one of my greatest challenges was figuring out how to utilise or at least divert byproducts. In SE it's disappointingly straightforward. But the real issue to is the abundance of - well, I'm not sure what term to use exactly, but let's say "single-use intermediaries" There are so many recipe chains that consist of "combine input A with B to make C, which can only be used to make D, which can only be used to make E, which can..." It's not a problem at first, but after you've made your tenth production chain that is just shepherding one unique resource through half a dozen stages until it produces its one unique output, it really does start to feel like busy work. I should add that I'm still enjoying my playthrough, and have no intention to stop. This is partially because I have debilitating brain parasites, but this is a Factorio video so I expect I'm in good company. But while I haven't gotten as far as you have, the overridding theme of a lack of interconnectedness absolutely rings true, and I do hope this is addressed in the future. Still, if it isn't, and in the eventuality that the SE devs see this, I want first and foremost to express my absolute admiration for this mod. I have niggles, and I know that it is the nature of a creative to overly focus on those, but even so this is a truly spectacular construction you have created, and for whatever reservations I may feel I have absolutely nothing but admiration for you. This mod could never see another update ever again, and I would still delight in it.
I felt rather bad about this comment sounding so much more negative than I felt, so for context the moment I hit 'reply' I immediately alt-tabbed back to redesigning my SE cryonite processing array. Whatever critiques I may have of this mod, it is a gorgeous creation and a genuine achievement, and it is absolutely worth your time. If you love Factorio, you absolutely owe it to yourself to explore this mod and come to your own conclusions - if they're anything like mine, you'll find a wanderlust and a delight at the diversity of challenges that Space Exploration has to offer.
Almost the same problem here, our group save is stuck in the "OK now get to tier four of every science part". It feels like this big pile of recipe after recipe that doesn't really give you anything except a science chip, increasing the load on the bot network (because I do not want to deal with the huge amount of speciality one-off items that would need to be belted to three other random facilities in different chains), and in general just taking A long time
Yes! As a game-designer and a more middle-ground player sitting somewhere in between purely efficient/logical designs and more aesthetically pleasing design (or in general more "fun" ways to play) I would love to see space exploration also 'explore' the fun parts and cool looking parts a little more. As much as a finished production line is something very cool in itself, making it look amazing is also an achievement and I wish it would also reward a little for that too.
That idea about having the initial crashed ship being one you can repair and fly to other planets sounds amazing. Having a goal staring in your face the whole time, begging you to repair it, would be a big motivator to get through the early game.
It's incredible that almost every cool feature from SE or SE future roadmap has been implemented in the SA. I wonder what the stable SE is going to look like
That radical idea of starting off with a the asteroid spaceship sounds just crazy enough for me to agree with it, I think it'd also give the mod a nomadic feel since you start off in deep space rather than on an actual planet
Watching this a month before the Space Age DLC drops and it’s interesting how many of these issues have been “fixed” in Space Age (and I know, SA is not Space Exploration).
But it is created (in part) by the same guy! Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if this critique inspired some of the concepts in Space Age. Although based on Earendel's reply, much of it was already planned anyway.
Oh my god that last suggestion, yes! I tried doing an SE run a while back and eventually abandoned it because it took so long to *actually* start doing meaningful exploration of space; by the time I'd unlocked the ability to make rockets I was so bored that I just didn't want to continue. Starting with a dinged up ship, even if it's the rustiest bucket known to man and god, would've been so much better (imo) because it gives you the concrete 'early' goal of "get my ship fixed" (and also has you actively interacting with the cool bits of the mod a lot earlier) Vs the very vague goal of "get to space". Anyway, just my 2 cents that was sparked by that comment, I loved the series!
Same, I finally just started to make rocket parts, but then I realized what I was actually getting into and I got unmotivated. I definitely agree that you should have the ability to get to space way earlier on so you will be motivated to complete the mod
It also adds a secondary moment of "hand feeding" everything as you run around to various planets to put it all together. Then you can finally unlock the automated shipping rockets/cannons, giving the player a second moment of that automation rush.
replacing the vanilla spaceship with a modded one you can actually use sounds incredibly good, as well as specialised enviroments like lakes of sulfuric acid you mentioned (which one could take a lot further, lakes of methane, which the mod also has, are already a thing on titan irl and being able to draw gasses or liquids from the atmosphere also lets you be able to create planets with atmospheres full of sulfuric acid like venus, which would also create varrying levels of hazardous enviroments, making for even more unique planets)
You know, now that Space Age is out, I feel like Wube just took SE, trimmed it to be more approachable (not easily 500+ hours in a run), slapped everything in this video onto what was left, and then shipped it. Not that that's a bad thing. Spage Age fucks. This video just feels like it became an outline of how to do Space Age right.
This is interesting to rewatch after following the expansion devlogs. Sounds like Space Age will be implementing a lot of features which resemble what you've suggested here.
This play through made me extremely interested in a Anno 1800 play through from Dosh. I know it goes kinda into a different genre but the logistics challenges in a full free-build session of that game of island to island shipping in early game, continent to continent shipping in mid game and obscene productivity optimisations with "waste" products in late game was what I was reminded of constantly while watching space exploration.
13:24 That was the first time I heard the hint of what I presume to have been your laugh and although you were already likeable it made me enjoy this series even more. Literally best possible finish. What a fun ride it was. Ok bye.
It's funny that many of these ideas ended up making their way into the planned Factorio DLC, created with the help of the original mod author who was hired by the Factorio devs. I think this video has some pretty big importance. Thank you for putting it as its own separate video where it's easy to references, instead of tacking the conclusion onto part 4 of the other series.
You are the most underrated gaming youtuber. Your level of content, the skill you put into the game, the self-suffering you do, makes you worthy of millions of subs. I hope you will reach that soon!
I'm mid-way through the midgame with SE + K2, and I got started before your first video in this series. I like the challenge and all the cool stuff, but honestly it just sucks to actually play. I got unlucky with resources, and have had to spend the last 56 hours or so using core mining as my sole source of materials, as my begining mines have all run dry, and better weapons to clear the behemoths another 56 hours away. Just slowly, ever so slowly, building up a cargo rocket to eventually get to space, so that I can slowly, slowly do research so I can eventually unlock something fun. Bots being space science as well has just kinda pushed my enjoyment into the negitives, as I'm having to manage all the annoying rescipes without any of the bandaids to make it easier, or at least more palatable. It took toys away and locked them beyond an immense time investment.
@@ivanlagayacrus1891 In otherwords, the part of bots you need to deal with all the annoying funky outputs that don't do much besides be annoying that SE is obsessed with
@@wyrdean_9649 yeah im currently clearing nauvis of biters im 65% done with it since i used railworld settings so biters wont build more bases but ofcourse i have 1 mod that helps me out with that which kinda made allot of stuff obsolete the True Nukes Mod and it has an addon called Warhead Mod
SE is just tedium and un-fun busy work packaged together as one product. Stuff like Krastorio/IE2/Etc. at least makes and attempt to be enjoyable along the journey. Earendel is opposed to that utterly.
@@wyrdean_9649 you dont have to deal with the funky outputs until after you're in space tho, it just means your first 300 or so space science can be tricky
You are crazy! But amazing. This is what real community is. General shared fun with room to grow. Being able to enjoy yourself while also noticing flaws and providing down to earth real feedback. I am now a proud supporter of your highest teir and honesty I would give you more money if I could just to help you make more content for thousands of people to enjoy. Thanks again!
I bought Factorio a long time ago, before I started a family too early and had to sell my gaming PC to take care of them, and I never beat vanilla Factorio even once before I had to stop. But, Dosh, I gotta say, your content makes me want to play games again. I don't know if that's a goal you have as a content creator, but I feel like it's incredibly special that what you do is actively making me want to have fun again. Thank you, sincerely.
Stargate puzzle felt like CBT for me, going from planet to planet taking a screenshot of the symbols, 10 dimensional anchors and powering the gate with 100GW and don't get me started on the pentakis dodecahedron puzzle.
Thanks for the very impressive base tour (the backdrop to the video) And thanks for this whole trilogy, amazing story. Just makes me less confident that I'll myself finish this anytime soon.. :)
"Put science on different planets and justifty it by saying you need their unique atmosphere or magnetosphere' Now.. why does that sound familiar.... SPACE AGE xD Also... Free sulphiric acid.. huh...
I really like the details you give in your criticism, you could just say vaguely "it's cool but meh sometimes, too much landfill". Sulfuric Acid lakes planet is an amazing idea, it could be a late game planet to shortcut a bit late game builds. Still complex to do late game factories, but easier to reach mid products. I appreciate the effort to offer solutions or ways to improve the gameplay. This video is a necessity for the mod to grow better. Thank you to have taken time to make it
Dyson Sphere Program does something similar to this. They have rare resources scattered throughout the Galaxy and Acid Lakes are a feature. They have other rare resources too which if you can find, you can get access to much simpler and efficient recipes with them (one such material is used to make the final tier of your production buildings). It's not required to beat the game by any stretch, but the more efficient recipes is a great incentive to seek them out. Works pretty nicely in the late game, when you're in full swing with your interplanetary logistics and are probably starting to seriously commit to your first actual Dyson Spheres.
This whole thing inspired me to try and beat SE sort of spoilerlessly, and I'm loving it. Have to hold your vids off until I win so its a speedrun too Thank you for consistent banger Factorio videos!!
I really enjoyed watching you play Space Exploration, at times it looked like an awful lot of fun. I love the way you make your bases look, they're so aesthetically pleasing! I'd love to one day find a couple friends that would want to try and tackle this monster with me!
I tryed to takle it solo for around 150 hours now and i have to say i feel just like you. Figguring everything out by yourself is really hard. Do you have discord by chance? I would love to try it again together with another mind🙂
I watch this while having three planets conquered in "Space Age" (the DLC) I can feel your opinion were recognized a lot, especially the isolated planets and own resource cycles issue.
The rationnal thinking, the interesting challenges, the deep voice, the nerdy attitude while still being mature, everything in your channel makes me want to watch your videos over and over. Thank you very much for the content and the hard work you put into your videos, and I agree with everything you said about Space Exploration because I was annoyed by the same things during my last playthrough (especially about not being able to turn resources into another lacking resource on particular planets).
Thankks for sharing thazt playthrough with us. I could definitely not comapre with your level of skills & patience over this and gave up soon aftter reaching space. Should've read the Caveats more seriously. Very important sidenote : thank you very much for captioning the entier series. I know it's a very large effort to add, and the fact that you still did tells a lot about the great youtuber you seem to be =). Thanks
The "my tone of voice makes me sound five times more negitive than i actually feel". Very relatable and a great point i feel would be easy to miss about myself if i were in your shoes
I really like what Factorio Space Age does for resources on other planets. There are tons of alternative ways to get stuff. Each planet has different ways of obtaining raw materials. Vulcanus has lava, calcite, sulfuric acid and coal. Gleba has farming plants. Fulgora has recycling and heavy oil sands. Space has meteorites.
Pretty succinct summary, nothing I would outright disagree with, I'd love to use a stand-alone satellite view mod if Earendel were to extract it, for other modpacks, just because it's such a nice QoL thing for just changing some combinators on the other side of the map. Where I don't exactly disagree but have a different opinion than you is on the complexity side. While it's not as "technically complex" as A+B, Nullius, IR2 etc., its focus, to me, is more on the big base and logistics aspect for people that don't want to or don't feel ready for the complexity other overhaul mods bring to the table. The combination with K2 adds a little complexity in trade for vastly "stronger" late game buildings and stuff like faster belts, inserters and undergrounds, it also rejiggers the tech tree in some spots. My personal main issue with the mod is that the extra-terrestrial (or is that extra-nauvisial?) production only goes so far where it's feasible (read: dense enough) to mass-transport stuff over to Nauvis for further processing. The author already did a lot for that in 0.6, where local processing is now actually required, as opposed to 0.5 where you'd just shoot everything raw to Nauvis. Over all I've quite enjoyed my 2 playthroughs of the mod (once stand-alone and once with K2 mixed it), which sort of gave me enough confidence in my logistics- and circuit-fu to attempt a pY run I'm also quite enjoying so far.
Considering the Factorio team's approach on the expansion, I feel Space Exploration did a lot of valuable experimenting with "simple" "basic" potentyal concepts, that the factorio team was able to lokk at and learn from.
I agree whole heartedly with the idea of using spaceships earlier. Building the ships was always a fantastic element. And there is no reason you can't build a cargo ship. Really doubling down on custom build spaceships would be a love letter to the mods very intention and play style.
"In Space Exploration fun is optional and very inefficient" -Dosh. Absolutely true. "Fun" seems to be a 4 letter word in the greater factorio community, and I think a lot of people miss that when playing this particular mod. I fully agree with "radical opinion". I'd love for the mod to lean into its unique features, specifically finding abandoned tech, and an alternate start with your crashed ship (instead of it being hidden at the spoiler location) or similar would be a big help. Thanks for the retrospective! I agree with about half of it, personally finding SE to generally be not just peak factorio but peak factory builder. It drags in places, but adds so many features that I can excuse most of it. I hope to see the mod complete its daunting roadmap someday, though I expect Earendel would need a team of people to do that in any timeframe
I played space exploration a while ago. as a simple casual player, I never even got into space. tried a few times, but after the burner stage, I just could not stand to play anymore. that or i get distracted by something else before blue science. but watching the series, it was interesting, but nothing exciting. until the first time seeing the spaceships (not cargo rockets) being built and given orders... that was wonderful. my mind buzzes with ideas for the spaceships, and I want more spaceships. if the mod ever goes in the direction of spaceships, I would be endless pleased.
"Tie certain science packs to certain planets, say you need their atmosphere or magnetosphere" "Centralize space exploration around spaceships" Space Age devs: "Write that down, write that down!"
> scavenging advanced items giving utility and giving you something to look forward to that's actually possible in the vanilla campaign! although almost everyone completely misses it. in the final mission where you are asked to connect 2 outposts by train if you explore up north there's an abandoned base with a lot of goodies but especially the electrical smelters are really cool at that stage of the game.
I just wanna say, I really enjoy your factorio content, I used to watch Nilaus but his is a completely different style. I think ive watched some of your videos twice by now. Would love to see more, there are a few other game overhaul mods you could do if youre bored of base factorio, like Nullius, or there was a new one on the reddit a while ago, Sosciencity, that I've been meaning to start. Eagerly awaiting the next video!
i love the idea of getting stuck in traffic being described as "not the kind of torture that would titilate anyone". you inject a lot of character into the dialogue of your videos that has real personality without beating you over the head with it. hour-long scripted videos aren't quick to make, but you don't cut corners on that, makes a good vibe. good series, lookin forward to whatever will come next
I was sad when the previous video didn't have more overall thoughts so I'm really glad you did this one. You give thoughtful, nuanced feedback on different things and I find opinions of interesting people to be interesting. I know you're just some dude playing games and making videos but you're observations about things and how you deliver ideas is very enjoyable. Also they are kind and self aware. Thank you for the amazing content you make. Currently I'm not able to afford Patreon but #someday you're on the top of that list. I feel terrible asking for / making a suggestion for a video when I don't pay you but I thought a combination of rampant and Krastorio 2 could be interesting because you talked about not needing the new weapons and other things from Krastorio 2. Rampant would change that and maybe force interesting interactions if you had a certain goal of x science per minute. I'm sure you've thought of that already but if not I'd love to see it and maybe you'd enjoy being forced to use more of K2s tools. Realistically, I enjoy your personality you have in your videos and honestly will watch anything you make. Keep up the great work so long as you're enjoying it! Enjoy your holidays if you celebrate any!
Personally, in admittedly only having played part of it (got to space and got some partial version of your temporary space base up), I'd like to see a much heavier shift towards the mass drivers (and I'd also like them to not need a capsule simply because I'm lazy and supplying/manufacturing them is not an interesting challenge- it's something you'd just have to do every time you want to use one) and the cargo rockets I'd actually like to just have removed. Incentivizing asteroid/space mining more would be nice as well. I did really enjoy the dV requirements on the cargo rockets. Another thing: all the byproducts to me are just a waste of my time- make the recipe itself more interesting (as you mentioned, why not use all the inputs/size of the space buildings and have us route a bunch of items into one recipe?) rather than giving me a chance that it spits out some garbage I have to sort out. Of course, as you yourself said, that's just my opinion and what I'd do to bring it closer to my ideal which is most likely not what the mod author's ideal is (though I may hope it to be so). It's an impressive mod with a lot of very cool things that I find to be bogged down by a few uninteresting nuisance mechanics.
I agree about the mass drivers. If you've ever played Mindustry, mass drivers are a ton of fun to screw around with and are central to managing resources late game.
Or make the byproducts optional. If you could toggle machines to only produce their core product but work 20% slower (for example) that would encourage players to build more elaborate processing systems for the most scarce/important resources, but let them skip it (and hopefully stop it feeling like busy work) for less important things.
@@wintermute5974 yeah the byproducts like stone and scrap and such are annoying i just have a void chest mod installed to void them ofcourse i use basic circuit networks to void it after a certain point that way i still have a supply of stone if i need it for something
I am the only person in my friend group that plays factorio and your trilogy was so well done I hope you know there are many people that appreciate all the hours it took you to make it and wish you all the luck in the future
I would absolutely love to see you play nullius, I think it's the most fun I've ever had in factorio. If not, Warptorio2 has been the most transformative mod in terms of gameplay for me, you have to refigure your entire concept of factorio to play that mod.
As someone who is about halfway through the mod right now, I'm definitely feeling some of the same toward the various space sciences. I think my favorite of them was actually impact shielding, which generates ungodly amounts of scrap, which was where I finally thought "alright, I need to have a way of dealing with this, a proper recycling facility". Which was good! It was a new and unique challenge that got me to build something that I had been punting on before that point. Similarly, the feedback loops of biosludge and life science were actually a different and unique challenge. Mostly I wish that the rest of the sciences had challenges like that, and if there are going to be different "tiers" of science, they should offer some new wrinkle to puzzle out rather than attaching inputs and outputs together like I've done dozens of times before. I also generally agree with you on wanting the planets to be more "singular", though I think my approach to them has been a bit different, because I resist shipping anything in and still haven't set up automated cargo rockets. Mostly I've been using the delivery cannons and chests. I guess I'm not sure about the math, but have been only sending finished goods off-planet, which maybe is helping with my enjoyment. I'm now at the point where I'm starting to set up automated spaceships to bring in resources, so maybe that will change my mind. And yes, I haven't really felt the need to explore after setting up the required ~4 planets, which I think might mean that I end up tapping out. Setting up production chains on colonized planets is awesome and IMO the peak fun of this mod, but the only thing I have in the future is naquium and possibly some output expansion on existing planets. It would be cool if I was happy to find planets with unique features, but so far, I haven't seen much in the way of that, just cool ruins.
Great series and great reflection on the mod. I didn't get nearly as far as you, but I also felt like making the science packs was a bit too tedious and repetitive after the first couple are figured out. My completely unearned thoughts about how some of the issues you point to might be improved: - Make automatic space travel more difficult/slow to move large quantities of items so that players are encouraged to build more elaborate bases that supply more material locally. On the other hand keep player space travel the same (or maybe even make it faster/easier) so that ferrying more supplies to new places for a larger initial setup doesn't become punishingly tedious and so people aren't discouraged from engaging with the space exploration part. - Decentralize research. Make it so that data is produced on planets and then transmitted via a special building to your central space base, where it only goes through one or two final processes to be turned into the finished science packs. Transmitting data would be easier than moving physical material, so making as much of it on site as possible would be more appealing and again encourage more complex and independent bases. - Because research is decentralized you don't need to transport nearly as many raw materials to your central base, which should ideally balance out the increased cost of transporting goods. - Ideally you would make each research process more distinctive by introducing challenges that are specific to the environments you're encouraged to conduct them in. - Things you can find while exploring become a lot less exciting late game. Short of incorporating more stuff you find in ruins into science pack production I think making it possible to find top level modules in the most dangerous ruins would be a nice inclusion, since they're so incredibly expensive right until the end. - And my final and completely unresonable idea is that it would be extremely cool if the supercomputers functioned in a more modular way, sort of like inverse reactors. Give them adjacency bonuses at the cost of higher energy and coolant consumption, and make them easier to cool on very cold planets. Anyway, looking forward to whatever you put out next.
I find that you build pretty bases. Even if you might think yourself that you do fabricobble. Im puzzled and fascinated at the same time how much you manage to improvise and do spagetti and it still works and you get away with it. I cant do that. So you just must have a special artist like natural skill in that. I would go crazy trying to be like that. Also I really like and enjoy the random artpieces you put in. They always give me that little playful giggle. And then there is the attention to detail, when you just put in some decorative concrete. I would never go so far. I would feel like not wanting to loose 100h extra to that. Also Im happy that you made theese videos. I quited the mod 2 times. I had like ~5 planets going both times. And now, seeing what kind of "torture" would have come later, Im happy and glad I quited. While I really enjoyed the planet specific things, the space science thematic broke it for me 2 times. But your space rail application was so ... pretty.
Its kinda fun listening to this and then looking at all the FFF''s that has come out about Space Age. Its almost like the guy that made Space Exploration is working on Space Age or something.
Thanks for the feedback and the caveat that it’s in alpha/experimental. People usually assume that the mod is near finished, but really large sections of the mod are in a placeholder state waiting for that section to be overhauled. Fortunately most of the things you dislike are placeholder content. I’ll try to summarise some of the current roadmap.
Most of the real “exploration” content will be added quite late (0.8 or later), because it needs to fit around the activities and capabilities of the player at various points in the game and I want those to be better defined first. Exploration is also content-heavy over systems-heavy, so it is something I can get contributors to help with but the other systems need to be more solid first. For example the ruins, things keep breaking when the mod changes so I really want to have the other systems stable before adding more exploration content. Exploration is also mixed in with some things that will happen with a robot faction. The mod already has a lot of PvP features (like meteor defence shooting enemy delivery cannon projectiles, umbrella vs energy beaming, etc) and the robot faction is intended to give you a way to fight with (or make peace with) an enemy with similar inter-surface capabilities and weapons.
In 0.6 the biggest limitation is the temporary planets system. Currently all planets are one planet type that has a random climate and random resources, there’s nothing really “designed” about their experience beyond processing 1 resource. Version 0.7 has a lot of different planet types and each one will have more intentional gameplay. That’s not just environmental challenges and unique terrain, but also a decided set of available resources that can be used together for a local factory. Where 0.6 has 1 main resource with a linear process + some random (often useless) secondary resources; 0.7 will have a primary resource and some guaranteed secondary ones that are not just used for processing the main resource but also to make local science. (And yes, that literally does include lakes of sulfuric acid for specific planets). Some planet types will have a dedicated building (sometimes replacing a space building) which can only be built there, like a magmaworks, vitamelange arboretum, or an oceanic tower, which will also be needed for the associated science. 0.7 doesn’t have any science tiers (1-4), every science pack is named (asteroid, stellar, radiation, genetic, neural, etc), and half of them require a small base somewhere specific such as an asteroid belt or planet type. This means that roughly 40% of the current space science packs are moving to the ground so when you go to an iridium planet it’s not just a mining base, you’re also doing one of the material science packs there. This general tech structure is already in place, but the exact recipes are still in flux and something I will be trying to get more community feedback on later. There are also things like more toys from bio sciences, jump clones, reasons to go to other star systems, less grind, etc. but that’s a list too long…
this mod is already so damn cool and this roadmap sounds so frikkin exciting, thank you for your hard work boss
Thank you for making such an amazing mod! :D
Ok, this gets me really exited for the future of the mod.
I played 0.5 with a bunch of friends and looking at the changes of 0.6 we didn't really feel like we needed to play it again. Reading your planned changes for 0.7 though, definitely gets me super exited to play again.
This already is imho the BEST mod in existence for the BEST game in existence so thank you so much for your work
Love the mod so far. It drags in places but its already the best overhaul mod for factorio. I hope you have the opportunity to get more people helping with the mod, since I worry there's a decade of development left if you do it all on your own! Cheers.
Your mod is already beyond excellent. This roadmap is just bananas. Props to everyone involved in this gem of a mod. Thank you!
A lot of you wanted my thoughts on the mod as a whole, so here they are. I really did enjoy my time playing it and it's only because it has so much potential yet uncovered or yet unfinished that I got so passionate about it. Space Exploration remains a great mod and I eagerly await what's the come, even if it does mean I might need to revisit it at some point.
Please don't blacklist me Earendel.
Radical
Now that you have played Space Exploration, it's time for Angel's and Bobs
@@arthritis1999 I expected him to play that after krastorio, but I wonder if it's as big of an undertaking as Space Exploration was.
@@arthritis1999 Way easier than SE honestly, would be a vacation, which is probably what he needs
@@arthritis1999 I've heard a lot about the crazy chemistry in Nullius and as thats my profession it interests me a lot to see someone play it
I totally feel the 'hit N to enter satellite mode'. That feeling never goes away.
Interestingly enough I kind of disliked the Nav mode due to how it was implemented. Basically if you pinged a location you always got dropped in to it, which was not great if you literally just wanted to know locations on a map, rather then what exactly was there.
Also I or anyone else never did find a way to reliably quickly exit Nav mode in a single key stroke. Which could make it sometimes a bit more involved to get out of it.
Now in many cases this doesn't matter that much, but in for instance high stakes military operations it turned out a bit of a drag and at times a little dangerous. But I guess in the end you can kind of put it under what the review said, it's a very interesting feature with fantastic abilities to it, but it's got some rough edges that get in the way of smooth playing at times.
@@Quickshot0 Pressing N again makes Nav mode go away in one click
Ah yes, the funny letter
@@Gh3ttoboy You'd think so, you'd think so.
But if you say pressed M before that, because you really needed to know where the ping was as an actual location, then you could be in for a several key press exit scenario. And you'd best not mistake when you're actually out, because else there is a chance for more looping if you say you wanted to use map view for something after nav.
Same, and with the jetpack too. I think I'm just going to keep the jetpack installed for all future overhaul mod runs. Tightly packing my buildings and pipes together is part of the fun for me, so removing getting stuck as a punishment for playing that way ironically raises the challenge cap.
As someone with the inability to form my own opinions I shall take everything in this video as gospel and shall constantly spread it to others about what you say as objective fact. Thank you for enlightenment.
Fits your name a guess
I do that without thinking this may be a problem
Excellent. Don’t forget to excoriate others who may express contradictory views.
my favorite example of this is, i once said i enjoy Click even though it has really shitty adam sandler humor, and someone just linked a big joel video essay on why click sucks and that was their entire response
And don't forget to fight with anybody that has another opinion.
"Late game space exploration is like getting stuck in traffic"
agreed 100%. I'm about 250 hours in, on a group playthrough that's been going on for over a year and a half. there's been a ton of incredible moments in the mod - going to orbit for the first time, designing your own spaceship, arcospheres, and so on. but now we're at the phase where we're just waiting around for the research to slowly tick by since so much naqium is required.
it's been a great ride, but yeah this video really captures all the frustrations we've felt over those 250 hours
Almost the same problem here, except our group save is stuck in the "OK now get to tier four of every science part". It feels like this big pile of recipe after recipe that doesn't really give you anything except a science chip, increasing the load on the bot network (because I do not want to deal with the huge amount of speciality one-off items that would need to be belted to three other random facilities in different chains), and in general just taking
A long time
It amuses me to no end how this entire mod basically ended up becoming a contender for “worlds biggest résumé”
How so, did the person get hired by wube?
@@pepn Yes, and thus Space Age DLC is around the corner
I mean, if the mod developers are looking for feedback from someone, you should be towards the top of that list, you cataloged your whole experience through the whole run step by step, they can just compare that to the experience they were expecting to give people and see where they failed and succeeded, on top of you having played other mods and factorio for so long, big ups to your opinion
It's amazing how accurately dosh predicted the expansion in the part from 6:55 to 7:30.
Space age is exactly that. More isolated planets, science that can only be produced there.
Felt the same, he had a rambeling vision. The prophet had spoken.
and ESPECIALLY at 7:20 when he says that certain things can only be used on certain planets because of the "atmosphere" or something
the sphere organizer was truly something of beauty. I don't know if that's what the devs intend or you are just a genius but I'm too dumb to figure that out. thanks for playing through so I could see what the endgame looks like.
you could do it without circuit conditions using just buffer chests, but that would require about double the number of spheres to make work, maybe more.
is that a malformed kirby's dick in all its glory? O_O
love how incredible the bases ended up looking
look foward to maybe seeing a pyanodon playthrough in a year or fews time once youve recovered
I can definitely agree with the Nauvis point - I really messed up early game in terms of biter management and was actually forced off the planet and never bothered coming back. In essence, I had to figure a way to salvage the game while hiding in orbit. Eventually I chose Calidus' asteroid belt for my entire base, which very quickly fixed the lack of logistical problems. Because I had to deal with things like limited oil from methane, I had to actually take time to plan my moves because there wasn't any fallback (short of reverting to a much older save).
Also, I played with an air filtration mod which could inefficiently convert pollution to light oil/water, and light oil to coal. This was actually quite fun to test because factories would sometimes rely on properly recapturing pollution and dealing with byproducts. Definitely shook things up from the standard "resources in, resources out" style of planetary factories.
I'm amazed it's possible. I got into a similar situation 300 hours in. And looking at all the other planets seems impossible to exist in because of too many lacking resources.
That kind of challenge sounds like it would add a lot to the experience. Assuming it was manageble of course.
That sounds like a game worth playing. You have to leave Nauvis! you have to explore and conqure new worlds.
@@SourceFaNNatic really cool playthrough it sounds like. I want to try this mod before the dlc comes out and I’m curious what mods you used and what difficulty settings you used?
The idea of having cargo rockets come after space ships really resonated with me.
For me messing around with space ship designs was the highlight of SE.
The idea of starting with a broken ship, and repairing it to go to space is such a great starter goal. That would totally encourage exploration as well
I think it would be perfect to get it after chemical science
Aww sweet! Glad to have a fun cap off on this excellent series. Thanks again for all your hard work on this series, it's been very appreciated, and I hope you make a lot more content, whether it's more Factorio or more indie games like Towerclimb.
I would LOVE more indie games. For some reason Dosh gives me this weird nostalgia feeling for games ive never played or even experienced and makes me fall in love with them
Rewatching this after playing Space Age for a bit, it's interesting to see that your request for more isolation in the multi-surface logistics was actually answered
This was a monster of a project that those who appreciate, appreciate deeply.
Thanks for the blood sweat and tears for this content
I'm currently a little over 100 hours into my second SE playthrough (my first one being abandoned around 80 hours), and while I'm not as far in as you are, you've echoed a lot of my feelings thus far.
I... *admire* Space Exploration more than I love it.
It fills a desire that AngelBob couldn't, which is the hunger to see massive eight-lane belts fill up once you turn a factory on. AngelBob had too many little things to build, which led me to gravitate to a cell structure that, while sort of cool, just didn't hit that Big Dispatch Serotonin urge.
I love the scope. I love the planning process of figuring out what I'm going to need on a new planet, carefully assembling all my materials, making sure everything on Nauvis is working without supervision, setting off, and swearing as I learn I forgot something basic.
There's a lot to love, but to bring it back to AngelBob - in AB one of my greatest challenges was figuring out how to utilise or at least divert byproducts. In SE it's disappointingly straightforward.
But the real issue to is the abundance of - well, I'm not sure what term to use exactly, but let's say "single-use intermediaries"
There are so many recipe chains that consist of "combine input A with B to make C, which can only be used to make D, which can only be used to make E, which can..." It's not a problem at first, but after you've made your tenth production chain that is just shepherding one unique resource through half a dozen stages until it produces its one unique output, it really does start to feel like busy work.
I should add that I'm still enjoying my playthrough, and have no intention to stop. This is partially because I have debilitating brain parasites, but this is a Factorio video so I expect I'm in good company. But while I haven't gotten as far as you have, the overridding theme of a lack of interconnectedness absolutely rings true, and I do hope this is addressed in the future.
Still, if it isn't, and in the eventuality that the SE devs see this, I want first and foremost to express my absolute admiration for this mod. I have niggles, and I know that it is the nature of a creative to overly focus on those, but even so this is a truly spectacular construction you have created, and for whatever reservations I may feel I have absolutely nothing but admiration for you. This mod could never see another update ever again, and I would still delight in it.
I felt rather bad about this comment sounding so much more negative than I felt, so for context the moment I hit 'reply' I immediately alt-tabbed back to redesigning my SE cryonite processing array.
Whatever critiques I may have of this mod, it is a gorgeous creation and a genuine achievement, and it is absolutely worth your time. If you love Factorio, you absolutely owe it to yourself to explore this mod and come to your own conclusions - if they're anything like mine, you'll find a wanderlust and a delight at the diversity of challenges that Space Exploration has to offer.
Almost the same problem here, our group save is stuck in the "OK now get to tier four of every science part". It feels like this big pile of recipe after recipe that doesn't really give you anything except a science chip, increasing the load on the bot network (because I do not want to deal with the huge amount of speciality one-off items that would need to be belted to three other random facilities in different chains), and in general just taking
A long time
Yes! As a game-designer and a more middle-ground player sitting somewhere in between purely efficient/logical designs and more aesthetically pleasing design (or in general more "fun" ways to play) I would love to see space exploration also 'explore' the fun parts and cool looking parts a little more. As much as a finished production line is something very cool in itself, making it look amazing is also an achievement and I wish it would also reward a little for that too.
That idea about having the initial crashed ship being one you can repair and fly to other planets sounds amazing. Having a goal staring in your face the whole time, begging you to repair it, would be a big motivator to get through the early game.
“The tone of my voice makes me sound about 10 times as negative as I actually feel” 😂😂😂 lost it hard… don’t lose that tone. It’s gold.
It's incredible that almost every cool feature from SE or SE future roadmap has been implemented in the SA. I wonder what the stable SE is going to look like
Honestly space exploration is one of the best overhaul mods being complicated but not like seablock or pyanadonns
PY is the stuff of my nightmares :D
That radical idea of starting off with a the asteroid spaceship sounds just crazy enough for me to agree with it, I think it'd also give the mod a nomadic feel since you start off in deep space rather than on an actual planet
Watching this a month before the Space Age DLC drops and it’s interesting how many of these issues have been “fixed” in Space Age (and I know, SA is not Space Exploration).
But it is created (in part) by the same guy!
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if this critique inspired some of the concepts in Space Age. Although based on Earendel's reply, much of it was already planned anyway.
Oh my god that last suggestion, yes!
I tried doing an SE run a while back and eventually abandoned it because it took so long to *actually* start doing meaningful exploration of space; by the time I'd unlocked the ability to make rockets I was so bored that I just didn't want to continue.
Starting with a dinged up ship, even if it's the rustiest bucket known to man and god, would've been so much better (imo) because it gives you the concrete 'early' goal of "get my ship fixed" (and also has you actively interacting with the cool bits of the mod a lot earlier) Vs the very vague goal of "get to space".
Anyway, just my 2 cents that was sparked by that comment, I loved the series!
Same, I finally just started to make rocket parts, but then I realized what I was actually getting into and I got unmotivated. I definitely agree that you should have the ability to get to space way earlier on so you will be motivated to complete the mod
It also adds a secondary moment of "hand feeding" everything as you run around to various planets to put it all together. Then you can finally unlock the automated shipping rockets/cannons, giving the player a second moment of that automation rush.
replacing the vanilla spaceship with a modded one you can actually use sounds incredibly good, as well as specialised enviroments like lakes of sulfuric acid you mentioned (which one could take a lot further, lakes of methane, which the mod also has, are already a thing on titan irl and being able to draw gasses or liquids from the atmosphere also lets you be able to create planets with atmospheres full of sulfuric acid like venus, which would also create varrying levels of hazardous enviroments, making for even more unique planets)
You know, now that Space Age is out, I feel like Wube just took SE, trimmed it to be more approachable (not easily 500+ hours in a run), slapped everything in this video onto what was left, and then shipped it.
Not that that's a bad thing. Spage Age fucks. This video just feels like it became an outline of how to do Space Age right.
This is interesting to rewatch after following the expansion devlogs. Sounds like Space Age will be implementing a lot of features which resemble what you've suggested here.
loved watching this playthrough cant wait for the next hard one
This play through made me extremely interested in a Anno 1800 play through from Dosh. I know it goes kinda into a different genre but the logistics challenges in a full free-build session of that game of island to island shipping in early game, continent to continent shipping in mid game and obscene productivity optimisations with "waste" products in late game was what I was reminded of constantly while watching space exploration.
13:24 That was the first time I heard the hint of what I presume to have been your laugh and although you were already likeable it made me enjoy this series even more. Literally best possible finish. What a fun ride it was. Ok bye.
It's funny that many of these ideas ended up making their way into the planned Factorio DLC, created with the help of the original mod author who was hired by the Factorio devs. I think this video has some pretty big importance. Thank you for putting it as its own separate video where it's easy to references, instead of tacking the conclusion onto part 4 of the other series.
7:20 predicted a bunch of DLC mechanics here
Yeah, my thought exactly. SA is kinda easy but i'd take that rather than it being a pain, you can always mod in more difficulty/complexity
You are the most underrated gaming youtuber. Your level of content, the skill you put into the game, the self-suffering you do, makes you worthy of millions of subs. I hope you will reach that soon!
and now..., combine space exploration with krastorio
Are you insane? I want more videos not less.
It’s a good combo but not gonna change the base Space Exploration experience. Mid game is longer, end game gives awesome tools to make life easier.
it would take somethin like 10⁹⁹⁹⁹⁹⁹⁹⁹⁹⁹⁹⁹⁹⁹⁹⁹⁹⁹⁹⁹⁹⁹ 3⁹⁹⁹
edit: years
Physically impossible
doing that, krastorio changes the pre-space game and SE changes the post-space game so its more interesting throughout but also more time consuming
I'm mid-way through the midgame with SE + K2, and I got started before your first video in this series. I like the challenge and all the cool stuff, but honestly it just sucks to actually play. I got unlucky with resources, and have had to spend the last 56 hours or so using core mining as my sole source of materials, as my begining mines have all run dry, and better weapons to clear the behemoths another 56 hours away. Just slowly, ever so slowly, building up a cargo rocket to eventually get to space, so that I can slowly, slowly do research so I can eventually unlock something fun.
Bots being space science as well has just kinda pushed my enjoyment into the negitives, as I'm having to manage all the annoying rescipes without any of the bandaids to make it easier, or at least more palatable. It took toys away and locked them beyond an immense time investment.
Bots arent behind space science, just requestor and active provided chests
@@ivanlagayacrus1891 In otherwords, the part of bots you need to deal with all the annoying funky outputs that don't do much besides be annoying that SE is obsessed with
@@wyrdean_9649 yeah im currently clearing nauvis of biters im 65% done with it since i used railworld settings so biters wont build more bases but ofcourse i have 1 mod that helps me out with that which kinda made allot of stuff obsolete the True Nukes Mod and it has an addon called Warhead Mod
SE is just tedium and un-fun busy work packaged together as one product.
Stuff like Krastorio/IE2/Etc. at least makes and attempt to be enjoyable along the journey. Earendel is opposed to that utterly.
@@wyrdean_9649 you dont have to deal with the funky outputs until after you're in space tho, it just means your first 300 or so space science can be tricky
Entertaining and interesting. Thanks.
You are crazy! But amazing. This is what real community is. General shared fun with room to grow. Being able to enjoy yourself while also noticing flaws and providing down to earth real feedback.
I am now a proud supporter of your highest teir and honesty I would give you more money if I could just to help you make more content for thousands of people to enjoy.
Thanks again!
Love yours vids, the critical thinking you have and the way you express stuff while talking nonstop to engage with viewers mind is really cool
I bought Factorio a long time ago, before I started a family too early and had to sell my gaming PC to take care of them, and I never beat vanilla Factorio even once before I had to stop. But, Dosh, I gotta say, your content makes me want to play games again. I don't know if that's a goal you have as a content creator, but I feel like it's incredibly special that what you do is actively making me want to have fun again. Thank you, sincerely.
You know, with a family you can play games. Factorio is incredibly playable by children, and you can play with them.
The solution is to get the kids into gaming too! Make a multiplayer save for your whole family to play together on :)
Will admit starting in space scavanging between asteroids for metals to repair your ship sounds like an ammazing start, hope you keep making videos
Stargate puzzle felt like CBT for me, going from planet to planet taking a screenshot of the symbols, 10 dimensional anchors and powering the gate with 100GW and don't get me started on the pentakis dodecahedron puzzle.
Thanks for all the hard work on this and all your previous Factorio projects. Its is a blessing that we can vicariously play these mods through you :)
Thanks for the very impressive base tour (the backdrop to the video) And thanks for this whole trilogy, amazing story. Just makes me less confident that I'll myself finish this anytime soon.. :)
The last half second of video signoff makes me happy. Super awesome video, dude. Hope to see more videos!
"Put science on different planets and justifty it by saying you need their unique atmosphere or magnetosphere'
Now.. why does that sound familiar.... SPACE AGE xD
Also... Free sulphiric acid.. huh...
I really like the details you give in your criticism, you could just say vaguely "it's cool but meh sometimes, too much landfill". Sulfuric Acid lakes planet is an amazing idea, it could be a late game planet to shortcut a bit late game builds. Still complex to do late game factories, but easier to reach mid products. I appreciate the effort to offer solutions or ways to improve the gameplay. This video is a necessity for the mod to grow better. Thank you to have taken time to make it
Dyson Sphere Program does something similar to this. They have rare resources scattered throughout the Galaxy and Acid Lakes are a feature. They have other rare resources too which if you can find, you can get access to much simpler and efficient recipes with them (one such material is used to make the final tier of your production buildings). It's not required to beat the game by any stretch, but the more efficient recipes is a great incentive to seek them out. Works pretty nicely in the late game, when you're in full swing with your interplanetary logistics and are probably starting to seriously commit to your first actual Dyson Spheres.
dosh i love you, what an amazing trilogy that you did.
This whole thing inspired me to try and beat SE sort of spoilerlessly, and I'm loving it. Have to hold your vids off until I win so its a speedrun too
Thank you for consistent banger Factorio videos!!
I really enjoyed watching you play Space Exploration, at times it looked like an awful lot of fun. I love the way you make your bases look, they're so aesthetically pleasing!
I'd love to one day find a couple friends that would want to try and tackle this monster with me!
I tryed to takle it solo for around 150 hours now and i have to say i feel just like you. Figguring everything out by yourself is really hard.
Do you have discord by chance? I would love to try it again together with another mind🙂
I am listening to in through the prism of Space Age and it seems like devs just took your advice and ran with it - good stuff
Guy from the future. The mod is now a dlc for the game lol. Well not entirely but I can’t wait to hear what you think of space age.
Redundancy for complications sake. Really glad you finished the series, I found it entertaining.
This is a great review. You make great content. Congrats on your completed playthrough!
I watch this while having three planets conquered in "Space Age" (the DLC) I can feel your opinion were recognized a lot, especially the isolated planets and own resource cycles issue.
The rationnal thinking, the interesting challenges, the deep voice, the nerdy attitude while still being mature, everything in your channel makes me want to watch your videos over and over.
Thank you very much for the content and the hard work you put into your videos, and I agree with everything you said about Space Exploration because I was annoyed by the same things during my last playthrough (especially about not being able to turn resources into another lacking resource on particular planets).
Thankks for sharing thazt playthrough with us. I could definitely not comapre with your level of skills & patience over this and gave up soon aftter reaching space. Should've read the Caveats more seriously.
Very important sidenote : thank you very much for captioning the entier series. I know it's a very large effort to add, and the fact that you still did tells a lot about the great youtuber you seem to be =). Thanks
Thank you for actually finishing the mod, you are one of the few YT who have done that. I wouldn't know how it ended otherwise.
The "my tone of voice makes me sound five times more negitive than i actually feel". Very relatable and a great point i feel would be easy to miss about myself if i were in your shoes
I really like what Factorio Space Age does for resources on other planets. There are tons of alternative ways to get stuff. Each planet has different ways of obtaining raw materials. Vulcanus has lava, calcite, sulfuric acid and coal. Gleba has farming plants. Fulgora has recycling and heavy oil sands. Space has meteorites.
I just wanted to say that your giggle at the end of this video was the highlight and made me think of Ron Swanson as an Engineer.
your thoughts on a completely different start actually sound cool, and could work as a mod for SE
You're so good at giving constructive critisism, being extremely considerate
Watching this after the DLC came out and it addressing all of his issues with space exploration lol
Pretty succinct summary, nothing I would outright disagree with, I'd love to use a stand-alone satellite view mod if Earendel were to extract it, for other modpacks, just because it's such a nice QoL thing for just changing some combinators on the other side of the map.
Where I don't exactly disagree but have a different opinion than you is on the complexity side. While it's not as "technically complex" as A+B, Nullius, IR2 etc., its focus, to me, is more on the big base and logistics aspect for people that don't want to or don't feel ready for the complexity other overhaul mods bring to the table. The combination with K2 adds a little complexity in trade for vastly "stronger" late game buildings and stuff like faster belts, inserters and undergrounds, it also rejiggers the tech tree in some spots.
My personal main issue with the mod is that the extra-terrestrial (or is that extra-nauvisial?) production only goes so far where it's feasible (read: dense enough) to mass-transport stuff over to Nauvis for further processing. The author already did a lot for that in 0.6, where local processing is now actually required, as opposed to 0.5 where you'd just shoot everything raw to Nauvis.
Over all I've quite enjoyed my 2 playthroughs of the mod (once stand-alone and once with K2 mixed it), which sort of gave me enough confidence in my logistics- and circuit-fu to attempt a pY run I'm also quite enjoying so far.
Thanks for the review, I'm only 4 science packs in so far, good to see what is to come.
More ramblings in the future please!
thanks for this cool retrospective, it was super interesting hearing what you'd change at the end.
Considering the Factorio team's approach on the expansion, I feel Space Exploration did a lot of valuable experimenting with "simple" "basic" potentyal concepts, that the factorio team was able to lokk at and learn from.
I agree whole heartedly with the idea of using spaceships earlier. Building the ships was always a fantastic element. And there is no reason you can't build a cargo ship. Really doubling down on custom build spaceships would be a love letter to the mods very intention and play style.
thank you very much for the series ~ I am nowhere near smart enough to even complete vanilla Factorio, so it's a joy to see your videos :)
"In Space Exploration fun is optional and very inefficient" -Dosh. Absolutely true. "Fun" seems to be a 4 letter word in the greater factorio community, and I think a lot of people miss that when playing this particular mod.
I fully agree with "radical opinion". I'd love for the mod to lean into its unique features, specifically finding abandoned tech, and an alternate start with your crashed ship (instead of it being hidden at the spoiler location) or similar would be a big help.
Thanks for the retrospective! I agree with about half of it, personally finding SE to generally be not just peak factorio but peak factory builder. It drags in places, but adds so many features that I can excuse most of it. I hope to see the mod complete its daunting roadmap someday, though I expect Earendel would need a team of people to do that in any timeframe
I played space exploration a while ago. as a simple casual player, I never even got into space. tried a few times, but after the burner stage, I just could not stand to play anymore. that or i get distracted by something else before blue science. but watching the series, it was interesting, but nothing exciting. until the first time seeing the spaceships (not cargo rockets) being built and given orders... that was wonderful. my mind buzzes with ideas for the spaceships, and I want more spaceships. if the mod ever goes in the direction of spaceships, I would be endless pleased.
"Tie certain science packs to certain planets, say you need their atmosphere or magnetosphere" "Centralize space exploration around spaceships"
Space Age devs: "Write that down, write that down!"
Listening to this after space age hits differently
Btw there is a roadmap for this mod and most of your suggestions are already planned.
> scavenging advanced items giving utility and giving you something to look forward to
that's actually possible in the vanilla campaign! although almost everyone completely misses it. in the final mission where you are asked to connect 2 outposts by train if you explore up north there's an abandoned base with a lot of goodies but especially the electrical smelters are really cool at that stage of the game.
man with the amount of expertise you've shown in this playthrough, have you considered taking over Northern rail? just a thought
you're literally my favorite youtuber
I love this mod. It adds more to the factorio. And the idea of space. Though I haven't finished. It's just so fascinating
I just wanna say, I really enjoy your factorio content, I used to watch Nilaus but his is a completely different style. I think ive watched some of your videos twice by now. Would love to see more, there are a few other game overhaul mods you could do if youre bored of base factorio, like Nullius, or there was a new one on the reddit a while ago, Sosciencity, that I've been meaning to start. Eagerly awaiting the next video!
Thanks for the breakdown, enjoy your vids dude
this mod was fun to watch and i commend you and anyone who has had the insane will power to actually finish it, 300 hours to finish a mod is insane
i love the idea of getting stuck in traffic being described as "not the kind of torture that would titilate anyone". you inject a lot of character into the dialogue of your videos that has real personality without beating you over the head with it. hour-long scripted videos aren't quick to make, but you don't cut corners on that, makes a good vibe.
good series, lookin forward to whatever will come next
It's awesome to hear your thoughts on it and it was worth it.
I was sad when the previous video didn't have more overall thoughts so I'm really glad you did this one. You give thoughtful, nuanced feedback on different things and I find opinions of interesting people to be interesting. I know you're just some dude playing games and making videos but you're observations about things and how you deliver ideas is very enjoyable. Also they are kind and self aware. Thank you for the amazing content you make.
Currently I'm not able to afford Patreon but #someday you're on the top of that list. I feel terrible asking for / making a suggestion for a video when I don't pay you but I thought a combination of rampant and Krastorio 2 could be interesting because you talked about not needing the new weapons and other things from Krastorio 2. Rampant would change that and maybe force interesting interactions if you had a certain goal of x science per minute. I'm sure you've thought of that already but if not I'd love to see it and maybe you'd enjoy being forced to use more of K2s tools.
Realistically, I enjoy your personality you have in your videos and honestly will watch anything you make. Keep up the great work so long as you're enjoying it! Enjoy your holidays if you celebrate any!
Personally, in admittedly only having played part of it (got to space and got some partial version of your temporary space base up), I'd like to see a much heavier shift towards the mass drivers (and I'd also like them to not need a capsule simply because I'm lazy and supplying/manufacturing them is not an interesting challenge- it's something you'd just have to do every time you want to use one) and the cargo rockets I'd actually like to just have removed. Incentivizing asteroid/space mining more would be nice as well. I did really enjoy the dV requirements on the cargo rockets. Another thing: all the byproducts to me are just a waste of my time- make the recipe itself more interesting (as you mentioned, why not use all the inputs/size of the space buildings and have us route a bunch of items into one recipe?) rather than giving me a chance that it spits out some garbage I have to sort out. Of course, as you yourself said, that's just my opinion and what I'd do to bring it closer to my ideal which is most likely not what the mod author's ideal is (though I may hope it to be so). It's an impressive mod with a lot of very cool things that I find to be bogged down by a few uninteresting nuisance mechanics.
I agree about the mass drivers. If you've ever played Mindustry, mass drivers are a ton of fun to screw around with and are central to managing resources late game.
Or make the byproducts optional. If you could toggle machines to only produce their core product but work 20% slower (for example) that would encourage players to build more elaborate processing systems for the most scarce/important resources, but let them skip it (and hopefully stop it feeling like busy work) for less important things.
@@wintermute5974 yeah the byproducts like stone and scrap and such are annoying i just have a void chest mod installed to void them ofcourse i use basic circuit networks to void it after a certain point that way i still have a supply of stone if i need it for something
I am the only person in my friend group that plays factorio and your trilogy was so well done I hope you know there are many people that appreciate all the hours it took you to make it and wish you all the luck in the future
Your pain has not been in vain. It was quite entertaining ... I mean the videos.
thanks for the awesome series
I would absolutely love to see you play nullius, I think it's the most fun I've ever had in factorio.
If not, Warptorio2 has been the most transformative mod in terms of gameplay for me, you have to refigure your entire concept of factorio to play that mod.
As someone who is about halfway through the mod right now, I'm definitely feeling some of the same toward the various space sciences. I think my favorite of them was actually impact shielding, which generates ungodly amounts of scrap, which was where I finally thought "alright, I need to have a way of dealing with this, a proper recycling facility". Which was good! It was a new and unique challenge that got me to build something that I had been punting on before that point. Similarly, the feedback loops of biosludge and life science were actually a different and unique challenge. Mostly I wish that the rest of the sciences had challenges like that, and if there are going to be different "tiers" of science, they should offer some new wrinkle to puzzle out rather than attaching inputs and outputs together like I've done dozens of times before.
I also generally agree with you on wanting the planets to be more "singular", though I think my approach to them has been a bit different, because I resist shipping anything in and still haven't set up automated cargo rockets. Mostly I've been using the delivery cannons and chests. I guess I'm not sure about the math, but have been only sending finished goods off-planet, which maybe is helping with my enjoyment. I'm now at the point where I'm starting to set up automated spaceships to bring in resources, so maybe that will change my mind.
And yes, I haven't really felt the need to explore after setting up the required ~4 planets, which I think might mean that I end up tapping out. Setting up production chains on colonized planets is awesome and IMO the peak fun of this mod, but the only thing I have in the future is naquium and possibly some output expansion on existing planets. It would be cool if I was happy to find planets with unique features, but so far, I haven't seen much in the way of that, just cool ruins.
after 80 hours i finally got to space. Looking at your base i think this mod will last me a lifetime.
Shit man, two uploads in one month, spoiling us
Great series and great reflection on the mod.
I didn't get nearly as far as you, but I also felt like making the science packs was a bit too tedious and repetitive after the first couple are figured out. My completely unearned thoughts about how some of the issues you point to might be improved:
- Make automatic space travel more difficult/slow to move large quantities of items so that players are encouraged to build more elaborate bases that supply more material locally. On the other hand keep player space travel the same (or maybe even make it faster/easier) so that ferrying more supplies to new places for a larger initial setup doesn't become punishingly tedious and so people aren't discouraged from engaging with the space exploration part.
- Decentralize research. Make it so that data is produced on planets and then transmitted via a special building to your central space base, where it only goes through one or two final processes to be turned into the finished science packs. Transmitting data would be easier than moving physical material, so making as much of it on site as possible would be more appealing and again encourage more complex and independent bases.
- Because research is decentralized you don't need to transport nearly as many raw materials to your central base, which should ideally balance out the increased cost of transporting goods.
- Ideally you would make each research process more distinctive by introducing challenges that are specific to the environments you're encouraged to conduct them in.
- Things you can find while exploring become a lot less exciting late game. Short of incorporating more stuff you find in ruins into science pack production I think making it possible to find top level modules in the most dangerous ruins would be a nice inclusion, since they're so incredibly expensive right until the end.
- And my final and completely unresonable idea is that it would be extremely cool if the supercomputers functioned in a more modular way, sort of like inverse reactors. Give them adjacency bonuses at the cost of higher energy and coolant consumption, and make them easier to cool on very cold planets.
Anyway, looking forward to whatever you put out next.
I like those ideas but I still have PTSD from automating spaceships 🚀
Otherwise I agree with you
I did find your ramblings interesting, thank you very much :)
Bringing science down to planets is a fantastic idea. I really hope that gets implemented
I find that you build pretty bases. Even if you might think yourself that you do fabricobble. Im puzzled and fascinated at the same time how much you manage to improvise and do spagetti and it still works and you get away with it. I cant do that. So you just must have a special artist like natural skill in that.
I would go crazy trying to be like that.
Also I really like and enjoy the random artpieces you put in. They always give me that little playful giggle. And then there is the attention to detail, when you just put in some decorative concrete. I would never go so far. I would feel like not wanting to loose 100h extra to that.
Also Im happy that you made theese videos. I quited the mod 2 times. I had like ~5 planets going both times. And now, seeing what kind of "torture" would have come later, Im happy and glad I quited.
While I really enjoyed the planet specific things, the space science thematic broke it for me 2 times.
But your space rail application was so ... pretty.
Cant wait to see how you handle space age!
it is hilarious how many of the proposals came to existance in space age
Its kinda fun listening to this and then looking at all the FFF''s that has come out about Space Age.
Its almost like the guy that made Space Exploration is working on Space Age or something.
You're not gonna believe it pal...