Hi again.

I think it would be better if a few assembling machines were added to the starting items (maybe 6), so you don't have to sift for ores or extract seeds manually until you can craft machines that can do it for you. There are already many things that need handcrafting and progress feels very slow for many reasons. Long story short, this seems like an efficient way to speed things up a bit, without removing any of the challenge or making changes to any prototypes of the game.

That's a change I am unlikely to make. The more that's added to the starting items, the more it takes away from the "starting from nothing" feeling. A (short) build-up to automation is part of starting out in Factorio. And a slow start is also kind of part of the game in the original Seablock in Factorio, and most of the various skyblock packs in minecraft that were the original x-block experience before Seablock.

Fair enough! I consider that aesthetic important too, and I have enjoyed playing the Minecraft Skyblock challenge for the same reason.

It just seemed to me that the mod already focuses more on preserving the tech tree and adds a lot of starting items to compensate (rather than unlock essential recipes from the start to make it more closely resemble Skyblock), so it didn't seem like a few more machines would take much away from the "starting from nothing" feeling. And it still wouldn't overcome the initial hurdle of limited land, which seems like the more important challenge of the early game to me.

... But those are just my opinions. Thank you for responding to my suggestion.