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The original was posted on /r/factorio by /u/thesixthroc on 2024-10-19 01:24:40+00:00.

Factorio: Space Age playtester here, I’ve been playing since a couple weeks after the LAN party (whilst porting the Comfy scenario Pirate Ship, shameless plug or join the Comfy server).

Avoiding spoilers to the fullest extent possible, I figured I’ll articulate the reddit post I would have liked to read myself going in. Quotes are from the playtester Discord.

• The game is bigger than you think. I regret to inform any of you that booked a week off work hoping to complete the game, that you won’t — not even close unless you chug energy drinks all day and never make a mistake. This is in part due to…
• The mechanics have been pushed to stretch your brain. This has been achieved by many iteration loops by Wube. Quote, “the key is we are willing to just toss a year of development down the drain if Kovarex thinks we can do it better.”
• It is possible to start from a 1.1 save, but not recommended. 2.0 has very significant rebalancing due the expansion. Most notably, several techologies and items are locked behind later planets. And if you’re starting a brand new save, you won’t be in space for a while. How long has it been since you last launched a rocket? Though it’s possible to launch rockets earlier in 2.0, this doesn’t necessarily mean Nauvis is finished.
• The quality of life upgrades are a bigger deal than the FFFs let on. I’ll avoid saying which are most significant, but every interaction surface in the game has been pored over for usability, with the intent of flexibly supporting more abstract content on top. Little details, such as being able to flip blueprints horizontally and vertically with H and V, add up. This game made a lot of money and the developer decided to plow much of that money into a more beautiful game.
• The closest-to-spoiler advice in this post is to not worry about being softlocked. It is generally possible to start on a planet from scratch, and that is actually a choice you could intentionally make to get a deeper first experience of that planet. It would take more time though.
• It is interesting to ask the question ahead of time whether you’re happy to slog through with an inefficient approach, or if you want to ‘level up’ continually to save time. Of course, everything in the factory will be done eventually, but this question will constantly be raised if you are looking out for it. I personally enjoyed attempting to speedrun completion before the official launch date, but of others will prefer to play over a longer period of time.
• If you’ve been entirely avoiding spoilers this won’t matter to you, but finally a quote from yesterday: “We have one more thing that none of the testers have really seen in the works […] It might drop first patch after release.”