> No, I do not let either game idle, as I consider it cheating. that's a bit weird to me, because both games are all about automation... do you insert material

> No, I do not let either game idle, as I consider it cheating. that's a bit weird to me, because both games are all about automation... do you insert materials into machines and remove smelted or manufactured items by hand? no? then you're idling as far as those machines are concerned, anyway. you're only ever working on a tiny fraction of a percent of the factory at any time, so all of the rest is? ... idling, that's right. running without you. does it really matter if the percentage of machines working without you is 99.5% or a full 100%? I'd vote "no." besides, if you fail to automate correctly, your factory performance will slow or even halt without you, exposing any flaws whether you're there or not. automation and player idling are core gameplay mechanisms in these games.