I should post here, to follow and to express how much fun I am having with this game.
Have to say, first off, this is pretty much the game I dreamt about existing as a kiddywink, but never really thought the C64 would be able to do anything like a game this complicated. Now I play it it stirs up all those feelings of wonder I used to have watching the 'How Bread/Cars/Hoovers are Made' factory programs on telly a few years back.
It's a little bit hard to get to grips with, but only a little. Perhaps it helps having lots of training in DF / Transport Tycoon, but after a short while scratching my head I am absolutely loving the options available and it is all coming together nicely. I appreciate the fact that it is extremely easy and not particularly frustrating to re-plan your factory layout pretty much on a whim - I'm not sure if this is going to change in the future as it DOES seem a little bit of a step away from 'reality', but it really does help as you try and figure out what each little thing does.
My latest project has been building an inefficient and not particularly complicated research loop, where I have to manually input iron and copper plates in to a few interlinked assembly areas which output red and green potions to a group of three labs (I think the belt manufacture needs wheels delivering manually as well) - but as I get the turret defenses set up, fill them full of enough ammo (manually, for now), and walk away to do some burner drilling at the iron motherlode a few too many clicks away for me to worry too much about electrically powering them, and set up a nice lengthy conveyor belt (got about 500 spare kicking about because of said research loop spitting out an overprovision of belts), I'm very happy to see it all working nicely as I get through a couple of research options and the creepers fall foul to my defenses as I bring the iron back in to the main trunk belt running through my factory and delivering it all to my furnaces without any real foresight.
I've opened up filter inserters, fast belts, underground belts, and I'm pretty much consumed now with designing a general and efficient resource distribution loop for all the things I might have going on.
Great stuff! I'm excited to play about some more with this, and look forward to the development progressing!