Space Exploration - No More Rocket Man

Summary

Alter the Space Exploration mod to make spaceships cheaper and available sooner, plus other changes to encourage using spaceships and transport capsules for interplanetary transport instead of cargo rockets and delivery canons.

Changes

Spaceships become available soon after reaching Nauvis orbit, and their launch costs are reduced making them a viable transport option from the start of the space age. Transport capsules are still for at least the first trip to Nauvis orbit.

For balance, and to further encourage use of spaceships, cargo rockets and delivery capsules are removed. I find spaceships are the most fun way of setting up interplanetary transport networks and dislike the way cargo rockets and delivery capsules instantly teleport between surfaces, which loses the sense of scale that the Space Exploration mod excels at.

The mod also has options to make logistics, space trains and elevators and life support capsule canisters available earlier than usual.

Manual changes

Some changes are not made automatically and require manual edits to the Space Exploration mod code. They help to compensate for loss of cargo rockets.

Setup

First, find the Space Exploration mod .zip file.
On Linux this will be mods underneath the directory where the game files were unpacked to.

Unzip the original mod using the command line unzip <filename> or by using Windows Explorer.

Reduce fuel cost and eliminate cargo rocket section cost for launching personal transport capsules

Edit scripts/capsule.lua (around line 316) and change:

return total_fuel_cost, sections_cost

to:

return math.min(total_fuel_cost/10, 10000000000), 0

Enable larger cargo capacity for transport capsules

Find scripts/capsule.lua and change the line (around line 16) from:

Capsule.max_stacks = 200

to:

Capsule.max_stacks = 2000

Remove the display of rocket sections and cargo limits from the capsule GUI

Edit scripts/capsule-gui.lua and find the following lines around 85:

-- Capacity
local property_flow = subheader_frame.add{type="flow", direction="horizontal"}

Change to:

-- Capacity
local property_flow = subheader_frame.add{type="flow", direction="horizontal", visible=false}

And change around line 91:

-- First stage
property_flow = subheader_frame.add{type="flow", direction="horizontal"}

to:

-- First stage
property_flow = subheader_frame.add{type="flow", direction="horizontal", visible=false}

Reduce launch costs for spaceships

Edit scripts/spaceship.lua around line 412 at the end of function Spaceship.get_launch_energy_cost() from:

return energy_cost

to:

return energy_cost / 3

Finishing up

You can run the game directly from the unzipped source files - the directory of individual files will take precedent over the original .zip file. Or if you prefer, re-compress the changed files and delete the directory of individual files.