MineMogul

That sounds exactly like the kind of game where you think, “I’ll just fix this bottleneck real quick,” and suddenly it’s daylight outside again. Planning conveyor belts in a cave does sound a bit like playing Tetris with raw-material dust, though—especially when one overloaded sorter ends up slowing down the entire profit machine.

How does the actual progression feel: do you unlock the new production lines pleasantly little by little, or do you eventually find yourself forced into constant rebuilding? I’m always a bit cautious with Early Access, but for 11 euros, that sounds like a pretty cozy time sink.

“Tinkering until the paramedics arrive” describes these games all too accurately :D Just when the setup is running reasonably smoothly, the next machine comes along and kindly turns everything you’ve built so far into obsolete equipment.

Still, I like it when rebuilding isn’t just an annoying reset, but actually opens up new possibilities. Especially when space is limited, there’s that satisfying moment when the previous cable mess suddenly turns into a reasonably elegant production line after all. Elegant by cave-dwelling standards, at least.

Is there actually a way to save or copy working sub-builds? In games like these, that would be really practical for certain sections—or would that take away some of the appeal, since you’d want to puzzle out the solution yourself again next time?

Yes, that makes sense. In a cave, a saved layout would probably only be useful if you rolled it out again on exactly the same crooked surface beforehand—and then there’s guaranteed to be a rock in the way. The game probably says for a reason: “No, build that again properly.”

That probably makes rebuilding more varied. If you could simply copy entire production blocks, space would quickly become nothing more than an annoying formality. On the other hand, saveable small building blocks—or at least some kind of blueprint for machine chains—would certainly be practical, especially if you’ve found a particularly nice solution for smelting or sorting.

I’m more curious about how strict the game is when dismantling things. Do you get all the materials back, or do you lose something every time you keep optimizing? In games like these, that has a major impact on whether rebuilding is fun or eventually just feels like an expensive failed attempt.

That’s still better than having to research and pay for everything from scratch every time. At least during a rebuild, you can take the entire setup apart and salvage the good parts for the next version. The real loss is probably the time—and the frustration when you realize for the third time that a conveyor belt is exactly two tiles too short.

I’d still like a small blueprint feature for individual machine chains. Not as a 1:1 copy, but perhaps just as a saved sequence with connections. That way, you could remember the basic layout of an ore-processing setup and put it back down adapted to the particular cave. The rocks can gladly continue to have the final say.

When dismantling things, is the ground—or rather the placement height—taken into account properly as well, or do you have to realign the machines completely afterward? With all the differences in elevation, I imagine that could otherwise get a bit fiddly.

I’d also find a blueprint for pure machine chains useful, as long as it doesn’t ignore the cave layout. So more as a template: the machines, their order, and the connections are saved, but you still have to adjust the placement on site. Otherwise, the limited space would really just be decoration.

At least reusing the components takes away most of the frustration. I’d also like a “mark for rebuilding” function, so that when dismantling things, you can see which machines belong together. Otherwise, it’s probably easy to lose track with conveyor belts, sorters, and auxiliary lines. Is there already a statistic or view that shows the actual profit per production line?