Just finished the 9th mission and got to "Mission 10" this morning, and wanted to leave my thoughts for future updates, if you want them. I have complaints, nitpicks, and praises. For the record, I played on Normal difficulty and have done several playthroughs of the game that got me to megabases launching dozens of rockets, so I'd consider myself fairly experienced but not an expert.
To begin with complaints, the major two I have concern research and enemy bases. Being set back to square one in most every mission is a major drag, and I mean that literally, it just drags the gameplay out. I understand not retaining our tech tree 100%, but needing to research basic things like red belts, fast inserters, armor-piercing ammo, etc, is a pain in later missions where speed and efficiency are crucial. It's also odd that sometimes you unlock advanced tech for us, but we still need to research the stuff needed to support it. An example fresh in my mind is Mission 9, you begin with Artillery researched and can build shells, but we have no means to build Explosive Tank Shells necessary to make Artillery Shells, nor did I find a facility anywhere on the map that I could secure to make them for me. So what's the point then?
On the enemy front, biter bases are often TOO BIG. Some of the enemy infestations would be impossible to take down in a normal game without Artillery. I'm talking nests that fill multiple screens. I understand that such a daunting enemy presence can (and probably is) used as a deterrent to keep the player from going places they shouldn't, but other times that clearly was not the case.
https://imgur.com/a/VOtDzgP
On to my praises - overall, this mission pack gave me exactly what I wanted from a mission pack: new and creative challenges that made me rethink ways to design my factory and use my tech to overcome them. The enemy base layout is excellent with regards to the positioning of defenses and structures, making me look for weak points to strike at. For the first time I actually had to pay attention to the range of the different types of weapons and take that into account when looking at the enemy's defenses. All the weapon types felt like they had a use and each base felt like a real base that was in operation, and the strategic option of being able to only disable the base to hijack some of it for my own use was a factor to consider too.
I also love that you reward exploration by putting caches of goods around the map. I loved the exploration in the demo and downloaded the ruins mod, so going out to explore and stumbling on a cache of science packs or the like got me excited and thinking about how to best put them to use in my factory. For the same reason, starting us out with a handful of advanced items and making us decide how to put them to use was also fun. I remember in the train hijacking mission, I had to carefully decide what to use my uranium rounds and rockets on because I knew I wouldn't be getting more for a long time.
For individual missions, they're very well done, each one feels unique in the type of tech emphasized and the kind of base you're either routed into making or are given to begin with. Again, I found myself rethinking factory designs a lot and figuring out how to route things, etc. There were also interesting mechanics like having to scrounge supplies to bring back to base, or hijacking the pirate trains.
Now, on to my nitpicks. I emphasize these are nitpicks, they didn't ruin the experience for me but they did get an annoyed murmur:
- There were typos here and there, nothing so bad I couldn't understand what was being said but it was noticeable. I assume from the translation credits that English may not be your first language, so it's understandable, but I'd have whomever is translating for you give things another look.
- The enemy bases are inconsistent with how they interact with yours; sometimes belts won't connect to each other or inserters won't recognize belts they can put stuff on, other times they do. I'm not sure if this is an oversight on the design part or a limitation of the engine, either way it was bothersome.
- In most missions I was able to find the pirate bases and invade and destroy them before the objectives concerning them popped up. Admittedly not much you could do about that aside from make the bases invincible, but I'm pointing it out in case you want to change that.
- Mission 7 is not as resource-taxing as I think you intended. I never expanded or changed my train routes, I secured the small island with copper and iron early on (appropriately titled my station "Resource Island"), and between that and the first mines secured, I never needed to use any others.
- Mission 8, the distance between bases is too long. I get it's long so we can't just go between bases getting stuff, but several minutes of real time just walking past enemies with the Spidertron was boring. And then it got annoying when the bases I left behind got attacked and I had no possible way to respond in time. Admittedly I ought to have left better defenses in place, but still.
- Mission 9, at some point I found a few nuclear missiles around the map. IMHO, this was a mistake, because I used them to blow up the southern entrance to the pirate base (where they send their artillery trains out) and from there could shut the base down by carefully moving around the Spidertrons to destroy key infrastructure. For that matter, the enemy Spidertrons with nukes, you can use capsule spawns to bait them into nuking themselves. Whoops.
- What REALLY broke Mission 9, though, is when I secured the outpost just outside their base where their artillery trains run by. By placing structures over their ghosts, the enemy bots couldn't replace the lost turrets and mines, so I could occupy the base unopposed. That became a problem when their logistic bots kept delivery artillery shells to the chest in the base, which an inserter removed and let me take. I left several steel crates there and ended up getting hundreds of free artillery shells from the enemy. (screenshot for fun - https://i.imgur.com/65DG0ot.jpg) Then I found the extra artillery turrets and remote around the map, and in tandem with the nukes I found, the base cracked wide open.
- Then I blew up their nuclear reactors and de-powered most of the base, and in tandem with the destruction of supply logistic chests, the the pirates were permanently sunk. By the time the objective came to destroy their rocket silo, I had looted their base of everything of value, even their science labs. The only thing keeping me from taking total control of their base was the Spidertrons, and with shield modules in my armor I could have just baited them into attacking until they ran out of rockets. Again, don't know if this is intended to be possible on your part, and I don't deny it was fun and challenging, but yeah, it was a thing.
- The artillery wagons were a nice thought, but pretty much the moment I went near them, some biters came after me, saw them, and destroyed them.
Final note - Mission 9 recreating the game trailer was excellent, it got me hyped because it was so cool to see the base recreated, the trailer beats redone, and now it's mine to control. The only thing missing was Spidertron in the corner (and I was actually afraid of a pirate Spidertron attacking at some point for that reason). When they nuked my rocket silo and most of my base with it, my jaw dropped. I did not see that coming, and while I was initially upset, in hindsight it was a great twist to the story and gameplay, I had to rebuild my infrastructure and research stuff I had taken for granted since it was pre-placed, and there was no pressure from enemy attacks while I did so. A great finale all-around, and with the ending, I think the mission chain could end there, I can see Mission 10 being a trip to find the wreckage of the ship crash and that leads into "normal" gameplay with the Engineer salvaging a handful of stuff from the ship and building a new base by themselves, alone and stranded.
So all in all, fantastic work with this mod. I had my issues with it as told above, but they were still fun and had great design, I got weeks of playtime out of it and may replay it sometime.
