space-age-extended/concept/concept.md

Space Age Extended

A natural continuation of the Space Age expansion. It makes the original experience longer by adding more planets that are nicely integrated and follow the spirit of Wube Space Age planets.

Basic thoughts

• The game is expanded both horizontally (more planets per tier) and vertically (more tiers).
• Each added planet adds a new look and feel compared to vanilla planets. Planets that are too similar shall not be combined or they need to be changed.
• Each added planet has a unique topic that doesn't exist yet on another planet.
• Existing planet perks (the "goodies") are distributed amongst more planets than is the case with just Space Age. Generally they are redistributed. That means: There are less unlocks per planet.
• New planet perks improve a "weakness" of the game or add to the spirit of vanilla big buildings (foundry, etc.).

New perks

Train upgrades

There is the criticism that all the upgrades from Space Age make vanilla trains very weak compared to belts and pipes since trains didn't get any upgrades. The main points are: Trains could be faster and the cargo size of the wagons is very small.

One of the planets shall introduce upgrades for trains. The easiest way of improving locomotives is fuel because replacing them can't be automated. Wagons can only be improved by replacing them.

• A new tier 2 fuel is introduced that greatly improves max speed and acceleration of locomotives.
• Nuclear fuel is reduced so that existing fuels feel like they are tier 1 fuels. Or: Nuclear fuel is the tier 2 fuel and is unlocked on the train themed planet.
• Elevated rails could be moved to train themed planet. Then Fulgora needs to be locked by that planet. Except when Fulgora becomes the train themed planet.
• New tier 2 cargo wagon and fluid wagon are introduced, offering at least twice the capacity of the regular tier 1 ones.

Better electricity tools

Solar is quite weak in vanilla Space Age, especially on surfaces with reduced solar power. Also substations and big power poles seem rather weak as the final upgrade. There are multiple existing modded planets that add new tiers for electricity production and distribution.

One of the planets shall introduce tier 2 solar panels, substations, accumulators and big power poles. They shall be an improvement even compared to legendary tier 1 versions while occupying only little extra space.

Improved long handed inserters

This is a small one: Long handed inserters don't have an upgrade. Quality is the only way to improve them.

One of the planets shall add long handed bulk inserters and long handed stack inserters.

Tier 1 reactor below nuclear reactor

The step between boilers and nuclear reactors is huge. Without something new, nuclear needs to stay on Nauvis since boilers are a bad choice for scaling with modules and beacons.

• Nauvis introduces a new tier 1 reactor that uses ordinary fuel (not nuclear) but offers the neighbour bonus that boilers don't have.
• The regular nuclear reactor is considered tier 2 and shall be moved to a nuclear themed planet.
• Other uranium themed technologies shall be moved as well.
• Nauvis does not have uranium anymore.

Better radar

The ordinary radar feels quite weak. Especially on planets like Fulgora where the next island can be far away.

One of the planets shall introduce a tier 2 radar.

Better fluid tools

After the 2.0 nerf, pumps are rather slow. Also underground pipes could use an upgrade.

One of the planet shall add tier 2 fluid tools.

• A tier 2 pump is added that has greatly improved speed and respects the global fluid speed limit of 6000/s even with legendary quality.
• A tier 2 underground pipe with greatly increased max length is introduced.
• A tier 2 fluid tank is introduced with increased size, capacity and fluid connections.

Late-game unlocks

The late-game can be quite ridiculous with the numbers. Why not add more things post-Aquilo?

Better beacons

As a late-game upgrade, better beacons could be added that have increased area and more module slots.

One of the late planets shall add tier 2 beacons.

Better space ship technologies

Additional tier 2 technologies for space related entities could be added:

• Asteroid collector with increased stats (controversial as quality already does that quite well)
• Better crusher
• Better thrusters
• Cargo bays with more inventory bonus and cargo hatch bonus (controversial as quality already does that quite well)
• Cheaper space platform foundation (maybe as an export from a planet)
• Space platform chests

Mythical quality

One more quality level makes everything even better.

• Legendary quality is two levels internally. It is nerfed to one level instead.
• Mythical quality is introduced that is two levels internally.
• A machine could be introduced that has an in-built quality bonus.

Modules 4

One more module tier should be added on a late-game planet.

Belt stack size

A late-game planet could add additional belt stack bonus.

Hyper belts

A placeholder name for even faster belts with 90 items/s and even longer max underground distance.

Worm holes

Worm holes (or any other cool name) that can be used for personal transportation.

Other things that could be added

There are other tools and upgrades that could be added but that are not an obvious choice or that have downsides:

• Loaders (controversial)
• Bigger chests
• Elevated pipes
• More productivity bonus technologies (e.g. modules)
• Ore crushing (fits nicely with Muluna if included)
• Hyper inserters (one more tier of bulk/stack inserters)

Planet tiers

Planets are divided into tiers. Vanilla Space Age already does that with Nauvis being Tier 1, Vulcanus, Fulgora and Gleba being Tier 2 and Aquilo being Tier 3. The shattered planet, although not being an actual planet, could be considered Tier 4.

Space Age Extended adds new Tiers:

• Tier 1: Nauvis and its moons (if we choose to include them).
• Tier 2: Intermediate planets unlocking purple, yellow and nuclear science with technologies mainly taken from Nauvis.
• Tier 3: Original tier 2 that now requires unlocks from tier 1. Unlocks the 50% prod bonus machines.
• Tier 4: Original tier 3. Aquilo and similar planets.
• Tier 5: Post Aquilo planets with late-game unlocks.
• Tier 6: Shattered planet (either vanilla Space Age or the modded one).

New planets

New planets are listed by their theme since they don't have a final name yet / a modded planet hasn't been selected yet.

Multiple themes could be combined into one actual planet if that seems fitting.

Rules for selecting existing planet mods

Heavy adjustments

Finished planets that are almost what we need for Space Age Extended probably don't exist. It's clear that existing modded planets needs to be included but heavily adjusted to our needs. The original mod authors must agree to this and be informed and given the chance to include at least some of the adjustments themselves or make them settings of their mod.

No cargo drop restrictions

Wube didn't do it and we should stick to it too. The player can always choose to not import things from other planets when starting on a new one but that's not for the mod authors to decide.

There should be at most one exception if a planet fits really well but falls apart without this restriction.

Planets that natively restrict cargo drops shall make that configurable and Space Age Extended enforces it to be off.

No puzzles

Puzzle planets don't fit the Wube style and should be avoided. That probably rules out planets like Cerys, Rubia and Cubium.

Add new settings

Sometimes it's way easier to not do something in the first place instead of undoing it afterwards. The mod author must be willing to add new settings for such cases.

Split the mod

If there are mandatory dependencies that we don't want to include, the mod author must be willing to split the mod into a "base" mod without those dependencies (marked as internal) and a "standalone" mod that adds those things.

Early phase planet

Because why shouldn't I include my own modded planet (it's up for discussion nonetheless).

• Tier 1: Pre-Nauvis.
• Unlocks: Early personal robots, alternative recipes for processing units and LDS (Tier 2), quality assembling (Tier 5).
• Properties: Easy enemies, easy mechanics.
• Mod: Lignumis (the need for wood on other planets should be configured away).

Space themed planet

To be discussed.

• Tier 1: Post-Nauvis.
• Unlocks: Crushing, space ships, big crusher (Tier 3).
• Properties: No atmosphere.
• Mod: Muluna

Military themed planet

• Tier 2
• Unlocks: Weapons and personal defense from other vanilla planets.
• Properties: Enemies that are stronger than Nauvis ones, requiring new weapons and personal defense.
• Possible candidates: Castra, any planet with newly introduced enemies.

Production themed planet

• Tier 2
• Unlocks: Production science pack (taken from Nauvis).
• Properties: -
• Possible candidates: Vulcanus, any planet that somehow fits the theme remotely

Train themed planet

• Tier 3: Trains become weak with tier 3 unlocks so the upgrades should be put there.
• Unlocks: Train upgrades.
• Properties: long travel distances because of low resource frequency or islands.
• Possible candidates: Fulgora, Arig, Moshine, any planet with reduced resource frequency.

Fusion themed planet

• Tier 4
• Unlocks: Fusion power.
• Propoerties: -
• Possible candidates: -

Other thoughts

Utility science pack

It would be cool to have a dedicated planet for production science pack but utility science pack is unlocked with space science and the actual technologies are spreaded across the Tier 2 planets.

Weapons

There is a new weapons progression:

• Pistol/Basic gun turret + Wood ammo (start)
• Yellow ammo (automation science pack)
• Gut turret (logistic science pack)
• Flame thrower (chemical science pack)
• Submachine gun (space science pack)
• Red ammo (military science pack)
• Rocket launcher (military + utility science pack)
• Laser turret (military + production + utility science pack)
• Green ammo (military + nuclear science pack)

Ammo damage and damage researches are rebalanced to respect the new unlocks:

• Yellow ammo is buffed. Together with early damage research it's capable of killing blue biters.
• Red ammo is buffed a little as well to still be a worthwhile upgrade.

Rocket turret and tesla turret probably stay where they are being Tier 3 now.

Personal tools and defense are distributed to be partially unlocked on Nauvis and with the military science pack.

Diagram

Thoughts on specific planets

Lignumis

• Most progressive recipes should be disabled by default. The impact is just too big to be mainstream.
• It should be discussed if we reduce the wood science pack to just Lignumis and only the steam science pack is added to later technologies.
• With progressive recipes disabled, most wood compatibility mods are not needed anymore. The mandatory ones need to be removed. This probably requires Lignumis to have a base mod and a standalone add-on mod.
• The deep miner should have more use cases than just gold on Lignumis to justify its existence. At least one of the other planet should have ore patches similar to the gold ones on Lignumis.

Nauvis

Nauvis gives up most of the good stuff and only exists to unlock the basics and come back with better technologies. With space science moved to Muluna and military, production and utility science packs moved to the tier 2 planets, only 3 science packs are left.

Remaining unlocks on Nauvis:

• Basic infrastructure
• Trains
• Bots
• Rocket silo and space platform basics
• Basic defense

Muluna

• While the mod base is a worthwhile addition, some of the mechanics are too extreme or weird to fit the vanilla vibe. Adjustments are required.
• This includes the rocket parts cost. It makes the game very slow early on.
• Setting up the wood production is very slow. It should be sped up.
• Ore crushing from Crushing Industry could be tied to Muluna. The addition of sand, glass and concrete mix have to be discussed.

Fulgora

Fulgora is both electricity and train themed. One of those should be moved to another planet. Adding train upgrades to Fulgora would make the planet too powerful compared to others.

The following changes probably make the most sense:

• Fulgora doesn't unlock and require rail supply foundations anymore.
• Islands are bigger to reduce the train focus.
• Fulgora is a tier 3 planet.

Alternative:

• Islands are further apart. This requires both long elevated train rails and tier 2 radar.
• Lightning mechanic is removed.
• Electricity is generated with burner reactors that are fed with solid fuel or we create a light oil fed reactor.
• Fulgora is the tier 2 trains planet and a new planet takes its place as tier 3 planet unlocking electricity things.

Which route to go also defines when recycling is unlocked. Tier 2 is probably better for that.

Vulcanus

Depending on what other planets we have, Vulcanus could be a good fit for the tier 2 production planet. At least thematically. That would require another planet to take the place of Vulcanus as tier 3 planet with the metallurgic science pack.

Either way, cliff explosives should be tier 2.

To be added planets

Planets that should probably find a spot in this modpack because they are unique or very polished:

• Maraxsis: Very unique setting and very polished.
• Moshine: Both the desert setting and the AI theme are unique.

Not to be added planets

• Tenebris: It's abandoned and has annoying side effects on the rest of the game.
• Igrys: The machanics are too far away from the Wube style and feel kind of random. The planet doesn't look polished.