Thanks for the warning, I suppose it is - and that's why I stick to my guns and won't play it. Since playing Age of Empires II online around 2000 took such a heavy toll on my study habits to achieve a 2000+ rating at the time, my mantra goes by the saying: "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". ;)
Still pretty good. I do sometimes wonder if they could have been better, but nobody cares about that anymore. And nobody is going to take that 268% away from me.
They hired the mod creator (as an artist) and, from the Factorio Friday Facts blog posts[1], the expansion has some inspiration from the space mod but is not the same.
If you like Factorio and are at all interested in game design I can highly recommend every one of those blog posts.
It’s amazing how time and time again a they describe a feature and you’re like wow this is perfect and then later they’re like “here’s how to fix all the problems you don’t even notice”.
The mod is older, and they hired the modder to work on the expansion. From the blog posts the expansion is a lot closer to vanilla then the complex mods.
It’s funny how saying a game is addictive makes many people want to try it, but people like you and me take it as a warning. For me it’s because I succumb to addictions more easily than most.
Great game, though a bit addictive.