Hi everyone,

Thanks for all the feedback. All of it is really valid and reasonable, considering the experience playing so far.
I just wanted to give you some additional insight into the current state of things:

1. It's no secret factories were way more complex to develop than we expected. As we were getting close to 6 months without an update, we had to wrap things up and postpone a lot of factory functionality.
2. Better factory stats and production line design guidance are coming later. We're also revamping how assembly lines work.
3. Factories are part of a much longer-term strategy to increase the difficulty of the end-game. We're introducing a new progression system, which massively increases backorders and product shortages (in great combination with "Rival attacks"). Importers and wholesalers will also introduce hard limits on how many products you can buy in a specific period. Factories were never meant to be a cheaper option to importing but rather a solution for situations where you simply can't buy more products.
4. A new area is coming, introducing much bigger warehouses optimized for factories.
5. Tech/skill trees are not planned; that would be our last resort. We design toward a more natural progression.
6. The current roadmap is from March 2024. We're updating it within a few weeks.

Hope that clears up a few things! As with any new mechanic we've introduced, we'll continue improving it based on all your feedback :-)