Give circuitry and automation a payoff

As it is there is zero payoff for building with automation and circuitry, only punishment in the form of low efficiency and end of mid-game access. Right now all automation does for the player is 'make number get bigger'. There is nothing to do with all the stuff you get from setting up mass collection systems. Please give automation and circuitry something. It doesn't need to be relevant to the main game, but like - give us something that we can spend the materials on in perpetuity that is useful for extended game play. Give us a play path that has some sort of payoff. Automation for automations sake is not a great game experience. In the current play structure you can get all the ore you need to beat the game from exploring with a pickax - to the extent that you could remove all the ore boulders, all the automation and all the circuitry and it would nearly no impact on the main game - this could and should change.