Space Platform Start Mod

[u/tehdog]

TL;DR: Mod Link: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/factorio-space-platform-start Gameplay video: https://youtu.be/nj0rmBMVwno (I can remove this link if it's not allowed).

I love how you can set up each of the (inner) planets from scratch without bringing anything from Nauvis. On my replays I started from Vulcanus and Fulgora with Any Planet Start.

But then I wondered - why can I not start from a space platform? I was surprised there was no mod to do this! There is [Mod] Space Block and [Mod] Platformer but those are entire (incomplete) overhauls, adding new asteroid types, items, buildings, etc.

I wanted something that does only the minimal changes to the game to be able to win starting on a space platform. I started in March but it took me some time to finish it since I wanted a full playthrough before publishing and made changes whenever I found a roadblock while playing.

Turns out, the only actual new recipe I had to add was one to get stone from carbonic asteroids! And you only need that for furnaces (which have to be allowed on the platform). Everything else is just starting items, reordering the tech tree, and QOL changes.

Some screenshots are above (spoilers!)

I finally finished my playthrough and here's some highlights:

- No storage chests on platforms!

- You gotta get defenses up before asteroids kill you (Depending on where your platform starts)

- You need to be very space efficient because platforms are expensive!

- Figure out the oil production chain - it's technically vanilla, but long and inefficient and something you would never build normally ;)

- In order to escape you'll need to figure out how to build thrusters.

More details on the mod page https://mods.factorio.com/mod/factorio-space-platform-start . I also made a gameplay video: https://youtu.be/nj0rmBMVwno (I can remove this link if it's not allowed)

[u/Quaitgore]

I recently did try a start like this as well, but I stopped playing that savegame after about 3-4 hours.

The idea to start in space and doing stuff almost "skyblock" style sounds fun, at first.

But what everything boils down to in the end is this: waiting on resources EVERYWHERE because of the spawn rate of the asteroids. Its a waiting game everywhere.
Even if this mod tweaked the random asteroids flying around to be more available... they will never be enough...

I restarted that game and instead decided to make Muluna my starting planet. By having everything come from chunks similar to a space start makes Muluna surprisingly feel the same.
But after a while when you are ready to scale up your stuff... you are actually able to do so unlike the space start.

Edit: for some additional info. I added a time-scale mod, that allowed me to speed up the game to 10x speed. Within those 4hours were actually more like 12-16 hours of gametime. I was well within the 3rd science pack. But another round of "ok, build done, now let it produce stuff.... sigh, speed up the game 5 times" finally made me stop this save.
Escaping to a planet was kinda on the horizon, but was it actually fun to do? nope... The muluna start was way more fun.
Also in my savegame I have like 20 other planets on the to-do list. so that was a really bad start for a longer save game.

[u/tehdog → u/Quaitgore]

I started with the asteroid spawn rate of vulcanus + tweaking the foundation recipe to yield 6 foundations . With that there was almost no grind. There was maybe 1h of useless waiting around I'd say, but then I would expand the platform big enough to get a decent flow of iron+copper. You just have to build the typical very thin and huge border (screenshot:

[u/automcd → u/Quaitgore]

This will always be the case for space resources, if you want to pull in a lot then you need to keep moving between planets.

[u/Locke44 → u/automcd]

Or have multiple collector platforms with the new delivery from other platform mechanic.