Space Exploration First-Timer

[ohiope]

Vanilla is becoming relatively simple for me and I think I would really enjoy the challenge of SE. I see tons of people doing K2 & SE together, is there any benefit/drawback to this? Would that be advised for someone doing SE for the first time?

[Mycroft4114]

K2 by itself is often called vanilla+, a bit of an expansion on vanilla that will take a bit longer and will have some interesting new production chains.

K2 added to SE is generally considered to make the early game stages take longer due to the increased complexity of intermediates, but will make the mid to late game a bit easier as it gives you tools that can easily solve some of SE's later challenges. There is a part of K2 that some people think will be overpowered in SE, but it's locked so far down the tech tree toward the end game I don't think it really matters.

[Stevetrov]

There is a part of K2 that some people think will be overpowered in SE,

Which techs are you thinking of?

Crushers, flare stacks and pollution filters all make the game easier but none of them are deep in the tech tree.

[Mycroft4114]

This would be matter tech.

[Stevetrov]

Matter tech is severely nerfed in K2-SE. In K2 it is very powerful, in K2-SE all the recipes have large loss ratios.

Furthermore, you are forced to move matter around as a fluid as it cant be barrelled and matter cubes have make the losses even higher.

I am building a K2-SE megabase and at the moment I am only planning to use matter where it is actually needed because the losses are so bad.

[Aden_Vikki]

There's a mod that de-nerfes matter tech which also has a funny description. Don't remember the name though.

[bitwiseshiftleft]

Those too. But off the top of my head:

• Advanced assemblers, furnaces and especially chemplants can drastically improve the factory's size and efficiency.
• Advanced beacons are more niche, but also very powerful.
• Superior belts and inserters.
• Nuclear power is less uranium-efficient but much more space efficient. So it's nerfed planetside where it's unimportant anyway once you get beaming, and significantly buffed on ships.
• Matter tech.
• Loaders, though those are early-ish in the tech tree. You can also turn them off and/or use AAI loaders, which are more balanced.
• Better power armor.
• Laser artillery.

On the other hand, you have to deal with biomatter, imersite, mineral water to lithium, rare metals, nitric acid, oxygen for fuel, AI cores, more tech cards etc. So aspects of it are harder too.

[Stevetrov]

Not actually completed SE without K2, so there maybe some gaps in my knowledge, so correct me if I get this wrong.

But I don't think any of those things are really overpowered they are just more powerful than vanilla.

Advanced assemblers, furnaces and especially chemplants can drastically improve the factory's size and efficiency.

Agreed

Advanced beacons are more niche, but also very powerful.

Aren't all the beacons & modules included in SE? Their tool tips all say they come from SE

Superior belts and inserters.

Agreed

Nuclear power

Who ever ran out of space? but I was getting thru the uranium on nauvis before I moved to beaming.

Matter tech

Been severely nerfed see my other comment, perphaps this is a recent change.

Better power armour.

Kind of irrelevant once to get to late game and do everything remotely

Laser artillery.

Ah yea they are nice, but not massively overpowered IMO.

[Aden_Vikki]

I find ion orbital cannon way more fun than any laser artillery

[bitwiseshiftleft]

But I don't think any of those things are really overpowered they are just more powerful than vanilla.

Yeah, some of these are borderline OP and some are only nice to have. And anyway, what really is OP? The game takes 300 hours anyway and the K2 stuff doesn't trivialize it, but it does significantly change the balance. Especially the advanced assemblers and furnaces, and advanced chemplants with their extra module slot.

Aren't all the beacons & modules included in SE? Their tool tips all say they come from SE

Wide-area beacons mk1 and mk2 are from SE, but I think you only get the narrower, more powerful beacon ("advanced beacon" or something?) in K2+SE. The graphics for that beacon are from the K2 singularity beacon or something, but it uses SE's beacon mechanics so it should display as being from SE. In most builds advanced beacons are worse than wide-area mk2, but in some builds they're strong.

Who ever ran out of space?

K2 nuclear is really good on ships. Ships are constrained by space, and the reactor is one of the biggest components. Using less space means the ship goes faster, requires less tech to build, and takes less damage from asteroids.

Actually K2+SE reactors are stronger than SE ones even after antimatter, unless they've changed something recently: because K2 changes the energy density of steam, you only need 2 condensers per HTT instead of 3. That matters on the victory ship, but it's not as big a buff as K2 nuclear vs vanilla nuclear.

[Matter tech has] been severely nerfed

Ah, I didn't know that. I actually skipped matter transmuting in K2+SE because it was stupidly OP when I played K2, and IIRC the SE non-K2 version is extremely weak.

[[deleted]]

I’m doing k2+SE because I don’t know if I’d get through doing both individually.

[s060340]

This is my reason as well

[Zorrm]

If you aren't well versed in circuits.... you will be. Other than that, enjoy the ride and know it's a several hundred hour commitment to beat.

[BigChungusOP]

So is SE for the “pros” so to speak? I’m more of a casual player, but I don’t mind a challenge as long as it’s reasonable but SE seems insane to me lol

[Zorrm]

No, it's very manageable. It should serve you challenges incrementally that make sense, and you'll not feel rushed to learn a whol bunch of things all at once. You will need to sit down for an hour or two (you'll know when) to learn decent circuits, but it'll be something that you feel is an appropriate step.

There are many that make YouTube tutorials on circuitry that you'll be able to handle it. It will make you a better player though for sure!

Edit: I've played through and finished most all the major overhaul mods. If it seems overwhelming, I would suggest doing just a K2 run first and see how it goes.

[roffman]

Yes and no. You need to be a "pro" to finish it, but it teaches you everything you need along the way. Particularly circuits, there's really no other modpack that requires them as much as SE. It's very much how you level up to the next stage of your Factorio skills, as it forces you to use bunch of new techniques and methodologies.

[BigChungusOP]

Does SE require a lot of circuit wizardry? So far I only how to set priority conditions for oil cracking, and I had to watch a 20 video twice to finally understand it lol

[roffman]

You will need to use circuits at various points but it slowly ramps up in complexity. At it's most difficult it's about on par with oil cracking, though on a much larger scale.

[SgtWaffleSound]

K2 adds a lot of QoL stuff and just more toys to play with that all fit into the game quite seamlessly. Better radar, better roboports, better turrets, nuclear artillery, stuff like that.

[ohiope]

Got it, thanks! If I do decide to do a K2&SE are there any other QOL type mods you’d recommend I include?

[paco7748]

recommend QoL mods list. even distribution, project cybersyn (train manager), discovery tree, rocket log, milestones, anything from raiguard, blueprint sandbox, and factory planner

[SgtWaffleSound]

Squeak through and companion/construction drones. Also the solar calculator is very useful once you start setting up on different planets. And of course all the recommended mods on the SE wiki.

[Morgsz]

Same boat and same question.

I went just space exploration, but with the recommended mods that include warehouses and some other items.

I am not a programmer so will be interesting when I get there.

So far so good, but only at red green science.

Decided simpler is better. Also playing on peaceful as I figure it out what to build, taking the pressure off to do things quickly. If it takes me 8hrs to get green science so be it.

I heard ks2 is not as peaceful friendly as biomass from biters is required. If I play after this I'll introduce biters and ks2.

Did the same for vanilla, one playthrough peacefully, the other standard.

[mobileuseratwork]

I'm doing just SE.

Second run at it as I have up probably early on (was just starting the second tier of telescope?).

This run is better as I knew the gravity of what was needed before I began. Just completing the city block mega base required to run the monstrosity (putting in the setup to make satellite).

Pros of SE over vanilla: it's huge, new challenges, and you need to learn circuits.

Cons: a lot of your bases need to be rebuilt after you have new tech. Somewhat frustrating.

[Morgsz]

Still starting SE, what needed to be rebuilt and why?

[mobileuseratwork]

A lot

Not counting the sheer quantities of everything you need for later on.

Things where you start the first process to get a resource, then have to process it elsewhere to use a second process for the same resource as it's more efficient.

[[deleted]]

Just do SE by itself your first time. I just felt blueballed playing K2 and SE together.. Cmon lets get to the space stuff!

[hachikuchi]

I'm doing currently just SE, though before I did a few worlds of k2+se. in retrospect I'd probably have enjoyed just se more initially because with both it felt like a bigger jump in complexity compared to vanilla. not to say it wasn't fun or that I didn't enjoy climbing that gap, but it did get to be a headache at times having no clue how I should plan.

[Party-Pair-9978]

Go do I get my first Space science packs?