6 ms·

I’ve enjoyed many hours of this game in the past but like all such games in this genre, I end up wanting to be challenged and there’s just nothing challenging i

I’ve enjoyed many hours of this game in the past but like all such games in this genre, I end up wanting to be challenged and there’s just nothing challenging in the game. Your company will grow and grow without much effort at all.

jszymborski 3y ago
Simulator games are among my favourites, but totally agree that when I play Factorio, I often quit because I can't help but think "this itch can equally be scratched by working on the programming side-project you had in mind"
- skinner927 3y ago
  That’s horribly depressing and exactly how I feel.
  - medstrom 3y ago
    Why depressing?
- bilekas 3y ago
  I'm not sure, but you say it like a bad thing, there is a weird few studies who've explored the game v work mentality before, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6829166/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6829166/ Not necessarily negative, but needs to be considered as a tool not a replacement. Wherever inspiration for a bit of "I need to scratch this itch" come from, personally I am the same and I love it. EDIT : Also, Factorio is top.
  - jszymborski 3y ago
    You're absolutely right! I'm trying to beat out the "not productive = waste of time" mentality out of myself, and I'm getting much better about it! But Factorio somehow always brings it out of me :P A reminder to spend a goodly amount of your time on this Earth just basking in its pleasures, large and small, "productive" or otherwise.
- dspillett 3y ago
  You have more will power than I. I often think I should quit to do something more practically useful, but "I'll just do ... first" kicks in and I later feel crap for having not progressed the other things.
- slothtrop 3y ago
  This is why I can't even get started. "If I'm going to be creative, why not actually create?" Of course creativity's also a subject I pressure and criticize myself about, whereas with a game you may not hold yourself to those expectations.
- TillE 3y ago
  I had that reaction to Shenzhen I/O, which is literally just tinkering with microcontrollers and stuff, but fake. I've read enough real datasheets, thanks. I love Factorio though, it's much more about building and strategy than optimization and puzzle-solving. You can do the latter if you want to, or you can just play with trains.
  - komadori 3y ago
    I also struggled to get into Shenzhen I/O, but I loved TIS-100 because the "fake hardware" is so distinctive and interesting compared to most real microprocessors.
- fendy3002 3y ago
  Yes for some. For others, it fulfills the programming feels without need to handle side effects and it's 100% reliable, unlike programming which always need to handle errors 70% of time. It's relaxing
  - Macha 3y ago
    I don't know, my coding side projects don't run out of ammo and get devoured by giant bugs
worble 3y ago
Yeah, one of the things that I always really loved about the Impressions Games as a kid was they featured campaigns of ramping difficulty. It turned it from "just build a city/logistics framework" to "build a city that meets these requirements, and then move to a map with harder logistical challenges". It really helped me get into the city building and logistics genre rather than just dumping you into a pure sandbox, and the only recent games I can think of that had proper campaigns were Frostpunk (sort of) and Nebuchadnezzar (which has... other issues)
ink_13 3y ago
IMO the challenge comes from within. Can you really funnel everything into one central factory by train alone? Without traffic jams? Or can you make $XX,XXX,XXX by date YYYY?
grenoire 3y ago
There are quite a lot of mods (called NewGRFs), ones like FIRS make the game a lot more complex and challenging by making the economy more involved. There are other ways to increase the difficulty with mods, or just with AI players. I agree that the base game can lead to Too Much Money very quickly, which does feel pointless quickly.
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
At one point in my longest / most dedicated playthrough I had a huge monorail multi track going square around the map, thing was a money printer. Really satisfying to set up.
SheinhardtWigCo 3y ago
Clear your calendar and give Factorio a try.
m4rtink 3y ago
That't the thing - its not ablut the company, but about building the best network that can get anything and anyone anywhere on the map efficiently, withou trains locking up somwhere. Thats much harder tha just the very simple economy model.
stingraycharles 3y ago
Challenge: make the biggest, most scalable junction out there that never blocks any train at full capacity. It’s this type of challenge that keeps things fun for me, but at the same time, feels a lot like the problems I’m solving at work.
- scrlk 3y ago
  openttdcoop's Wiki and blog is a great way to learn how to build these types of junctions: https://wiki.openttdcoop.org/Line_hierarchy https://wiki.openttdcoop.org/Line_hierarchy https://wiki.openttdcoop.org/Backbone_Hub https://wiki.openttdcoop.org/Backbone_Hub If you prefer a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YfxugbgQqs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YfxugbgQqs
  - stingraycharles 3y ago
    Absolutely, I’m already a long time member of the community, and I recommend everyone to look it up.
jjmarr 3y ago
You ever play Simutrans? That game is brutal. To this day I have no clue how to get the scale necessary for profitable passenger rail.
- tasuki 3y ago
  Use trains to transport passangers from town to town, and connect them to buses to shuffle people to their final destination. Have a network that connects the whole map (easier said than done, requires lots of capital) and I guarantee all your vehicles will be profitable. This is why I like Simutrans: the passengers want to go from A to B.
- rini17 3y ago
  By the way in Tycoon there was a bug (extra multiplication) that caused larger towns to generate insane number of passengers. It was copied all the way to OpenTTD then it was turned into option.
zem 3y ago
the game i really loved in this genre was railroad tycoon 2; not so much for the gameplay (though that was great too) but because somehow it really managed to evoke the feel of growing a country and a rail network hand in hand. openttd just didn't have the same atmospheric quality when i tried it (though that was admittedly years ago and it might have come a long way since)
- acdha 3y ago
  That game also had one of the best soundtracks. I think that kind of thing is under appreciated for immersion.
rrr_oh_man 3y ago
Try Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic, especially on realism mode.
dragontamer 3y ago
You've haven't figured out the hard part then: Passenger traffic. OpenTTD towns perpetually grow as long as you service them. Which means that every passenger station will have infinite lines (as towns grow, more-and-more passengers will need to be serviced across all your stops). This means that OpenTTD is designed to automatically make passenger traffic "harder", there's always more passengers to carry. The limit is purely the design of your railway. You might have to put the game on fast-forward for 30-ingame-simulated-years before the towns grow to that size, but it always happens. ---------- Industry in the game also grows bigger, but related to service station %. Early trains cannot service any industry quickly enough to consistently make industrial growth, but later trains with higher speeds will leads to more station% bonuses, making the late game also fill up with coal, lumber, steel, and other materials. ----------- There's no challenge on the money side. Just place 2 airports on the biggest towns across the map and you'll never run out of money. (Distance x speed traveled leads to profits, and airplanes are fastest and travel the furthest without any rail-costs, making this an appropriate strategy even early in the game) The "real" challenge is: how many passengers can your rail-junction support? Can you max out an airport? ---------------- My issue with OpenTTD is that the game sometimes wants to pretend its 1x1km blocks, but other times that doesn't make sense at all. Ex: Bus stations are 1x1, and there's no way my bus stops around town are 1km wide. I think the main thing OpenTTD needs is a "rebalance". Maybe the grid needs to be 10x10 meters (10,000x more detailed) than currently. I think this 1km x 1km limitation was because computers in the 90s were not good enough for a more detailed simulation. But we have the weird ship-behavior (because ships don't collide with each other), and other such issues partially due to this weird size incoherence in the game.

jszymborski 3y ago

Simulator games are among my favourites, but totally agree that when I play Factorio, I often quit because I can't help but think "this itch can equally be scratched by working on the programming side-project you had in mind"

skinner927 3y ago
That’s horribly depressing and exactly how I feel.
- medstrom 3y ago
  Why depressing?
bilekas 3y ago
I'm not sure, but you say it like a bad thing, there is a weird few studies who've explored the game v work mentality before, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6829166/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6829166/ Not necessarily negative, but needs to be considered as a tool not a replacement. Wherever inspiration for a bit of "I need to scratch this itch" come from, personally I am the same and I love it. EDIT : Also, Factorio is top.
- jszymborski 3y ago
  You're absolutely right! I'm trying to beat out the "not productive = waste of time" mentality out of myself, and I'm getting much better about it! But Factorio somehow always brings it out of me :P A reminder to spend a goodly amount of your time on this Earth just basking in its pleasures, large and small, "productive" or otherwise.
dspillett 3y ago
You have more will power than I. I often think I should quit to do something more practically useful, but "I'll just do ... first" kicks in and I later feel crap for having not progressed the other things.
slothtrop 3y ago
This is why I can't even get started. "If I'm going to be creative, why not actually create?" Of course creativity's also a subject I pressure and criticize myself about, whereas with a game you may not hold yourself to those expectations.
TillE 3y ago
I had that reaction to Shenzhen I/O, which is literally just tinkering with microcontrollers and stuff, but fake. I've read enough real datasheets, thanks. I love Factorio though, it's much more about building and strategy than optimization and puzzle-solving. You can do the latter if you want to, or you can just play with trains.
- komadori 3y ago
  I also struggled to get into Shenzhen I/O, but I loved TIS-100 because the "fake hardware" is so distinctive and interesting compared to most real microprocessors.
fendy3002 3y ago
Yes for some. For others, it fulfills the programming feels without need to handle side effects and it's 100% reliable, unlike programming which always need to handle errors 70% of time. It's relaxing
- Macha 3y ago
  I don't know, my coding side projects don't run out of ammo and get devoured by giant bugs

worble 3y ago

Yeah, one of the things that I always really loved about the Impressions Games as a kid was they featured campaigns of ramping difficulty. It turned it from "just build a city/logistics framework" to "build a city that meets these requirements, and then move to a map with harder logistical challenges". It really helped me get into the city building and logistics genre rather than just dumping you into a pure sandbox, and the only recent games I can think of that had proper campaigns were Frostpunk (sort of) and Nebuchadnezzar (which has... other issues)

ink_13 3y ago

IMO the challenge comes from within. Can you really funnel everything into one central factory by train alone? Without traffic jams? Or can you make $XX,XXX,XXX by date YYYY?

grenoire 3y ago

There are quite a lot of mods (called NewGRFs), ones like FIRS make the game a lot more complex and challenging by making the economy more involved. There are other ways to increase the difficulty with mods, or just with AI players. I agree that the base game can lead to Too Much Money very quickly, which does feel pointless quickly.

Cthulhu_ 3y ago

At one point in my longest / most dedicated playthrough I had a huge monorail multi track going square around the map, thing was a money printer. Really satisfying to set up.

SheinhardtWigCo 3y ago

Clear your calendar and give Factorio a try.

m4rtink 3y ago

That't the thing - its not ablut the company, but about building the best network that can get anything and anyone anywhere on the map efficiently, withou trains locking up somwhere. Thats much harder tha just the very simple economy model.

stingraycharles 3y ago

Challenge: make the biggest, most scalable junction out there that never blocks any train at full capacity. It’s this type of challenge that keeps things fun for me, but at the same time, feels a lot like the problems I’m solving at work.

scrlk 3y ago
openttdcoop's Wiki and blog is a great way to learn how to build these types of junctions: https://wiki.openttdcoop.org/Line_hierarchy https://wiki.openttdcoop.org/Line_hierarchy https://wiki.openttdcoop.org/Backbone_Hub https://wiki.openttdcoop.org/Backbone_Hub If you prefer a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YfxugbgQqs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YfxugbgQqs
- stingraycharles 3y ago
  Absolutely, I’m already a long time member of the community, and I recommend everyone to look it up.

jjmarr 3y ago

You ever play Simutrans? That game is brutal. To this day I have no clue how to get the scale necessary for profitable passenger rail.

tasuki 3y ago
Use trains to transport passangers from town to town, and connect them to buses to shuffle people to their final destination. Have a network that connects the whole map (easier said than done, requires lots of capital) and I guarantee all your vehicles will be profitable. This is why I like Simutrans: the passengers want to go from A to B.
rini17 3y ago
By the way in Tycoon there was a bug (extra multiplication) that caused larger towns to generate insane number of passengers. It was copied all the way to OpenTTD then it was turned into option.

zem 3y ago

the game i really loved in this genre was railroad tycoon 2; not so much for the gameplay (though that was great too) but because somehow it really managed to evoke the feel of growing a country and a rail network hand in hand. openttd just didn't have the same atmospheric quality when i tried it (though that was admittedly years ago and it might have come a long way since)

acdha 3y ago
That game also had one of the best soundtracks. I think that kind of thing is under appreciated for immersion.

rrr_oh_man 3y ago

Try Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic, especially on realism mode.

dragontamer 3y ago

You've haven't figured out the hard part then: Passenger traffic. OpenTTD towns perpetually grow as long as you service them. Which means that every passenger station will have infinite lines (as towns grow, more-and-more passengers will need to be serviced across all your stops). This means that OpenTTD is designed to automatically make passenger traffic "harder", there's always more passengers to carry. The limit is purely the design of your railway. You might have to put the game on fast-forward for 30-ingame-simulated-years before the towns grow to that size, but it always happens. ---------- Industry in the game also grows bigger, but related to service station %. Early trains cannot service any industry quickly enough to consistently make industrial growth, but later trains with higher speeds will leads to more station% bonuses, making the late game also fill up with coal, lumber, steel, and other materials. ----------- There's no challenge on the money side. Just place 2 airports on the biggest towns across the map and you'll never run out of money. (Distance x speed traveled leads to profits, and airplanes are fastest and travel the furthest without any rail-costs, making this an appropriate strategy even early in the game) The "real" challenge is: how many passengers can your rail-junction support? Can you max out an airport? ---------------- My issue with OpenTTD is that the game sometimes wants to pretend its 1x1km blocks, but other times that doesn't make sense at all. Ex: Bus stations are 1x1, and there's no way my bus stops around town are 1km wide. I think the main thing OpenTTD needs is a "rebalance". Maybe the grid needs to be 10x10 meters (10,000x more detailed) than currently. I think this 1km x 1km limitation was because computers in the 90s were not good enough for a more detailed simulation. But we have the weird ship-behavior (because ships don't collide with each other), and other such issues partially due to this weird size incoherence in the game.