[coprogram]

It's starting to look like Factorio will need a completely overhauled tutorial/onboarding process to teach players about these features. I hope that the new features will also be staggered appropriately throughout the tech tree so new players don't have to worry about all these new factory circuit settings and signals in the early game. "This is so complicated! I'm overwhelmed! This game is too much for me!". The game as it is keeps it simple- I hope it will still seem as simple with the DLC.

Saying that, I've got 1000 hours in the game and I'll enjoy diving into the deep end with all this new stuff.

[rcxdude]

Basically all the circuit stuff is optional power-user stuff: It's not at all required to beat the vanilla game and IIRC they haven't said it will be required for the DLC either.

[bombcar]

The in game reference having playable mini-tutorials is probably one of the best features of Factorio.

And so many of the things you can just “ignore” until you ask “could this work” and it just does.