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Factorio: Space Age

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Re: Factorio: Space Age

#161

Post by NelsonMinar »

nextaccountic wrote: post #53
pmoriarty wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been Factorio's MO from the beginning. It was in Early Access forver, and all that time it was way more polished and stable than many fully released games with much higher budgets. In the decade or so that I've played Factorio, I can't even remember a single crash of the base game. It was always mods that crashed. Factorio performance is also fantastic, running smoothly on potato PC's until you get in to the…

> It was always mods that crashed. I wish modding APIs in general did more sanity checking before loading a mod. A low hanging fruit is APIs to be statically typed, and also to not use nulls on such APIs and things like that. A more comprehensive check is to verify whether two mods are guaranteed to be compatible (but this sounds a bit hard). But more importantly (not sure if that's the case with Factorio) not break…

I don't expect videogames to be the first to successfully solve the problem of statically checking code for correctness ;-) I'm astonished how stable so many mods are, given the environment they run in and the lack of almost any payment for the work.

The Minecraft Java world at least starts with static types and memory safety. It'd be interesting to see if that results in a mod ecosystem that's more stable.

Re: Factorio: Space Age

#162

Post by jameshart »

Not sure this will scratch the itch for what I always felt was missing from Factorio, which is fundamentally a more satisfying ‘sink’ for resources.

During main gameplay your resource extraction and expansion is driven mainly by the sink of ‘research’ - turn resources into science, science into unlocks.

Additionally, biters eat bullets, and occasionally factory parts that need replacing.

Other than that the main sink for all your resource gathering is just ‘more factory’ of course.

The end game resource sink of ‘space rockets’ just never felt to me like a very satisfying thing to shoot for - though getting to the point where you can just expand onto a new mineral patch and reliably deploy blueprints that turn it into rockets is pretty cool, I’ll admit.

But there’s a part of me that is left slightly unsatisfied by the fact that we can’t reach sustainability, and we aren’t getting anything for all the resources we process.

Give me a little population of friendly alien creatures (who biters prey on) and make my goal to maximize their population, perhaps. I don’t know.

Re: Factorio: Space Age

#163

Post by X6S1x6Okd1st »

12345hn6789 wrote: post #152
vessenes wrote: post #70

Oh wow, I'm very excited about this. The post author wrote the absolutely incredible Space Exploration mod for Factorio, pitching itself as a "100+" hour expansion, realistically closer to 1000 hours for an average player. Space Exploration has its quirks, but is fundamentally an absolutely outstanding puzzle game, among the best ever made. One of the most delightful things about Factorio for coders is that the game…

Space exploration is not the best puzzle game ever made. Space exploration is not the best factorip mod ever made. Space exploration has a great presentation layer (graphics and UI) but the logistics challenge and gameplay challenges leave lots to be desired. I implore you to try many of the other high quality factorio mods made over the years. Pyanodons is easily the greatest factorio mod. The sheer quality and scal…

Angel+Bob & SeaBlock just seem masochistic to me. I have had the most fun with SE + K2.

I haven't tried pyanodon because it doesn't seem like it was made to be played as a game but rather shown off as a testimate to how far you can take things

Re: Factorio: Space Age

#164

Post by jnwatson »

unglaublich wrote: post #124
birracerveza wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stay away if you value your time. It's not a joke when they call it cracktorio. Especially on the Deck...

On the Steam deck? How? With external KB and mouse?

I’m personally not a fan, but lots of folks report that factorio works fine on the deck.

Re: Factorio: Space Age

#165

Post by BlueTemplar »

nextaccountic wrote: post #53
pmoriarty wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been Factorio's MO from the beginning. It was in Early Access forver, and all that time it was way more polished and stable than many fully released games with much higher budgets. In the decade or so that I've played Factorio, I can't even remember a single crash of the base game. It was always mods that crashed. Factorio performance is also fantastic, running smoothly on potato PC's until you get in to the…

> It was always mods that crashed. I wish modding APIs in general did more sanity checking before loading a mod. A low hanging fruit is APIs to be statically typed, and also to not use nulls on such APIs and things like that. A more comprehensive check is to verify whether two mods are guaranteed to be compatible (but this sounds a bit hard). But more importantly (not sure if that's the case with Factorio) not break…

For several years now, Wube has been careful to very clearly announce upcoming changes that might break mods :

https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=70603

Re: Factorio: Space Age

#166

Post by marcusverus »

naillo wrote: post #106
birracerveza wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stay away if you value your time. It's not a joke when they call it cracktorio. Especially on the Deck...

Tangent but if you 'value' your time but don't use the time to entertain yourself I'm not sure you're using it right.

The concern isn't that entertainment is bad, it's that Factorio is so entertaining that it tends to get its claws into you, making it difficult to turn off. If someone struggles with time management or self-control, avoiding Factorio is perfectly reasonable.

Re: Factorio: Space Age

#167

Post by coryfklein »

12345hn6789 wrote: post #152
vessenes wrote: post #70

Oh wow, I'm very excited about this. The post author wrote the absolutely incredible Space Exploration mod for Factorio, pitching itself as a "100+" hour expansion, realistically closer to 1000 hours for an average player. Space Exploration has its quirks, but is fundamentally an absolutely outstanding puzzle game, among the best ever made. One of the most delightful things about Factorio for coders is that the game…

Space exploration is not the best puzzle game ever made. Space exploration is not the best factorip mod ever made. Space exploration has a great presentation layer (graphics and UI) but the logistics challenge and gameplay challenges leave lots to be desired. I implore you to try many of the other high quality factorio mods made over the years. Pyanodons is easily the greatest factorio mod. The sheer quality and scal…

So looking at /user/pyanodon, there doesn't even appear to be a mod named "Pyanodons", but rather he's made a whole bunch of different mods. Which one are you recommending? All of them at once?

Re: Factorio: Space Age

#168

Post by epiccoleman »

pmoriarty wrote: post #58
donatj wrote: post #42

Oh good, my life being utterly dominated by Factorio again is at least a year away. That gives me some time to get my affairs in order. I really wish this were a joke. Also, if anyone wants to play a game similar to Factorio while you wait - https://shapez.io is like Factorio without a player character and a cleaner aesthetic. I played it first, and really enjoyed it.

I enjoyed Shapez, and it's cool that it has many mods, but I just found it too abstract and sterile to keep my attention. Factorio just much more engaging for me in the long run, especially with mods.

I love Shapez overall, and the Shapez Industries mod is a great way to breathe new life into it, but I tend to find that I run out of interest before the "endgame".

As annoying as the Factorio biters are, they do provide a little bit of pressure that keeps you wanting to research new things and continue building. (They also inspire a burning hatred that will drive you to research and implement ever more efficient methods of murdering them). The same goes for the limitedness of Factorio resources patches.

In Shapez the logistics that come with expansion and defense don't exist, so it winds up feeling sorta samey. I like the chill, relaxing vibe of Shapez but eventually felt like I was just doing the same things over and over with slight variations.

Also, the lack of a blueprint book in Shapez is a major drag. I ended up setting a map marker way the hell out which lets me "teleport" to an area where I copy/paste designs from, but that's pretty hacky and ruins some of the flow state that Shapez lets you cultivate.

All that said, I've been following the dev of Shapez 2 and at least visually it looks awesome, so I'll definitely be hopping into that at some point.

Re: Factorio: Space Age

#169

Post by mcv »

pmoriarty wrote: post #155
mcv wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've played vanilla a couple of times, and recently started my first modded game, using Krastorio 2. That seemed to be the most recommended mod, and it's been great. Pretty much every question of "wouldn't it be cool if..." or "wouldn't it make more sense if..." that I ever asked myself playing vanilla, Krastorio 2 answers with "yes". Yes, it would make more sense if the car didn't run on coal but required more advan…

"The one downside is that fighting creepers is too easy. The anti-material rifle has too much range, letting me snipe them from a position of invulnerability." Maybe you could increase their evolution rate, pollution, or give the Rampant mod a try.

I think the better approach is to refuse to use the anti-material rifle. I don't think more biters that are too easy to kill will make the game more fun, and if I increase their strength to the point that the anti-material rifle strategy doesn't work anymore, I don't think any other strategy will work either.

I'll have a look at the Rampant mod, though. That looks interesting.

Re: Factorio: Space Age

#170

Post by epiccoleman »

babypuncher wrote: post #157
donatj wrote: post #42

Oh good, my life being utterly dominated by Factorio again is at least a year away. That gives me some time to get my affairs in order. I really wish this were a joke. Also, if anyone wants to play a game similar to Factorio while you wait - https://shapez.io is like Factorio without a player character and a cleaner aesthetic. I played it first, and really enjoyed it.

I might also recommend Satisfactory. It is essentially Factorio in first person. I think it actually has a better tutorial for people who are just getting into this kind of game.

I've been really interested in Satisfactory, but the last time I looked, they didn't have blueprints - and I really can't imagine playing one of these kinds of games without some way of repeating designs. It looks awesome though, and I'd love to get a server running with a few friends.
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