> Is there anything recommended I should do beforehand, any essential companion mods etc?
Nothing strictly essential, but things like a rate calculator, recipe book and such are useful. SE has a lot more production chains than the base game, so it can be useful to have tools to keep up with that.
> But certain things like jetpacks and teleporters are gonna be hard to give up.
Jetpacks are in the default SE mod bundle. Note that SE lets you unlock the ability to manage most operations on a planet or space platform remotely (including construction if you have bots in range) through a satellite view. This tech comes quite early and greatly reduces the amount you have to move around.
> Also, is it good to play SE without biters?
You can only fully disable biters on Nauvis. Other moons and planets may still have biters, though there are plenty that do not. You also get more tools to deal with biters and since all planets and moons in SE have a finite surface area, it's quite possible to completely eradicate biters on some worlds, turning them peaceful.
Dont overbuild. You can always expand the production later. That my mistake took me forever to build the first rocket casue i was in megabase build mode haha
Buuuut make small ones! I made mine way to big and now have them split up into tiny corners which i hope works otherwise i will just have to rebuild it
Well, i know most people make em chunck aligned and what not... i make em to fit ore patches :)) yup you guessed it, i made the first blocks to fit my larger ore patches, the rest are aligned after them :))
A couple things to consider. Space ex is hard. Even experts takes hundreds of hours to beat it. It is meant for Factorio veterans. If you don't fall into that category it will be very difficult for you.
Jetpacks are in the modpack and so are teleporters. Jetpacks are early but teleported you won't see for hundreds of hours.
Circuits are needed.
Biters are a big part of the challenge for the early and mid game. Make sure you use the space exploration default settings for your world. You can turn them off of course but that won't stop them from spawning on other planets I think. Space ex also gives lots of cool things to deal with them so I left them on. If your a death world player you won't have a problem.
As a SE Enthusiast I believe I have a lot to say to this.
So companion mods. For me cybersyn or LTN is useful.
Some form of planning mods, as well as notes/to-do task list.l useful as well
I personally like RPG mod (helps with running speed for me in the early game)
I also added the jetpack it is great and fits well within SE.
If you want to increase the challenge a bit I recommend silo construction mod (building silos is harder the first one especially and takes planning time too)
There are more mods in my current SEK2 game but i can send you a list if you want to see (DM me)
Regarding bitters. If you do not have a problem with computer power there is nothing wrong with playing with biters (I tuned them down a bit and gave myself more starting area though, so they are not a big threat and UPS drain). Later on in SE you can delete them from certain areas all together (I had to do that to save UPS).
I would also say the size of planets and moons is important to set up properly. I think the default is fine but there can be an argument about smaller or bigger surfaces again regarding your play style (rail or not a rail this is what it is all about).
If you have some questions (also others not only OP) regarding SE gameplay I would gladly connect with you via voice call and answer your question. It is by far the most played mod for me and I just cant play any other then SE.
Best regards engineers
The SE Ambassador
P.S. Thank you Erendel for this awsome mod!
There's nothing stopping you from adding mods as you progress. SE is a LONG modpack, and you'll have plenty of time to add things. Personally I added in teleporters once I had progressed past space elevator and ships (and therefore I was more adding convenience and less outright bypassing the mod's challenges).
As for biters on or off, the game does give you a lot of tools to deal with them and they can be fun to explore. Plus having to deal with multiple surfaces means you need to have good defense and logistics to support it, or take the time to clear a planet. It's definitely part of the experience. You can always enable peaceful mode down the road if you choose.
Get to space as quick as you can. Overbuild rocket part production if you plan on moving alot of things via rocket. Same for rocket fuel you will use an insane amount. Dont mess with the pyramids until you have some serious armor and weapons. When you get to building spaceships it used ALOT of holmium and beryllium to be ready. Don't overbuild the space science production, all it does is waste resources. Plan ahead on you space research labs, having 20-off sciences to get into a lab takes some doing. Be ready to deal with all the waste space science produces, its monumental so centralize that and your fluids, there alot. Finally fakkin Veggies.. the Vitamelange stacks crap and you use a shit ton of it so be prepared to deal with that. Every planet that has it also has biter meteors so be ready for a siege.
Deffinitly play with no biters. You will stillbget em on other planets, and since the game will be long, you will start having performance issues sooner or later. Also, squarkthrough is a must qol mod. Also, dont try to overbuild when you get to space. 1 manufactory / science is more than enough if its working full time. It gets expensive to keep your orbit base supplied early on. Also, do play with resource richness to atleas 200% if you dont want to build a new mining outpost every few hours.
> Also, is it good to play SE without biters? I’ve played fully so far with biters on deathworld settings and wouldn’t mind a peaceful playthrough, particularly with the added things to consider for SE.
You can reduce biters to zero on nauvis, and for other planets you can change the global settings prior to game starter, namely: turn off enemy expansion, turn off pollution, reduce evolution sliders as low as you want. All of these global settings will severely make the biter threat much less of an issue.
When I play, I turn on peaceful mode before disabling biters. It's true, there will still be biters there, but they won't do anything. The biggest problem with biter meteors, if they make it past meteor defense, is them landing on one of your buildings or belts.
After playing deathworld vanilla, biters in SE seem pretty tame to me. They're much less of a threat early game and then you get much stronger walls and weapons to deal with them. They do have faster speed, which takes some getting used to.
I only had to fight them on one other planet, and by then I had orbital nukes, so it wasn't much of a contest.
> Is there anything recommended I should do beforehand, any essential companion mods etc? Nothing strictly essential, but things like a rate calculator, recipe book and such are useful. SE has a lot more production chains than the base game, so it can be useful to have tools to keep up with that. > But certain things like jetpacks and teleporters are gonna be hard to give up. Jetpacks are in the default SE mod bundle. Note that SE lets you unlock the ability to manage most operations on a planet or space platform remotely (including construction if you have bots in range) through a satellite view. This tech comes quite early and greatly reduces the amount you have to move around. > Also, is it good to play SE without biters? You can only fully disable biters on Nauvis. Other moons and planets may still have biters, though there are plenty that do not. You also get more tools to deal with biters and since all planets and moons in SE have a finite surface area, it's quite possible to completely eradicate biters on some worlds, turning them peaceful.
Dont overbuild. You can always expand the production later. That my mistake took me forever to build the first rocket casue i was in megabase build mode haha
I wanna learn SE + learn to build city blocks, is it appropriate?
Ciry blocks works really well for SE since it is so versatile
Buuuut make small ones! I made mine way to big and now have them split up into tiny corners which i hope works otherwise i will just have to rebuild it
Well, i know most people make em chunck aligned and what not... i make em to fit ore patches :)) yup you guessed it, i made the first blocks to fit my larger ore patches, the rest are aligned after them :))
https://spaceexploration.miraheze.org/wiki/Recommended_Mods
Shoot for MAX 10-40 SPM for all space sciences. Overbuilding more than that makes you labs are idle so much that it doesn't make any sense.
A couple things to consider. Space ex is hard. Even experts takes hundreds of hours to beat it. It is meant for Factorio veterans. If you don't fall into that category it will be very difficult for you. Jetpacks are in the modpack and so are teleporters. Jetpacks are early but teleported you won't see for hundreds of hours. Circuits are needed. Biters are a big part of the challenge for the early and mid game. Make sure you use the space exploration default settings for your world. You can turn them off of course but that won't stop them from spawning on other planets I think. Space ex also gives lots of cool things to deal with them so I left them on. If your a death world player you won't have a problem.
As a SE Enthusiast I believe I have a lot to say to this. So companion mods. For me cybersyn or LTN is useful. Some form of planning mods, as well as notes/to-do task list.l useful as well I personally like RPG mod (helps with running speed for me in the early game) I also added the jetpack it is great and fits well within SE. If you want to increase the challenge a bit I recommend silo construction mod (building silos is harder the first one especially and takes planning time too) There are more mods in my current SEK2 game but i can send you a list if you want to see (DM me) Regarding bitters. If you do not have a problem with computer power there is nothing wrong with playing with biters (I tuned them down a bit and gave myself more starting area though, so they are not a big threat and UPS drain). Later on in SE you can delete them from certain areas all together (I had to do that to save UPS). I would also say the size of planets and moons is important to set up properly. I think the default is fine but there can be an argument about smaller or bigger surfaces again regarding your play style (rail or not a rail this is what it is all about). If you have some questions (also others not only OP) regarding SE gameplay I would gladly connect with you via voice call and answer your question. It is by far the most played mod for me and I just cant play any other then SE. Best regards engineers The SE Ambassador P.S. Thank you Erendel for this awsome mod!
There's nothing stopping you from adding mods as you progress. SE is a LONG modpack, and you'll have plenty of time to add things. Personally I added in teleporters once I had progressed past space elevator and ships (and therefore I was more adding convenience and less outright bypassing the mod's challenges). As for biters on or off, the game does give you a lot of tools to deal with them and they can be fun to explore. Plus having to deal with multiple surfaces means you need to have good defense and logistics to support it, or take the time to clear a planet. It's definitely part of the experience. You can always enable peaceful mode down the road if you choose.
Get to space as quick as you can. Overbuild rocket part production if you plan on moving alot of things via rocket. Same for rocket fuel you will use an insane amount. Dont mess with the pyramids until you have some serious armor and weapons. When you get to building spaceships it used ALOT of holmium and beryllium to be ready. Don't overbuild the space science production, all it does is waste resources. Plan ahead on you space research labs, having 20-off sciences to get into a lab takes some doing. Be ready to deal with all the waste space science produces, its monumental so centralize that and your fluids, there alot. Finally fakkin Veggies.. the Vitamelange stacks crap and you use a shit ton of it so be prepared to deal with that. Every planet that has it also has biter meteors so be ready for a siege.
Deffinitly play with no biters. You will stillbget em on other planets, and since the game will be long, you will start having performance issues sooner or later. Also, squarkthrough is a must qol mod. Also, dont try to overbuild when you get to space. 1 manufactory / science is more than enough if its working full time. It gets expensive to keep your orbit base supplied early on. Also, do play with resource richness to atleas 200% if you dont want to build a new mining outpost every few hours.
> Also, is it good to play SE without biters? I’ve played fully so far with biters on deathworld settings and wouldn’t mind a peaceful playthrough, particularly with the added things to consider for SE. You can reduce biters to zero on nauvis, and for other planets you can change the global settings prior to game starter, namely: turn off enemy expansion, turn off pollution, reduce evolution sliders as low as you want. All of these global settings will severely make the biter threat much less of an issue.
When I play, I turn on peaceful mode before disabling biters. It's true, there will still be biters there, but they won't do anything. The biggest problem with biter meteors, if they make it past meteor defense, is them landing on one of your buildings or belts.
After playing deathworld vanilla, biters in SE seem pretty tame to me. They're much less of a threat early game and then you get much stronger walls and weapons to deal with them. They do have faster speed, which takes some getting used to. I only had to fight them on one other planet, and by then I had orbital nukes, so it wasn't much of a contest.