You knew this was coming.

There’s already enough out there regarding Factorio, it has set the bar for what factory automation games need to bring. v1.0 launched in 2020 and many an hour of productivity was lost around the globe. Space Age came out a month ago and certainly has had a similar impact.

You can still play the base game, with a more refined process to reach the final rocket to space. It’s a relatively straightforward affair without too much difficulty.

If you play Space Age though, expect some significant shifts. You can rush to space at the blue science phase (which is VERY early) and rockets are 90% cheaper to produce. A fair chunk of tech also shifts to later in the game, painfully that includes Logistic networks, Artillery and… cliff explosives. I made a serious mistake and forgot to remove cliffs and only realized after a chunk of time was invested. You used to be able to make them at home, but now they are locked behind Vulcanus. Argh! Side note: this is why elevated rails are in game now, you can’t avoid cliffs on Vulcanus.

One item I think Space Age struggles with is the transition to space, at least from an information perspective. The terrestrial components are self-evident and you can relatively easily modify them to suit a need. The space platform is not like this at all. You can’t actually build anything until you ship it up to space, and that mechanic in and of itself isn’t clearly explained.

The breadcrumb to build space science it to build a rocket, launch a platform starter pack, and then install an asteroid collector. Fine, I did that. Then what? Oh, I need belts, inserters and an assembler. Ok. And I need to crush the materials to make it. But make sure I don’t collect too many materials, because there’s no actual storage for it. Ok?

You can play Factorio from start to finish for years and never really need to worry about dynamic filters. You set a filter on a box to have, say, only pumps. Set it, put a limit of like 100, and you’re good forever. Space is not like this. You want to actively avoid collecting asteroids you don’t need, but that need will fluctuate over time. And you can’t place chests in space or robots, so the old logistics network model doesn’t work. Honestly, I couldn’t figure out half of it until I looked up a few videos. Suffice it to say that you should ensure that every single requester chest in your planetary network has at least a full stack of any item, or it won’t even ship 1 of them. Yes, you need to store 10 Asteroid Collectors even if you only plan to use 1.

Minor note: If for some reason you have tried to improve quality of items, I would recommend quality Asteroid Collectors, Cargo, Solar Panels and Propulsion. The rest is useful but not incredibly impactful. You can easily get between planets without any quality items.

Transporting items to the platform for basic construction will take a while. Transporting items in preparation for a flight to another planet… that may take an hour or more, depending on how your planet factory is set up. 1000 blue chips seems small enough, but less so when you’re in the middle of a module construction phase.

There are ample designs out there, and most of them follow the same concepts. What I will say is that the act of building the space platform itself does a great job of preparing you for another planet. You are likely running a major hub and pumping out tons of stuff over a large area. Depending on your choice of new planet (if it isn’t Vulcanus, what’s wrong with you?) you will be limited in space and material. So the question is, what is the bare minimum set of stuff you have to bring with you to survive and ensure your ship can return to refill?

Personally, that means:

• Mk3 Assemblers + Miners
• Bulk & Long Inserters
• Belts, Undergrounds, Splitters (Mk2 are good enough). Lots of belts.
• Solar Panels + Accumulators + Substations
• Roboports + a LOT of robots (400 of each type)
• Logistics containers, especially storage + requestors (requestors will save you a LOT of belts)
• Mk2 Modules (Speed, Productivity, Efficiency)
• Oil Refinery + Chemical Plant + Pumps + Pumpjacks + Liquid storage
• Red + Blue Circuits (since you won’t have access to Plastic for a while)
• 1 Cargo Pad (to receive material)
• Vulcanus in particular can use Steam Turbines for power generation, bring those!
• Enough material to make a NEW rocket silo (you can’t move one, you can only move ingredients). This is important but you can do it on the 2nd logistics pass. You need to get Science Packs transported.

That’ll be enough to kickstart a new planet base, and give more than enough time for a refill voyage when you naturally run out of materials.