This post got very long so here is a summary if you do not care about my reasoning.
I acknowledge that I have no right to say what direction the mod should go in, but I see the potential and I really want it to succeed, so I wanted to share my thoughts. Most things I felt tedious when playing would be fixed by (in this order of importance):
1. lowering building costs (almost all building costs)
2. removing/lowering production requirement for green science
3. increasing metal cooling timer
4. give out factor intermediate recipes slower.
Any updates on how the development is going? I currently have 40 hours on a playthrough of this "unbalanced" version and I am loving it! This mod is exactly how I imagined the perfect overhaul mod after my first playthrough of space age DLC. Adding just a few destinations but more importantly making use of the new gameplay features in much more complicated recipes.
I play quite slow and a lot of my time has been browsing the tech tree, only just got blue science automated. I will cover a few things I think is in most need of consideration. These apply for the beginning of the game, untill done with green science.
Smaller points:
Buildings feel very expensive in the early game. Getting the first automations for intermediates takes a lot of buildings that require those intermedietes. Right now it felt like I had to spend a lot of time semi-automating or handcrafting just to be able to build at the scale that science requires/to get initial productions up.
Heating metals is cool but does not change much more than making builds look more clunky. A fix would be to increase the time from 5 min. I think 20min cooling and 1h for rust instead of 5 and 20. With 5 min I felt it was impossible to design around them being hot and ended up putting a furnace in front of every building instead. Which works perfectly as long as you have a trash belt for ash, which there should already be regardless because of rust and moving away cold metals. In other words: When I first heard heating metals it sounded amazing. When playing, it felt a bit weird. When I first heard rust it sounded amazing. When playing it feels amazing. The difference currently is rust can be handled with a designated de-rust place in the base, while with heating, the time is so short that this feels impractical and instead the designs become clunky with furnaces and coal belts running through them.
More bigger gameplay thoughts I have:
Factor intermediates are awesome. I really like how they allow the player to choose what recipes makes the most sense for their factory at their point in the game. I can also see how they will help when starting complex productions on new planets since it is the same products with different recipe chains. However, as they are included now, they are in my opinion overwhelming in the early game. I think you should lean into science unlocking new recipes, kind of like right now when going from wood stuff to oil stuff for rubber wire and fitting. Starting with 1 to max 2 recipies per intermediate then adding 1-2 per science pack where it makes sense would be easier to grasp than imedietally choosing between 4-5 recipes per product.
Unlocking new science packs through production speed: I don't like it. I think that it restricts the ways you can play the game. I really like how the science requirements scale into the later game. This soft forces the player to up production without actually forcing the player into a specific scale. Which is in my opinion a much better way to incentivice the player into building big, compared to a hard capped unlock by production.
After playing through a lot of the early game, this is a progression I would have really liked for a smoother learning curve during the playthrough:
These are all different "bases":
- Quick burner phase and red science build.
Purpose: Start with very few intermediates. This phase teaches the player which intermediates go into which buildings. What to prioritize scaling up moving forward.
Unlocks: New factor intermediate recipies and automated power (just like now)
- Build a small green science build. Should mot need more than 1/2 to 1 furnace stack per material depending on how many of the other intermediates the player wants to automate in combination with starter green.
Purpose: This is the main "tutorial" to the mod. Give the player a chance of prototyping ways of handling biproducts, heating metals, rust, power and more at a medium to small scale. You should be allowed to build big here but I think it is even more important to be able to build small here. I think a good reference is that it should be just hard enough that burners and hand feeding chests wont be enough, so that proper furnace stacks and powerplants are created. With 1 of each furnace stacks (with well managed biproducts) and reliable power the rest of the production should be quick to set up. (Balance full science build and some extra intermedietes from 1 of each furnace stack and some wood)
Unlocks: Oil and recipes that for the most part are good enough to complete Nauvis 1.0
- First proper base, should last at least to bots, but if built in an expandable way should be possible to continue into some rocket launches: Nauvis 1.0.
4-5-6-7... I think your plan of Nauvis 1.0 into inner planets then Nauvis 2.0 then aquilo and so on sounds very fun but I have not playtested that far yet.
The reasoning behind my progression model is because THIS MOD IS HARD. Making big designs is time consuming and very punishing when you haven't yet figured out a good way to deal with things like biproducts, rust and metal heating.
