Wanting to add more here, some thoughts on how production games manage progression.

Many of these games operate on a construct of volume, scale, and then complexity. You harvest a set of basic material, automate construction of basic elements, use those elements to create more complex things, which allows you to scale the initial harvesting.

As you get further in the creation chains, you would normally unlock alternative chains of production that either provide shortcuts by skipping steps or, using different materials, gives different paths to create items. These alternative paths require new approaches to crafting chains. The challenge then becomes about balancing complex crafting chains to create enough volume to create final items. Items that require hundreds if not thousands of the basic harvested items no less.

The math required to balance all this is substantial, some complex algebra in fact. Changing a ratio at tier 2 can have huge ripple effects 5 steps later. Techtonica has had a few stages (other EA games too) where the math effectively created an exploit for infinite material. It is not easy, and small dev teams need a lot of testers to validate.

Where Techtonica differs from other games is two fold. First, basic resources are practically infinite, more akin to Sastisfactory, but can yield different material at different stages. Second, a significant portion of the game resides with plant material, which is 100% dependent on a finite amount of seeds. You never lose seeds, but this caps your production rates. This doesn’t seem like an issue at first, but at some point you’ll realize that Mining Charges are the key to everything, and production of that specific item requires tons of seeds.

Which brings me to exploration. Techtonica had multiple cave systems that are only accessed through digging. Sometimes 10 minutes of digging. I think this time padding is good, it allows a factory to produce while you explore. Finding all these locations though… that’s the tough bit. Not the best map, then again I still think it’s better than Satisfactory. Some parts of the research tree require exploration to hidden areas, which the functional impacts only really matter end game. Not too sure how I feel about that just now. I know I really don’t like Satisfactory’s RNG take on this.

I’ve got one more post relating to the mechanics of crafting and rate limits. Techtonica is still finding its footing here.