Decided I wanted a run that forced me to scale up instead of just “winging it” because hey after a few research steps I will be able to make it better anyway.
Thought to play “marathon mode”, which is vanilla except research cost is multiplied by 4, but ended up going for a multiplier of 100 instead.
To give an example of what this means: Researching solar panels costs 25000 red and green science.
I found this to be an interesting challenge! I not only have to build large and optimized builds with low-tier tech. I also need to be extremely careful with managing biter evolution and pollution. Just red ammo is locked behind several thousand science packs, and I have expanded to 8 ore patches and my perimeter is just tightly packed turrets, because I have not let myself afford researching walls yet.
This kind of mode sounds interesting if some of the very low level automation didn’t have the same multiplier, assemblers for example handcrafting 1000 science?