While I understand this game is Early Access, I cannot recommend it at this stage.
There are many fun building elements, which I have immensely enjoyed, but at the same time, there are also a lot of "game breaking" bugs which make things frustrating to an extreme. My following comments are not in any order.
The Encyclopedia, I presume, is a "placeholder" for a later state of development. In the present state is incomplete at best, and gives no real information.
Everything Costs money. This is a sandbox game, base-building, like the dozen others out there. Costs need to be seriously rebalanced so a player can progress at a reasonable rate through the game. Things like wires and conveyors are cost-prohibitive to the point of frustration.
Research: Tech-trees can be a welcome challenge to game play, but I also believe there has to be a balance between "challenge", "fun", and "frustration". In one game, about 80-hours worth (real-time) I had about 2/3 of the tech trees researched, but because things get progressively more points to unlock, that's probably relatively about 1/3. I want to build, not wait. The whole research-points needs some serious work. My opinion is, slagging through the entire tech tree should reasonable take 30-40 (real-life) hours, not 200. This is unrealistic, for zero-gameplay rationale. While I appreciate the research queue, 5 is limiting when you're working on other aspects (like building) at the same time. How about 10? Or 8?
Updating machines: I absolutely appreciate the many tech upgrades and improvements to the various machines, but many of the machine upgrades and updates (going to MkII machines, for example) break the machines completely - the recipes fall out and cannot be reselected - forcing the player to salvage and rebuild the machine. This isn't just about rebuilding, but rather, removing all the conveyors, because they are in the way of pasting down the new machine. In some cases, they work again, and in some cases not, even after you've taken the time to rebuild. This is a game-breaking bug where the devs should have spent some quality time playing their own game and discovering the "updates" broke the machines rather than making it better.
This is the Biggie: no blueprinting system. This is essentially a factory-building game. Every other factory-building game I've played has a blueprint system where a player can build an assembly of machines, conveyors, power, etc, and then create a blueprint so it can be easily copied to make building much more practical. This game, as far as I can research, has nothing. Everything has to be built as individual parts-and-pieces. Why should I play this game, when many other factory building games have a blueprint system?
There are a lot of issues with the UI. While quite good in general, there are conflicts (like the sidebar resources window) which defaults to being visible, even when your in other screens like the contracts page. When various monitor windows are open (like a machine info window) the cursor and mouse-clicks will still interact with things behind the window, rather than the window itself. The UI needs a lot of polish still.
There are a lot of other issues, which are to be expected of an Early Access game. There's a lot of necessary featured still missing, such as a Trashcan, a true Power Management function to help you trace down independent grids, etc.
In summary, I cannot recommend at this stage of Early Access. The game is playable, and in fact fun, but includes a large helping of frustration.
