Hello FragJacker, and thank you for this mod!
I am currently playing through a big space age playthrough with a lot of extra planets, including Moshine. On Moshine I'm able to get Space Trains, as this is a dependency of the Moshine planet mod.
But quality trains were just announced today for the regular trains in space age, and it got me thinking: SE Space Trains might need a tweek to keep up.
Some comparisons:
Acceleration:
600 kW: locomotive
4.0 MW: maglev locomotive
90% better: nuclear fuel, legendary vs normal
250% better: maglev battery, legendary vs normal
2.85 MW: acceleration of normal locomotive with legendary nuclear fuel
14 MW: acceleration of normal maglev locomotive with legendary maglev battery
Factorio 2.1 will add quality scaling to locomotive acceleration, which will increase that 2.85 MW acceleration figure with legendary locomotives. Space Trains will likely still accelerate faster, which is good given that space trains are harder to get.
There is one issue to consider, though: it is significantly easier to produce legendary nuclear fuel than legendary maglev batteries, as maglev batteries require Fulgoran ingredients like holmium, and must constantly be refurbished with legendary batteries (within the Moshine planet mod; I'm not sure what the recipe is when playing Space Exploration).
Top Speed:
259 km/h: locomotive
518 km/h: maglev locomotive
20% better: nuclear fuel, legendary vs normal
75% better: maglev battery, legendary vs normal
356 km/h: top speed of normal locomotive with legendary nuclear fuel maglev battery
907 km/h: top speed of normal maglev locomotive with legendary maglev battery
For top speed figures, Factorio 2.1 will make locomotives have a higher top speed with quality, bringing maglev locomotives and regular locomotives closer to parity.
Perhaps you could consider adding quality scaling to the top speed and acceleration of maglev locomotives. It would somewhat solve both of the above issues and keep space trains meaningfully ahead of regular trains, which I think is a good thing given how much more complex space trains are.
Another tweak that could help keep space trains ahead: reducing the cost to make maglev batteries, or at least reducing the cost to refurbish them (perhaps reducing the % chance of a battery breaking), especially for legendary quality batteries.
With Factorio 2.1 removing space casinos for legendary items, building and maintaining legendary equipment is about to get a lot harder.
Onto wagon cargo:
Cargo Capacity:
100 stacks: legendary cargo wagon
125 stacks: legendary maglev cargo wagon
125k fluid: legendary fluid wagon
150k fluid: legendary maglev fluid wagon
Honestly, the cargo capacity of the wagons feels much more important to me than acceleration or top speed figures, especially in the endgame. With legendary wagons about to become much closer to legendary maglev cargo wagons, there won't be much of an incentive to use maglev trains unless the surface requires them. This is primarily due to the additional legendary ingredients costs of making maglev trains, making maglev batteries, and refurbishing maglev batteries.
Perhaps the cargo capacity of maglev wagons should increase. The cargo capacity for the normal quality maglev cargo wagons could perhaps go up to 100 stacks, scaling as it does currently to 250 stacks at legendary. Or, if this would make normal quality wagons OP, capacity could stay as is for normal quality, but the percentage scaling could change drastically.
Just a few ideas. Thanks again for the modding work :D
