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What is interesting about Factorio

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Re: What is interesting about Factorio

#161

Post by mcv »

taylorlunt wrote: post #108
pmoriarty wrote: post #78

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.

The same is true for Minecraft. Try the modpack GT: New Horizons. It turns the game basically into a factory building game, and the depth and amount of content is insane.

Is Minecraft not already a factory building game? My son makes the most wonderful machines with redstone.

Re: What is interesting about Factorio

#162

Post by danielecook »

kryogen1c wrote: post #142
piercebot wrote: post #124

> 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 "…

> Taking the time to master your tools is a COMPOUNDING benefit this is problematic, and the problem is made obvious when you take this fact to its natural conclusion. are you juggling credit cards to simultaneously maximize the benefits of opening new cards with promotional offers, limiting your interest rates, and maximizing your credit score? have you investigated the air quality of your working and living spaces?…

I agree that people have finite bandwidth but we are talking about people investing in skills that are useful for the primary function of their job. It’s the first thing to consider if you want to improve your productivity at work.

Re: What is interesting about Factorio

#163

Post by otikik »

kryogen1c wrote: post #142
piercebot wrote: post #124

> 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 "…

> Taking the time to master your tools is a COMPOUNDING benefit this is problematic, and the problem is made obvious when you take this fact to its natural conclusion. are you juggling credit cards to simultaneously maximize the benefits of opening new cards with promotional offers, limiting your interest rates, and maximizing your credit score? have you investigated the air quality of your working and living spaces?…

Boom! Very well said.

Re: What is interesting about Factorio

#164

Post by aleksaxyz »

lonelappde wrote: post #150
panta wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the OP, but for me energy restoring activities are “active” ones, like hobbies where you create/build something. Working on a painting, photo, sculpting, writing, working on a side project, playing intelligent games with your dog, ... Passive activities, like consuming TV or Netflix or worse social networks, at least for me are draining my energy levels.

By they definition, isn't going to work an energy restoring activity?

A hobby is something you go out of your way to do because of personal passion. If you approach your job like it's a vacation, then probably.

Re: What is interesting about Factorio

#165

Post by petra »

Aeolun wrote: post #147
koheripbal wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I think my chances of getting a job might actually go down if I impress them too much with my peerless shortcut knowledge.

Why ?

Re: What is interesting about Factorio

#166

Post by notthemessiah »

Mengkudulangsat wrote: post #18

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.

In the same sense, Paradox games make you less sympathetic to the classes you're not a part of. Governments and rulers operate under a different set of rules than those of individual rights (except those of a sovereign), civil liberties, and labor conditions. War crimes just become a means to an end. In Factorio, you play the role of invader/exploiter/colonist, even if the role was thrust upon you. In one of the Factorio blog posts, a developer writes:

> Imagine yourself living in a perfectly balanced natural environment. With total freedom. A place where your ancestors have been the inhabitants for centuries. Evolving, understanding, and being part of this peaceful world and rich ecosystem. Totally integrated. On this land you can get aliment easily, due the lack of serious predators and pollution, and with the friendly company of your fellows, the only thing you have to take care is food, relax, and reproduction.

> Imagine that suddenly, something falls down from the sky. Something that starts the extraction of the minerals, and the eradication of your forests. Even further. Imagine that this newcomer, making use of the stolen resources, starts the production of massive machines aimed to automate the robbery and the production of a never ending factory which creates not only pollution in the air and water, desertification on the land, and starvation for your people, but also, creates heavy weapons in order to exterminate you and your entire species.

> Wouldn't you be angry? Isn't that newcomer a sick bastard?

https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-69

Games are abstractions, and in abstractions, all of the complications are stripped away to focus on a specific mechanic. Abstractions in real world reach breaking points: at a certain boundaries, water operates as a different state of matter, in which a "liquid" abstraction/conception no longer applies.

Re: What is interesting about Factorio

#167

Post by Melting_Harps »

AQuantized wrote: post #129
Melting_Harps wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Same. I was an avid AoE, Survival Horror and Gran Turismo nerd (quitting right before the GT academy happened to my dismay) and I held quite a few records during the outbeak days. But it…

The idea of "seeing the ending" of Factorio undermining its appeal seems disconnected from my own experience. I'm not sure how giving up a game with no micro transactions helps that issue with the gaming industry either.

> The idea of "seeing the ending" of Factorio undermining its appeal seems disconnected from my own experience. I'm not sure how giving up a game with no micro transactions helps that issue with the gaming industry either.

I guess it was the stark realization that the Industry was in the midst of shifting to this predatory business model and that I (seemingly) was also prone to the pitfalls of its optimization that did my head in... I didn't need to divert my attention away from my work or my relationship, and yet I still managed to spend 6 hours a day playing and researching how to get the most efficient layout and upgrades for a game I only found by a random impulse purchase.

I'm well aware that Factorio doesn't have micro txs, as I mentioned: I paid for it in BTC.

I guess it seemed like in my absence the gaming Industry took what was once a seemingly innocent, fun thing you did to pass the time or play with friends with known upfront costs for development/expansions and hardware into an altogether exploitative trap that was refined by what appeared to me at least, as the same addiction based conditioning beavhiour patterns seen in Social media platforms.

Fortnight went on to make over a Billion dollars, countless of stories of kids stealing their parents credit card in the process (and then uploaded to social media) showed how effective their strategies were, at least on impressionable minds; so, I'd say my intuition turned out to be right.

So much so it became a meme:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbAMrNpMrg8

I guess when I saw how underwhelming something like Factorio is when it ends it made me realize I need to cut my losses and focus on something that actually enhances my quality of Life? Facrorio seemed more like a distraction to me, then and now.

Factorio was mildly amusing at best, it reminded me of a more intricate look at what the building up resources portion of RTS games could be; by contrast I'm looking forward and prepared to sinking tons of hours on Cyberpunk 2077 and AoE 4, but that's mainly because they've been in development for so long and I've followed them closely since the beginning.

But, in practice I'm fairly sure that my initial excitement will fizzle out to my other hobbies, as I have so many.

Another anecdote to support this observation: I bought Watch Dogs 1 and 2 for PS4 when 2 came out to support the genre/studio, but I hadn't owned a console since PS2. They sat in their shrink wrap for years.

I recently got the time/chance to play and got a friend to lend me his PS4 when he went on vacation. I played 1 and it was fun in a GTA kind of way and I got to the last mission in about 2 weeks, which I couldn't beat so I went youtube saw the ending(s) and was satisfied enough to then start 2.

I must have gotten 4 hours into it before I lost all interest and just watched the no commentary 'cut-scene movie' someone uploaded in the background while I went back to working on other stuff. I can't even remember how it ends now, which goes to show how much I was paying attention. The plot was solid, and entertaining, I just preferred to do other stuff instead.

Re: What is interesting about Factorio

#168

Post by GrumpyYoungMan »

013a wrote: post #39
whatanattitude wrote: post #7

Look up Satisfactory

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 challeng…

> "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.

Re: What is interesting about Factorio

#169

Post by bitwize »

kryogen1c wrote: post #142
piercebot wrote: post #124

> 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 "…

> Taking the time to master your tools is a COMPOUNDING benefit this is problematic, and the problem is made obvious when you take this fact to its natural conclusion. are you juggling credit cards to simultaneously maximize the benefits of opening new cards with promotional offers, limiting your interest rates, and maximizing your credit score? have you investigated the air quality of your working and living spaces?…

This is Hackernews. You're not one of the cool kids if your body and home aren't littered with sensors to gather data on -- and optimize -- every facet of your life.

Re: What is interesting about Factorio

#170

Post by krallja »

de_watcher wrote: post #139
fouc wrote: post #6

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.

Yea, after an hour Factorio feels like "can I just write a script instead?" It's fine to play for a bit with the new tech branches that come out occasionally in the updates.

Factorio scripts are called blueprints.
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