First of all, really nice mod idea and very good execution so far. I just wanted to share some feedback from my first playthrough, because I see a lot of potential in this mod.
I might have missed something, but the crafting speed of the space assembling machine seems to match the assembling machine 2, while being cheaper to craft.
It would probably make sense to either reduce the crafting speed of the space assembling machine or remove the assembling machine 2 from research and crafting, since it feels somewhat redundant.
Currently, the research costs feel a bit out of order. Base game research is very cheap compared to Space Age and the mod’s own research.
It would feel nicer if the research costs followed a more linear progression, so the jump between different technology tiers is less abrupt.
- Oxide asteroid reprocessing
After researching oxide asteroid reprocessing, there seems to be little reason to make the spaceship fly around to collect asteroids faster.
You can create a reprocessing loop to generate effectively infinite oxide asteroids and then reprocess them into the other asteroid types. I do like the mechanic itself, but it somewhat removes the purpose of flying the ship to actively farm asteroids.
While setting up production chains for every science pack, I noticed that some of the recipes added by the mod feel unbalanced, especially coal production.
The number of chemical plants and oil refineries felt reasonable, but the amount of crushers needed for advanced carbonic asteroid crushing and advanced oxide asteroid crushing seemed disproportionately high.
For example, for 2 refineries and 5 chemical plants, I needed around 44 crushers. I would suggest reducing the cost of synthetic oil and coal synthesis to around one quarter of the current value.
