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Factorio – a game where you can automate basically anything

582 points by staticelf 11y ago

patio11 11y ago
This game is fantastic, and ate ~20 hours of a business trip earlier in its development lifecycle. I have one warning to you which I am not aware of seeing elsewhere for it: something about the color palette gives me severe eye strain, to the point of "physically painful to play", in a way I have never experienced before or since. There exist several other games on Steam these days with the same core build-a-(semi-)autonomous-factory mechanic. My favorite of those that I've played so far is Big Pharma. It's substantially less advanced in terms of factory mechanics than Factorio [+], but the strategy is very, very deep, much deeper than you'd expect from looking it it. (For spoilers on that score, see my Steam review, which is the topmost one on the page. Capsule non-spoiler summary: best $20 I spent last year.) [ + ] A fairly key skill for Factorio, which is present in Big Pharma but not relevant except at the highest levels of play, is timing the production of multiple subcomponents (which might happen in different quantities, at different rates, at variable distance from where they are consumed) such that one's production line never starves, blocks, or overproduces. It's Totoya Factory Simulator 2016 in this respect. When you get it right you get visual feedback (absence of congestion on your production line as e.g. coal stacks up because your furnaces aren't burning it because they're blocking on insufficient supplies of ore because you have insufficient electrical capacity because...). It feels like you're playing a symphony of borglike capitalist efficiency.
- hobs 11y ago
  Have you tried Infinifactory (3d FPS ala Portal + assembly lines)? I loved Big Pharma and its not exactly the same, but it felt like the same parts of my brain were working on it.
  - patio11 11y ago
    I have not yet, but will put it on my list for after Lent. Thanks for the recommendation.
    - knowaveragejoe 11y ago
      You would enjoy pretty much all of the games by Zachtronics, including Infinifactory. They're all puzzle-oriented though, as far as I know, rather than sandbox.
      - archimedespi 11y ago
        Seconding Zachtronics; TIS-100 is an amazing game.
        sbierwagen 11y ago
        It's hard to call TIS-100 a "game", it's more "fictional, slightly gamified IDE"
        simoncion 11y ago
        Potato, potato. :)
      - Terr_ 11y ago
        Hmm, it might not be "full sandbox", but they are... flexible puzzles, which can be solved in various ways with different tradeoffs or optimizations. I think that distinguishes them from other kinds of puzzle-games where you're hunting for "The One Predefined Secret" to make your solution.
  - andywood 11y ago
    I think Infinifactory is mind-blowingly amazing on many levels - an epic triumph of game design. The components are few and simple, but provide enormous combinatorial possibilities. There's a logic-language and aesthetic that emerges, that includes the very things patio11 mentions: input ratios, timing, and pipeline issues. The puzzles are sequenced so that each level is initially shocking, but gradually yields to the player's contemplation and experimentation. I think I've had more pure delight from this game than from any other. I liked TIS-100 a lot too, and Infinifactory is kind of like a visuospacial, high-production version of it.
    - zedadex 11y ago
      > The components are few and simple, but provide enormous combinatorial possibilities. Zachtronics in general seems to be pretty great with this.
      - jeffjefferies 11y ago
        I remember playing 'KOHCTPYKTOP - Engineer of the People' years ago, and loving it. I've also really enjoyed SpaceChem, Infinifactory, and TIS-100. All around very interesting and challenging games.
        taneq 11y ago
        Currently working my way through this and it's awesome. The simplified 'transistors'are more like relays but since I want to build a relay computer some day, that's perfect. :D
- carlob 11y ago
  > [+] … Von Neumann model? Von Neumann J 1945 Rev. Econ. Studies 13 1 Can't find the full text at the moment, sorry.
- jbob2000 11y ago
  I will second Big Pharma, I liked it much more than Factorio. Factorio was challenging because it has elements of frustration, whereas Big Pharma was challenging because it has tough puzzles. Factorio is pretty technical, which I found too tiring for evening gameplay.
- karlkatzke 11y ago
  Check out Banished as well -- it's in a similar vein but without conveyor belts.
hobs 11y ago
I have been playing this for a few years and just started again with the release of the steam version. If you ever enjoyed Tekkit (minecraft) or the more automated part of Dwarf Fortress, you will like this game a lot. My favorite part is that basically any action or building (up to the far late game) usually pushes you to build it by hand once or twice, and then automate the process forever. It is extremely satisfying to build your first solar panel array while fighting for every resource, and then a few hours later have your 5000 strong robot army assemble a blueprint of that same array in 5 seconds while you watch. The game also has a really great mechanic where you are constantly unbalanced for what resource you need to build up, but only because you decided to expand and create, so that your plans always digress into other plans and other problems to solve. Also, the multiplayer is great and works really well, though it has a weird setting where you can set your own latency, and it seems like the host and clients are in lockstep not allowed to skew (so if you have a laggy client its a problem.)
tobr 11y ago
That trailer was surprisingly well made.
- cdnsteve 11y ago
  I loved it too. The music felt like something from "honey I shrunk the kids"
thisisandyok 11y ago
Wow, I really want to play this. I enjoyed the Kelfigs games on Xbox, but was disappointed that they were so limited.
- zo1 11y ago
  It's ~$15 on steam at the moment, and a relatively tiny 300MB download. If you spend even 2-3 hours on it, enjoyed, then it's definitely cheaper than the price of a movie.
  - thisisandyok 11y ago
    Just got home from work and bought it. It definitely seems like the kind of game I could sink a ton of time into, so I agree, great value
  - nlawalker 11y ago
    Dude haven't you heard? Unless a game delivers hundreds of hours of play in both single and multiplayer, is moddable, gets at least an 85 on Metacritic and the devs have signed a contract to ship free updates and content quarterly for 10 years, it's a casual game and you should seriously think twice before spending even 99 cents on it. Or you should buy it on Steam, play for an hour and 59 minutes, then get a refund and proudly proclaim how it didn't meet your standards, alongside the other four games you refunded in the last couple weeks. Or pirate it, because you like the game but you don't want to support the industry's high prices.
    - simoncion 11y ago
      Other than the ten-year-support-committment and the Metacritic score [0], Factorio meets these requirements. ;) [0] http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/factorio http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/factorio
- zoba 11y ago
  I highly recommend it! I discovered it about a year ago when making this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/gamingsuggestions/comments/2otewo/supply_chain_management_game_efficiently_moving/ https://www.reddit.com/r/gamingsuggestions/comments/2otewo/s... There are some other suggestions in there as well, though I think I'd start with Factorio first.
zokier 11y ago
The thing that bothered me in Factorio when I played it some time back was that once you hit the end of tech tree, which is pretty easy (or at least was back then), then there wasn't really anything else to do, nothing more for your highly tuned factories to produce. That said, I really liked the part of building your factories, I just would like to have more reason to keep on building. Maybe competitive multiplayer spices things up, but I don't feel like that is where "the scene" is.
- rictic 11y ago
  There's mods, like marathon, which add additional levels of complexity and make ordinary things more expensive so that it slows the game down some. There is a space-based end game that's planned by the developers. And there's upcoming achievements, like make <111 items by hand.
  - simoncion 11y ago
    > There is a space-based end game that's planned by the developers. It's planned, but it looks like it won't make it into 1.0: http://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-111 http://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-111
- kentonv 11y ago
  Things to try: - The "no crafting challenge" mod, where you can't build anything by hand, only in factories. You get a factory to start with in order to bootstrap. Playing in this mode actually taught me that I had been relying on hand crafting way more than I should have -- it turns out that automated crafting of a lot of the stuff you normally hand-craft can actually speed up the game a lot. (Incidentally, I tried to create a "no inventory challenge" mod, where you start with a mobile roboport train car and have to use robots to build everything, but I found the modding API wasn't quite powerful enough to make this work well. But it worked well enough to allow me to conclude that this would be a pretty interesting mode of play if it worked.) - Use a mod that makes resources spawn further away, so you have to build more trains. Trains are like a game in themselves. - I hear people talking about "bob's mod" a lot, which apparently adds a bunch of new resource types and things to build with them, basically multiplying the game complexity.
kentonv 11y ago
This game is like crack for programmers. This has been the most popular game at my LAN parties (http://kentonshouse.com http://kentonshouse.com) for the last year and a half. Here's a review I wrote in December 2014 that still applies (original at https://plus.google.com/+KentonVarda/posts/YHayo6sj42n https://plus.google.com/+KentonVarda/posts/YHayo6sj42n): My new favorite game is Factorio (http://factorio.com http://factorio.com). It's like a cross between Minecraft, SimCity, and Civilization, and the result is massively better than any of them. The game is currently in "alpha", but I'm not sure why; it's far more polished and less buggy than many finished professional games I've played. Overhead view. Like Minecraft, you start out punching trees for wood to craft a pickaxe with which you can then mine some ore to craft other things. But soon, you are building an automatic mining drill, then a conveyor belt to bring the ore to a smelting furnace, then robot arms to insert the ore into the furnace and take the smelted bars out, then more conveyor belts to bring those to other places where thy can be used. Eventually you can build power plants, labs to research new technologies, walls and turrets to defend against attackers, oil refineries, robot delivery drones, trains, and more. The game is incredibly addictive (especially for programmers?). But what really impresses me is how the game illustrates the complexity of the real world. Factorio is a lesson in how logistics trump tactics and strategy ("strategy is for amateurs, logistics are for professionals"), and in how to build a complex system for changing requirements. The lessons are broadly applicable to the real world. It's fairly easy to analogize Factorio to city planning. In your first game, you will quickly discover that the city you built for the early game is all wrong for the late game -- and then you realize: every real-life big city is a horrible mess and this is exactly why. I also find myself comparing Factorio to software, especially distributed systems and networks. I find myself constantly using phrases like "buffer", "flow control", "back pressure", "throughput", "refactor", "under-utilized", etc. One transition I find particularly interesting: around the middle of the game, you research the ability to build "logistics drones", which are basically like Amazon's quadcopter delivery drones. They can transport materials from point to point around your base -- you set up "request" points and "supply" points, and the drones pick up whatever items land in the supply points and bring them directly to whichever requester is requesting that item. Up until this point, you mostly use conveyor belts for this task. When you first get logistics drones, you think "These are WAY more expensive than conveyor belts and have much lower throughput. Why would I ever want them?" But you quickly realize that the advantage of drones is that they are rapidly reconfigurable. Once your base is entirely drone-based, you can switch factories to build different items on a whim -- no need to re-route any conveyor belts. This gets more and more important in the late game as the number of different types of things you are building -- all with different input ingredients -- increases, and maintaining a spaghetti of conveyors becomes infeasible. This is tricky to grasp until you do it. For a while, of course, you'll have part of your base running on drones while another part is still based on conveyors. It's like using Google Flights in your browser to search for airline tickets, while on the back end it is integrating with 60's-era mainframe-based flight scheduling software. I can't help but imagine that conveyor belts and logistics drones represent two different programming languages (or, maybe, programming language paradigms). Choosing your programming language based on how easy it is to do something simple is totally wrong. The true measure of a good language is how it handles massive complexity and -- more importantly -- reconfiguration over time. Another thought: In 10-20 years, when we have everything delivered to our houses via drones and self-driving taxis populating every major street, will we be able to just get rid of small residential side-roads? You won't need to drive a car up to your house anymore: it's easy enough to walk a couple blocks to the nearest major street and hop in a cab, or better yet to a train station. You don't need to carry cargo since it's delivered by drones. Delivery trucks: also replaced by drones. Will we suddenly be able to reclaim a ton of inner-city space? What will we do with it? In any case, thanks to +Michael Powell and +Brian Swetland for introducing me to this game! PS. Factorio is multiplayer! We've been having a lot of fun with it at LAN parties, and I just completed a coop game with +Jade Q Wang, who is also addicted. We tend to forget to do things like eat or sleep when we're playing.
Twirrim 11y ago
The whole game is stunning quality for what is still "alpha", where in games that frequently denotes "so buggy it's a miracle if the game runs for 10 minutes without crashing and burning". It just works, and it's smooth as silk. It seems like they've concentrated heavily on the game engine and now are focussing on content, but there is plenty of content already to play with.
- abstractbeliefs 11y ago
  The trick is to realise that thanks to the rise of "early access" in indie games, "alpha" means release, but released absolved of any sort of commitment to continue to develop the game or ship quality software. Final "release" versions are often really "end of life" _final_ versions with no future expansion. It's not to say that many indie (and not-indie) devs produce good games under this model, it's just there's been a huge shift in what players and developers expect from each other, as well as how they market it. Similar parallels can also be drawn to the pre-paid kickstarter systems which were originally intended to help pay for upfront costs like manufacturing, but are now really used as risk-management tools to help ensure a certain number of sales before a project starts in earnest. There's no reason Peter Molyneux should need to ask players to pre-fund a game [1] of unknown quality and even scope, for example. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godus
  - SolarNet 11y ago
    Well factorio is actually following the minecraft design. They have a bunch of things they want to add, but due to the complexity of the game it takes time to get there. Like in minecraft where they kept adding blocks until they were like "alright we have all of the ones we initially designed in". Factorio hasn't reached that point yet.
bingeboy 11y ago
I just started playing and find peace in automation.
- fixermark 11y ago
  I appreciate the fact that you can automate some, but not all, things. Your manufacturing is ultimately sourced to raw materials, and sooner or later those supplies become exhausted.
ccallebs 11y ago
Another +1 for the game as well. As I get older, it takes a lot more for a game to put me into "binge mode". This game did and then some. If you enjoy solving puzzles / architecting software / survival games, you will probably dig Factorio.
LoSboccacc 11y ago
loved this game and hopped in since the indiegogo campaign. I've made two mod that suits well the engineering mindset: static difficulty stop time based increase of enemy difficulty https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?f=87&t=6433 https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?f=87&t=6433 endless resource makes deposit endless (with diminishing return) so all your railroads don't suddenly vanish https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?f=94&t=3130 https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?f=94&t=3130 check them out :)
gbersac 11y ago
I am the 42 school and (a french progamming school) and evryone is playing it (myself include). This is a trendy game especially for programmers (for those who love problem solving).
KirinDave 11y ago
If you like this game, you might also like Modded Minecraft. Many technical mods strongly associate with developers who love to tinker on absurdly complex physical systems. I've found the process to be a nice change of pace in the evenings. You might also like our Minecraft Modpack, Resonant Rise. You can grab it on the ATLauncher (just search for ATLauncher). It's designed around complex and interesting engineering challenges. There's a similarly REALLY cool Minecraft mod on the scene for Minecraft 1.8 called "Psi" that you can try (available here: http://psi.vazkii.us/ http://psi.vazkii.us/). It lets you use a visual dataflow language and trigonometry to create "magic spells" that are very technical in nature. It's a very fun exercise, and it's neat to write a program (with almost NO flow control!) that does things like dig a tunnel or build a bridge or throw zombies skyward, all by magic.
- lbrandy 11y ago
  As my 3 year old began to recognize Minecraft, I decided to sit down and play it for the first time. The base game was ok but the modded versions... let's just say that was 3 months ago and I'm completely hooked. Like factorio, it's basically programming in video-game form, building abstractions to tame complexity to build yet more complex abstractions. I've been playing Infinity Evolved recently but Resonant Rise is also amazing. Thanks for that work.
  - KirinDave 11y ago
    I've been working on a 1.8 experience, and our RR core team is working on the most epic skyblock you can imagine. I won't spoil it, but it starts off with a time limit. :)
typeformer 11y ago
I think it would be cool to be able to play the natives too and have to come up with super ingenious ways of dismantling these unholy factories of the invaders destroying your planet...
imaginenore 11y ago
The only downside to Factorio is its graphic design. It all looks like grey-brown mess. They need to allow 3rd party skins like Minecraft does.
- simoncion 11y ago
  > The only downside to Factorio is its graphic design. I rather like its graphic design. It reminds me of many of the factories (and surrounding areas) I've had the opportunity to walk through. As for third-party skins, you can probably author a mod to replace the existing graphics with ones that are more pleasing to you: https://wiki.factorio.com/index.php?title=Modding https://wiki.factorio.com/index.php?title=Modding
- myhf 11y ago
  They allow 3rd party skins and someone has already made a "happy" one: http://t-a-w.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/happy-factorio-mod-for-factorio-0124.html http://t-a-w.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/happy-factorio-mod-for-...
- shepardrtc 11y ago
  I don't think its a downside at all. Its a refreshing change from all the bright, cartoon-like game designs of the past few years.
syncsynchalt 11y ago
I really can't recommend this game enough.
yread 11y ago
This game is awesome, it was already great in 2013 when I supported them and it keeps getting better, the developers are listening to the users and really working with them
JackuB 11y ago
I love the irony that you have to fight bugs. PROTIP: Try multiplayer. Unexpectedly, my girlfriend loved it and we had a lot of fun there. Also, they are hiring: http://www.factorio.com/jobs http://www.factorio.com/jobs
kawsper 11y ago
I bought this game one friday, and have now clocked 46 hours into it. It is a fantastic game, and it can really keep you up at night if you aren't careful.
r3bl 11y ago
Can someone explain me the difference between 0.11.22 version and 0.12.26 version? The demos for both of the versions are available in the demo page, and I can't figure out the reason why such an older version seem to still be available for demo.
- myhf 11y ago
  The 0.11 demo is probably still up because it is known to be very stable. I haven't encountered any stability problems with 0.12 in recent months, though. The big difference is the endgame: 0.11 had a placeholder "Rocket Defense" and 0.12 has a multi-step rocket and satellite assembly process. You would play several hours before encountering this. There are also a lot of performance improvements and quality-of-life things like personal roboports and more detailed logic combinators. I'm looking forward to 0.13 which will have much nicer train track placing, fire that spreads, and maybe new vehicles and chest-loaders.
Paul_S 11y ago
It's a fun game but please, at some point you have to release and stop pretending it's alpha to avoid any responsibility. It is now not unusual to buy an "alpha" release of a game, play for a few years, shelve it and move on and then notice 5 years later that the final release has shipped. I can't be the only person who finds this silly.
- BookmarkSaver 11y ago
  Where does it say that? All I see is that it is on Steam, they started developing in 2012, and that they call it "very stable". I don't see "alpha" anywhere.
  - hk__2 11y ago
    The current version on their website is 0.12.26 (alpha).
  - wagglycocks 11y ago
    On the Steam store page it's listed as "Early Access," which is the alpha/beta branding loophole that Steam uses.
- Obi_Juan_Kenobi 11y ago
  Factorio EA is like Kerbal Space Program used to be: it's a completely viable and fun game, but not feature complete. They have a vision for what they want the release to be like, and they're making progress toward that. I disagree that it's a way to shift responsibility. The devs are responsive and the game is very stable. I can't tell you the number of times I've watched a bit of an older let's play series and some minor complaint or wish has since been addressed. Many games are like that, but not Factorio. So, it just comes down to semantics and what EA means, vs. what perhaps it should be.
- detaro 11y ago
  How would you call it? If you call it "released" things like "story not finished", "might want to do large changes later" become harder to accept. (?) (On the other hand Minecraft released one day, but is still changing quite a lot. I don't know what a good label for "well-playable, but evolving" is... )
hbt 11y ago
This is an amazing game, especially in multiplayer. When playing with others, it's comparable to programming with others. It's about communication, people will try to optimize stuff that already works, people will argue about how to build stuff or when to refactor stuff. Sometimes they will build something in a weird way and argue why this is the best way etc. It can be a nightmare with the wrong people or a lot of fun with intelligent people who can control their emotions. Also, the community is amazing and there are tons of mods.
- joss82 11y ago
  I would love to play Factorio multiplayer with someone that is interviewing to become a colleague. Playing this game in coop is like programming in many ways. You see the result of your design mistakes, and you have to be able to communicate well but not overcommunicate. To be independant but a team player at the same time, etc... Is Factorio the new programmer interview?? ;)
bronz 11y ago
Wow, this really sucks. I had the exact same concept in mind for my next game. Like, during the trailer when he shows the crashed ship, my jaw dropped. Almost every aspect of the game is the same as what I had in mind. I had the exact same idea and I was really excited about it. Oh well.
- brianobush 11y ago
  Can you enumerate the number of games that start with a crashing ship?
  - scarboy 11y ago
    http://www.giantbomb.com/arrival-by-crash-landing/3015-5658/games/ http://www.giantbomb.com/arrival-by-crash-landing/3015-5658/... Maybe someone should add Factorio
    - bduerst 11y ago
      + Risk of Rain, Dungeon of the Endless, etc.
  - marblar 11y ago
    Off the top of my head? Bioshock, Pikmin, Halo 4
  - krabpaaltje 11y ago
    Commander Keen 4
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    Marathon? It didn't crash immediately since it was in orbit, but it was destroyed.
  - orthecreedence 11y ago
    Link's Awakening
  - ramchip 11y ago
TimJRobinson 11y ago
I'm a huge fan of the Anno series (Anno 2070 multiplayer is amazing) because of how much fun it is to try and maintain supply chains and production lines of 50+ different resources. Have spent over 400 hours playing it according to steam. This looks right up my alley, downloading it now.
graeme 11y ago
Looks fun. Is it potentially productive leisure? I run a business, and have automated portions of it with processes. These run very well. Others I've found harder to automate. I'm wondering if playing a game like this can help train a habit of automation. Thoughts?
- simoncion 11y ago
  > Is it potentially productive leisure? Yeah, potentially. I've found the automated trains to be particularly effective at illustrating deadlocks and resource contention. Your early factory will (by the early mid-game) have no doubt taught you all about technical debt. :) > I'm wondering if playing a game like this can help train a habit of automation. Sure, why not? The way you grow a habit of automation is to determine if you're spending "too much" time on a task, and if it would probably be worth the effort required to automate that task. However, in Factorio you have no choice but to automate if you want to reach the main scenario's end goal in any reasonable amount of time. In real life, it's often not so obvious that this is the case. Strong suggestion: Don't play in Peaceful Mode. Getting your projects interrupted by P0 drop-everything issues (and figuring out how to effectively deflect those issues) makes life so much more interesting.
  - graeme 11y ago
    I accumulated much technical debt in my businesses processes. Seeing it illustrated in a game might give some new perspective on that. What I also need to work on are the intermediate steps where I do things myself, but have a process written where someone else could do it. I'll try the demo.
frenchie4111 11y ago
I am going to have job candidates play this game with me
- joss82 11y ago
  Great idea, actually!
techman9 11y ago
As distinct from https://factor.io/ https://factor.io/ LOL.
jomendoz 11y ago
It seems to be a great game! Sadly, I think it encourages resource exploitation as to what we, the human race, have been doing to Earth as a whole. I think a very good extension would be to provide new technology for sustainable energy generation and even further the ability to harness and excel the planet as a super living thing (as Asimov could imagine in its Foundation series). This would provide an even more constrained and challenging environment as to maintain planet's equilibrium on one hand and progress on the other. Maybe, those aren't really valid concerns from the beginning of a game. But afterwards, it'll be important as massive industrialization reaches ecological relevance.
- noobie 11y ago
  >Sadly, I think it encourages resource exploitation as to what we, the human race, have been doing to Earth as a whole. It's actually worse, your machines produce pollution which drives the local creatures mad and they start to attack you. I think reaching an equilibrium with the planet's environment/creature makes for a great end game milestone.
skriticos2 11y ago
I picked this up a few days ago on Steam and spent considerable time on it since then. It's really addictive for people who like automation. It has a nice pace, throwing in some interesting challenges, but generally let's you focus on those little details on how to optimize the structure of your base. Resources are generally bountiful, but they do run out eventually, so you are forced to think about acquiring new sources - and until then you have plenty of time to fill your conveyor belts.. By the way, thanks for supporting this on Linux! Wouldn't play it otherwise.
fixermark 11y ago
True story: I remembered I had this installed on my home machine while I was on a business trip. I... may have consumed copious amounts of hotel wifi playing it over VPN one night. ;)
StavrosK 11y ago
Sidenote, I love how both Factorio and Big Pharma accept bitcoin for purchases. It's by far my preferred payment method, and I'll buy one of the two just to support them for that.
rl3 11y ago
I have been avoiding this game like the plague due to its potential life-ending, productivity-destroying effects (at least for some people). This is one of those games where it starts innocently enough, a few hundred hours of gameplay accrue, and the next thing you know you're wondering where the last two months went. Part of the reason for this is related to the decline of the SimCity franchise over the years. Cities: Skylines was pretty, but it didn't really hit the same notes in terms of gameplay. The last real SimCity game was 2004, so it's been well over a decade of waiting for the next truly addictive builder/simulation fix to arrive. Based on the amount of people I know having sunk triple-digit hours into Factorio, it's the closest we've come to a real SimCity game since. That said, it seems like a fantastic game and I look forward to playing it some day.
- Obi_Juan_Kenobi 11y ago
  Kudos for waiting, but the game is in a very good state. I think it reflects on the ambitions of the devs that they're keeping it EA even at this point. It is certainly improving, but it's really solid. Even with very big factories, the game performs well. The improvements to be made are really just related to the UI and some game mechanics that could be modified or extended. Generally, there are lots of mods that will hopefully make it into the base game (e.g. rail tanker cars), but good mod support is part of the game. It's quite different from SimCity, but I agree that both games are enjoyed by a similar audience for similar reasons.
  - rl3 11y ago
    >It's quite different from SimCity, but I agree that both games are enjoyed by a similar audience for similar reasons. Definitely. Factorio has a crafting system, so that's a major difference. I'd say the "similar reasons" you mentioned above are twofold: a) You design systems and observe how they behave. There's kind of an awe or wonderment associated with watching how living, breathing systems behave within a complex simulation. b) There's also a feedback loop where the player attempts to make their systems more efficient. This kind of massages a specific part of the brain in people with OCD tendencies, generating huge amounts of pleasure.
- 11y ago
Pamar 11y ago
Question: would this (or Big Pharma, or some other similar game) work for children? Starting at what age?
- Retra 11y ago
  What do you mean "work?" What are you trying to achieve?
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - Pamar 11y ago
    I mean: a friend of mine has a 11 years old child. Another has two girls, one 8, the other 13... Should I suggest one of this games to them? If yes, which one?
- user1221 11y ago
  We're playing it. My kid is 10. He said redstone is more fun but he didn't dislike factorio.
proactivesvcs 11y ago
In case you're still on the fence, take a look at the Steam reviews: http://store.steampowered.com/app/427520/#app_reviews_hash http://store.steampowered.com/app/427520/#app_reviews_hash
nickpinkston 11y ago
If anyone is interested in building an automated factory that can make anything IRL, we'd love to talk with you: https://www.plethora.com/careers https://www.plethora.com/careers Or hit me up: nick@plethora.com (Founder/CEO)

582 points by staticelf 11y ago

This game is fantastic, and ate ~20 hours of a business trip earlier in its development lifecycle. I have one warning to you which I am not aware of seeing elsewhere for it: something about the color palette gives me severe eye strain, to the point of "physically painful to play", in a way I have never experienced before or since. There exist several other games on Steam these days with the same core build-a-(semi-)autonomous-factory mechanic. My favorite of those that I've played so far is Big Pharma. It's substantially less advanced in terms of factory mechanics than Factorio [+], but the strategy is very, very deep, much deeper than you'd expect from looking it it. (For spoilers on that score, see my Steam review, which is the topmost one on the page. Capsule non-spoiler summary: best $20 I spent last year.) [ + ] A fairly key skill for Factorio, which is present in Big Pharma but not relevant except at the highest levels of play, is timing the production of multiple subcomponents (which might happen in different quantities, at different rates, at variable distance from where they are consumed) such that one's production line never starves, blocks, or overproduces. It's Totoya Factory Simulator 2016 in this respect. When you get it right you get visual feedback (absence of congestion on your production line as e.g. coal stacks up because your furnaces aren't burning it because they're blocking on insufficient supplies of ore because you have insufficient electrical capacity because...). It feels like you're playing a symphony of borglike capitalist efficiency.

hobs 11y ago
Have you tried Infinifactory (3d FPS ala Portal + assembly lines)? I loved Big Pharma and its not exactly the same, but it felt like the same parts of my brain were working on it.
- patio11 11y ago
  I have not yet, but will put it on my list for after Lent. Thanks for the recommendation.
  - knowaveragejoe 11y ago
    You would enjoy pretty much all of the games by Zachtronics, including Infinifactory. They're all puzzle-oriented though, as far as I know, rather than sandbox.
    - archimedespi 11y ago
      Seconding Zachtronics; TIS-100 is an amazing game.
      - sbierwagen 11y ago
        It's hard to call TIS-100 a "game", it's more "fictional, slightly gamified IDE"
        simoncion 11y ago
        Potato, potato. :)
    - Terr_ 11y ago
      Hmm, it might not be "full sandbox", but they are... flexible puzzles, which can be solved in various ways with different tradeoffs or optimizations. I think that distinguishes them from other kinds of puzzle-games where you're hunting for "The One Predefined Secret" to make your solution.
- andywood 11y ago
  I think Infinifactory is mind-blowingly amazing on many levels - an epic triumph of game design. The components are few and simple, but provide enormous combinatorial possibilities. There's a logic-language and aesthetic that emerges, that includes the very things patio11 mentions: input ratios, timing, and pipeline issues. The puzzles are sequenced so that each level is initially shocking, but gradually yields to the player's contemplation and experimentation. I think I've had more pure delight from this game than from any other. I liked TIS-100 a lot too, and Infinifactory is kind of like a visuospacial, high-production version of it.
  - zedadex 11y ago
    > The components are few and simple, but provide enormous combinatorial possibilities. Zachtronics in general seems to be pretty great with this.
    - jeffjefferies 11y ago
      I remember playing 'KOHCTPYKTOP - Engineer of the People' years ago, and loving it. I've also really enjoyed SpaceChem, Infinifactory, and TIS-100. All around very interesting and challenging games.
      - taneq 11y ago
        Currently working my way through this and it's awesome. The simplified 'transistors'are more like relays but since I want to build a relay computer some day, that's perfect. :D
carlob 11y ago
> [+] … Von Neumann model? Von Neumann J 1945 Rev. Econ. Studies 13 1 Can't find the full text at the moment, sorry.
jbob2000 11y ago
I will second Big Pharma, I liked it much more than Factorio. Factorio was challenging because it has elements of frustration, whereas Big Pharma was challenging because it has tough puzzles. Factorio is pretty technical, which I found too tiring for evening gameplay.
karlkatzke 11y ago
Check out Banished as well -- it's in a similar vein but without conveyor belts.

hobs 11y ago

I have been playing this for a few years and just started again with the release of the steam version. If you ever enjoyed Tekkit (minecraft) or the more automated part of Dwarf Fortress, you will like this game a lot. My favorite part is that basically any action or building (up to the far late game) usually pushes you to build it by hand once or twice, and then automate the process forever. It is extremely satisfying to build your first solar panel array while fighting for every resource, and then a few hours later have your 5000 strong robot army assemble a blueprint of that same array in 5 seconds while you watch. The game also has a really great mechanic where you are constantly unbalanced for what resource you need to build up, but only because you decided to expand and create, so that your plans always digress into other plans and other problems to solve. Also, the multiplayer is great and works really well, though it has a weird setting where you can set your own latency, and it seems like the host and clients are in lockstep not allowed to skew (so if you have a laggy client its a problem.)

tobr 11y ago

That trailer was surprisingly well made.

cdnsteve 11y ago
I loved it too. The music felt like something from "honey I shrunk the kids"

thisisandyok 11y ago

Wow, I really want to play this. I enjoyed the Kelfigs games on Xbox, but was disappointed that they were so limited.

zo1 11y ago
It's ~$15 on steam at the moment, and a relatively tiny 300MB download. If you spend even 2-3 hours on it, enjoyed, then it's definitely cheaper than the price of a movie.
- thisisandyok 11y ago
  Just got home from work and bought it. It definitely seems like the kind of game I could sink a ton of time into, so I agree, great value
- nlawalker 11y ago
  Dude haven't you heard? Unless a game delivers hundreds of hours of play in both single and multiplayer, is moddable, gets at least an 85 on Metacritic and the devs have signed a contract to ship free updates and content quarterly for 10 years, it's a casual game and you should seriously think twice before spending even 99 cents on it. Or you should buy it on Steam, play for an hour and 59 minutes, then get a refund and proudly proclaim how it didn't meet your standards, alongside the other four games you refunded in the last couple weeks. Or pirate it, because you like the game but you don't want to support the industry's high prices.
  - simoncion 11y ago
    Other than the ten-year-support-committment and the Metacritic score [0], Factorio meets these requirements. ;) [0] http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/factorio http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/factorio
zoba 11y ago
I highly recommend it! I discovered it about a year ago when making this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/gamingsuggestions/comments/2otewo/supply_chain_management_game_efficiently_moving/ https://www.reddit.com/r/gamingsuggestions/comments/2otewo/s... There are some other suggestions in there as well, though I think I'd start with Factorio first.

zokier 11y ago

The thing that bothered me in Factorio when I played it some time back was that once you hit the end of tech tree, which is pretty easy (or at least was back then), then there wasn't really anything else to do, nothing more for your highly tuned factories to produce. That said, I really liked the part of building your factories, I just would like to have more reason to keep on building. Maybe competitive multiplayer spices things up, but I don't feel like that is where "the scene" is.

rictic 11y ago
There's mods, like marathon, which add additional levels of complexity and make ordinary things more expensive so that it slows the game down some. There is a space-based end game that's planned by the developers. And there's upcoming achievements, like make <111 items by hand.
- simoncion 11y ago
  > There is a space-based end game that's planned by the developers. It's planned, but it looks like it won't make it into 1.0: http://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-111 http://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-111
kentonv 11y ago
Things to try: - The "no crafting challenge" mod, where you can't build anything by hand, only in factories. You get a factory to start with in order to bootstrap. Playing in this mode actually taught me that I had been relying on hand crafting way more than I should have -- it turns out that automated crafting of a lot of the stuff you normally hand-craft can actually speed up the game a lot. (Incidentally, I tried to create a "no inventory challenge" mod, where you start with a mobile roboport train car and have to use robots to build everything, but I found the modding API wasn't quite powerful enough to make this work well. But it worked well enough to allow me to conclude that this would be a pretty interesting mode of play if it worked.) - Use a mod that makes resources spawn further away, so you have to build more trains. Trains are like a game in themselves. - I hear people talking about "bob's mod" a lot, which apparently adds a bunch of new resource types and things to build with them, basically multiplying the game complexity.

kentonv 11y ago

This game is like crack for programmers. This has been the most popular game at my LAN parties (http://kentonshouse.com http://kentonshouse.com) for the last year and a half. Here's a review I wrote in December 2014 that still applies (original at https://plus.google.com/+KentonVarda/posts/YHayo6sj42n https://plus.google.com/+KentonVarda/posts/YHayo6sj42n): My new favorite game is Factorio (http://factorio.com http://factorio.com). It's like a cross between Minecraft, SimCity, and Civilization, and the result is massively better than any of them. The game is currently in "alpha", but I'm not sure why; it's far more polished and less buggy than many finished professional games I've played. Overhead view. Like Minecraft, you start out punching trees for wood to craft a pickaxe with which you can then mine some ore to craft other things. But soon, you are building an automatic mining drill, then a conveyor belt to bring the ore to a smelting furnace, then robot arms to insert the ore into the furnace and take the smelted bars out, then more conveyor belts to bring those to other places where thy can be used. Eventually you can build power plants, labs to research new technologies, walls and turrets to defend against attackers, oil refineries, robot delivery drones, trains, and more. The game is incredibly addictive (especially for programmers?). But what really impresses me is how the game illustrates the complexity of the real world. Factorio is a lesson in how logistics trump tactics and strategy ("strategy is for amateurs, logistics are for professionals"), and in how to build a complex system for changing requirements. The lessons are broadly applicable to the real world. It's fairly easy to analogize Factorio to city planning. In your first game, you will quickly discover that the city you built for the early game is all wrong for the late game -- and then you realize: every real-life big city is a horrible mess and this is exactly why. I also find myself comparing Factorio to software, especially distributed systems and networks. I find myself constantly using phrases like "buffer", "flow control", "back pressure", "throughput", "refactor", "under-utilized", etc. One transition I find particularly interesting: around the middle of the game, you research the ability to build "logistics drones", which are basically like Amazon's quadcopter delivery drones. They can transport materials from point to point around your base -- you set up "request" points and "supply" points, and the drones pick up whatever items land in the supply points and bring them directly to whichever requester is requesting that item. Up until this point, you mostly use conveyor belts for this task. When you first get logistics drones, you think "These are WAY more expensive than conveyor belts and have much lower throughput. Why would I ever want them?" But you quickly realize that the advantage of drones is that they are rapidly reconfigurable. Once your base is entirely drone-based, you can switch factories to build different items on a whim -- no need to re-route any conveyor belts. This gets more and more important in the late game as the number of different types of things you are building -- all with different input ingredients -- increases, and maintaining a spaghetti of conveyors becomes infeasible. This is tricky to grasp until you do it. For a while, of course, you'll have part of your base running on drones while another part is still based on conveyors. It's like using Google Flights in your browser to search for airline tickets, while on the back end it is integrating with 60's-era mainframe-based flight scheduling software. I can't help but imagine that conveyor belts and logistics drones represent two different programming languages (or, maybe, programming language paradigms). Choosing your programming language based on how easy it is to do something simple is totally wrong. The true measure of a good language is how it handles massive complexity and -- more importantly -- reconfiguration over time. Another thought: In 10-20 years, when we have everything delivered to our houses via drones and self-driving taxis populating every major street, will we be able to just get rid of small residential side-roads? You won't need to drive a car up to your house anymore: it's easy enough to walk a couple blocks to the nearest major street and hop in a cab, or better yet to a train station. You don't need to carry cargo since it's delivered by drones. Delivery trucks: also replaced by drones. Will we suddenly be able to reclaim a ton of inner-city space? What will we do with it? In any case, thanks to +Michael Powell and +Brian Swetland for introducing me to this game! PS. Factorio is multiplayer! We've been having a lot of fun with it at LAN parties, and I just completed a coop game with +Jade Q Wang, who is also addicted. We tend to forget to do things like eat or sleep when we're playing.

Twirrim 11y ago

The whole game is stunning quality for what is still "alpha", where in games that frequently denotes "so buggy it's a miracle if the game runs for 10 minutes without crashing and burning". It just works, and it's smooth as silk. It seems like they've concentrated heavily on the game engine and now are focussing on content, but there is plenty of content already to play with.

abstractbeliefs 11y ago
The trick is to realise that thanks to the rise of "early access" in indie games, "alpha" means release, but released absolved of any sort of commitment to continue to develop the game or ship quality software. Final "release" versions are often really "end of life" _final_ versions with no future expansion. It's not to say that many indie (and not-indie) devs produce good games under this model, it's just there's been a huge shift in what players and developers expect from each other, as well as how they market it. Similar parallels can also be drawn to the pre-paid kickstarter systems which were originally intended to help pay for upfront costs like manufacturing, but are now really used as risk-management tools to help ensure a certain number of sales before a project starts in earnest. There's no reason Peter Molyneux should need to ask players to pre-fund a game [1] of unknown quality and even scope, for example. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godus
- SolarNet 11y ago
  Well factorio is actually following the minecraft design. They have a bunch of things they want to add, but due to the complexity of the game it takes time to get there. Like in minecraft where they kept adding blocks until they were like "alright we have all of the ones we initially designed in". Factorio hasn't reached that point yet.

bingeboy 11y ago

I just started playing and find peace in automation.

fixermark 11y ago
I appreciate the fact that you can automate some, but not all, things. Your manufacturing is ultimately sourced to raw materials, and sooner or later those supplies become exhausted.

ccallebs 11y ago

Another +1 for the game as well. As I get older, it takes a lot more for a game to put me into "binge mode". This game did and then some. If you enjoy solving puzzles / architecting software / survival games, you will probably dig Factorio.

LoSboccacc 11y ago

loved this game and hopped in since the indiegogo campaign. I've made two mod that suits well the engineering mindset: static difficulty stop time based increase of enemy difficulty https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?f=87&t=6433 https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?f=87&t=6433 endless resource makes deposit endless (with diminishing return) so all your railroads don't suddenly vanish https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?f=94&t=3130 https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?f=94&t=3130 check them out :)

gbersac 11y ago

I am the 42 school and (a french progamming school) and evryone is playing it (myself include). This is a trendy game especially for programmers (for those who love problem solving).

KirinDave 11y ago

If you like this game, you might also like Modded Minecraft. Many technical mods strongly associate with developers who love to tinker on absurdly complex physical systems. I've found the process to be a nice change of pace in the evenings. You might also like our Minecraft Modpack, Resonant Rise. You can grab it on the ATLauncher (just search for ATLauncher). It's designed around complex and interesting engineering challenges. There's a similarly REALLY cool Minecraft mod on the scene for Minecraft 1.8 called "Psi" that you can try (available here: http://psi.vazkii.us/ http://psi.vazkii.us/). It lets you use a visual dataflow language and trigonometry to create "magic spells" that are very technical in nature. It's a very fun exercise, and it's neat to write a program (with almost NO flow control!) that does things like dig a tunnel or build a bridge or throw zombies skyward, all by magic.

lbrandy 11y ago
As my 3 year old began to recognize Minecraft, I decided to sit down and play it for the first time. The base game was ok but the modded versions... let's just say that was 3 months ago and I'm completely hooked. Like factorio, it's basically programming in video-game form, building abstractions to tame complexity to build yet more complex abstractions. I've been playing Infinity Evolved recently but Resonant Rise is also amazing. Thanks for that work.
- KirinDave 11y ago
  I've been working on a 1.8 experience, and our RR core team is working on the most epic skyblock you can imagine. I won't spoil it, but it starts off with a time limit. :)

typeformer 11y ago

I think it would be cool to be able to play the natives too and have to come up with super ingenious ways of dismantling these unholy factories of the invaders destroying your planet...

imaginenore 11y ago

The only downside to Factorio is its graphic design. It all looks like grey-brown mess. They need to allow 3rd party skins like Minecraft does.

simoncion 11y ago
> The only downside to Factorio is its graphic design. I rather like its graphic design. It reminds me of many of the factories (and surrounding areas) I've had the opportunity to walk through. As for third-party skins, you can probably author a mod to replace the existing graphics with ones that are more pleasing to you: https://wiki.factorio.com/index.php?title=Modding https://wiki.factorio.com/index.php?title=Modding
myhf 11y ago
They allow 3rd party skins and someone has already made a "happy" one: http://t-a-w.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/happy-factorio-mod-for-factorio-0124.html http://t-a-w.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/happy-factorio-mod-for-...
shepardrtc 11y ago
I don't think its a downside at all. Its a refreshing change from all the bright, cartoon-like game designs of the past few years.

syncsynchalt 11y ago

I really can't recommend this game enough.

yread 11y ago

This game is awesome, it was already great in 2013 when I supported them and it keeps getting better, the developers are listening to the users and really working with them

JackuB 11y ago

I love the irony that you have to fight bugs. PROTIP: Try multiplayer. Unexpectedly, my girlfriend loved it and we had a lot of fun there. Also, they are hiring: http://www.factorio.com/jobs http://www.factorio.com/jobs

kawsper 11y ago

I bought this game one friday, and have now clocked 46 hours into it. It is a fantastic game, and it can really keep you up at night if you aren't careful.

r3bl 11y ago

Can someone explain me the difference between 0.11.22 version and 0.12.26 version? The demos for both of the versions are available in the demo page, and I can't figure out the reason why such an older version seem to still be available for demo.

myhf 11y ago
The 0.11 demo is probably still up because it is known to be very stable. I haven't encountered any stability problems with 0.12 in recent months, though. The big difference is the endgame: 0.11 had a placeholder "Rocket Defense" and 0.12 has a multi-step rocket and satellite assembly process. You would play several hours before encountering this. There are also a lot of performance improvements and quality-of-life things like personal roboports and more detailed logic combinators. I'm looking forward to 0.13 which will have much nicer train track placing, fire that spreads, and maybe new vehicles and chest-loaders.

Paul_S 11y ago

It's a fun game but please, at some point you have to release and stop pretending it's alpha to avoid any responsibility. It is now not unusual to buy an "alpha" release of a game, play for a few years, shelve it and move on and then notice 5 years later that the final release has shipped. I can't be the only person who finds this silly.

BookmarkSaver 11y ago
Where does it say that? All I see is that it is on Steam, they started developing in 2012, and that they call it "very stable". I don't see "alpha" anywhere.
- hk__2 11y ago
  The current version on their website is 0.12.26 (alpha).
- wagglycocks 11y ago
  On the Steam store page it's listed as "Early Access," which is the alpha/beta branding loophole that Steam uses.
Obi_Juan_Kenobi 11y ago
Factorio EA is like Kerbal Space Program used to be: it's a completely viable and fun game, but not feature complete. They have a vision for what they want the release to be like, and they're making progress toward that. I disagree that it's a way to shift responsibility. The devs are responsive and the game is very stable. I can't tell you the number of times I've watched a bit of an older let's play series and some minor complaint or wish has since been addressed. Many games are like that, but not Factorio. So, it just comes down to semantics and what EA means, vs. what perhaps it should be.
detaro 11y ago
How would you call it? If you call it "released" things like "story not finished", "might want to do large changes later" become harder to accept. (?) (On the other hand Minecraft released one day, but is still changing quite a lot. I don't know what a good label for "well-playable, but evolving" is... )

hbt 11y ago

This is an amazing game, especially in multiplayer. When playing with others, it's comparable to programming with others. It's about communication, people will try to optimize stuff that already works, people will argue about how to build stuff or when to refactor stuff. Sometimes they will build something in a weird way and argue why this is the best way etc. It can be a nightmare with the wrong people or a lot of fun with intelligent people who can control their emotions. Also, the community is amazing and there are tons of mods.

joss82 11y ago
I would love to play Factorio multiplayer with someone that is interviewing to become a colleague. Playing this game in coop is like programming in many ways. You see the result of your design mistakes, and you have to be able to communicate well but not overcommunicate. To be independant but a team player at the same time, etc... Is Factorio the new programmer interview?? ;)

bronz 11y ago

Wow, this really sucks. I had the exact same concept in mind for my next game. Like, during the trailer when he shows the crashed ship, my jaw dropped. Almost every aspect of the game is the same as what I had in mind. I had the exact same idea and I was really excited about it. Oh well.

brianobush 11y ago
Can you enumerate the number of games that start with a crashing ship?
- scarboy 11y ago
  http://www.giantbomb.com/arrival-by-crash-landing/3015-5658/games/ http://www.giantbomb.com/arrival-by-crash-landing/3015-5658/... Maybe someone should add Factorio
  - bduerst 11y ago
    + Risk of Rain, Dungeon of the Endless, etc.
- marblar 11y ago
  Off the top of my head? Bioshock, Pikmin, Halo 4
- krabpaaltje 11y ago
  Commander Keen 4
- jessaustin 11y ago
  Marathon? It didn't crash immediately since it was in orbit, but it was destroyed.
- orthecreedence 11y ago
  Link's Awakening
- ramchip 11y ago

TimJRobinson 11y ago

I'm a huge fan of the Anno series (Anno 2070 multiplayer is amazing) because of how much fun it is to try and maintain supply chains and production lines of 50+ different resources. Have spent over 400 hours playing it according to steam. This looks right up my alley, downloading it now.

graeme 11y ago

Looks fun. Is it potentially productive leisure? I run a business, and have automated portions of it with processes. These run very well. Others I've found harder to automate. I'm wondering if playing a game like this can help train a habit of automation. Thoughts?

simoncion 11y ago
> Is it potentially productive leisure? Yeah, potentially. I've found the automated trains to be particularly effective at illustrating deadlocks and resource contention. Your early factory will (by the early mid-game) have no doubt taught you all about technical debt. :) > I'm wondering if playing a game like this can help train a habit of automation. Sure, why not? The way you grow a habit of automation is to determine if you're spending "too much" time on a task, and if it would probably be worth the effort required to automate that task. However, in Factorio you have no choice but to automate if you want to reach the main scenario's end goal in any reasonable amount of time. In real life, it's often not so obvious that this is the case. Strong suggestion: Don't play in Peaceful Mode. Getting your projects interrupted by P0 drop-everything issues (and figuring out how to effectively deflect those issues) makes life so much more interesting.
- graeme 11y ago
  I accumulated much technical debt in my businesses processes. Seeing it illustrated in a game might give some new perspective on that. What I also need to work on are the intermediate steps where I do things myself, but have a process written where someone else could do it. I'll try the demo.

frenchie4111 11y ago

I am going to have job candidates play this game with me

joss82 11y ago
Great idea, actually!

techman9 11y ago

As distinct from https://factor.io/ https://factor.io/ LOL.

jomendoz 11y ago

It seems to be a great game! Sadly, I think it encourages resource exploitation as to what we, the human race, have been doing to Earth as a whole. I think a very good extension would be to provide new technology for sustainable energy generation and even further the ability to harness and excel the planet as a super living thing (as Asimov could imagine in its Foundation series). This would provide an even more constrained and challenging environment as to maintain planet's equilibrium on one hand and progress on the other. Maybe, those aren't really valid concerns from the beginning of a game. But afterwards, it'll be important as massive industrialization reaches ecological relevance.

noobie 11y ago
>Sadly, I think it encourages resource exploitation as to what we, the human race, have been doing to Earth as a whole. It's actually worse, your machines produce pollution which drives the local creatures mad and they start to attack you. I think reaching an equilibrium with the planet's environment/creature makes for a great end game milestone.

skriticos2 11y ago

I picked this up a few days ago on Steam and spent considerable time on it since then. It's really addictive for people who like automation. It has a nice pace, throwing in some interesting challenges, but generally let's you focus on those little details on how to optimize the structure of your base. Resources are generally bountiful, but they do run out eventually, so you are forced to think about acquiring new sources - and until then you have plenty of time to fill your conveyor belts.. By the way, thanks for supporting this on Linux! Wouldn't play it otherwise.

fixermark 11y ago

True story: I remembered I had this installed on my home machine while I was on a business trip. I... may have consumed copious amounts of hotel wifi playing it over VPN one night. ;)

StavrosK 11y ago

Sidenote, I love how both Factorio and Big Pharma accept bitcoin for purchases. It's by far my preferred payment method, and I'll buy one of the two just to support them for that.

rl3 11y ago

I have been avoiding this game like the plague due to its potential life-ending, productivity-destroying effects (at least for some people). This is one of those games where it starts innocently enough, a few hundred hours of gameplay accrue, and the next thing you know you're wondering where the last two months went. Part of the reason for this is related to the decline of the SimCity franchise over the years. Cities: Skylines was pretty, but it didn't really hit the same notes in terms of gameplay. The last real SimCity game was 2004, so it's been well over a decade of waiting for the next truly addictive builder/simulation fix to arrive. Based on the amount of people I know having sunk triple-digit hours into Factorio, it's the closest we've come to a real SimCity game since. That said, it seems like a fantastic game and I look forward to playing it some day.

Obi_Juan_Kenobi 11y ago
Kudos for waiting, but the game is in a very good state. I think it reflects on the ambitions of the devs that they're keeping it EA even at this point. It is certainly improving, but it's really solid. Even with very big factories, the game performs well. The improvements to be made are really just related to the UI and some game mechanics that could be modified or extended. Generally, there are lots of mods that will hopefully make it into the base game (e.g. rail tanker cars), but good mod support is part of the game. It's quite different from SimCity, but I agree that both games are enjoyed by a similar audience for similar reasons.
- rl3 11y ago
  >It's quite different from SimCity, but I agree that both games are enjoyed by a similar audience for similar reasons. Definitely. Factorio has a crafting system, so that's a major difference. I'd say the "similar reasons" you mentioned above are twofold: a) You design systems and observe how they behave. There's kind of an awe or wonderment associated with watching how living, breathing systems behave within a complex simulation. b) There's also a feedback loop where the player attempts to make their systems more efficient. This kind of massages a specific part of the brain in people with OCD tendencies, generating huge amounts of pleasure.
11y ago

Pamar 11y ago

Question: would this (or Big Pharma, or some other similar game) work for children? Starting at what age?

Retra 11y ago
What do you mean "work?" What are you trying to achieve?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- Pamar 11y ago
  I mean: a friend of mine has a 11 years old child. Another has two girls, one 8, the other 13... Should I suggest one of this games to them? If yes, which one?
user1221 11y ago
We're playing it. My kid is 10. He said redstone is more fun but he didn't dislike factorio.

proactivesvcs 11y ago

In case you're still on the fence, take a look at the Steam reviews: http://store.steampowered.com/app/427520/#app_reviews_hash http://store.steampowered.com/app/427520/#app_reviews_hash

nickpinkston 11y ago

If anyone is interested in building an automated factory that can make anything IRL, we'd love to talk with you: https://www.plethora.com/careers https://www.plethora.com/careers Or hit me up: nick@plethora.com (Founder/CEO)