Fantastic insight!! Makes perfect sense out of years of confusion. Thank you.

FU was the only mod I played with, and it worked as early as 2018 I think. It was a huge overhaul on massive features and build paths. I suggest a look if you enjoy the vanilla game.

Tons of new features too many to count

Funny that you say that. I opened the comments to mention how the final version never felt right to me. One aspect is that the final door is open from the beginning of the game. In my first (early access) playthroughs, the final door stayed closed until the story opened it.

I even played without frackin universe and it was still open on a new playthrough. I really hope it was my files and not a game change. Frackin universe build paths also got way worse and unnecessarily complicated over time, but that’s a different story.

I have much more good to say than bad about the game, but it felt better when I played back in 2016 for the first time and in 2018 with the mod.