Hi there.

I found this mod in the recently updated list. 1-2 years ago I played Space Exploration but I added this mod:
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/SENoMoreRocketMan
its idea is the same, but it seems it tried to do a bit more than your mod. I just wanted to mention that mod, might give you an idea for what else you can do with this mod. if I ever play 1.1 Space Exploration again I'd be sure to add that mod again, or this mod.
Spaceships were so much more fun to do than simply fire rocket everywhere. Rockets were basically expensive teleportation instead of actual space gameplay.

Ah I remember seeing that one too. I'll see what else I can do. Thanks for the suggestion!

I'm not interested in removing cargo rockets. And I do want to see if I can do something to make spaceship fuel costs lower.

Not sure about the Capsule changes though. I feel that could also be a different mod. Not sure, never played with it before.

The mod author of that mod forced you to use ships by removing the other methods, but balanced costs accordingly.
complete removal of other options is not needed at all in my opinion. But could be made an optional setting I guess.

Back then I unlocked capsule shooting before I added the mod, so I could still use it after installing that mod. It was nice to have and using both but not the rockets. Capsules still could only transport a few selected items and in low quantities, while spaceships were the true cargo transport. It was an interesting mix.
To allow spaceships to be actually sustainable at that much earlier point in game than originally intended the cost probably needed to be adjusted. Spaceships were so much later that the fuel costs were a no-brainer at the point were you actually unlock it, but using spaceships right away probably strains the limited supply of the earlier base too much. Also you were locked at the lowest ship size for quite a while as well and had to operate multiple ships because of that. the next ship size research was still where it was in the techtree if I remember correctly.

I saw today that SE got some update and should now work with 2.0 officially. How is the progress of this mod and compatibility with that new version? are you still working on this?

• I'm not planning on removing any other logistic options like cargo rockets, etc. But only want spaceships to be a valid early alternative.
• It should still work fine with the portal release.
• The first integrity unlock is made earlier already. I want to still move this even earlier in the tech tree so that you have it after reaching space for the first time. And move the other integrity techs earlier too.
• Still haven't done much for K2 compat
• Fuel costs is a hard one because it's hardcoded in SE itself. I'm a SE dev, and now that it's released I plan on adding some options so that I can tweak it. So until that's in place this mod won't do anything. Currently in my playthrough I just divide the launch energy by 3 like in the Rocket Man mod.

thanks for the quick reply. Looks good.
I remember that the other mod I mentioned in the original post above needed some manual changes in the file as well.

I'm looking forward to use this mod whenever I decide to give SE another go.

Hey String do you happen to know if there's a mod to add a travel delay to cargo rockets? Is this something that you are thinking of implementing?
I'm starting a playthrough with a new group for the 2.0 update and it always erked me how OP cargo rockets were vs spaceships (You unlocked spaceships so late in the game too which this mod fixes because by the time you had spaceships you always had a instant traveling cargo rocket system set up).
The downside in my opinion should be a long travel time for Cargo Rockets because it would be felt when sending them across a bigger distance and you wouldn't be able to make it faster vs making your spaceship faster.

Optional: If you feel like adding an interesting dynamic for cargo rockets maybe give people the ability to fill the cargo rockets more fuel to travel faster so it would be a "do I want to spend the usual amount with the wait time of like 10-20 min or do I want to use a lot more fuel to make sure it arrives there faster) sort of thing.

Thank you!

Anything not related to spaceships is out of scope for this mod. But as far as I know there are changes planned to cargo rockets for the SE 0.8 update.

do you plan any further changes to improve spaceship-only gameplay?
There is tech for space only ships, is that and its fuel unlocked earlier as well? if so, what about the space elevator tech to allow using space-only spaceships designs at the same time as space-only ships?
I'm not sure, its been a few years, isnt the derelict spaceship you can find ingame space-only and cant launch from planets?

I will see if I can move the Ion and Antimatter Engines earlier, but it depends on when those fluids are manufacturable.

And yes, there is an old spaceship you can find. It can launch from planets though. It has Rocket Boosters on board allowing you to launch from planets.

Published an update that moves the integrity and ion engine techs earlier. So you can build bigger spaceships faster.