Finally completed Nullius - my thoughts on it

[u/GreatAndMightyKevins]

In actuality it took ~250h, a loooot of idle time when game was running in the background is artificially iflating IGT. At first very daunting, later on very satisfying, and run a bit out of steam in the end, with imo needless bloat of bio sciences. I really liked the clever voiding of material and how useless byproducts became bottlenecks later on. What I didn't like is how every upgrade of the machine was needing previous iteration, creating stupidly complicated supply chains, I don't think making flotation cell out of crushers and hydro plants added anything meaningful to the gameplay, except forcing you to do some stupid spaghetti, making them manually or later on turning your brain off when you have The Mall. It takes away from logistical challenge early which is soon null and void by existence of bots. Also physics science is just stupid. What the fuck is this recipe.

When you pass into the organic science the mod loses a bit of it's luster. It's a lot of copying very similar builds to increase troughtput. It's fun to do twice or thrice, not 7-8 times. But getting there is VERY fun. Unlocking new power source is always a mini celebration. In the endgame you can just spam nuclear with stirling engines for easy GWs.

I'm not a competent factorio player by any means, but I finished it (with over 1000 TRAINS, ll hail nuclear trains). As much as I enjoyed my time with it I dont think I'll ever play it again.

Also I hate the symbols for propene, methane etc. they are so similar, it's hard to tell what goes where.

[u/darkszero]

I disagree on the mall side: Making a proper setup with your own armor to effectively handcraft the machines, mixing a supply network with the final steps being by hand is great. Later on you make are challenged to make an organized, efficient and fast bot mall. Physics science is there to make sure your mall is working properly.

[u/buckdancerr → u/darkszero]

That's a good point, the mall becomes so important in Nullius and I really enjoyed making a very robust bot mall.

[u/GreatAndMightyKevins → u/darkszero]

I really didn't like the mall check. While it was a relatively nice resource sink and I didn't have much of a problem with it I just kinda didn't like it. I can't scale it neatly like I can do with every other science.

[u/darkszero → u/GreatAndMightyKevins]

You can definitely scale it neatly. From your pictures your mall just wasn't organized well enough, and you probably made things in the mall that could use dedicated production blocks because they're in high demand.

That's exactly why I think it's great - it's stretches parts of Factorio you just don't see often.

[u/GreatAndMightyKevins → u/darkszero]

have you seen the clusterfuck of my mall in the screens? that's insane lmao

I would make it different would I know how this science will look like, but I was playing blind

[u/Qwyspipi]

Thoughts on boxed recipes?

I hated that neither an all-boxed mall nor an all-non-boxed mall is possible.

[u/GreatAndMightyKevins → u/Qwyspipi]

I didn't care that much for boxed recipes, it's a bloat but I found few instances where it helped expedite the production without making 4 more blocks.

[u/rysto32 → u/Qwyspipi]

I am crazy for not liking that you don’t need an empty box resource to box items (and that unboxing them would produce an empty box)?  I haven’t actually gotten to boxed recipes yet so I might well change my mind but it just strikes me as so strange that we can box things without boxes being a resource to manage. 

[u/energeticquasar]

I'm in the middle of a Nullius run. I am about to unlock green science and have already unlocked logistic bots/distribution and I am building my mall.

I don't mind the crazy recipe requirements or the need to use old buildings. Having just come off of a Bob's run, I guess I just expected it. And to me, a mall is a mall, doesn't matter what the resource requirements are, just that you have enough.

I enjoy figuring out the waste products and using them or voiding them. It makes it interesting, especially if you can upcycle the waste products.

I think my biggest gripe with the mod is the power issues in the early game. I really don't like that the factory can just die on a whim. Yes, I get that it is part of the challenge, and the game incentivizes you to build buffers to compensate for the lack of wind/solar, but I really don't like that aspect of gameplay or how long it is until you have something stable (geothermal).

I also don't like the different sized assembly machines and that you need a certain size to make certain products. It's not challenging, just annoying.

I am looking forward to the next steps in the game now that I have a logistics network and somewhat stable power.

[u/GreatAndMightyKevins → u/energeticquasar]

Green science isn't the middle, you're about 30% in. I didn't mind blackouts really, I just spammed the steam generation machines until they didn't happen. I was hyped about geothermal but it was pittance of steam and annoying to pipe. Solar collectors were way better.

[u/energeticquasar → u/GreatAndMightyKevins]

Way to crush my hopes of being in the mid game!

I just unlocked the next tier of power generation, and I am building my second geothermal power outpost, so I think my power issues will be more manageable going forward.

Now that I also have heat storage, I plan on building out storage collectors more too.

[u/CremePuffBandit]

I just started recently and stole Dosh's idea of a Sushi mall. I usually like spaghetti, but the thought of routing everything for this mod is a little nauseating.

[u/purplemonkeymad → u/CremePuffBandit]

Eventually found that it took too long for an ingredient to been seen by a machine so it became too slow for me. I'm moving to a bot mall, but logi bots are also slow starting out in the mod.

[u/Garlic- → u/purplemonkeymad]

Unlocking level 2 logi bots was such a satisfying upgrade for me.

[u/Aithro]

Im in a run right now, i just finished building bio science 2. What ~% am I through?

[u/GreatAndMightyKevins → u/Aithro]

You mean algae science? Depends on your base and how big is your mall but somewhere about 70%-80% there.

[u/Garlic-]

I love seeing the different approaches people have.

I just made my first Nematology Science pack last night (worm science). I only have maybe 20 trains or so total, only delivering raw resources. Everything else is done by belt, pipe, or bots.

My electrical grid is like 98% solar panels and accumulators, with tiny bits of wind and solar collectors still hanging around from the early game.

My current bottlenecks are worms, which need more grass, which need more bacteria, which needs more Chemistry Research. So I need to work on bulking that up some more until the bottleneck switches back to sugar, glycerol, and ECH.