tinyE: How is that?
How is the learning curve? The screen shots make it look intimidating as hell but I still want to try it.
I like it a lot. Everyone can build a spaghetti factory where you just noodle your conveyor belts through your base to get resources and finished products to where they are needed.
The real fun of the game is building a properly organized and optimized base that can produce certain items in high quantity. Often I find myself optimizing assembly lines to make them faster/more efficient instead of building new stuff that I'd need to research new technologies.
There are also enemies that attack your evil polluting factory so you need to build defenses like laser turrets. Or you build a tank and take the fight to their nests and wipe them out. More space for your factory. Or you can just turn enemies off completely.
You can also build trains to transport products over long distances. Tracks for one train are fairly simple but it gets more complex if you want to run multiple trains on one track.
If it seems too intimidating you can also read guides for more optimized assembly lines. Steam community or the official forums have lots of good blueprints.