8 ms·

Case Study: Why you should play Factorio

49 points by vitabenes 5y ago

Tade0 5y ago
I've consciously decided not to buy Factorio because I know that would be my favourite thing for months, if not years to come and it would distract me from my duties.
- Viker 5y ago
  Factorio takes me around 250 hours every two years. It's not an avarage but in a burst
- exdsq 5y ago
  I got into shmups and sports games for this reason - much easier to jump in and out of
- why_Mr_Anderson 5y ago
  There is a reason why those hopelessly addicted to it call it Cracktorio :)
  - me_me_me 5y ago
    I find it similar to Civilization one more turn syndrome. There is always something small you meant to do, one more improvements that will take only a min... suddenly you hear birds singing outside... its 4am... Never again.
    - ineedasername 5y ago
      Yes I had the same feeling, although in Civilization there were at least discrete turns. Each one presents a logical stopping point. Factorio just keeps going, there is never a logical stopping point because there is always a resource bottleneck to solve. I remember staying up late for Civ, but I never (almost) completely skipped sleep all together & blew off other commitments.
- BiteCode_dev 5y ago
  I tried factorio for 5 minutes. Because of the sleep deprivation I felt the day after, I decided it was cocaine and dumped it. "Factorio is a great cure" my butt.
  - Ancapistani 5y ago
    > I tried factorio for 5 minutes. > sleep deprivation I felt the day after Yep. I've had a more than my share of "five minute" gaming sessions like that :)
- dagw 5y ago
  I recently started playing Factorio and had to introduce 'rules' that I'm only allowed to play on Fridays and Saturdays.
  - datameta 5y ago
    SWIM has rules like this for a certain popular non-alcohol substance. So your comment alone would tell me all I need to know about the nature of the pull of this game.
- wernercd 5y ago
  https://factorio.com/terms-of-service https://factorio.com/terms-of-service > NATURE OF THE GAME > Especially we are not responsible if you stay awake all night long playing Factorio and can't go to school / work in the morning :) They warn you ahead of time.
Wxc2jjJmST9XWWL 5y ago
The benefits of playing Factorio compared to? Compared to programming on your own project? Compared to reading something intellectually stimulating? Compared to working out or investing time to eat healthy and sleep properly? Compared to spending time with people you love? Compared to fulfilling your actual _responsibilities_? > "If you’re in a slump (rut), chances are you feel like you can’t complete anything. You feel like you’re unable to finish anything so what’s the point of starting. Factorio is a great cure against that. Especially when you view it as a challenge." "Why you should play Factorio" ; you absolutely can, it might have more benefits for you than other games, but besides that I really have trouble with such a headline, especially since the URL is called "deprocastination" (the home page sells an e-book, which promises to solve your problems and you can sign up via e-mail, not confidence inspiring). If you want to stop procrastinating, you probably should just delete Steam and get on with your tasks? I'm not saying it's easy. There are things that can help: Meditation, proper task scheduling, talking to people about your problems, stress management techniques, in extreme cases therapy ... "Play Factorio!" - Great advice /s > "You can start taking the skills you learned and use them for anything else that is productive." FAANG should look for new employees on World of Warcraft servers... /s There is no technological cure to a spiritual problem. This is selling snake oil. Edit1: interesting to see the up-/ and downvotes on this. I am not dissing gaming, not dissing the game. But recommending a computer game as a means to deal with procrastination and develop "real life skills you can use being productive" (paraphrased), that notion I do indeed find ludicrous and stand by it. Edit2: From an answer I gave to a comment below (sorry for the edit, but I think I worded it in a nice way there): The implication, that "procrastination" means "no due diligence" in anything is _WRONG_. It's due diligence in things that should take no priority as the very means to avoid the things you should be doing instead! "Play Factorio, it has benefits for you that help you be productive" in response to someone dealing with procrastination? If that isn't absurd, I don't know what is.
- why_Mr_Anderson 5y ago
  Sorry, but your reply sounds like "just stop being poor". Procrastination is serious problem and anything that helps someone deal with it should not be dismissed. Edit: Procrastination is all about avoiding a problem (could be work, could be phone call, anything really) by looking for excuses/reasons why it cannot be done or why it must be postponed before something else is done first. In Factorio, if you don't have enough let's say steel plates, you _HAVE_ to go and increase your ore production. No excuses will help you avoid the issue and if you get used to it, it can help you get this attitude outside the game and apply what you've learned in real life. Edit2: (I can bypass the time lock this way? interesting) Considering I'm nice person as well, I'm just going to say that it's probably more useful for people actually having the problem than meditation and similar new age nonsense. Doing anything right when it needs to be done can be a huge step forward from the horrible swamp that is procrastination.
adenozine 5y ago
I've told many people over the years this: If you ever get stuck or you're bored, open the repl and just learn something that you didn't already know. Then write it down somewhere, on real paper, and keep it. I'm not ashamed to say I still do this. I've got probably 3 dozen pages in an old composition book of little perl/bash/python/jq tidbits. It's amazing how much detail is in the little tools we use everyday. Factorio is cool, but it's just not very productive. There's that translation layer between the game and real code for real life.
- tartoran 5y ago
  I do the same think with Racket, and what’s really cool about its Repl is that it supports displaying all sorts of objects and it’s fun building images and graphics this way and it is immediately rewarding. But it is still a procrastinauon of some sort
Hammershaft 5y ago
If you're looking for a more concentrated intellectual exercise that won't take days at a time to dig into I reccomend Zachtronics games, especially Spacechem, TIS-100, and Infinifactory.
- mdaniel 5y ago
  I personally find the "uncanny valley" of those too close to home; they're like programming, but without all the normal tools for programming because they're in a game which almost by definition has arbitrary rules and limitations. When I started longing for unit tests in Spacechem, that was the end of it for me I'm glad I own all the ones you mentioned, and maybe I'll revisit them in the future, but I didn't find them fulfilling in the same way Factorio and DSP are
  - Hammershaft 5y ago
    I like the concentrated challenge of the zachtronics titles tho, something that puts me off about digging into Factorio is how long it takes before I start making interesting decisions.
partomniscient 5y ago
>If you’re in a slump (rut), chances are you feel like you can’t complete anything. You feel like you’re unable to finish anything so what’s the point of starting. But how do you get out of a slump you're in caused by playing Factorio? Especially if you're still trying to get rid of the spoon?
rosmax_1337 5y ago
Slightly off topic, but on the topic of "deprocrastination" and gaming. How do other people here feel about managing gaming habits and such, among their other side projects, work, and the day to day chores. I've been off video games for soon 3 months now because I felt I was unable to properly moderate my gaming habits. I was ending up playing late in evenings or during a weekend where I arguably had better things to do. I've found that there really aren't any replacement hobbies for gaming as such. Lots of things to do instead, but nothing really replaces it. Personally, the closest thing I came to the same kind of enjoyment I got out of gaming is meeting other people IRL and being social. Games for me was able to fill a very odd spot in my mind I think, they were challenging to the extent that you felt like you were growing a skill, and at the same time rewarding with various power-trip-gimmicks like "winning" or just plain old fun things like explosions, guns and (fantasy)-violence, stuff that gets your lizard brain going you know. It boiled down to "fun-work", and by that I mean truly fun work, stuff that you completely voluntarily do and which is void of the added boring fluff that comes with normal work. And as said, also something to grow into where a skill is actually being developed and a kind of deeper gratification can be found by continuous progress. (All the previously mentioned aspects were however too fake for me in the end, the lizard brain part doesnt understand that it was fake skills and fake victories though, so it liked them all the same) On the topic of Factorio: I am absolutely certain this game would suck me in for far too many hours. I've heard stories about it and I can imagine how neat the problem-solving to feedback loops are, combined with creativity and you know, explosions. However, if you have employees that are struggling with exactly solving open ended problems, games like this one probably does train that brain function.
- Wowfunhappy 5y ago
  I’m very careful about the types of games I play. I like one-and-done experiences that lead me through a story. I avoid anything with xp/grinding mechanics, which I consider largely-exploitive. Like movies and books, these games have a beginning and an end and a set duration between the two. Examples include Portal (1&2), Gris, Sayonara Wild Hearts, and Journey.
  - simion314 5y ago
oezi 5y ago
I sometimes feel that Factorio in the mid- and late game is quite a chore. Almost like work to get that yellow science going. Calculating all those ratios, connecting countless types of inputs, fending of the critters. I quite like the supply challenges but find in comparison to the Zachtronics Industries games (e.g. Space Chem) that not seeing competitive stats and being able to tinker/optimize is a missed opportunity.
DanielBMarkham 5y ago
I'm not a gamer. If anything, I'm yet another old cranky coder guy complaining about new people and new stuff. Dang it! (Looks outside to check lawn) Having said that, Factorio is the bomb. I like the point this essayist makes about closed vs. open-ended problem-solving. There's also the matter of building something for now vs. building something for later. Probably the biggest mistake I see in shops are people building for the endgame when they don't even have a basic and simple value loop set up. Factorio teaches this by direct practice and interaction. Because solving coding problems can take a long time, many times programmers can go an entire career without actually learning how to solve problems, instead just learning more and more about how to add solution details. For some, if they're not going to learn good architecture evolution here they'll never grok it. Recommended. But beware: it's a freaking huge time sink. I had to take it off all but one of my PCs.
- c048 5y ago
  The final warning is something that's not a joke. To quote a buddy of mine, after I jumped on Discord to play some other game with him, as I woke him out of his Factorio slumber: "Help, get me out of here. I don't remember building all this, nor when I last went to bed." He's no longer allowed to play Factorio. When another buddy recently bought it on sale and we told him this same story, he simply laughed it off. The last we've heard of him since was a few weeks back on Discord, simply stating "my god".
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  > But beware: it's a freaking huge time sink. I had to take it off all but one of my PCs. I didn't even enjoy[0] Factorio and it still ate just over 60 hours of my time, so please heed this warning everyone. Factorio is Nerd-Sniping: The Game. [0] I would like to take a moment to say that while I personally have a distaste for the kind of experience Factorio is, it is an incredibly well made version of what it is. I discovered only one bug[1] during my playthrough and the simulation can handle millions of interacting objects in a vast play area in real time to an impressive degree, and I don't consider myself to be easily impressed by the speed of modern software since modern computers are so ludicrously fast. [1] It is possible to drop the deconstruction planner into the world as an object an infinite number of times even before it unlocks.
reportgunner 5y ago
I feel that the guns and aliens in Factorio are a very important part of the game. I tried the Dyson Sphere Program the other day which is basically 3D factorio with planets and I dropped it soon after, it feels like there is no end goal to keep playing, you just research more technology but the reason to do it seems lacking. DSP is still in development so maybe that is the reason it feels this way.
- mdaniel 5y ago
  I can see why you feel that way, but there are a class of players for whom the critters were just a distraction. The goal is hard enough without having to stop every now and then just to kill a bunch of things I am frustrated by DSPs current lack of support for blueprints (especially since the game starts you off with the automation droids that you have to earn in Factorio) but overall I think DSP is more fun as a game I'm glad I have both to choose whether I feel like shooting something, but for me the "pure" DSP is more relaxing
ineedasername 5y ago
>Stress-reducing: can be stressful at times This was the most stressful game I ever played. First, because there's always something to do, that needs your attention. Second, because it was so addictive that even my work suffered. The rocket was the probably the least satisfying ending to a game, but I have never been so relieved to finish a game.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  Yeah, that's a pretty good summary of my experience as well. I didn't enjoy it, but I finished it anyway because A) I could, and B) I was "working" from home with COVID[0] at the time. [0] Which I caught at work along with pretty much everyone in the office because the person running the company decided they absolutely needed all of us back there after about a month of most people working from home (but not me!). To be fair, the people working the plant did legitimately have to be onsite, and they also all caught it. 2020 was our best sales year to date, and no one died, so I'm sure there were no lessons learned. Yes, I am bitter about this.
tifadg1 5y ago
I actually thought factorio is tedious because it has it's own 'DSL', optimal formulas, optimal paths, stuff that needs to be memorized, stuff that is tedious and you're back to doing what you're doing for a living - googling the unknowns and trying to piece together a puzzle. And for me that's a no go, because fun has to be instant.
h2odragon 5y ago
I want to throw another reason to play factorio onto the pile: The experience of working with excellent software is wonderful. It will infect your expectations and you will come to resent the lack of quality elsewhere.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  I mentioned it elsewhere but it is worth repeating: I am not easily impressed by modern software, but Factorio impressed me with its quality.
andrewmcwatters 5y ago
It took me a couple of tries to actually enjoy the game. My first try of the demo I was turned off, at the time it just felt like work. I decided to give it another go, because I wanted something to play and everyone raved about it, so I thought I'd persist a little longer to see what the hubbub was all about. Everyone says the game is addicting, but I merely find it simply "fun." Maybe the current quality of video games is so poor that anything that actually engages you for a few hours is declared addicting, but I find that a sad state of affairs. Then again, the norm for major publishers seems to be hype up a game, then sell an incomplete piece of software to kids who don't know any better. Providing demos of software is passé. If people aren't designing video games that I can actually be engaged with for a few hours at a time, what's the point? Do not Monopoly players who actually enjoy the game, poker players, or chess players do the same? Why do we not call Minecraft, "Crackcraft?" It's almost certainly played more, and plays basically identically in sandbox nature to me as Factorio: you build things, and you enjoy doing it.
qq4 5y ago
Like with so many video games, especially single-player ones, I would rather spend my time working on real problems.
- mercer 5y ago
  What makes a problem 'real' to you? Honest question.
  - qq4 5y ago
    Thanks for the question. After thinking about it, I realize my intent wasn't as concrete as I thought it was. I think I consider worthwhile problems (probably a better word, and truer to what I intended) to be ones that have rewards outside of pure entertainment. For example, spending time on Candy Crush or Pacman doesn't seem to help anyone with anything other than those two games. Now one could argue that games like Factorio and Kerbal Space Program are more rewarding, and I would agree to an extent, but much of the time they are still solving toy problems. If one must use an abstraction of a problem to approach the realm of the problem due to limiting constraints, like not having access to a hangar of rockets, I am more understanding.
AcerbicZero 5y ago
I couldn’t get over having to actually control one guy, while also trying to play a base building game. Same issue with Satisfactory and a few others I’ve played recently - the micromanagement phase and all the extra clicking just to organize inventories drives me a bit mad. Heck, even one of the first Valheim mods I made was to allow for my crafting tables to draw materials from the surrounding chests. I’m sure I’ll give factorio another go at some point, but its got a somewhat steep learning curve and it’s just too micro heavy for my taste. (Also there are likely mods to fix all of my minor complaints anyway). Somewhat related - Rimworld. Best Dwarf Fortess style game with a GUI and more mods than I could play in a lifetime. Also, muchhhh less micro management (most of the time - combat can require a lot of attention).
sethammons 5y ago
Ah, I see, they misspelled the domain. Should be deepprocratination.com ;) After hearing of factorio for the first time a few weeks ago (recall the article and n using factorio in hiring?), I was intrigued. I’m on the last level of the tutorial. I can see why people could like it. It is too much like work to me. I already practice the art of “breaking it down” — that is the core skill I learned as a math student and later as a math teacher and has been reinforced daily as a developer. Pretty sure it was one of tue first lessons in my first CS classes. This game will not teach me that, and I’m surprised that it would teach any software developer more about breaking it down. To me, the game is a time sink at that is pretty much it. And for me, just not captivating enough.
travisjungroth 5y ago
Factorio will not help you develop skills to deal with procrastination. A source of procrastination is doing things only based on how urgent they are, not how important. So you do urgent, non-important tasks and drop the ball on non-urgent, important tasks. Playing a video game that streams urgent, non-important tasks at you will not help. Things that have worked for me: 1. Spending 30 minutes most days on whatever my oldest tasks are, regardless of how important. I just go with the oldest first. 2. Meeting a project manager for 30 minutes each week to talk about what's going on in my life. [0] 3. Quitting video games. (Civ 5, really). 4. In the morning, I throw on some clothes, go for a five minute walk, and then work for 2 hours on my core work (for me, coding). [0] If you hire a life coach to do this in the US to do this in the US it's very pricey. And I tend to dislike the type of person who wants to be a life coach. A PM in Latin America is much cheaper.
- Ancapistani 5y ago
  My biggest problem isn't procrastination per se, but that I often find that I have little control over where my focus is directed. If I'm not focused on something, it takes me (often, literally) exponentially more time and effort to accomplish it. As a result of that, I optimize first for curating focus on the things that matter by putting myself in places (mentally and physically) where those things are the most interesting presence and likely to "naturally" draw my focus. I've spoken to many counselors, psychologists, and psychiatrists about this, and while some have been supportive of my approach none have seemed to really understand the importance of exploiting my "natural" focus over overriding it via willpower. Of all places, I recently found that a lot of people on TikTok with self-professed ADHD describe very similar challenges and coping mechanisms. In short, ADHD seems to not be a deficiency in the ability to focus. Indeed, it comes with the ability and tendency to engage in extreme focus for long periods. The problem is that I don't get to consciously choose the target of that focus, and that it's extremely difficult to break it once I'm focused on the wrong thing.
BenoitP 5y ago
Beyond the problem-solving and planning aspects, I think Factorio helps a lot in learning programming concepts. No theory, just experiments with visual and environmental feedback. * backpressure: your belts fill up * optimization problems: there's always at least one bottleneck, it just shifts elsewhere * deadlocks: a circular universal/sushi belt will block if not properly managed * parallelism: extending a branch off your main bus * locks: chained signals for shared train sections And then, you have combinators
- Ancapistani 5y ago
  > backpressure: your belts fill up This is a very good point, and one that I hadn't considered. I'm playing Satisfactory at the moment (very similar game) and for the first few dozen hours I played it I used building efficiency as my metric. For instance, let's say I have a simple factory chain: miner (iron ore), smelter (iron ingots), constructor (iron plates). I would start at the output side and make sure each building was operating at 100% efficiency. This works fine on a small scale and can produce optimal results in the early game. Later, I noticed that my conveyors moved at a set pace, and that I could easily find bottlenecks in my design by observing where the conveyors were either only partially filled or were stopping as inputs exceeded needs. As you progress, your factories get much larger. Checking each building takes time, and changes to the system mean you have to check each building after the changes propagate to be sure you've not messed something else up. It turns out that once you've reached a certain point of complexity, your bottleneck is more often input, not efficiency. Watching your conveyors gives you much faster feedback, and you can tell at a glance if you need to increase resource input into a factory "module" or if you need to modify your design at some point within than module. This is mirrored very well in managing a team of software engineers: you can watch individual productivity metrics, hours spent working on problems, story points delivered, etc. - but at some point, watching the inputs become a more comprehensive metric. Instead of exclusively monitoring your team's velocity (output), you should watch the size of your backlog over time (input). By extension, that means you should ensure that sufficient time is spent grooming and prioritizing backlog issues to ensure that you don't have things in your work queue that are no longer valid tasks (make sure you're not moving things that don't need to be moved anymore). If your backlog is steadily growing, it's time to talk about increasing your team's capacity. Often that means hiring more people (adding more buildings), which is the most direct solution. If payroll costs (power generation) are your containing factor, though, then your effort should be focused on tracking and optimizing individual and subteam productivity (individual building efficiency).

49 points by vitabenes 5y ago

I've consciously decided not to buy Factorio because I know that would be my favourite thing for months, if not years to come and it would distract me from my duties.

Viker 5y ago
Factorio takes me around 250 hours every two years. It's not an avarage but in a burst
exdsq 5y ago
I got into shmups and sports games for this reason - much easier to jump in and out of
why_Mr_Anderson 5y ago
There is a reason why those hopelessly addicted to it call it Cracktorio :)
- me_me_me 5y ago
  I find it similar to Civilization one more turn syndrome. There is always something small you meant to do, one more improvements that will take only a min... suddenly you hear birds singing outside... its 4am... Never again.
  - ineedasername 5y ago
    Yes I had the same feeling, although in Civilization there were at least discrete turns. Each one presents a logical stopping point. Factorio just keeps going, there is never a logical stopping point because there is always a resource bottleneck to solve. I remember staying up late for Civ, but I never (almost) completely skipped sleep all together & blew off other commitments.
BiteCode_dev 5y ago
I tried factorio for 5 minutes. Because of the sleep deprivation I felt the day after, I decided it was cocaine and dumped it. "Factorio is a great cure" my butt.
- Ancapistani 5y ago
  > I tried factorio for 5 minutes. > sleep deprivation I felt the day after Yep. I've had a more than my share of "five minute" gaming sessions like that :)
dagw 5y ago
I recently started playing Factorio and had to introduce 'rules' that I'm only allowed to play on Fridays and Saturdays.
- datameta 5y ago
  SWIM has rules like this for a certain popular non-alcohol substance. So your comment alone would tell me all I need to know about the nature of the pull of this game.
wernercd 5y ago
https://factorio.com/terms-of-service https://factorio.com/terms-of-service > NATURE OF THE GAME > Especially we are not responsible if you stay awake all night long playing Factorio and can't go to school / work in the morning :) They warn you ahead of time.

Wxc2jjJmST9XWWL 5y ago

The benefits of playing Factorio compared to? Compared to programming on your own project? Compared to reading something intellectually stimulating? Compared to working out or investing time to eat healthy and sleep properly? Compared to spending time with people you love? Compared to fulfilling your actual _responsibilities_? > "If you’re in a slump (rut), chances are you feel like you can’t complete anything. You feel like you’re unable to finish anything so what’s the point of starting. Factorio is a great cure against that. Especially when you view it as a challenge." "Why you should play Factorio" ; you absolutely can, it might have more benefits for you than other games, but besides that I really have trouble with such a headline, especially since the URL is called "deprocastination" (the home page sells an e-book, which promises to solve your problems and you can sign up via e-mail, not confidence inspiring). If you want to stop procrastinating, you probably should just delete Steam and get on with your tasks? I'm not saying it's easy. There are things that can help: Meditation, proper task scheduling, talking to people about your problems, stress management techniques, in extreme cases therapy ... "Play Factorio!" - Great advice /s > "You can start taking the skills you learned and use them for anything else that is productive." FAANG should look for new employees on World of Warcraft servers... /s There is no technological cure to a spiritual problem. This is selling snake oil. Edit1: interesting to see the up-/ and downvotes on this. I am not dissing gaming, not dissing the game. But recommending a computer game as a means to deal with procrastination and develop "real life skills you can use being productive" (paraphrased), that notion I do indeed find ludicrous and stand by it. Edit2: From an answer I gave to a comment below (sorry for the edit, but I think I worded it in a nice way there): The implication, that "procrastination" means "no due diligence" in anything is _WRONG_. It's due diligence in things that should take no priority as the very means to avoid the things you should be doing instead! "Play Factorio, it has benefits for you that help you be productive" in response to someone dealing with procrastination? If that isn't absurd, I don't know what is.

why_Mr_Anderson 5y ago
Sorry, but your reply sounds like "just stop being poor". Procrastination is serious problem and anything that helps someone deal with it should not be dismissed. Edit: Procrastination is all about avoiding a problem (could be work, could be phone call, anything really) by looking for excuses/reasons why it cannot be done or why it must be postponed before something else is done first. In Factorio, if you don't have enough let's say steel plates, you _HAVE_ to go and increase your ore production. No excuses will help you avoid the issue and if you get used to it, it can help you get this attitude outside the game and apply what you've learned in real life. Edit2: (I can bypass the time lock this way? interesting) Considering I'm nice person as well, I'm just going to say that it's probably more useful for people actually having the problem than meditation and similar new age nonsense. Doing anything right when it needs to be done can be a huge step forward from the horrible swamp that is procrastination.

adenozine 5y ago

I've told many people over the years this: If you ever get stuck or you're bored, open the repl and just learn something that you didn't already know. Then write it down somewhere, on real paper, and keep it. I'm not ashamed to say I still do this. I've got probably 3 dozen pages in an old composition book of little perl/bash/python/jq tidbits. It's amazing how much detail is in the little tools we use everyday. Factorio is cool, but it's just not very productive. There's that translation layer between the game and real code for real life.

tartoran 5y ago
I do the same think with Racket, and what’s really cool about its Repl is that it supports displaying all sorts of objects and it’s fun building images and graphics this way and it is immediately rewarding. But it is still a procrastinauon of some sort

Hammershaft 5y ago

If you're looking for a more concentrated intellectual exercise that won't take days at a time to dig into I reccomend Zachtronics games, especially Spacechem, TIS-100, and Infinifactory.

mdaniel 5y ago
I personally find the "uncanny valley" of those too close to home; they're like programming, but without all the normal tools for programming because they're in a game which almost by definition has arbitrary rules and limitations. When I started longing for unit tests in Spacechem, that was the end of it for me I'm glad I own all the ones you mentioned, and maybe I'll revisit them in the future, but I didn't find them fulfilling in the same way Factorio and DSP are
- Hammershaft 5y ago
  I like the concentrated challenge of the zachtronics titles tho, something that puts me off about digging into Factorio is how long it takes before I start making interesting decisions.

partomniscient 5y ago

>If you’re in a slump (rut), chances are you feel like you can’t complete anything. You feel like you’re unable to finish anything so what’s the point of starting. But how do you get out of a slump you're in caused by playing Factorio? Especially if you're still trying to get rid of the spoon?

rosmax_1337 5y ago

Slightly off topic, but on the topic of "deprocrastination" and gaming. How do other people here feel about managing gaming habits and such, among their other side projects, work, and the day to day chores. I've been off video games for soon 3 months now because I felt I was unable to properly moderate my gaming habits. I was ending up playing late in evenings or during a weekend where I arguably had better things to do. I've found that there really aren't any replacement hobbies for gaming as such. Lots of things to do instead, but nothing really replaces it. Personally, the closest thing I came to the same kind of enjoyment I got out of gaming is meeting other people IRL and being social. Games for me was able to fill a very odd spot in my mind I think, they were challenging to the extent that you felt like you were growing a skill, and at the same time rewarding with various power-trip-gimmicks like "winning" or just plain old fun things like explosions, guns and (fantasy)-violence, stuff that gets your lizard brain going you know. It boiled down to "fun-work", and by that I mean truly fun work, stuff that you completely voluntarily do and which is void of the added boring fluff that comes with normal work. And as said, also something to grow into where a skill is actually being developed and a kind of deeper gratification can be found by continuous progress. (All the previously mentioned aspects were however too fake for me in the end, the lizard brain part doesnt understand that it was fake skills and fake victories though, so it liked them all the same) On the topic of Factorio: I am absolutely certain this game would suck me in for far too many hours. I've heard stories about it and I can imagine how neat the problem-solving to feedback loops are, combined with creativity and you know, explosions. However, if you have employees that are struggling with exactly solving open ended problems, games like this one probably does train that brain function.

Wowfunhappy 5y ago
I’m very careful about the types of games I play. I like one-and-done experiences that lead me through a story. I avoid anything with xp/grinding mechanics, which I consider largely-exploitive. Like movies and books, these games have a beginning and an end and a set duration between the two. Examples include Portal (1&2), Gris, Sayonara Wild Hearts, and Journey.
- simion314 5y ago

oezi 5y ago

I sometimes feel that Factorio in the mid- and late game is quite a chore. Almost like work to get that yellow science going. Calculating all those ratios, connecting countless types of inputs, fending of the critters. I quite like the supply challenges but find in comparison to the Zachtronics Industries games (e.g. Space Chem) that not seeing competitive stats and being able to tinker/optimize is a missed opportunity.

DanielBMarkham 5y ago

I'm not a gamer. If anything, I'm yet another old cranky coder guy complaining about new people and new stuff. Dang it! (Looks outside to check lawn) Having said that, Factorio is the bomb. I like the point this essayist makes about closed vs. open-ended problem-solving. There's also the matter of building something for now vs. building something for later. Probably the biggest mistake I see in shops are people building for the endgame when they don't even have a basic and simple value loop set up. Factorio teaches this by direct practice and interaction. Because solving coding problems can take a long time, many times programmers can go an entire career without actually learning how to solve problems, instead just learning more and more about how to add solution details. For some, if they're not going to learn good architecture evolution here they'll never grok it. Recommended. But beware: it's a freaking huge time sink. I had to take it off all but one of my PCs.

c048 5y ago
The final warning is something that's not a joke. To quote a buddy of mine, after I jumped on Discord to play some other game with him, as I woke him out of his Factorio slumber: "Help, get me out of here. I don't remember building all this, nor when I last went to bed." He's no longer allowed to play Factorio. When another buddy recently bought it on sale and we told him this same story, he simply laughed it off. The last we've heard of him since was a few weeks back on Discord, simply stating "my god".
- deleted 5y ago
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AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
> But beware: it's a freaking huge time sink. I had to take it off all but one of my PCs. I didn't even enjoy[0] Factorio and it still ate just over 60 hours of my time, so please heed this warning everyone. Factorio is Nerd-Sniping: The Game. [0] I would like to take a moment to say that while I personally have a distaste for the kind of experience Factorio is, it is an incredibly well made version of what it is. I discovered only one bug[1] during my playthrough and the simulation can handle millions of interacting objects in a vast play area in real time to an impressive degree, and I don't consider myself to be easily impressed by the speed of modern software since modern computers are so ludicrously fast. [1] It is possible to drop the deconstruction planner into the world as an object an infinite number of times even before it unlocks.

reportgunner 5y ago

I feel that the guns and aliens in Factorio are a very important part of the game. I tried the Dyson Sphere Program the other day which is basically 3D factorio with planets and I dropped it soon after, it feels like there is no end goal to keep playing, you just research more technology but the reason to do it seems lacking. DSP is still in development so maybe that is the reason it feels this way.

mdaniel 5y ago
I can see why you feel that way, but there are a class of players for whom the critters were just a distraction. The goal is hard enough without having to stop every now and then just to kill a bunch of things I am frustrated by DSPs current lack of support for blueprints (especially since the game starts you off with the automation droids that you have to earn in Factorio) but overall I think DSP is more fun as a game I'm glad I have both to choose whether I feel like shooting something, but for me the "pure" DSP is more relaxing

ineedasername 5y ago

>Stress-reducing: can be stressful at times This was the most stressful game I ever played. First, because there's always something to do, that needs your attention. Second, because it was so addictive that even my work suffered. The rocket was the probably the least satisfying ending to a game, but I have never been so relieved to finish a game.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
Yeah, that's a pretty good summary of my experience as well. I didn't enjoy it, but I finished it anyway because A) I could, and B) I was "working" from home with COVID[0] at the time. [0] Which I caught at work along with pretty much everyone in the office because the person running the company decided they absolutely needed all of us back there after about a month of most people working from home (but not me!). To be fair, the people working the plant did legitimately have to be onsite, and they also all caught it. 2020 was our best sales year to date, and no one died, so I'm sure there were no lessons learned. Yes, I am bitter about this.

tifadg1 5y ago

I actually thought factorio is tedious because it has it's own 'DSL', optimal formulas, optimal paths, stuff that needs to be memorized, stuff that is tedious and you're back to doing what you're doing for a living - googling the unknowns and trying to piece together a puzzle. And for me that's a no go, because fun has to be instant.

h2odragon 5y ago

I want to throw another reason to play factorio onto the pile: The experience of working with excellent software is wonderful. It will infect your expectations and you will come to resent the lack of quality elsewhere.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
I mentioned it elsewhere but it is worth repeating: I am not easily impressed by modern software, but Factorio impressed me with its quality.

andrewmcwatters 5y ago

It took me a couple of tries to actually enjoy the game. My first try of the demo I was turned off, at the time it just felt like work. I decided to give it another go, because I wanted something to play and everyone raved about it, so I thought I'd persist a little longer to see what the hubbub was all about. Everyone says the game is addicting, but I merely find it simply "fun." Maybe the current quality of video games is so poor that anything that actually engages you for a few hours is declared addicting, but I find that a sad state of affairs. Then again, the norm for major publishers seems to be hype up a game, then sell an incomplete piece of software to kids who don't know any better. Providing demos of software is passé. If people aren't designing video games that I can actually be engaged with for a few hours at a time, what's the point? Do not Monopoly players who actually enjoy the game, poker players, or chess players do the same? Why do we not call Minecraft, "Crackcraft?" It's almost certainly played more, and plays basically identically in sandbox nature to me as Factorio: you build things, and you enjoy doing it.

qq4 5y ago

Like with so many video games, especially single-player ones, I would rather spend my time working on real problems.

mercer 5y ago
What makes a problem 'real' to you? Honest question.
- qq4 5y ago
  Thanks for the question. After thinking about it, I realize my intent wasn't as concrete as I thought it was. I think I consider worthwhile problems (probably a better word, and truer to what I intended) to be ones that have rewards outside of pure entertainment. For example, spending time on Candy Crush or Pacman doesn't seem to help anyone with anything other than those two games. Now one could argue that games like Factorio and Kerbal Space Program are more rewarding, and I would agree to an extent, but much of the time they are still solving toy problems. If one must use an abstraction of a problem to approach the realm of the problem due to limiting constraints, like not having access to a hangar of rockets, I am more understanding.

AcerbicZero 5y ago

I couldn’t get over having to actually control one guy, while also trying to play a base building game. Same issue with Satisfactory and a few others I’ve played recently - the micromanagement phase and all the extra clicking just to organize inventories drives me a bit mad. Heck, even one of the first Valheim mods I made was to allow for my crafting tables to draw materials from the surrounding chests. I’m sure I’ll give factorio another go at some point, but its got a somewhat steep learning curve and it’s just too micro heavy for my taste. (Also there are likely mods to fix all of my minor complaints anyway). Somewhat related - Rimworld. Best Dwarf Fortess style game with a GUI and more mods than I could play in a lifetime. Also, muchhhh less micro management (most of the time - combat can require a lot of attention).

sethammons 5y ago

Ah, I see, they misspelled the domain. Should be deepprocratination.com ;) After hearing of factorio for the first time a few weeks ago (recall the article and n using factorio in hiring?), I was intrigued. I’m on the last level of the tutorial. I can see why people could like it. It is too much like work to me. I already practice the art of “breaking it down” — that is the core skill I learned as a math student and later as a math teacher and has been reinforced daily as a developer. Pretty sure it was one of tue first lessons in my first CS classes. This game will not teach me that, and I’m surprised that it would teach any software developer more about breaking it down. To me, the game is a time sink at that is pretty much it. And for me, just not captivating enough.

travisjungroth 5y ago

Factorio will not help you develop skills to deal with procrastination. A source of procrastination is doing things only based on how urgent they are, not how important. So you do urgent, non-important tasks and drop the ball on non-urgent, important tasks. Playing a video game that streams urgent, non-important tasks at you will not help. Things that have worked for me: 1. Spending 30 minutes most days on whatever my oldest tasks are, regardless of how important. I just go with the oldest first. 2. Meeting a project manager for 30 minutes each week to talk about what's going on in my life. [0] 3. Quitting video games. (Civ 5, really). 4. In the morning, I throw on some clothes, go for a five minute walk, and then work for 2 hours on my core work (for me, coding). [0] If you hire a life coach to do this in the US to do this in the US it's very pricey. And I tend to dislike the type of person who wants to be a life coach. A PM in Latin America is much cheaper.

Ancapistani 5y ago
My biggest problem isn't procrastination per se, but that I often find that I have little control over where my focus is directed. If I'm not focused on something, it takes me (often, literally) exponentially more time and effort to accomplish it. As a result of that, I optimize first for curating focus on the things that matter by putting myself in places (mentally and physically) where those things are the most interesting presence and likely to "naturally" draw my focus. I've spoken to many counselors, psychologists, and psychiatrists about this, and while some have been supportive of my approach none have seemed to really understand the importance of exploiting my "natural" focus over overriding it via willpower. Of all places, I recently found that a lot of people on TikTok with self-professed ADHD describe very similar challenges and coping mechanisms. In short, ADHD seems to not be a deficiency in the ability to focus. Indeed, it comes with the ability and tendency to engage in extreme focus for long periods. The problem is that I don't get to consciously choose the target of that focus, and that it's extremely difficult to break it once I'm focused on the wrong thing.

BenoitP 5y ago

Beyond the problem-solving and planning aspects, I think Factorio helps a lot in learning programming concepts. No theory, just experiments with visual and environmental feedback. * backpressure: your belts fill up * optimization problems: there's always at least one bottleneck, it just shifts elsewhere * deadlocks: a circular universal/sushi belt will block if not properly managed * parallelism: extending a branch off your main bus * locks: chained signals for shared train sections And then, you have combinators

Ancapistani 5y ago
> backpressure: your belts fill up This is a very good point, and one that I hadn't considered. I'm playing Satisfactory at the moment (very similar game) and for the first few dozen hours I played it I used building efficiency as my metric. For instance, let's say I have a simple factory chain: miner (iron ore), smelter (iron ingots), constructor (iron plates). I would start at the output side and make sure each building was operating at 100% efficiency. This works fine on a small scale and can produce optimal results in the early game. Later, I noticed that my conveyors moved at a set pace, and that I could easily find bottlenecks in my design by observing where the conveyors were either only partially filled or were stopping as inputs exceeded needs. As you progress, your factories get much larger. Checking each building takes time, and changes to the system mean you have to check each building after the changes propagate to be sure you've not messed something else up. It turns out that once you've reached a certain point of complexity, your bottleneck is more often input, not efficiency. Watching your conveyors gives you much faster feedback, and you can tell at a glance if you need to increase resource input into a factory "module" or if you need to modify your design at some point within than module. This is mirrored very well in managing a team of software engineers: you can watch individual productivity metrics, hours spent working on problems, story points delivered, etc. - but at some point, watching the inputs become a more comprehensive metric. Instead of exclusively monitoring your team's velocity (output), you should watch the size of your backlog over time (input). By extension, that means you should ensure that sufficient time is spent grooming and prioritizing backlog issues to ensure that you don't have things in your work queue that are no longer valid tasks (make sure you're not moving things that don't need to be moved anymore). If your backlog is steadily growing, it's time to talk about increasing your team's capacity. Often that means hiring more people (adding more buildings), which is the most direct solution. If payroll costs (power generation) are your containing factor, though, then your effort should be focused on tracking and optimizing individual and subteam productivity (individual building efficiency).