Factorio is fundamentally a game about logistics.
So when a space-based DLC was announced, I was ecstatic about the possibilities. I imagined
- Weird planets with unique environments, challenges and resources.
- the progression of rockets (from discardable cheap boosters to advanced reusable shuttles)
- Space elevators as endgame ways to move items to orbit using electricity
- Orbital solar collectors that can beam down energy to remote outposts on the surface (or vice versa, ground-based laser emitters that push or recharge a spaceship).
- Skyhooks or rail launchers that reduce fuel needed by rockets to reach a space station
- Progression of spaceship engines (chemical, ion, fusion, fission, antimatter), with different challenges in producing the fuel or sending a lot of it to orbit
And besides the planets, I feel like I got none of these.
Instead, spaceships can go everywhere and refuel anywhere. Turrets are all that is needed to get to a further away planet.
Rockets are fundamentally the same throughout the whole game, and there are no alternatives.
Space stations have very limited usefulness, as a player I really didn't feel the need to build more after the first one.
Items that should have heavy mass (raw resources) are somehow cheap to ship to another planet, while finished items (looking at you, uranium ammo) are very expensive, punishing us for establishing complex supply lines. I'd understand if it was a limitation dictated by stack size, but the devs specifically introduced a mass value for each item in the game.
I've tried Space Exploration before but it felt rough around the edges. Are there any mods that can give me what I want?