I'd say K2 is closest to vanilla, just changing a bunch of things, adding a few science packs making the game longer, and adding some IMO unnecessary bloat like loaders/warehouses/inserters able to drop on close side. Overall I'd say it's easier than vanilla, as you have tools to solve basically anything. Multiple things I consider completely broken, like pollution filtering to get rid of biter attacks for minimal price, extreme lengths of underground belts and pipes to the point it's really hard to see which one connects to which. The conversion of resources to matter is pretty cool if you choose to use that. I finished K2 in about 60 hours.
Industrial revolution (I haven't played IR2 yet so I just assume some core things carry over) is interesting because it adds so many intermediate recipes that hand crafting really is really painful, motivating you to automate more. Progressing through the stages is also quite fun so that's not a bad idea to start with either. I didn't...
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