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The Factorio Mindset

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Re: The Factorio Mindset

#331

Post by eezurr »

iliketrains wrote: post #329
eezurr wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I'll try. The structures are all lined up and flush up against each other, and the buildings are bunched up. There's nothing wrong with that, I was just confused by "realistic processes". To me that also means (closer to) realistic functionality at the structures too, both in placement and functionality. Since you mentioned it, it seems like a key part of your game but to me that isn't communicated in the video…

Thanks for the clarification and you are right. I probably should have said that it is merely more realistic than other games in this genre. It's great to hear from other game devs! What is your game called?

>It's great to hear from other game devs!

I agree! Do you happen to know of any small discord servers / other communities for game devs making simulation games? The larger ones I've been to were just too big.

I dont have a name for my game yet. I'm only 3 months in. When I get to the point where I have a SimCity 2000 level of functionality, I'll know I should keep going and will start putting together a brand/webpage.

Re: The Factorio Mindset

#332

Post by iliketrains »

eezurr wrote: post #331
iliketrains wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the clarification and you are right. I probably should have said that it is merely more realistic than other games in this genre. It's great to hear from other game devs! What is your game called?

>It's great to hear from other game devs! I agree! Do you happen to know of any small discord servers / other communities for game devs making simulation games? The larger ones I've been to were just too big. I dont have a name for my game yet. I'm only 3 months in. When I get to the point where I have a SimCity 2000 level of functionality, I'll know I should keep going and will start putting together a brand/webpage…

I am not in any game dev discords. Frankly, I am having hard time engaging with the indie game dev community (be it on forums, reddit, discord), it seems that the problems I am dealing with (and could use some help with) are very specific and quite technical, so my posts are usually unanswered. I'd love to find a good place for having such discussions.

And good luck with your project!

Re: The Factorio Mindset

#333

Post by eezurr »

iliketrains wrote: post #332
eezurr wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's great to hear from other game devs! I agree! Do you happen to know of any small discord servers / other communities for game devs making simulation games? The larger ones I've been to were just too big. I dont have a name for my game yet. I'm only 3 months in. When I get to the point where I have a SimCity 2000 level of functionality, I'll know I should keep going and will start putting together a brand/webpage…

I am not in any game dev discords. Frankly, I am having hard time engaging with the indie game dev community (be it on forums, reddit, discord), it seems that the problems I am dealing with (and could use some help with) are very specific and quite technical, so my posts are usually unanswered. I'd love to find a good place for having such discussions. And good luck with your project!

Well how about we start one, for people working on simulation games?

https://discord.gg/ZydM8Eg77P

When I have time I'll poke around the internet for other devs with similar ambitions .

Re: The Factorio Mindset

#334

Post by tharkun__ »

kgwxd wrote: post #323
tharkun__ wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with your parent. For me there was a progression. First playthrough I was anxious to get to the automation parts. This continued as I explored more of the game, more of the automation possibilities, blueprinting, trying to make an all solar, all steam or all nuclear factory etc. At some point and I don't know when exactly it turned. I like the initial bootstrapping phase and at varying points I just get this "ugh…

Sounds like the honeymoon phase of starting a new software project. The second you hit a problem there’s no beautiful solution to, the magic is gone.

I would agree with you if this happened during the first playthrough. But it didn't. Not even the second or third or soon after that. It's on the n-th playthrough where a certain tech-tree part just feels like a wall now. Everything up to that is still fun but then there's that wall now that's not worth breaking through.

As for beautiful solution to software development: Personally I am somewhere in the middle. I like beautiful solutions. I advocate for clean and maintainable code. But I have no patience for dogmatic "this the only good way to solve this" BS any longer. There are many ways to solve the same problem. All have their pros and cons. I'm not gonna let my people spend another week refactoring this to some staff engineer's liking, keeping it out of the hands of customers ;)

Re: The Factorio Mindset

#336

Post by taneq »

avereveard wrote: post #318
taneq wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really doesn't. Life sits in a complex, chaotic feedback loop which on our mayfly timescales tends to orbit around a semi-stable attractor. It only does so because everything is killing everything else just as hard as it can, while everything else tries to kill or outcompete it right back. It's not like if all the foxes suddenly disappeared the rabbits would just reach optimal comfortable population and then start…

> chaotic feedback loop So, equilibrium

This response tells me everything I need to know about your understanding of things.

Re: The Factorio Mindset

#337

Post by paulmendoza »

seanhunter wrote: post #141

Factorio is my favourite game of all time by a country mile. The thing that is so amazing to me is when you first play it and suddenly you realise that what you thought was the goal of the game (to launch the rocket) is literally completely irrelevant and the goal has at some point just become "to play more factorio". The factory doesn't have to grow to feed the rocket. The factory must grow because it must grow. And…

Try Satisfactory. It is beautiful.

Re: The Factorio Mindset

#338

Post by handoflixue »

lukeschlather wrote: post #270
hyperhopper wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean "speculate"? Seems pretty straightforward: you're polluting and killing the native life. And? Do that in real life = bad. Do that in a game = ok. I think we all know that.

This post is titled "The Factorio Mindset" and the author spends a lot of time talking about why it's something positive that should be cultivated. I'm not so sure we do all know that.

Call of Duty can teach you teamwork without making you think every problem is solved by an AK-47. Kids play Minecraft but don't expect buildings to float in the air.

Humans are reasonably intelligent and context-sensitive. They understand the difference between "video game" and "real life situation"

Re: The Factorio Mindset

#339

Post by fellellor »

DerArzt wrote: post #199
m463 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got to the point where I could copy-paste walls with lasers around an area and then develop inside it at my leisure. Then the game was no-worries building therapy.

No worries until the next bitter wave comes, and oh my god there are 20 behemoths and holly crap this drawing a lot of power, wait why am I experiencing a brown out? Oh no.....my coal mines are electric powered on the same grid as the turrets and the buffer is low......They made it through the wall.....They are destroying the base including the coal mines......Time to start over!

I would have failed college if this had come out back when I was a student.

Re: The Factorio Mindset

#340

Post by p_l »

lordnacho wrote: post #78

I'm literally playing Factorio right now, with my kid. Got into it over Christmas based on HN talking about it all the time. Good game to multi because I don't have to pay attention all the time. It really reminds me of software in many ways. You fiddle with tiny little things like balancing a belt, and then move on to building belt balancers. You then move up the abstractions to where you're not really placing inser…

For a time I played multiplayer using, IIRC, a mod called Nauvis Day. Combined with some of our other mainstay mod choices (Rampant) it made it very important to track and deal with pollution, though of course it didn't make it into really pro-ecological setup - It just made all sorts of waste and pollution a problem you had to manage (Rampant does it as well, as it makes bugs hardcore and much more intelligent, but Nauvis upped the scale on pollution management).

On one hand, before we disabled it for being buggy i nearly made a bunch of things perfect (if energy intensive) recycled, OTOH I found we had a nuclear artillery shells and trains that could fire them... Then built a pipeline to make the shells and started cleansing...

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