> This is a mod that seems extremely boring and tedious.

It doesn't have to be, though. I'm currently playing Space Exploration + Krastorio 2. Krastorio modifies the early/mid game, Space Exploration meddles a little with the early game, but most of it is late game.

There are a few more inputs required for things so they can get more complicated. And with Krastorio the early game is extended (you have "burner" versions of the science lab and assembly machines). So yes, earlier game is a little slower. On the other hand, it gives you stuff to make up for it. You don't require as much science(at least, before space) and there are things like core miners, which provide infinite resources so you don't have to keep moving miners. Also new power generation.

I guess that it depends on what you want to do. Base Factorio you either play until you launch the rocket, or you move on to megabases. If you want to do that, it's perfectly fine. However if you want to keep playing, it's a lot of the same, only bigger. Space Exploration essentially _starts_ once you launch the rocket. I don't want to do megabases so it seems ok with me.

Also, spaceships :)

It definitely can be. I don’t think it needs to be as long as it is. With 5 space science categories, each with 4 tiers, and each tier requiring 4 unique data cards with one common ingredient and one catalog recipe for the tier, one insight per category, there are ~125 intermediate products to manufacture that don’t really pose any new interesting logistical challenges. For example, once you set up iridium processing, the 20 intermediates you need to manufacture to finish all 4 tiers of materials science are pretty straightforward. Sure, dealing with the scrap generated in the process of making those intermediaries is a logistical challenge that becomes harder the deeper you progress, but they probably could have presented that logistic challenge without requiring you to set up production for 25 separate products — most of which are ONLY useful for making materials science packs.

I have really enjoyed the puzzles it has posed in the form of circuit network logic for automating rockets and spaceships. The issue described in TFA is just the tip of the iceberg. My factory has deadlocked in a number of interesting and unique ways over the course of the 600 hours I’ve played thus far. I’ve enjoyed the mod. It has some very interesting ideas and challenges. It’s a shame those puzzles are hidden behind so much slog.

That's very subjective. It also adds a ton of new gameplay components that push factorio players to better think about how to manage their logistics which is fun for some players (not all for sure)

Space exploration is a mod which has extra automation challenges compared to the base game, and it's probably got some of the most interesting ones compared to other mods which tend to just have the same basic concepts as the base game, just with many more steps piled on, which are probably more on the tedious side (pyanodons mods being the most infamous in this regard).