#floaty text

One thing they removed in the new release are the ingredient limits on the different levels of assembly machines. It used to be, level 1s could only craft item that require up to two ingredients, level 2s could do three and the highest level could use as many as you want.

In the new version, all assembly machines can use as many types of ingredients as you want! Meaning even a level 1 assembler can potentially craft your rocket silo for you. The only downside of the lower level ones is the slower crafting speed.

In my current playthrough, this had a big effect on my base building, because I just used assembly 1s for basically all my production way into the mid-game. And even then, I only transitioned to using level 2s very slowly, focussing on the production lines I could use the extra crafting speed the most.

I actually still have a couple of level 1s in my first 0.17 base. They are especially useful for items in (what the fandom often calls) "shopping malls", i.e. assembly lines that produce all the items you need to build and expand your base. From the assembly machines themselves to power poles and mining drills. These items are not in super high demand, so you don't need a constant output of them. Just grabbing what is there and then while you're off building things, they can just slowly build up a chest full of, say long-handed inserters. Even if they're not running all the time and it takes several minutes to fill up a stack or two in the chests, that is just fine with me.

So unless crafting speed is important, you don't even need to update your assemblies! The only downside to lower level ones (besides the speed) is if you are crafting something that requires fluids! Because the level one assemblies don't have a fluid input. So if you're trying to craft for example electric engine units, you will have to use level 2s or higher. Trying to copy the electric engine recipe onto the level 1 assembler, will give you another floaty-text error message.

One thing of note: this will make the (in my opinion super fun!) Lazy Bastard achievement a lot easier. That's the one where you have to finish the game without handcrafting more than 111 items total. So you basically had to make a beeline for an assembly level 2 and then never handcraft another item again for the entire game! Except for the first refineries, since they are one of the few items that require more than four ingredients. Which means you actually have to handcraft them until you unlock level 3s!

But since level 1s can now craft with as many ingredients as you want, this will be a lot easier. You can just make the level 2 assembler in a level one and even build as many refineries as you want, instead of relying on that tiny trickle of oil from a singel one for ages!

Previously, you actually needed almost all the 111 crafts just to get to the level 2 assembly, while making sure you've got enough crafts left for the refinery (the absolute minimum number of crafts to finish the game is 106 as far as I know). Now you can probably stay below the limit with no problems. The devs have said, they realize this makes the achievement a lot easier, but they do not plan on lowering the crafting limit in the future.

Which I honestly think is fine, since these changes should theoretically only lower number of necessary crafts by three: for the level 2 assembler, the first refinery and you also "gain" one craft by power poles now requiring raw wood instead of wooden planks. I haven't actually done the achievement in the new version yet, so I might be missing something!