Comment by roenxi

> ... it doesn't really feel like Factorio any more...

Something that stands out is that Space Age is more of an adventure (overcome challenges in series) where Factorio the base game was a sandbox (challenges can be handled in parallel).

In the base game, if someone doesn't like rail then they can just ignore it for an entire playthrough. Ditto nuclear/solar, most military techs, most other logistics, and so on. If someone likes yellow belts and coal power that can carry them through an entire playthrough. If you don't like Gleba/spoilage, you can't skip it because it is necessary to see any parts of the game gated behind it which is Aquilo onwards. Heaven help you if you don't like how space platforms work, because they gate everything and are quite unique compared to the rest of the game which some players must hate.