Lack of ideas how to develop large base

[Hannu]

I have a relatively large base able to produce 700 k iron plates per hour and launch a rocket per 5 minutes. It is quite compact, quite optimal and quite aesthetic with concrete tiling and runways. I have isolated about 10 square kilometers by tough defense line. No enemy have ever came through it. Everything is automated and I produce everything I use with machines. I have only Launch Control mod which launches rockets immediately after they are ready. I have researched all possible things. I have some self imposed rules to keep things like I want them to be. For example I use no speed modules except in pumpjacks to keep production plants larger. I use no laser turrets and I prefer to use belts in logistics except very low volume transports.

Unfortunately I am out of ideas what to do next. I like to just watch when everything works, but I have not made other than small optimizations and improvements and new mines during last 50 hours and the game begins to be boring. Typically I take a little break in this kind of situations and play something else, like Kerbal Space Program. But I ask some ideas I can not see. For example some mod which is nice to add to "ready" base end to improve endgame. There are some things I do not want to do.

Begin a new base. I have tendency to get too addicted to game in expansion phase and I do not have time for it now. I am going to begin a new game with Bob's (and some other) mods when 0.14 will be released and needed mods will be updated.

Make significantly larger base. I like large systems but increasing from this point would be just copying production units without more complex production chains. That would be boring in long run.

Install some mods which demand too massive modifications in my base (like Bob's). I would like to begin a new game in such situation.

Try to achieve mathematical perfection between assemblers and belts. My base is relatively good, maybe about 80-90 %, but extreme optimizing is not my thing.

I can install something which makes enemies harder if there is possibility to make defense line fully automated after needed modifications. However, I do not want to make this a war game which demands active fighting.

I made a video about my base but have some difficulties to upload it. I will try again tomorrow.

[Frightning]

I have a kilobase that's producing around 3200 iron plates/min and 2700 copper plates/min (about 1/4 the scale of yours, roughly). The game currently really only has two endgame resource sinks, rockets and modules, and the latter is, in some sense, inherently finitistic (you will eventually have enough and have no need for more). The former has no real gameplay value (other than: because I can). So I totally understand your plight. My only real suggestion atm, is to continue scaling up production, get that rocket time down, maybe even go for multiple silos. This will require expanding production, including more mines (and since you use belts, at some point, belts will be saturated and you will need to do some nontrivial engineering to continue expanding. Eventually though, you will reach a point where you spend most of your time tearing down depleted mines and establishing new ones just to keep what you have fed with resources. (This only happens at a pretty insane resource level though, at least with ideal map settings for a megabase game.)

[Hannu]

I consider expanding. I have done it already in couple of steps, my original idea was capacity of 2 full blue belts of iron (about 5 k/min). I have widened my iron bus from 2 to 8 lines, moved most of my production cells, moved rail yard, expanded my base etc. (therefore the layout of my base is somewhat fuzzy). But why not, maybe next step would be 1M irons per hour which would stress my iron bus near to limits. Or megalomaniac choice, totally new base (unfortunately I do not have enough time for it now).

This is short video of my game. My video editing skills are not very good and Youtube ruined technical quality (I have not found any quality options) but you should see essential things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUbHAHsxyBY

[Overene]

One thing I'd consider doing is downloading the Underground Mining Drills mod, which mines resources similarly to how pumpjacks extract oil. The only downside is that to find underground resources, i believe you'd either need to start a new save or explore farther than you have scanned so far. The mod however would over time remove the tedious chore of replacing mines all the time.

I'd also recommend mods to make enemies harder, to the point where they go from being a nuisance to an actual challenge like they should have been from the beginning. Just experiment with mods that add challenges that are neither tedious nor overly frustrating.

Lastly, i would recommend experimenting with other gameplay improving mods, such as drones, aircraft, and the tank launcher. A lot of people also enjoy large modpacks such as Bob's mods, but i find that these overwhelm me and burn me out before i'm even done exploring the mod's features.