Hi, I’d like to report a potential balance issue regarding the Rocket Assembly recipe in Exotic Space Industries (version 1.2.19).

In the current version, the Rocket Assembly recipe requires 20 Rocket Fuel per craft. However, in order to launch one rocket, you need to run the Rocket Assembly 100 times. That means each rocket launch consumes:

20 × 100 = 2,000 Rocket Fuel

Each Rocket Fuel requires 10 Solid Fuel → total: 20,000 Solid Fuel

Each Solid Fuel requires 10 Light Oil → total: 200,000 Light Oil (200K)

This seems excessively high for a single rocket launch, especially when compared to vanilla Factorio, where only 1 Rocket Fuel is required per launch.

I believe a more balanced value would be 1 Rocket Fuel per Rocket Assembly, resulting in 100 Rocket Fuel per rocket, which is more in line with the vanilla cost and overall gameplay progression.

Is this amount intentional, or could it be adjusted for better balance?

Thank you for this amazing mod and for your continued support!

First and foremost—Vanilla is easy.

The intention is for individual rocket launches to be significantly more meaningful hence assembly requiring RCUs and large amounts of fuel while the capacity has been increased to 5 stacks of any item.

That said productivity is allowed for most manipulations of oil, rocket parts, rocket fuel, and rocket assembly.

Additionally the High energy rocket fuel technology brings the cost down to 500 High energy rocket fuel (2 Rocket fuel + 15 Oxygen difluoride /ea) which cuts the cost to 1000.

In another thread there is an admonishment that the rocket stack size is "way too generous".

Ultimately there are many friction points in Remembrance meant to be overcome with scaling up well beyond the point of Vanilla bases.

Open to alternative recipe concepts—however trivialization will be avoided.

First of all, thank you very much for your incredible work on ESI.
I'm a huge fan of the mod and have been truly impressed by how much depth and polish you've brought into the Factorio 2.0 ecosystem. The attention to detail and thoughtful balance changes are very much appreciated.

Regarding the rocket system, I understand the intention behind increasing the fuel cost and payload capacity per launch. It makes each launch more meaningful, and I can see how it fits with the larger design of Remembrance.

I remember you once mentioned that determining item weights for rockets was tricky, and that the game doesn't expose those values directly. I was wondering if allowing all items to be launched in 5-stack quantities was a workaround based on that limitation.

As someone who really enjoys the mod, I just wanted to share a small thought:
If it ever becomes technically feasible, adjusting payload capacity on a per-item basis might allow for finer-grained balance. For example, lighter items could require less fuel, while still keeping heavier ones demanding.

Of course, I completely understand the need to avoid trivializing the system—and I'm sure it's already incredibly complex under the hood. I just wanted to offer this idea as a possible future consideration, only if it aligns with your vision and priorities.

Thanks again for all your hard work. I really look forward to seeing how ESI continues to evolve!

A workaround—or adhering to the pareto principle.

Weights which aren't explicitly set (all EI items) are determined by Factorio internally.

Setting a weight for each individual item isn't something time wants to sink itself into as yet.

The required fuel per assembly isn't modifiable at runtime, so the closest mechanic to this conception of less fuel for certain items would be varying allowed stacks in the rocket.

A workaround—or adhering to the pareto principle.

Weights which aren't explicitly set (all EI items) are determined by Factorio internally.

Setting a weight for each individual item isn't something time wants to sink itself into as yet.

The required fuel per assembly isn't modifiable at runtime, so the closest mechanic to this conception of less fuel for certain items would be varying allowed stacks in the rocket.

To start you need 50 crafts + productivity modules! Everything is fine.

50 Crafts was bug. 100 Parts is intended. Fixed in 1.2.20.

Productivity was removed from silo, however—

Assembler modules
Liquid nitrogen cooled beacons
Productivity tech

Still grant productivity bonus to Rocket parts.