Good evening. Last month I was watching Dosh's Teleglitch video when I noticed him mentioning this mod, specifically, as his next video. I've never shied away from difficult games and I was intrigued as to what this had in store, seeing as how it caught the eye of one of the more prolific Factorio content creators, so I wanted to give it a go before his video dropped. The only reason I decided to go the permadeath route is because games like these have no inherent lose condition, but boy was I wrong. I will touch back on this later.
To start things off, I would like to dissuade anyone from thinking that this is anything like Warptorio. While the concepts are the same, their implementation and gameplay ramifications branch out in entirely opposite directions. And for good reason. This is, if I'm allowed to be reductive, Red Alert with no win condition. And I don't make the comparison derisively or in bad faith. The mod creator managed to capture the grueling aspect of a proper tower defense to a T and then some, given the player is willing to invest willpower into it. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, but, unfortunately, it's painted crimson.
There is always a cost assessment to be made when engaging with nigh immutable odds. Do I want to bash my head against the wall knowing it WILL break? Do I know when it will break? Given Factorio's predisposition for mathematical analysis, the player does know from the very start that the wall will break eventually. What is obscured from view is the mind numbing repetitiveness akin to picking at it with an axe until cracks start to show. Except, the player might crack beforehand.
But enough platitudes, what do I mean by this? You start the game as usual, you hand-mine and hand-feed for the first 10 minutes. Then you warp to another planet. Then you you hand-mine and hand-feed for the next 10 minutes. Then you warp to another planet. Then you you hand-mine and hand-feed for the next 20 minutes, given the research. Then you warp to another planet. Then you you hand-mine and hand-feed for the next 30 minutes, given the research. You see where I'm going with this. And it wouldn't be a problem if this early game loop lasted 2 maybe 3 hours. I got out of it on my third save, as efficiently as I could, at the 15th hour mark. And seeing as how I lost my first save to the exploding fish after 36 hours, at this point, I'd like to believe that there is no faster way to achieve Blue Science. But I hope I'm wrong. But I'm not. It's part of the loop, and it drags on for FAR too long. Some of the quality of life technologies that require blue science should come in hand earlier because once you get to bots, they invalidate EVERYTHING this mod has to offer.
But that's par for the course. Bots op, gg no re. And all that jazz. However, I feel compelled to remind you that this mod walks a thin line between granting too much power, and too little of it. And while I started it while the early convenience factor was low, it seems to be getting with updates. But I would like to dive deeper into this.
TEDIUM=/=DIFFICULTY. Many developers make the mistake that inconveniencing the player as much as possible equates to difficulty. And while it would be very easy to ascribe such precepts to ignorance, I offer different viewpoint: complacence. Not malicious, per se, but this is free at the end of the day. Nobody's paying anyone on this portal to make a state of art mod with actual literary professionals, ala FTL: Multiverse(highly recommend). It is a passion project and mishaps happen. So, if you'll indulge me, I would like to go into detail in regards to the mod's shortcomings, before offering some run-of-the-mill solutions and telling you that I actually enjoyed it.
As previously mentioned, the early game drags on for way too long. While the spaceship tiles are interesting, them costing more than 5 science packs at once is egregious. Either lower the cost or add a flat 10% productivity for building on non-green tiles to make it worth the players' time. Otherwise, it just feels bad.
Secondly, quality of life is locked on the same layer as bots. Nothing outside of Warptorio's global productivity beacon will ever come close to just having bots. And that one was so ridiculous that it got gutted in the mod's second iteration. The insured platforms must come sooner and the resource sucker should be a Red science technology. And on that front, it needs a buff. A level 4 resource sucker costs 24MW of power. At that stage, you do not have the space or capacity to produce that much for one building alone. My suggestion would be to either TELL the player what the Sucker will cost upon upgrade or halve its speed and increase it with every upgrade. I remember getting it to level 4 only to realize that warping a SINGLE patch of coal would cost more power than 3 patches of coal could produce. That is insane.
Power towers and warp chests: They are a nice addition, one that is very easily broken with a little thought and some circuitry. In my Space Age playthrough I didn't need more than Lvl2 Warp Chest and Lvl3 Spaceship Warp chest. The rest were research padding.
Nuclear or Fulgora: The de-facto win condition of this mod. Once you can get nuclear set-up OR get to Fulgora, the game transitions into Factorio™. I foresaw this on my first playthrough, and I know this on my third. Fact of the matter is, once the player can control the clock, the mod ends, and the normal game begins. And maybe that's intentional, maybe you're supposed to move all your research on Fulgora and deconstruct the whole ship. I wouldn't know. But what I do know is that there are so many useless techs in the mod, that I, as a player, CRAVED the day I could finally step off of it and not look back.
As for the end game, it's not something extraordinary, even with space age. 178 Artillery turrets did the job in less than a femtosecond. And that was that. The "hacking the terminal" wait felt inconsequential. When the victory screen popped up, I felt empty. The challange ended as soon as the pain stopped. And that is what I hated the most about this mod. That it capitalized on relief as a reward, instead of offering anything in exchange. It gaslit me into thinking Sudoku was a breakthrough. And I played Seablock. I FINISHED Seablock. And I didn't feel this kind of pain there.
Overall, 10/10, would recommend if you're into CBT.
