I'm about 40 hours in to my first run + Space Age, and have found it to be far easier than expected. Especially compared to Dosh's video. I've got all the optional mods, so I have toxic, fire, armored, etc.. biters, and they're lots of fun, but still easily defended from. The biggest most recent challenge has been pirate ships with laser turrets - which were lethal until I got one quality laser turret up to out-range them.

Only now, did I discover the mod actually has a difficulty setting, that goes from 1-5. Does anyone know what level Dosh played at, did he crank it to 5?

I skimmed the mod source, and have found many places where difficulty scales up with this setting, and at least one where it appears that some fun things don't happen if the difficulty is at least 2 or 3 (flying saucers?). And it seems to increase the frequency of boss biters, and all the other fun events that are only occasionally happening to me.

Can I crank the difficulty to 5 mid game? (I already put a nuclear reactor on floor 2, have bots, and have laser turrets). I don't know if I will feel satisfied knowing I only beat it on 1 out of 5. Or should I start over on 5?

I'm mostly miffed at myself that I missed that setting, and have been playing easy mode so far?

the default is diff 1... I dont know how difficult Dosh played, but you can change that number mid game if you wish...

Probably 1, because when the difficulty is higher than 1, the Repair warp drive material requires 7 types, if MFerrari hasn't changed this.

Changing the diff to 5 made a big difference. A very BIG difference. I liked it. It went from trivial, to planet after planet where I barely made it off by the skin of my teeth. On nice, friendly planets I'd set up mining, and some lumbering thug would simply walk by, eat the ore, and move on. I ended up on a zombie planet which was seriously taxing my ammo production (I had not either the technology, nor the power, for laser turrets), when suddenly a pirate invasion! The pirates landed, and, oh god, the horror... Those poor pirates... overrun by zombies from all directions, they never stood a chance!. (But they provided a distraction that allowed me to warp the hell out of there).

I thought I was stopped through when I had to find the first quantum thingy in a pirate base. A pirate base, defended by a dozen EMP turrets, which could outrange anything I had in my arsenal, and not only blew up each laser turret I tried to build, but then arced and blew up every power pole in the area, setting me farther back. I managed to craft up some epic armor and energy shields so I could charge the beam, but the beam had knockback, and I didn't make any progress. I could make forward progress in a fully epic tank, but not far enough to do any damage before it exploded, and the EMP's booted me around like a ping pong ball. Eventually I timed out, and failed. And I plotted, an I schemed, and I returned...

I returned with 100,000 construction bots, and 500,000 epic landmines. I charged in with the tank, as a diversion. I charged in with my armor, as a diversion. While the sky rained landmines, and construction bots exploded by the thousands. (Very few dropped their payload, and I don't think any made it back). But every wave, a little more damage, then a little more. And I realized I had it backwards.... I could send in the bots as the distraction, and charge in with a rocket launcher and do a little damage before an EMP booted me out. Finally, victory was mine.

Above all else, it WAS FUN!!!!!

Now, well, now I have quality EMP turrets, and artillery. On the last warp item planet, I just landed, let the artillery off the leash, and walked over to clean up the mess.

Still fun! There's a little green button, it turns on the warning lights, activates the artillery, and unleashes the hounds!