22 ms·

What is interesting about Factorio

303 points by ivee 6y ago

nixle 6y ago
I find myself playing factorio every few months. I play and play and play until at some point i realize that I'm fooling myself: Adding that extra steel production plant, with all the blueprinting, train routing and refactoring that is involved... I'm no longer escaping work. Actual Work now seems like less effort. And that's when I'm cured for a few months.
jfim 6y ago
> It's also extremely addictive to engineers. Quite the understatement. Pretty much every engineer that I've introduced to the game has played for at least 40 hours.
- TaylorAlexander 6y ago
  Interesting. I used to play video games but now I mostly 3D print stuff and design robots for fun. I don’t think video games are a bad use of time generally, but I feel so good about doing actual engineering for fun that I’m always a little surprised with games that are supposed to be fun for engineer types. I kind of wonder why actually doing engineering for fun isn’t more popular?
  - frenchie14 6y ago
    I would claim that playing Factorio constitutes as doing engineering for fun
    - TaylorAlexander 6y ago
      Well when I do engineering for fun I’m learning skills that directly apply to my jobs. So I gain experience with PCB design, CAD and 3D printing, or software. Perhaps Factorio flexes general cognitive skills like problem solving and algorithmic thinking, but it’s not going to help you get better at learning KiCAD for example.
  - jfim 6y ago
    Certain game types basically are puzzles that are similar to the kinds of puzzles one would encounter during engineering things. Factorio is one of them, but other puzzle games such as topological ones (Spacechem, Opus Magnum, Infinifactory, Molek-syntez), programming (Shenzhen IO, TIS-500, Human Resource Machine, Silicon Zeroes) or logic ones (Baba is you) kind of scratch similar itches. As for doing engineering for fun, some of us are stuck doing rather boring tasks at the office, and the idea of having a game that one can just put away seems less daunting than having a code/hardware project that could potentially sit uncompleted. Designing robots definitely is fun, although it requires a fair bit of working space and tools.
    - TaylorAlexander 6y ago
      Well I guess the idea behind engineering at home for fun is that it doesn’t have to be boring tasks. And I tend to work on completely unnecessary things such that there’s no time pressure. That makes it a lot more fun and rewarding than working at the office. Like I recently designed a pair of headphones from scratch. They sound better than any of my other headphones which are all a bit cheap. It totally didn’t need to be done so I could put it away whenever. But it was lots of fun to dig in to. That feels more rewarding to me than a task where all of my progress is virtual. I should say I’m not trying to criticize others who play games, I’m just curious about it. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
      - jfim 6y ago
        That's pretty cool with regards to the headphones. Do you have a link to your project? I agree that it's really enjoyable to build physical things. I have one 3D part that I've been meaning to print for a while, but without a 3D printer at home it's a bit trickier to get it done. I wish I had a home workshop, but Silicon Valley prices make that a rather expensive proposition. There's no more TechShop either. :-(
        nlfwhulsdhouv 6y ago
        FWIW, I have a fairly small 1 bedroom SV apartment I share with my girlfriend and I still keep up a good number of physical projects. The 3D printer sits in an enclosure in the living room :). Obviously I wish I had access to a proper shop, but I still get a fair bit of enjoyment out of it.
  - robocat 6y ago
    Engineering as a job often requires a lot of grinding to get an outcome, even the “easy” engineering (?) disciplines like embedded software work in my experience. Your “engineering for fun” is perhaps not what most engineers do day to day. And certainly our jobs and workplaces generally are not explicitly designed to be enjoyable with satisfying outcomes.
    - TaylorAlexander 6y ago
      Well yes a lot of workplace engineering is drudgery. That’s why I love the freedom I have with projects at home. There’s usually no time pressure, and I can work on what I enjoy. I learn constantly and develop new skills. It’s super fun!
  - js8 6y ago
    I think there is just too many options how to build things in real life so it can be overwhelming. In video game, the selection of tools is intentionally limited so it isn't so daunting. Perhaps there should be a wiki or something just about all the different skills a human can have. And each skill would have some description how to get started ("first couple levels") and links to other skills. The links would describe that if you enjoy skill A, here's why you might also enjoy learning related skill B for this and that reason. So you could choose in what direction you want to continue the learning.
    - TaylorAlexander 6y ago
      Yes, the game is a tailored experience you can pick up and quickly become engaged in. I suppose engineering for fun takes more self direction. Your idea for a wiki sounds interesting, though there’s enthusiast communities on reddit and elsewhere that may already have answered “how to get started” questions. So in a way, the resource you mention exists as data on the internet. For much of what you want to learn, you’ll find out how to get started with some time at the search terminal.
  - raxxorrax 6y ago
    I had the impression of working while playing Space Chem, a really good puzzle game with awesome music. I think the developer made another game but haven't tried that yet. In the game you can compare your results with others and in most cases you have to decide between optimizing for simplicity or speed. Seriously, if I just had a sliver of the ambition I had while playing this game for other projects...
  - tomcam 6y ago
    Parent is doing some very interesting work. Check out his profile.
  - nlfwhulsdhouv 6y ago
    Few reasons: - Variety. I'm an EE at work and a lot of my personal projects are EE-related because that's what I'm good at. Sometimes I want a break from that. Alternatively I'll work on more mechanical projects, but video games are often a fun change of pace. - It's nice to work in a space with no real consequences. When I'm working on physical projects there is always a bit of a sense of cost and waste. With 3D printing and similar it's a smaller issue, but it's nice to play around in a game where you can continuously optimize without really 'wasting' anything. - Access to equipment. I'll play factorio on planes, or on work trips where I don't have access to my 3D printer or a computer set up for CAD or PCB design. Even if I can afford it, I don't have that much space. Sometimes working on a project means cleaning up something else or finishing a different project I'm no longer excited about. It just adds a barrier to entry that is sometimes difficult to overcome if you're not feeling particularly motivated. That being said, I did quit my last factorio world when I opened up a spreadsheet before thinking if I was going to go to those lengths for optimization I may as well do something 'real'. Doing engineering for fun is fairly popular, it's just hard, intellectually draining, and (often) expensive, so people look for other related things to do.
  - barbs 6y ago
    Relevant Vice article: Why Do We Play Video Games That Feel Like Work? (2015) https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/4x38aq/why-do-we-play-video-games-that-simulate-work https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/4x38aq/why-do-we-play-vid...
- mosiuerbarso 6y ago
  I'm a former engineer. Toolmaker to be precise. I just could not get into this game no matter how long I tried. I love making stuff as a hobby, and reading all the good reviews this game had it seemed like a great way to kill a few spare hours. But I just couldn't gell with the game.It just seemed like I was back at work but now not getting paid for my time. For me, Rimworld is where it's at.
  - debaserab2 6y ago
    I feel the exact same way. It's interesting that you mention Rimworld - I dived into Rimworld when I first got it and came to appreciate the way little things add up in that game and make the simulation more interesting (be it positive or negative). The complicated UI is slowly unraveled and becomes intuitive as you learn the game because there are simple feedback mechanisms for actions that affect your colonists. Everyone tells me I'd love factorio. Every time I load up the intro tutorial I have the intention of finally diving in and just.... nothing. I can't get into it. I don't feel an incentive to learn the building and crafting UI's. It just feels like work. I'm not even sure why I'm building the things I'm building, or what the aim of the game is. Maybe rimworld sucks me in because I can immediately empathize with the plight of the survivor, whereas factorio seems to be all about building efficient machines for the sake of building efficient machines.
    - Faark 6y ago
      Yes, Rimworld is easier to get into for many. "Survive" is a way more obvious and natural goal. But once I got more and more into the details, Rimworld was the one frustrating me. I probably just despise this kind of "Storyteller" aka Event choosen by Wealth & RNG. This ruined the fun for me and is probably the reason I played Factorio easily 10 times as long as Rimworld. The closest Factory has to that is the pollution mechanic, but that doesn't feel nearly as contrived.
      - slothtrop 6y ago
        I believe difficulty can be adjusted right? If you're not much for unforeseen attacks.
umvi 6y ago
I really want to play this game. I've put it on my wishlist 2 years ago, but I swear, I've never seen it on sale! I wonder if it's because technically it is still Early Access.
- jfim 6y ago
  The developers have said that they're not considering doing sales. From their FAQ [0]: > Are you planning to participate in Steam sales or Bundles? > No. The price we ask is what we consider a fair price for the game. [0] https://factorio.com/faq https://factorio.com/faq
- roel_v 6y ago
  It's $20. For a game you will spend 100's of hours on.
  - beart 6y ago
    $30* US
  - deathanatos 6y ago
    The price was raised a while back to $30.[1] [1]: https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/016-price-change https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/016-price-change (I purchased it for myself at the $20 price, but I've also purchased it as a gift at the $30 price. I have definitely gotten my money's worth.)
    - roel_v 6y ago
      Oh OK, I too bought it years ago at $20 - but still, that $10 doesn't materially change my point.
- beart 6y ago
  As jfim mentioned, this game will probably never go on sale but the list price is definitely worth it.
- TranceMan 6y ago
fouc 6y ago
As someone that stopped playing games in university, I've found it weirdly hard to get back into games many years later. Factorio seems like the type of game I would've liked as a teenager, but now it just feels like work to me. As do most interesting games. It seems like there's a learning curve to games that I don't want to spend the time dealing with anymore.
- have_faith 6y ago
  I still follow and keep upto date with most gaming releases but for some reason find the vast majority of them underwhelming these days. Lots of well made time sinks which when I was younger is probably all I wanted but now I'm always looking for something special and never finding it.
  - Tobi-Wan_Kenobi 6y ago
    Oh, I felt that one in my mid-thirties soul. I used to waste/invest so much time into games, but now with a wife+kid+job I just don't want to spend my precious time on just any game. It has to be THE game. The perfect game. Alas, I haven't found it yet. (Factorio comes very close, but it is too time intensive. You can't just play Factorio for 30 minutes.)
    - have_faith 6y ago
      As far as games that I've enjoyed recently there is: Disco Elysium (enjoyed more than any AAA game I've played in a long time). No Mans Sky, despite it not living up to it's hype I do enjoy it a lot, easy to get lost in your own stories. I was enjoying Bloodbourne but I don't want to invest the amount of time needed to git gud. And that's about it... any recommendations on your end other than Factorio? it's been recommended to me by a couple of people but it looks a bit too grindy and addictive for my personality.
  - lonelappde 6y ago
    NES and SNES emulator and ROMs. You can play them via Switch, or pirate them and give Nintendo money to salve your conscience. Especially if you have kids.
whatanattitude 6y ago
Look up Satisfactory
- jfim 6y ago
  I actually purchased Satisfactory on their release date and it was rather underwhelming. The core gameplay loop is very different between both; the one in Satisfactory seems to be more about building some automated set up, then exploring while things are building, as the factory production seems rather slow. In contrast, the core gameplay loop in Factorio (increase the production of whatever input is currently starved, build new more complex set ups) is clearly more polished and engaging, IMHO. Of course, that could change, Satisfactory is still in early access and it seems that they've been more focused on adding new environments and gameplay mechanics than touching the core gameplay loop. Satisfactory is also a lot better IMO with regards to exploring stuff, just like Subnautica.
- 013a 6y ago
  Satisfactory is interesting in its own way. It'd be easy to initially think that its the better/easier game to get into for someone who hasn't played a game like this before, but I'd argue the opposite. The three-dimensionality introduces logistical insanity that is startlingly difficult to wrangle, and the first person viewpoint makes planning the factory floor very difficult. The terrain is also a constant challenge, whereas the terrain in Factorio is generally pretty easy to work around. But, the world design is totally incredible; it begs you to explore every nook and cranny, and its non-random, so you can link up with friends and share secrets you've found. There's far more super-fun goodies to unlock, like the hypertubes or bounce pads. Its just different, and I think someone who enjoys one would enjoy both. I tend to tell people to start with Factorio, though; its simple, yet infinitely deep. After about 50 hours in there, you'll gain a new respect for some of the simplified mechanics and fun-factor of Satisfactory; 50 hours there, and you'll gain a deeper respect for the nefarious complexity of Factorio. They complement each other perfectly.
  - GrumpyYoungMan 6y ago
    > "The three-dimensionality introduces logistical insanity that is startlingly difficult to wrangle, and the first person viewpoint makes planning the factory floor very difficult." As a former player of the Tekkit mod for Minecraft, the three-dimensionality is what I miss. As good as it is, Factorio is so disappointingly planar, despite the tools they give you to manage belt intersection and materiel transfer.
skybrian 6y ago
They should do a pandemic version where you make masks.
percentcer 6y ago
I think the biggest hook for Factorio is that it's an _actual_ visual programming language. So much of what we do day to day ignores this (dominant!) mode of perception. It's extremely refreshing to be able to simply look at a system to reason about it. (as an aside, I think this is also why the Zachtronics games are so effective)
- Polylactic_acid 6y ago
  I seriously struggle with factorio, You have to have a seriously good planning ability to create something that doesn't instantly turn in to a spaghetti. I always end up having to scale up things and then having no room. I find text based programming to be much much simpler. If I need to add more somewhere, I can, my text editor will push everything else out of the way.
  - tasogare 6y ago
    True. But much like you can use external libraries in your game, you can search and copy (or take inspiration from) designs posted online.
  - TheDong 6y ago
    Factorio is artificially limited to make it more interesting. Real visual programming languages allow building and collapsing abstractions and don't add space constraints. You could just as easily say "text coding is so hard because if I realize I missed a character I have to start the entire file again; it would be nice if I were using something other than 'cat > file.c <<EOF', like visual blocks that could be rearranged later.
  - Arnavion 6y ago
    Get yourself a mod that starts you off with construction robots, like FasterStart [1]. That plus ghost images plus blueprints allows you to plan your factory, and cut-paste it when you need to. Also, you can persist blueprints across games, so you don't have to re-invent a working factory layout in a new game if you don't need to. As a bonus, FasterStart also takes away the grind of cutting trees by hand. I use it just for that. Few things annoy me more than having to take a break from building a factory to mindlessly holding right-click and pressing movement keys for a while because RNGesus decided to put a rainforest in the way of my expansion. It's the video-game equivalent of being broken out of a programming flow to sit in a pointless 2-hour meeting. Another option is to use a mod like Factorissimo2 [2] which lets you put factories inside a building and move the entire building around. Buildings can also be nested so that you can group, say, all buildings related to iron ore -> iron plates inside one outer building. ( * ) Factorissimo2 was invaluable when I played a game with Angel's mods, because with Angel's the process of getting iron plates from iron ore starts off as a one-stage process but eventually becomes like a ten-stage process. There was no way I was going to lay that out on ground level while still accounting for future expansion. [1]: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/FasterStart https://mods.factorio.com/mod/FasterStart [2]: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Factorissimo2 https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Factorissimo2 ( * ) IIRC this is disabled by default because people think it's unrealistic. I just pretend a nested building is an upper floor in the third dimension and the belt connections are freight elevators.
Mengkudulangsat 6y ago
This game made me empathize less and less with environmentalists. Forests are an impediment to a transport network. Wildlife are pests. Renewable energy has extremely low ROI.
- suyjuris 6y ago
  Solar is less CPU intensive than other types of energy (thus saving the actual environment, interestingly). Factorio is incredibly well-optimised, but at some point this starts to matter.
- ivankirigin 6y ago
  Solar + storage lowers your pollution and the pests. I wish there were a way to restore the environment like planting trees in order to also remove the pests.
  - abtinf 6y ago
    For a sizable factory, massive spaces must be dedicated to renewable energy, which means obliterating lots of pests. And building the renewable infrastructure--mines, crude pumping, transit, smelting, refining, manufacturing, landfilling lakes, bot deployments, defense--are massively expensive and polluting. By comparison, nuclear (or even coal!) is much easier on the wildlife.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    If the trees didn't look so depressing in this game, there would be motivation for reforesting (beyond reducing pest problems) - making your factory look nice, with an ordered mix of nature and high-tech industry.
  - pmoriarty 6y ago
    "I wish there were a way to restore the environment like planting trees in order to also remove the pests." There are mods that will let you plant trees. Planting trees will reduce pollution, and that in turn will lead to you getting bothered less by biters, the native life forms of the planet.
- 6y ago
avalys 6y ago
My computer gaming has been pretty modest for the past 6 or 7 years. An hour here or there, mostly on the weekends. I don’t really get absorbed in games that much anymore. Factorio is something different. I started playing it on a Saturday morning. Slept a few hours that night. When the sun started rising Monday morning I realized I should probably try to get a little sleep before heading into the office. Never had that experience before or since. Probably the closest I’ve ever come to a “bender”.
- deleted 6y ago
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artche 6y ago
If anyone is looking for an immersive game to play I would recommend Subnautica.
- djannzjkzxn 6y ago
  If you liked Subnautica, try Outer Wilds.
- scotty79 6y ago
  > immersive [...] Subnautica I see what you did there.... :-)
winstonewert 6y ago
WARNING: stay far away from this game... way too addictive. I've lost so much time to it... you have been warned!
- scotty79 6y ago
  Was it really lost? Can you imagine yourself on your deathbed regretting that you played Factorio?
  - Faark 6y ago
    I hope I'm not even half the way to my deathbed and already regret how much time I spend on games (and the knock-on effects). It's not that playing games (incl Factorio) doesn't feel satisfying. But the time we have is pretty much the only finite thing in life and thus what we can do is limited. Spending time somewhat deliberate seems like a good idea. Again, that doesn't mean playing games is bad. It can be a great source of joy and broaden your horizon, just like other media. But moderation is key. Spending time in ways that allows us to meet people/ learn skills (we might even use professionally)/etc will probably have a bigger impact on our lives down the line than the 2000th hour of playing Factorio.
    - scotty79 6y ago
      You regret it now when you have more than half of your life ahead of you. But when you have nearly all of it behind you do you think you'll still regret it? I don't think I will.
      - Faark 6y ago
        What do you think you will regret? Is it not something that could have been changed with more time? Or are you trying to imply you won't have any regrets... and wouldn't that make the question kind of meaningless? As for me, that depends... I might end up a lonely bitter old man who constantly/wistfully mourns the wasted potential cause of all the whishes/goals I had but never worked on. Getting away from spending that much time on games should make this scenario less likely. Thus my attempt to get on a different path. But yeah, your constraints of only thinking about past and present is kind of interesting. That can pretty easily lead into the meaning(-lessness) of life, but lets not open this can of worms for now.
xixixao 6y ago
This is a good write-up, and the most interesting point is about self-efficiency. It kills me to see software engineers not use multi-paste or multi-cursors. But I agree this is “human nature”. I have totally proven this to myself when I tried “lazy bastard” play through (the rule is once you basically get the first assembling machine you’re not allowed to craft in inventory). It wasn’t annoying, it was actually much more pleasurable and less stressful, because I set up automated process for everything. That’s what Factorio is about, and it is a very educational game (also a severe time suck).
jaggederest 6y ago
I found > There's gotta be some innate machine-focused "interest in things" that this is tapping. I've never taken apart or rebuilt a machine, but this gets me anyway. fairly sad. Factorio is fun, but it's a pale shadow of the experience of making even relatively simple machines work better or differently. Even getting a 2-stroke motor that has a dirty filter running again is immensely satisfying.
- potatochup 6y ago
  Kinda. But then you don't have the right o-ring and the store is closed until Monday. And you mixed up the BSF and UNC threads on your carbs. And the cloth wiring is intermittently shorting out. Computers are nice in some ways.
  - teddyh 6y ago
    “The reason is that, in other fields, people have to deal with the perversity of matter. You are designing circuits or cars or chemicals, you have to face the fact that these physical substances will do what they do, not what they are supposed to do. We in software don't have that problem, and that makes it tremendously easier. We are designing a collection of idealized mathematical parts which have definitions. They do exactly what they are defined to do. And so there are many problems we don't have. For instance, if we put an if statement inside of a while statement, we don't have to worry about whether the if statement can get enough power to run at the speed it's going to run. We don't have to worry about whether it will run at a speed that generates radio frequency interference and induces wrong values in some other parts of the data. We don't have to worry about whether it will loop at a speed that causes a resonance and eventually the if statement will vibrate against the while statement and one of them will crack. We don't have to worry that chemicals in the environment will get into the boundary between the if statement and the while statement and corrode them, and cause a bad connection. We don't have to worry that other chemicals will get on them and cause a short-circuit. We don't have to worry about whether the heat can be dissipated from this if statement through the surrounding while statement. We don't have to worry about whether the while statement would cause so much voltage drop that the if statement won't function correctly. When you look at the value of a variable you don't have to worry about whether you've referenced that variable so many times that you exceed the fan-out limit. You don't have to worry about how much capacitance there is in a certain variable and how much time it will take to store the value in it. All these things are defined a way, the system is defined to function in a certain way, and it always does. The physical computer might malfunction, but that's not the program's fault. So, because of all these problems we don't have to deal with, our field is tremendously easier.” — Richard Stallman, 2001: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/stallman-mec-india.html#conf9 https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/stallman-mec-india.html#conf9
billfruit 6y ago
One annoying aspect in Factorio in the short time that I have played it was that there is a player character, who needs to move to each location before an object can be placed there. It adds a degree of tedium in building, if having requiring the player sprite to move about..
- monkeypizza 6y ago
  yeah, I use "longreach" and don't feel guilty about it at all. You can also build ghost items from the map view, which bots will fill in. For really remote areas I still do have to find the right train to ride, but this mainly solves it. Never hearing that beeping sound while building locally is totally worth it. Apparently the devs added a reach limit to prevent people from keeping their factory going by manual loading for hours and hours; since I don't do that, there's no harm in it.
- AgentME 6y ago
  The game does introduce a few ways to deal with this: there's cars and trains for getting around fast, but also you can command construction bots from any distance if they're in an area with radar coverage. It is a bit limited, but it does give some encouragement to create controllable long-range contraptions.
  - 7777fps 6y ago
    6 exoskeletons (yes, they stack) and a couple of personal nuclear power plants and you can outrun cars and some trains for that matter.
- emmanuel_1234 6y ago
  I agree, but it forces the player to do something about it. After a few hours in a game, I typically develop an autonomous train network with various train stations. I build one for my own personal train (which gets loaded with all the stuff I might need for an outpost). I can call that train to my location, provided I'm near a train track, by setting a temporary station and manually asking my train to pick me up there. I must admit, navigating my world in a high speed train (eventually, my train gets fuelled from nuclear cells) is exhilarating.
billfruit 6y ago
I haven't played it for long, but one thing I felt with Factorio and with the Anno series is that there is no RNG. I feel it would perhaps be more fun with an RNG element. Like, the assembly lines won't create identical items, but there will be some statistical variability. Also sometimes total duds are created that will cause problems downstream. Also random plant failures and downtime. In my imagination it would be more exciting.
- ecuzzillo 6y ago
  Angels & Bob's mods and/or Seablock might scratch this itch.
raxxorrax 6y ago
I bought the game on a hunch in its very early development. At some point they introduced their weakly reports on development, which were extremely interesting about the problems they were facing. Great developer and I love how successful it became. It seriously deserves all the praise. Even in very early development, when it still looked horrible, the core elements were already a lot of fun. I am no game developer, but for everyone that wants to go that route, I would seriously recommend reading their "friday facts". And even if you are just a developer of the mundane, it is super interesting.
- mtreis86 6y ago
  The definitely set the bar for developers interacting with players. They change things back when people don't like it. They fix problems quickly. They keep everyone updated on what they have worked on recently, and what will be worked on soon. No BS, no promises, no PR. It reads more like an internal dev blog than something you'd print, but I like it for that.
tdy721 6y ago
Factorio is my current favorite train set. Community feedback and a very long development cycle made it awesome. You asked is it devils? But forgot the parts about nuking bugs. Shooting bugs, killing all the bugs
pmoriarty 6y ago
For anyone here who's only played vanilla Factorio (ie. Factorio without mods), you should really try it with mods.. the mods enhance the game in so many ways (from eliminating annoyances, to making things more convenient, to adding way, way, way more content). I absolutely loved the base game, but the mods made it 10 times better for me.
- squiffy 6y ago
  Would you have a small list of recommended mods for someone like me with ~50 hours in Factorio? Thanks.
  - keanzu 6y ago
    https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Helicopters https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Helicopters https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Optera/LogisticTrainNetwork https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Optera/LogisticTrainNetwork
  - pmoriarty 6y ago
    I don't know if you finished the game yet, but if you haven't, I suggest that you do so before adding mods, just so you have a good feel for what the vanilla game is like before you start changing stuff... it'll also give you a sense of what you don't like or would want more of, and that'll let you more intelligently pick mods. That said, I'd divide mods in to several types: First, there are convenience mods, which make certain parts of the game less annoying or less tedious. Among those, I'd recommend: - Squeak Through - Lets your character squeeze through spaces that you couldn't in the vanilla game. It doesn't sound like much, but it make a huge difference and makes the game much less annoying. - Tree Collision - Similar to Squek Through, this lets you move through forests easily. - Splatter Guard - Keeps you from getting killed by trains. - Repair from Inventory - Automatically repair items in your inventory. - Packing Tape - Lets you carry filled containers. - Fill4Me - Automatically fills things things like turrets with ammo when you place them. - Even Distribution - An easy way to put the same amount of something in to multiple entities (ex: same-sized batches of coal in furnaces). - Belt Reverser - One keystroke to reverse the direction of a belt. Much easier than doing it by hand. - Atilla's Zoom Mod - Zoom out much further than you can in the vanilla game. Also has keystrokes for quick zoom in/out. - Todo List - I couldn't live without this mod, which lets me keep track of what I need to do. - Far Reach - Lets you manipulate far way items as if they were near by. This could be considered "cheating" by some, but it makes the game much more convenient. If you are concerned that the game is too easy this way, you could always raise the difficulty with other mods. - Where Is MyBody - When you die a line will be shown on the screen pointing to your body, so you can find it more easily and get your inventory back. - What is it really used for? - A nice way to find what items are used for (which the vanilla game does not tell you.. it only tells you how to craft items). The second category of mods is one that adds major features to the game and/or lots of different items. In this category, I can reommend: - Factorissimo2 - adds "factory" buildings that can contain other buildings (including, if researched, more "factory" buildings). This is very useful for packing a lot in to a little space. If you're constantly running out of space this could be a good mod for you. - Bob & Angel's mods - if you want a trillion intermediate products to extend the game - Yuoki Industries - lots of strange, different items and intermediate products that feel very different from vanilla Finally, if you found the vanilla biters too easy and want more combat, I'd recommend the Rampant mod, which makes the biters smarter and tougher. If you find Rampant too hard, you can dial down the difficulty in its options and/or install some other mods that give you more powerful weapons. Ok, so this wasn't a small list of mods.. but I couldn't narrow it down any further without feeling like I'd left out some crucial mods. Hope you find something here that interests you.
corecoder 6y ago
I had stayed away from the game for fear of being hooked up, but decided to give it a try when I was confined home, so I downloaded the demo. I really wanted to like it, but I gave up after an hour or so, because I felt that the game devs want me to be frustrated. Now, of course nobody likes frustration, but I hate very much everybody who wants me to feel bad. First of all, I was expecting a sandbox game, and instead I got objectives, and a stupid popup telling me what I am supposed to do. Secondly, one of the first non trivial objectives is to reach a certain production speed, which, at least in the early stages of the game means hustle (I haven't bothered to check if it changes later on). The game promises hustle from the beginning: you have to feed coal to a machine that extracts coal; you can use robot arms to feed the coal extracting machine with coal, but you have to feed coal to the robotic arm. WTF? Finally, I'm really done with games where you have to do your thing but also fight monsters. Compare that to, say, Minecraft: you craft a bed, spam lights everywhere and never, ever have to fight a single monster if you don't want to, while you're still free to go and fight monsters with your bare hands if that's what you like. Is there a sandbox game that is not hustle for the sake of hustle, that doesn't tell you what to do and in which you can do your thing without being too much bothered by monsters?
- kccqzy 6y ago
  All configurable. You can choose not to have objectives. You can choose not to have biters that get irritated by pollution.
- pmjordan 6y ago
  Anno 1800 might float your boat? Or any of the previous games in the Anno series for that matter. The campaign does very much have a story and specific objectives, but the interesting bit is the regular sandbox game: Turn off pirates and competitors, and either turn off or ignore NPC quests. (There's no penalty to ignoring them, but they sometimes can be useful if you need money.) You'll still have incidents like fires, industrial explosions, disease, and riots, but those are influenced by factors you control, and with well-placed fire stations, hospitals, and police stations you can very much contain them so they're a non-issue.
  - 6y ago
ainiriand 6y ago
My brother gave me this game for my birthday and, oh man... I couldn't stop playing even though I was on a holiday trip. Now I have detoxed and I'm back to having a life. One day at a time.
leonvv 6y ago
Mindustry is a game similar to Factorio. It's open source and free to download on the Play Store. Warning: it's super addictive
piercebot 6y ago
> Isn't it amazing that someone could do something for 100 hours and not think about obvious improvements, and not even wonder if they've been setup? I have co-workers like this: people who don't bother to learn the tools of* their trade and waste dozens of minutes every day. Taking the time to master your tools is a COMPOUNDING benefit and, at the risk of sounding inflammatory, is the type of activity that creates "skill gaps" between regular and "10x engineers."
- LeonM 6y ago
  It takes a certain discipline to do that. Not everyone has that discipline, and not everyone cares about being the '10x engineer'. Especially not when they work a 9-5 job which pays the same regardless of being a 1x or 10x. I have been working for my own businesses for about 8 years now. I learned to value my time, so any improvement in efficiency is welcome. But sometimes you just need to get the job done and not invest time upfront in improving a process. It's always a trade-off in time.
  - koheripbal 6y ago
    > Especially not when they work a 9-5 job which pays the same regardless of being a 1x or 10x. This is a failure of forethought on their part. It's true that their _current_ job might not pay more for that knowledge, but it absolutely pays off in their career and during interviews as they develop their professional network and people begin to recognize them as a source of in-depth knowledge.
    - LeonM 6y ago
      That was exactly my point: not everyone cares about that. For many (most?) people the main factor in life is happiness. If you like your job, and it pays good enough, then why invest all the work into a future job that may pay better? Also, there are many factors that come into play during interviews. How well you are able to combine complex Vim commands to shave 10 seconds of a particular task is probably very, very low down the list of competences the interviewer is looking for.
    - 6y ago
timwaagh 6y ago
You know what else is interesting? Their "no sales" sales philosophy. For me its the reason never to buy it. I actually revolt when I hear their reasons. I feel like it comes down to: we are willing to hurt our options for making more profit to prevent people with lesser budgets from buying it. But its very interesting since a lot of people have the opposite reaction. They feel it is more valuable if it doesn't go on sale and they can support the developer by paying a 'fair' price.
- notthemessiah 6y ago
  Factorio is a polished experience, with devs committed to bringing it not just to completion, but to perfection (with performance, aesthetics, and balanced gameplay). In contrast, most AAA games are bland experiences built under sweatshops, and most Early Access games wind up half-assed or as abandonware. If there's any game worth your money, it's Factorio.
  - timwaagh 6y ago
    I don't doubt that it's worth the money. I just dislike their attitude. If it was a perfect fit for me, I'd swallow it and get it, sure. But thruth is I'm only a very occasional puzzle gamer. So i'd probably not play it much or at all. Also, let's not overgeneralize. I'm pretty sure a lot of indie devs are effectively sweatshops too. They face much less regulatory scrutiny and people tend to forgive them easily. Examples like Telltale and Riot tell us how ugly things can get if they grow too quickly and continue operating that way. Which doesn't mean factorio devs are that way too. there is just no way to know. It also depends on the country. For example gaming AAA giant Ubisoft is French. French regulations do not permit much in terms of unpaid overtime.
    - notthemessiah 6y ago
      > But thruth is I'm only a very occasional puzzle gamer. So i'd probably not play it much or at all. Then why should you care about what the makers of Factorio do? > Examples like Telltale and Riot tell us how ugly things can get if they grow too quickly and continue operating that way. Do Factorio developers show any sign that they're "growing too quickly"? Telltale took on dozens of contracts for games that showed no sign of selling well, and Riot went public and were acquired and became Tencent's bitch. How is any of that relevant to Factorio not going on sale?
djhworld 6y ago
Absolutely blown away by how good Factorio is, fiendishly addictive, seemingly endless possibilities. I can see why it appeals to those with an engineering/tinkerers mindset. Also from this post I just learned that Copy/Paste is a function in the game, _sigh_
guardian5x 6y ago
I can also recommend Satisfactory. Similar game with more immersion through 3d world.
- TheMerovingian 6y ago
  Only down side is that it can't scale to the levels Factorio can. (Only applies to us that like to build massive megafactories).
  - TOGoS 6y ago
    Yep. I've enjoyed both, but I think it comes down to: If your draw to the game is is your sense of connection with the place you're in, Satisfactory probably does a better job of that, with the pretty scenery and ability to build in 3D. Factorio's world feels very flat in comparison. I wrote a bit about that and possible ways to make it less so in https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-309 https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-309 If your draw is wanting to build very large, complex factories, constantly pushing production to new limits, that is what Factorio excels at.
notthemessiah 6y ago
One thing notable about Factorio's game mechanics is that crafting is idempotent: the tech tree is a directed acyclic graph. If one is looking for a different experience in which one thinks about closing manufacturing loops, I would recommend Oxygen Not Included, where you have to sustain life amidst an asteroid colony.
- beesbuzz 6y ago
  > One thing notable about Factorio's game mechanics is that crafting is idempotent What do you mean by this? You craft a thing once, you have one thing. You craft it again, you now have two things. That doesn't sound idempotent to me.
  - 7777fps 6y ago
    I think idempotent wasn't a good word but I think the idea being described is that crafting is acyclic. For example Copper Wire + Iron = Green Circuit. There's no recipe chain that takes in Green Circuits and produces either Iron or Copper Wire. So once produced, you need to find a higher function for your products. You can't 'unmake' through a cyclic recipe. Contrast that to ONI's water cycle, where clean water gets made dirty then cleaned again. So ultimately in Factorio everything is leading toward the only resources that get destroyed - Science, Rockets, or Coal (or other energy types).
    - pmoriarty 6y ago
      "There's no recipe chain that takes in Green Circuits and produces either Iron or Copper Wire. So once produced, you need to find a higher function for your products. You can't 'unmake' through a cyclic recipe." There are Factorio mods that will give you access to recycling machines that will let you get back the ingredients that went in to making whatever it is that you put in to them. So Factorio's recipes can be fully cyclic, if you want.
  - notthemessiah 6y ago
    Oops, was thinking about composing arrows on crafting graph, not the action of crafting and the consequent inventory, and that was needlessly confusing. I should have simply said that it's non-invertible.
ashtonkem 6y ago
Factorio is probably one of the best $$/hr values outside of Dwarf Fortress, which is free. It’s also basically engineering catnip, consider yourself warned. For those who are interested, it’s the stated goal of the devs to never put the game on sale. They think it’s worth $30, and they intend to sell it for $30. So if you’re interested, don’t wait for a sale, buy it now!
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  I'd be interested in reading their analysis on price setting. $30 is much more than it was 3 years ago. I've been waiting for a discount on factorio. I guess I'll take it off my wishlist.
  - leetcrew 6y ago
    the game isn't considered finished yet (current stable version is 0.17.79). they have been gradually raising the price as they get closer to "finishing".
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    It was $20 during early access. So while that’s a significant price jump in terms of percentage, $10 more isn’t a big cost difference in total terms. Compare that to AAA titles at $60 a pop, and Factorio is a steal.
  - pixl97 6y ago
    >I've been waiting for a discount on factorio. Don't unless the company is bought out. They will never discount the sale price as it leads to the behaviour you just listed, people will only buy the game when it goes on sale leading to low sales when said game is not on sale.
    - sharkdog 6y ago
      That is definitely not the reason why they don't go on sale. Sales are a good business practice and they usually result in higher sales. They don't go on sale simply because they want to be fair to their customers. They've said many times that they are financially well off and that they don't need the large amount of money that a sale can bring in.
slothtrop 6y ago
It looks like programming but in a more cumbersome fashion. I enjoy and understand the appeal of puzzles (Recurse is a good game), but this is too much like work.
- wincent 6y ago
  It is intentionally cumbersome, at first, but as you master the technology tree you get access to ever faster robots, blueprints, automation via the circuit network, self-maintaining defenses etc. You can construct and dismantle distant parts of the factory from the map view etc. Basically, you journey from insignificance to near-omnipotence.
tasuki 6y ago
The author might be interested in knowing that both the cofounders of Factorio are dan-level go players.
jbgt 6y ago
Does anyone know what the website is made of? I like the simple markdown and especially the tagging!
proc0 6y ago
Factorio is the DOOM of factory games. It has spawned a new Genre that is a blend of RTS like StarCraft, and city builders like City Skylines, HOWEVER it adds a crucial element to distinguish it from a simple mashup of genres - automation. Only after Factorio are we seeing automation factory games, like Satisfactory, recently Industries of Titan. Automation is truly a genre on its own. It's just about growing your economy by removing yourself from the equation. It's about how efficient and scaleable your base is, both which revolve around automation. Unlike RTS or 4X city builders, the quality of your automation will determine how fast your grow and how long you survive.
Netcob 6y ago
I've played it for many hours, and the thing that still asthonishes me the most is how incredibly efficient the code must be. While I haven't played with that specific purpose in mind, I've never managed to create a factory big enough where you'd notice a slowdown in the simulation. Thousands of grabbers, trains, drones, belts, factories, aliens, environmental effects, different sorts of networks, all with their own logic, and somehow this game simulates it all like it's nothing. And it never crashed on me. You can make amazingly intricate factories all you want, but the truly great piece of engineering will always be the code that runs it all.
- Filligree 6y ago
  The developers frequently blog about how they're doing it, often going into immense detail. Without spoiling too much, I have no qualms about calling them some of the best in the industry. The entire industry, that is, not just in games.
  - orangefarm 6y ago
    Their blog posts are great. They sometimes blog about really obscure parts of game development. It’s interesting to read even if you are not building games.
    - keanzu 6y ago
      ...and here they are: https://factorio.com/blog/ https://factorio.com/blog/

303 points by ivee 6y ago

I find myself playing factorio every few months. I play and play and play until at some point i realize that I'm fooling myself: Adding that extra steel production plant, with all the blueprinting, train routing and refactoring that is involved... I'm no longer escaping work. Actual Work now seems like less effort. And that's when I'm cured for a few months.

jfim 6y ago

> It's also extremely addictive to engineers. Quite the understatement. Pretty much every engineer that I've introduced to the game has played for at least 40 hours.

TaylorAlexander 6y ago
Interesting. I used to play video games but now I mostly 3D print stuff and design robots for fun. I don’t think video games are a bad use of time generally, but I feel so good about doing actual engineering for fun that I’m always a little surprised with games that are supposed to be fun for engineer types. I kind of wonder why actually doing engineering for fun isn’t more popular?
- frenchie14 6y ago
  I would claim that playing Factorio constitutes as doing engineering for fun
  - TaylorAlexander 6y ago
    Well when I do engineering for fun I’m learning skills that directly apply to my jobs. So I gain experience with PCB design, CAD and 3D printing, or software. Perhaps Factorio flexes general cognitive skills like problem solving and algorithmic thinking, but it’s not going to help you get better at learning KiCAD for example.
- jfim 6y ago
  Certain game types basically are puzzles that are similar to the kinds of puzzles one would encounter during engineering things. Factorio is one of them, but other puzzle games such as topological ones (Spacechem, Opus Magnum, Infinifactory, Molek-syntez), programming (Shenzhen IO, TIS-500, Human Resource Machine, Silicon Zeroes) or logic ones (Baba is you) kind of scratch similar itches. As for doing engineering for fun, some of us are stuck doing rather boring tasks at the office, and the idea of having a game that one can just put away seems less daunting than having a code/hardware project that could potentially sit uncompleted. Designing robots definitely is fun, although it requires a fair bit of working space and tools.
  - TaylorAlexander 6y ago
    Well I guess the idea behind engineering at home for fun is that it doesn’t have to be boring tasks. And I tend to work on completely unnecessary things such that there’s no time pressure. That makes it a lot more fun and rewarding than working at the office. Like I recently designed a pair of headphones from scratch. They sound better than any of my other headphones which are all a bit cheap. It totally didn’t need to be done so I could put it away whenever. But it was lots of fun to dig in to. That feels more rewarding to me than a task where all of my progress is virtual. I should say I’m not trying to criticize others who play games, I’m just curious about it. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
    - jfim 6y ago
      That's pretty cool with regards to the headphones. Do you have a link to your project? I agree that it's really enjoyable to build physical things. I have one 3D part that I've been meaning to print for a while, but without a 3D printer at home it's a bit trickier to get it done. I wish I had a home workshop, but Silicon Valley prices make that a rather expensive proposition. There's no more TechShop either. :-(
      - nlfwhulsdhouv 6y ago
        FWIW, I have a fairly small 1 bedroom SV apartment I share with my girlfriend and I still keep up a good number of physical projects. The 3D printer sits in an enclosure in the living room :). Obviously I wish I had access to a proper shop, but I still get a fair bit of enjoyment out of it.
- robocat 6y ago
  Engineering as a job often requires a lot of grinding to get an outcome, even the “easy” engineering (?) disciplines like embedded software work in my experience. Your “engineering for fun” is perhaps not what most engineers do day to day. And certainly our jobs and workplaces generally are not explicitly designed to be enjoyable with satisfying outcomes.
  - TaylorAlexander 6y ago
    Well yes a lot of workplace engineering is drudgery. That’s why I love the freedom I have with projects at home. There’s usually no time pressure, and I can work on what I enjoy. I learn constantly and develop new skills. It’s super fun!
- js8 6y ago
  I think there is just too many options how to build things in real life so it can be overwhelming. In video game, the selection of tools is intentionally limited so it isn't so daunting. Perhaps there should be a wiki or something just about all the different skills a human can have. And each skill would have some description how to get started ("first couple levels") and links to other skills. The links would describe that if you enjoy skill A, here's why you might also enjoy learning related skill B for this and that reason. So you could choose in what direction you want to continue the learning.
  - TaylorAlexander 6y ago
    Yes, the game is a tailored experience you can pick up and quickly become engaged in. I suppose engineering for fun takes more self direction. Your idea for a wiki sounds interesting, though there’s enthusiast communities on reddit and elsewhere that may already have answered “how to get started” questions. So in a way, the resource you mention exists as data on the internet. For much of what you want to learn, you’ll find out how to get started with some time at the search terminal.
- raxxorrax 6y ago
  I had the impression of working while playing Space Chem, a really good puzzle game with awesome music. I think the developer made another game but haven't tried that yet. In the game you can compare your results with others and in most cases you have to decide between optimizing for simplicity or speed. Seriously, if I just had a sliver of the ambition I had while playing this game for other projects...
- tomcam 6y ago
  Parent is doing some very interesting work. Check out his profile.
- nlfwhulsdhouv 6y ago
  Few reasons: - Variety. I'm an EE at work and a lot of my personal projects are EE-related because that's what I'm good at. Sometimes I want a break from that. Alternatively I'll work on more mechanical projects, but video games are often a fun change of pace. - It's nice to work in a space with no real consequences. When I'm working on physical projects there is always a bit of a sense of cost and waste. With 3D printing and similar it's a smaller issue, but it's nice to play around in a game where you can continuously optimize without really 'wasting' anything. - Access to equipment. I'll play factorio on planes, or on work trips where I don't have access to my 3D printer or a computer set up for CAD or PCB design. Even if I can afford it, I don't have that much space. Sometimes working on a project means cleaning up something else or finishing a different project I'm no longer excited about. It just adds a barrier to entry that is sometimes difficult to overcome if you're not feeling particularly motivated. That being said, I did quit my last factorio world when I opened up a spreadsheet before thinking if I was going to go to those lengths for optimization I may as well do something 'real'. Doing engineering for fun is fairly popular, it's just hard, intellectually draining, and (often) expensive, so people look for other related things to do.
- barbs 6y ago
  Relevant Vice article: Why Do We Play Video Games That Feel Like Work? (2015) https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/4x38aq/why-do-we-play-video-games-that-simulate-work https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/4x38aq/why-do-we-play-vid...
mosiuerbarso 6y ago
I'm a former engineer. Toolmaker to be precise. I just could not get into this game no matter how long I tried. I love making stuff as a hobby, and reading all the good reviews this game had it seemed like a great way to kill a few spare hours. But I just couldn't gell with the game.It just seemed like I was back at work but now not getting paid for my time. For me, Rimworld is where it's at.
- debaserab2 6y ago
  I feel the exact same way. It's interesting that you mention Rimworld - I dived into Rimworld when I first got it and came to appreciate the way little things add up in that game and make the simulation more interesting (be it positive or negative). The complicated UI is slowly unraveled and becomes intuitive as you learn the game because there are simple feedback mechanisms for actions that affect your colonists. Everyone tells me I'd love factorio. Every time I load up the intro tutorial I have the intention of finally diving in and just.... nothing. I can't get into it. I don't feel an incentive to learn the building and crafting UI's. It just feels like work. I'm not even sure why I'm building the things I'm building, or what the aim of the game is. Maybe rimworld sucks me in because I can immediately empathize with the plight of the survivor, whereas factorio seems to be all about building efficient machines for the sake of building efficient machines.
  - Faark 6y ago
    Yes, Rimworld is easier to get into for many. "Survive" is a way more obvious and natural goal. But once I got more and more into the details, Rimworld was the one frustrating me. I probably just despise this kind of "Storyteller" aka Event choosen by Wealth & RNG. This ruined the fun for me and is probably the reason I played Factorio easily 10 times as long as Rimworld. The closest Factory has to that is the pollution mechanic, but that doesn't feel nearly as contrived.
    - slothtrop 6y ago
      I believe difficulty can be adjusted right? If you're not much for unforeseen attacks.

umvi 6y ago

I really want to play this game. I've put it on my wishlist 2 years ago, but I swear, I've never seen it on sale! I wonder if it's because technically it is still Early Access.

jfim 6y ago
The developers have said that they're not considering doing sales. From their FAQ [0]: > Are you planning to participate in Steam sales or Bundles? > No. The price we ask is what we consider a fair price for the game. [0] https://factorio.com/faq https://factorio.com/faq
roel_v 6y ago
It's $20. For a game you will spend 100's of hours on.
- beart 6y ago
  $30* US
- deathanatos 6y ago
  The price was raised a while back to $30.[1] [1]: https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/016-price-change https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/016-price-change (I purchased it for myself at the $20 price, but I've also purchased it as a gift at the $30 price. I have definitely gotten my money's worth.)
  - roel_v 6y ago
    Oh OK, I too bought it years ago at $20 - but still, that $10 doesn't materially change my point.
beart 6y ago
As jfim mentioned, this game will probably never go on sale but the list price is definitely worth it.
TranceMan 6y ago

fouc 6y ago

As someone that stopped playing games in university, I've found it weirdly hard to get back into games many years later. Factorio seems like the type of game I would've liked as a teenager, but now it just feels like work to me. As do most interesting games. It seems like there's a learning curve to games that I don't want to spend the time dealing with anymore.

have_faith 6y ago
I still follow and keep upto date with most gaming releases but for some reason find the vast majority of them underwhelming these days. Lots of well made time sinks which when I was younger is probably all I wanted but now I'm always looking for something special and never finding it.
- Tobi-Wan_Kenobi 6y ago
  Oh, I felt that one in my mid-thirties soul. I used to waste/invest so much time into games, but now with a wife+kid+job I just don't want to spend my precious time on just any game. It has to be THE game. The perfect game. Alas, I haven't found it yet. (Factorio comes very close, but it is too time intensive. You can't just play Factorio for 30 minutes.)
  - have_faith 6y ago
    As far as games that I've enjoyed recently there is: Disco Elysium (enjoyed more than any AAA game I've played in a long time). No Mans Sky, despite it not living up to it's hype I do enjoy it a lot, easy to get lost in your own stories. I was enjoying Bloodbourne but I don't want to invest the amount of time needed to git gud. And that's about it... any recommendations on your end other than Factorio? it's been recommended to me by a couple of people but it looks a bit too grindy and addictive for my personality.
- lonelappde 6y ago
  NES and SNES emulator and ROMs. You can play them via Switch, or pirate them and give Nintendo money to salve your conscience. Especially if you have kids.

whatanattitude 6y ago

Look up Satisfactory

jfim 6y ago
I actually purchased Satisfactory on their release date and it was rather underwhelming. The core gameplay loop is very different between both; the one in Satisfactory seems to be more about building some automated set up, then exploring while things are building, as the factory production seems rather slow. In contrast, the core gameplay loop in Factorio (increase the production of whatever input is currently starved, build new more complex set ups) is clearly more polished and engaging, IMHO. Of course, that could change, Satisfactory is still in early access and it seems that they've been more focused on adding new environments and gameplay mechanics than touching the core gameplay loop. Satisfactory is also a lot better IMO with regards to exploring stuff, just like Subnautica.
013a 6y ago
Satisfactory is interesting in its own way. It'd be easy to initially think that its the better/easier game to get into for someone who hasn't played a game like this before, but I'd argue the opposite. The three-dimensionality introduces logistical insanity that is startlingly difficult to wrangle, and the first person viewpoint makes planning the factory floor very difficult. The terrain is also a constant challenge, whereas the terrain in Factorio is generally pretty easy to work around. But, the world design is totally incredible; it begs you to explore every nook and cranny, and its non-random, so you can link up with friends and share secrets you've found. There's far more super-fun goodies to unlock, like the hypertubes or bounce pads. Its just different, and I think someone who enjoys one would enjoy both. I tend to tell people to start with Factorio, though; its simple, yet infinitely deep. After about 50 hours in there, you'll gain a new respect for some of the simplified mechanics and fun-factor of Satisfactory; 50 hours there, and you'll gain a deeper respect for the nefarious complexity of Factorio. They complement each other perfectly.
- GrumpyYoungMan 6y ago
  > "The three-dimensionality introduces logistical insanity that is startlingly difficult to wrangle, and the first person viewpoint makes planning the factory floor very difficult." As a former player of the Tekkit mod for Minecraft, the three-dimensionality is what I miss. As good as it is, Factorio is so disappointingly planar, despite the tools they give you to manage belt intersection and materiel transfer.

skybrian 6y ago

They should do a pandemic version where you make masks.

percentcer 6y ago

I think the biggest hook for Factorio is that it's an _actual_ visual programming language. So much of what we do day to day ignores this (dominant!) mode of perception. It's extremely refreshing to be able to simply look at a system to reason about it. (as an aside, I think this is also why the Zachtronics games are so effective)

Polylactic_acid 6y ago
I seriously struggle with factorio, You have to have a seriously good planning ability to create something that doesn't instantly turn in to a spaghetti. I always end up having to scale up things and then having no room. I find text based programming to be much much simpler. If I need to add more somewhere, I can, my text editor will push everything else out of the way.
- tasogare 6y ago
  True. But much like you can use external libraries in your game, you can search and copy (or take inspiration from) designs posted online.
- TheDong 6y ago
  Factorio is artificially limited to make it more interesting. Real visual programming languages allow building and collapsing abstractions and don't add space constraints. You could just as easily say "text coding is so hard because if I realize I missed a character I have to start the entire file again; it would be nice if I were using something other than 'cat > file.c <<EOF', like visual blocks that could be rearranged later.
- Arnavion 6y ago
  Get yourself a mod that starts you off with construction robots, like FasterStart [1]. That plus ghost images plus blueprints allows you to plan your factory, and cut-paste it when you need to. Also, you can persist blueprints across games, so you don't have to re-invent a working factory layout in a new game if you don't need to. As a bonus, FasterStart also takes away the grind of cutting trees by hand. I use it just for that. Few things annoy me more than having to take a break from building a factory to mindlessly holding right-click and pressing movement keys for a while because RNGesus decided to put a rainforest in the way of my expansion. It's the video-game equivalent of being broken out of a programming flow to sit in a pointless 2-hour meeting. Another option is to use a mod like Factorissimo2 [2] which lets you put factories inside a building and move the entire building around. Buildings can also be nested so that you can group, say, all buildings related to iron ore -> iron plates inside one outer building. ( * ) Factorissimo2 was invaluable when I played a game with Angel's mods, because with Angel's the process of getting iron plates from iron ore starts off as a one-stage process but eventually becomes like a ten-stage process. There was no way I was going to lay that out on ground level while still accounting for future expansion. [1]: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/FasterStart https://mods.factorio.com/mod/FasterStart [2]: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Factorissimo2 https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Factorissimo2 ( * ) IIRC this is disabled by default because people think it's unrealistic. I just pretend a nested building is an upper floor in the third dimension and the belt connections are freight elevators.

Mengkudulangsat 6y ago

This game made me empathize less and less with environmentalists. Forests are an impediment to a transport network. Wildlife are pests. Renewable energy has extremely low ROI.

suyjuris 6y ago
Solar is less CPU intensive than other types of energy (thus saving the actual environment, interestingly). Factorio is incredibly well-optimised, but at some point this starts to matter.
ivankirigin 6y ago
Solar + storage lowers your pollution and the pests. I wish there were a way to restore the environment like planting trees in order to also remove the pests.
- abtinf 6y ago
  For a sizable factory, massive spaces must be dedicated to renewable energy, which means obliterating lots of pests. And building the renewable infrastructure--mines, crude pumping, transit, smelting, refining, manufacturing, landfilling lakes, bot deployments, defense--are massively expensive and polluting. By comparison, nuclear (or even coal!) is much easier on the wildlife.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  If the trees didn't look so depressing in this game, there would be motivation for reforesting (beyond reducing pest problems) - making your factory look nice, with an ordered mix of nature and high-tech industry.
- pmoriarty 6y ago
  "I wish there were a way to restore the environment like planting trees in order to also remove the pests." There are mods that will let you plant trees. Planting trees will reduce pollution, and that in turn will lead to you getting bothered less by biters, the native life forms of the planet.
6y ago

avalys 6y ago

My computer gaming has been pretty modest for the past 6 or 7 years. An hour here or there, mostly on the weekends. I don’t really get absorbed in games that much anymore. Factorio is something different. I started playing it on a Saturday morning. Slept a few hours that night. When the sun started rising Monday morning I realized I should probably try to get a little sleep before heading into the office. Never had that experience before or since. Probably the closest I’ve ever come to a “bender”.

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artche 6y ago

If anyone is looking for an immersive game to play I would recommend Subnautica.

djannzjkzxn 6y ago
If you liked Subnautica, try Outer Wilds.
scotty79 6y ago
> immersive [...] Subnautica I see what you did there.... :-)

winstonewert 6y ago

WARNING: stay far away from this game... way too addictive. I've lost so much time to it... you have been warned!

scotty79 6y ago
Was it really lost? Can you imagine yourself on your deathbed regretting that you played Factorio?
- Faark 6y ago
  I hope I'm not even half the way to my deathbed and already regret how much time I spend on games (and the knock-on effects). It's not that playing games (incl Factorio) doesn't feel satisfying. But the time we have is pretty much the only finite thing in life and thus what we can do is limited. Spending time somewhat deliberate seems like a good idea. Again, that doesn't mean playing games is bad. It can be a great source of joy and broaden your horizon, just like other media. But moderation is key. Spending time in ways that allows us to meet people/ learn skills (we might even use professionally)/etc will probably have a bigger impact on our lives down the line than the 2000th hour of playing Factorio.
  - scotty79 6y ago
    You regret it now when you have more than half of your life ahead of you. But when you have nearly all of it behind you do you think you'll still regret it? I don't think I will.
    - Faark 6y ago
      What do you think you will regret? Is it not something that could have been changed with more time? Or are you trying to imply you won't have any regrets... and wouldn't that make the question kind of meaningless? As for me, that depends... I might end up a lonely bitter old man who constantly/wistfully mourns the wasted potential cause of all the whishes/goals I had but never worked on. Getting away from spending that much time on games should make this scenario less likely. Thus my attempt to get on a different path. But yeah, your constraints of only thinking about past and present is kind of interesting. That can pretty easily lead into the meaning(-lessness) of life, but lets not open this can of worms for now.

xixixao 6y ago

This is a good write-up, and the most interesting point is about self-efficiency. It kills me to see software engineers not use multi-paste or multi-cursors. But I agree this is “human nature”. I have totally proven this to myself when I tried “lazy bastard” play through (the rule is once you basically get the first assembling machine you’re not allowed to craft in inventory). It wasn’t annoying, it was actually much more pleasurable and less stressful, because I set up automated process for everything. That’s what Factorio is about, and it is a very educational game (also a severe time suck).

jaggederest 6y ago

I found > There's gotta be some innate machine-focused "interest in things" that this is tapping. I've never taken apart or rebuilt a machine, but this gets me anyway. fairly sad. Factorio is fun, but it's a pale shadow of the experience of making even relatively simple machines work better or differently. Even getting a 2-stroke motor that has a dirty filter running again is immensely satisfying.

potatochup 6y ago
Kinda. But then you don't have the right o-ring and the store is closed until Monday. And you mixed up the BSF and UNC threads on your carbs. And the cloth wiring is intermittently shorting out. Computers are nice in some ways.
- teddyh 6y ago
  “The reason is that, in other fields, people have to deal with the perversity of matter. You are designing circuits or cars or chemicals, you have to face the fact that these physical substances will do what they do, not what they are supposed to do. We in software don't have that problem, and that makes it tremendously easier. We are designing a collection of idealized mathematical parts which have definitions. They do exactly what they are defined to do. And so there are many problems we don't have. For instance, if we put an if statement inside of a while statement, we don't have to worry about whether the if statement can get enough power to run at the speed it's going to run. We don't have to worry about whether it will run at a speed that generates radio frequency interference and induces wrong values in some other parts of the data. We don't have to worry about whether it will loop at a speed that causes a resonance and eventually the if statement will vibrate against the while statement and one of them will crack. We don't have to worry that chemicals in the environment will get into the boundary between the if statement and the while statement and corrode them, and cause a bad connection. We don't have to worry that other chemicals will get on them and cause a short-circuit. We don't have to worry about whether the heat can be dissipated from this if statement through the surrounding while statement. We don't have to worry about whether the while statement would cause so much voltage drop that the if statement won't function correctly. When you look at the value of a variable you don't have to worry about whether you've referenced that variable so many times that you exceed the fan-out limit. You don't have to worry about how much capacitance there is in a certain variable and how much time it will take to store the value in it. All these things are defined a way, the system is defined to function in a certain way, and it always does. The physical computer might malfunction, but that's not the program's fault. So, because of all these problems we don't have to deal with, our field is tremendously easier.” — Richard Stallman, 2001: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/stallman-mec-india.html#conf9 https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/stallman-mec-india.html#conf9

billfruit 6y ago

One annoying aspect in Factorio in the short time that I have played it was that there is a player character, who needs to move to each location before an object can be placed there. It adds a degree of tedium in building, if having requiring the player sprite to move about..

monkeypizza 6y ago
yeah, I use "longreach" and don't feel guilty about it at all. You can also build ghost items from the map view, which bots will fill in. For really remote areas I still do have to find the right train to ride, but this mainly solves it. Never hearing that beeping sound while building locally is totally worth it. Apparently the devs added a reach limit to prevent people from keeping their factory going by manual loading for hours and hours; since I don't do that, there's no harm in it.
AgentME 6y ago
The game does introduce a few ways to deal with this: there's cars and trains for getting around fast, but also you can command construction bots from any distance if they're in an area with radar coverage. It is a bit limited, but it does give some encouragement to create controllable long-range contraptions.
- 7777fps 6y ago
  6 exoskeletons (yes, they stack) and a couple of personal nuclear power plants and you can outrun cars and some trains for that matter.
emmanuel_1234 6y ago
I agree, but it forces the player to do something about it. After a few hours in a game, I typically develop an autonomous train network with various train stations. I build one for my own personal train (which gets loaded with all the stuff I might need for an outpost). I can call that train to my location, provided I'm near a train track, by setting a temporary station and manually asking my train to pick me up there. I must admit, navigating my world in a high speed train (eventually, my train gets fuelled from nuclear cells) is exhilarating.

billfruit 6y ago

I haven't played it for long, but one thing I felt with Factorio and with the Anno series is that there is no RNG. I feel it would perhaps be more fun with an RNG element. Like, the assembly lines won't create identical items, but there will be some statistical variability. Also sometimes total duds are created that will cause problems downstream. Also random plant failures and downtime. In my imagination it would be more exciting.

ecuzzillo 6y ago
Angels & Bob's mods and/or Seablock might scratch this itch.

raxxorrax 6y ago

I bought the game on a hunch in its very early development. At some point they introduced their weakly reports on development, which were extremely interesting about the problems they were facing. Great developer and I love how successful it became. It seriously deserves all the praise. Even in very early development, when it still looked horrible, the core elements were already a lot of fun. I am no game developer, but for everyone that wants to go that route, I would seriously recommend reading their "friday facts". And even if you are just a developer of the mundane, it is super interesting.

mtreis86 6y ago
The definitely set the bar for developers interacting with players. They change things back when people don't like it. They fix problems quickly. They keep everyone updated on what they have worked on recently, and what will be worked on soon. No BS, no promises, no PR. It reads more like an internal dev blog than something you'd print, but I like it for that.

tdy721 6y ago

Factorio is my current favorite train set. Community feedback and a very long development cycle made it awesome. You asked is it devils? But forgot the parts about nuking bugs. Shooting bugs, killing all the bugs

pmoriarty 6y ago

For anyone here who's only played vanilla Factorio (ie. Factorio without mods), you should really try it with mods.. the mods enhance the game in so many ways (from eliminating annoyances, to making things more convenient, to adding way, way, way more content). I absolutely loved the base game, but the mods made it 10 times better for me.

squiffy 6y ago
Would you have a small list of recommended mods for someone like me with ~50 hours in Factorio? Thanks.
- keanzu 6y ago
  https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Helicopters https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Helicopters https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Optera/LogisticTrainNetwork https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Optera/LogisticTrainNetwork
- pmoriarty 6y ago
  I don't know if you finished the game yet, but if you haven't, I suggest that you do so before adding mods, just so you have a good feel for what the vanilla game is like before you start changing stuff... it'll also give you a sense of what you don't like or would want more of, and that'll let you more intelligently pick mods. That said, I'd divide mods in to several types: First, there are convenience mods, which make certain parts of the game less annoying or less tedious. Among those, I'd recommend: - Squeak Through - Lets your character squeeze through spaces that you couldn't in the vanilla game. It doesn't sound like much, but it make a huge difference and makes the game much less annoying. - Tree Collision - Similar to Squek Through, this lets you move through forests easily. - Splatter Guard - Keeps you from getting killed by trains. - Repair from Inventory - Automatically repair items in your inventory. - Packing Tape - Lets you carry filled containers. - Fill4Me - Automatically fills things things like turrets with ammo when you place them. - Even Distribution - An easy way to put the same amount of something in to multiple entities (ex: same-sized batches of coal in furnaces). - Belt Reverser - One keystroke to reverse the direction of a belt. Much easier than doing it by hand. - Atilla's Zoom Mod - Zoom out much further than you can in the vanilla game. Also has keystrokes for quick zoom in/out. - Todo List - I couldn't live without this mod, which lets me keep track of what I need to do. - Far Reach - Lets you manipulate far way items as if they were near by. This could be considered "cheating" by some, but it makes the game much more convenient. If you are concerned that the game is too easy this way, you could always raise the difficulty with other mods. - Where Is MyBody - When you die a line will be shown on the screen pointing to your body, so you can find it more easily and get your inventory back. - What is it really used for? - A nice way to find what items are used for (which the vanilla game does not tell you.. it only tells you how to craft items). The second category of mods is one that adds major features to the game and/or lots of different items. In this category, I can reommend: - Factorissimo2 - adds "factory" buildings that can contain other buildings (including, if researched, more "factory" buildings). This is very useful for packing a lot in to a little space. If you're constantly running out of space this could be a good mod for you. - Bob & Angel's mods - if you want a trillion intermediate products to extend the game - Yuoki Industries - lots of strange, different items and intermediate products that feel very different from vanilla Finally, if you found the vanilla biters too easy and want more combat, I'd recommend the Rampant mod, which makes the biters smarter and tougher. If you find Rampant too hard, you can dial down the difficulty in its options and/or install some other mods that give you more powerful weapons. Ok, so this wasn't a small list of mods.. but I couldn't narrow it down any further without feeling like I'd left out some crucial mods. Hope you find something here that interests you.

corecoder 6y ago

I had stayed away from the game for fear of being hooked up, but decided to give it a try when I was confined home, so I downloaded the demo. I really wanted to like it, but I gave up after an hour or so, because I felt that the game devs want me to be frustrated. Now, of course nobody likes frustration, but I hate very much everybody who wants me to feel bad. First of all, I was expecting a sandbox game, and instead I got objectives, and a stupid popup telling me what I am supposed to do. Secondly, one of the first non trivial objectives is to reach a certain production speed, which, at least in the early stages of the game means hustle (I haven't bothered to check if it changes later on). The game promises hustle from the beginning: you have to feed coal to a machine that extracts coal; you can use robot arms to feed the coal extracting machine with coal, but you have to feed coal to the robotic arm. WTF? Finally, I'm really done with games where you have to do your thing but also fight monsters. Compare that to, say, Minecraft: you craft a bed, spam lights everywhere and never, ever have to fight a single monster if you don't want to, while you're still free to go and fight monsters with your bare hands if that's what you like. Is there a sandbox game that is not hustle for the sake of hustle, that doesn't tell you what to do and in which you can do your thing without being too much bothered by monsters?

kccqzy 6y ago
All configurable. You can choose not to have objectives. You can choose not to have biters that get irritated by pollution.
pmjordan 6y ago
Anno 1800 might float your boat? Or any of the previous games in the Anno series for that matter. The campaign does very much have a story and specific objectives, but the interesting bit is the regular sandbox game: Turn off pirates and competitors, and either turn off or ignore NPC quests. (There's no penalty to ignoring them, but they sometimes can be useful if you need money.) You'll still have incidents like fires, industrial explosions, disease, and riots, but those are influenced by factors you control, and with well-placed fire stations, hospitals, and police stations you can very much contain them so they're a non-issue.
- 6y ago

ainiriand 6y ago

My brother gave me this game for my birthday and, oh man... I couldn't stop playing even though I was on a holiday trip. Now I have detoxed and I'm back to having a life. One day at a time.

leonvv 6y ago

Mindustry is a game similar to Factorio. It's open source and free to download on the Play Store. Warning: it's super addictive

piercebot 6y ago

> Isn't it amazing that someone could do something for 100 hours and not think about obvious improvements, and not even wonder if they've been setup? I have co-workers like this: people who don't bother to learn the tools of* their trade and waste dozens of minutes every day. Taking the time to master your tools is a COMPOUNDING benefit and, at the risk of sounding inflammatory, is the type of activity that creates "skill gaps" between regular and "10x engineers."

LeonM 6y ago
It takes a certain discipline to do that. Not everyone has that discipline, and not everyone cares about being the '10x engineer'. Especially not when they work a 9-5 job which pays the same regardless of being a 1x or 10x. I have been working for my own businesses for about 8 years now. I learned to value my time, so any improvement in efficiency is welcome. But sometimes you just need to get the job done and not invest time upfront in improving a process. It's always a trade-off in time.
- koheripbal 6y ago
  > Especially not when they work a 9-5 job which pays the same regardless of being a 1x or 10x. This is a failure of forethought on their part. It's true that their _current_ job might not pay more for that knowledge, but it absolutely pays off in their career and during interviews as they develop their professional network and people begin to recognize them as a source of in-depth knowledge.
  - LeonM 6y ago
    That was exactly my point: not everyone cares about that. For many (most?) people the main factor in life is happiness. If you like your job, and it pays good enough, then why invest all the work into a future job that may pay better? Also, there are many factors that come into play during interviews. How well you are able to combine complex Vim commands to shave 10 seconds of a particular task is probably very, very low down the list of competences the interviewer is looking for.
  - 6y ago

timwaagh 6y ago

You know what else is interesting? Their "no sales" sales philosophy. For me its the reason never to buy it. I actually revolt when I hear their reasons. I feel like it comes down to: we are willing to hurt our options for making more profit to prevent people with lesser budgets from buying it. But its very interesting since a lot of people have the opposite reaction. They feel it is more valuable if it doesn't go on sale and they can support the developer by paying a 'fair' price.

notthemessiah 6y ago
Factorio is a polished experience, with devs committed to bringing it not just to completion, but to perfection (with performance, aesthetics, and balanced gameplay). In contrast, most AAA games are bland experiences built under sweatshops, and most Early Access games wind up half-assed or as abandonware. If there's any game worth your money, it's Factorio.
- timwaagh 6y ago
  I don't doubt that it's worth the money. I just dislike their attitude. If it was a perfect fit for me, I'd swallow it and get it, sure. But thruth is I'm only a very occasional puzzle gamer. So i'd probably not play it much or at all. Also, let's not overgeneralize. I'm pretty sure a lot of indie devs are effectively sweatshops too. They face much less regulatory scrutiny and people tend to forgive them easily. Examples like Telltale and Riot tell us how ugly things can get if they grow too quickly and continue operating that way. Which doesn't mean factorio devs are that way too. there is just no way to know. It also depends on the country. For example gaming AAA giant Ubisoft is French. French regulations do not permit much in terms of unpaid overtime.
  - notthemessiah 6y ago
    > But thruth is I'm only a very occasional puzzle gamer. So i'd probably not play it much or at all. Then why should you care about what the makers of Factorio do? > Examples like Telltale and Riot tell us how ugly things can get if they grow too quickly and continue operating that way. Do Factorio developers show any sign that they're "growing too quickly"? Telltale took on dozens of contracts for games that showed no sign of selling well, and Riot went public and were acquired and became Tencent's bitch. How is any of that relevant to Factorio not going on sale?

djhworld 6y ago

Absolutely blown away by how good Factorio is, fiendishly addictive, seemingly endless possibilities. I can see why it appeals to those with an engineering/tinkerers mindset. Also from this post I just learned that Copy/Paste is a function in the game, _sigh_

guardian5x 6y ago

I can also recommend Satisfactory. Similar game with more immersion through 3d world.

TheMerovingian 6y ago
Only down side is that it can't scale to the levels Factorio can. (Only applies to us that like to build massive megafactories).
- TOGoS 6y ago
  Yep. I've enjoyed both, but I think it comes down to: If your draw to the game is is your sense of connection with the place you're in, Satisfactory probably does a better job of that, with the pretty scenery and ability to build in 3D. Factorio's world feels very flat in comparison. I wrote a bit about that and possible ways to make it less so in https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-309 https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-309 If your draw is wanting to build very large, complex factories, constantly pushing production to new limits, that is what Factorio excels at.

notthemessiah 6y ago

One thing notable about Factorio's game mechanics is that crafting is idempotent: the tech tree is a directed acyclic graph. If one is looking for a different experience in which one thinks about closing manufacturing loops, I would recommend Oxygen Not Included, where you have to sustain life amidst an asteroid colony.

beesbuzz 6y ago
> One thing notable about Factorio's game mechanics is that crafting is idempotent What do you mean by this? You craft a thing once, you have one thing. You craft it again, you now have two things. That doesn't sound idempotent to me.
- 7777fps 6y ago
  I think idempotent wasn't a good word but I think the idea being described is that crafting is acyclic. For example Copper Wire + Iron = Green Circuit. There's no recipe chain that takes in Green Circuits and produces either Iron or Copper Wire. So once produced, you need to find a higher function for your products. You can't 'unmake' through a cyclic recipe. Contrast that to ONI's water cycle, where clean water gets made dirty then cleaned again. So ultimately in Factorio everything is leading toward the only resources that get destroyed - Science, Rockets, or Coal (or other energy types).
  - pmoriarty 6y ago
    "There's no recipe chain that takes in Green Circuits and produces either Iron or Copper Wire. So once produced, you need to find a higher function for your products. You can't 'unmake' through a cyclic recipe." There are Factorio mods that will give you access to recycling machines that will let you get back the ingredients that went in to making whatever it is that you put in to them. So Factorio's recipes can be fully cyclic, if you want.
- notthemessiah 6y ago
  Oops, was thinking about composing arrows on crafting graph, not the action of crafting and the consequent inventory, and that was needlessly confusing. I should have simply said that it's non-invertible.

ashtonkem 6y ago

Factorio is probably one of the best $$/hr values outside of Dwarf Fortress, which is free. It’s also basically engineering catnip, consider yourself warned. For those who are interested, it’s the stated goal of the devs to never put the game on sale. They think it’s worth $30, and they intend to sell it for $30. So if you’re interested, don’t wait for a sale, buy it now!

pbhjpbhj 6y ago
I'd be interested in reading their analysis on price setting. $30 is much more than it was 3 years ago. I've been waiting for a discount on factorio. I guess I'll take it off my wishlist.
- leetcrew 6y ago
  the game isn't considered finished yet (current stable version is 0.17.79). they have been gradually raising the price as they get closer to "finishing".
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  It was $20 during early access. So while that’s a significant price jump in terms of percentage, $10 more isn’t a big cost difference in total terms. Compare that to AAA titles at $60 a pop, and Factorio is a steal.
- pixl97 6y ago
  >I've been waiting for a discount on factorio. Don't unless the company is bought out. They will never discount the sale price as it leads to the behaviour you just listed, people will only buy the game when it goes on sale leading to low sales when said game is not on sale.
  - sharkdog 6y ago
    That is definitely not the reason why they don't go on sale. Sales are a good business practice and they usually result in higher sales. They don't go on sale simply because they want to be fair to their customers. They've said many times that they are financially well off and that they don't need the large amount of money that a sale can bring in.

slothtrop 6y ago

It looks like programming but in a more cumbersome fashion. I enjoy and understand the appeal of puzzles (Recurse is a good game), but this is too much like work.

wincent 6y ago
It is intentionally cumbersome, at first, but as you master the technology tree you get access to ever faster robots, blueprints, automation via the circuit network, self-maintaining defenses etc. You can construct and dismantle distant parts of the factory from the map view etc. Basically, you journey from insignificance to near-omnipotence.

tasuki 6y ago

The author might be interested in knowing that both the cofounders of Factorio are dan-level go players.

jbgt 6y ago

Does anyone know what the website is made of? I like the simple markdown and especially the tagging!

proc0 6y ago

Factorio is the DOOM of factory games. It has spawned a new Genre that is a blend of RTS like StarCraft, and city builders like City Skylines, HOWEVER it adds a crucial element to distinguish it from a simple mashup of genres - automation. Only after Factorio are we seeing automation factory games, like Satisfactory, recently Industries of Titan. Automation is truly a genre on its own. It's just about growing your economy by removing yourself from the equation. It's about how efficient and scaleable your base is, both which revolve around automation. Unlike RTS or 4X city builders, the quality of your automation will determine how fast your grow and how long you survive.

Netcob 6y ago

I've played it for many hours, and the thing that still asthonishes me the most is how incredibly efficient the code must be. While I haven't played with that specific purpose in mind, I've never managed to create a factory big enough where you'd notice a slowdown in the simulation. Thousands of grabbers, trains, drones, belts, factories, aliens, environmental effects, different sorts of networks, all with their own logic, and somehow this game simulates it all like it's nothing. And it never crashed on me. You can make amazingly intricate factories all you want, but the truly great piece of engineering will always be the code that runs it all.

Filligree 6y ago
The developers frequently blog about how they're doing it, often going into immense detail. Without spoiling too much, I have no qualms about calling them some of the best in the industry. The entire industry, that is, not just in games.
- orangefarm 6y ago
  Their blog posts are great. They sometimes blog about really obscure parts of game development. It’s interesting to read even if you are not building games.
  - keanzu 6y ago
    ...and here they are: https://factorio.com/blog/ https://factorio.com/blog/