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Seven Years of Factorio Friday Facts (2020)

spieswl.github.io

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Re: Seven Years of Factorio Friday Facts (2020)

#21

Post by Buttons840 »

TOGoS wrote: post #17
derefr wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An interesting thing about Factorio to me (beyond what’s stated in the linked article), is that it contains a nearly a perfect 1:1 analogy to software concurrency. • Belts are blocking CSP channels, as seen in e.g. Golang (where N producers have to share — or eventually “merge onto” — one channel representing the blocking-receive point of the consumer; which are best only used to transport messages of a single type,…

I wanted, but never got around to, creating a mod that accepts some kind of data outside the game (lines of text, JSON objects, packets from the TUN driver, whatever), wraps them up as Factorio objects, and plops them onto a belt, and another that reads them and sends them back out. The idea being that this could be (A) a cool hack (belt speed factoring into ping time, lmao), but (B) a way to visualize data flow in c…

Oh, that would be cool. You could implement sorting algorithms and such.

Re: Seven Years of Factorio Friday Facts (2020)

#22

Post by RangerScience »

nindalf wrote: post #6

For those wondering why this game about factory management keeps showing up on the front page of HN, it’s because the gameplay reminds its fans of software engineering in subtle ways. People who are good at one are likely to be good at the other. More about this here - https://blog.nindalf.com/posts/factorio-and-software-enginee...

There are two kinds of programmers,

Those who look at Factorio and go: "That's my day job! Why would I do it for fun?"

and those who look at Factorio and go: "That's my day job! You mean I can do it for fun?!"

Re: Seven Years of Factorio Friday Facts (2020)

#23

Post by spieswl »

Author here. Wow, uh, I definitely did not expect to be featured on HN this morning, but seeing this linked put a massive smile on my face.

There are just so many examples of captivating writing, innovative problem solving, and candid discussion throughout the FFFs. Taken all together, the Factorio journey is one of my favorite _stories_ to read...and it contributed to becoming a better designer and engineer along the way. I really encourage people to read more of their blog than just what I've linked, since it crosses so many areas of interest.

To anyone reading that's worked on Factorio, thank you and you all are wonderful people.

Re: Seven Years of Factorio Friday Facts (2020)

#24

Post by scubbo »

m0ngr31 wrote: post #18
scrollaway wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there's a statement in there about enjoying the game, just the shared skillset and mindset. :)

Maybe that's why I don't enjoy it... Feels like I could be getting work done on any of my side projects when I play. Don't have that same feeling when I'm playing other games. That being said, I do enjoy it at LAN parties because I just build walls and hunt biter nests

The comment that really made it click for me is that there are two diametrically opposed responses for engineers playing Factorio:

* "This game is scratching the same itches as my day job, but with more dopamine and less bureaucracy - how can I play this all the time?" * "This game requires me to expend the same brain-effort as my work/side-projects, but I don't even get anything tangible out of it? Why would I ever 'play' this?"

Neither of them are wrong - and I suspect that the same person might even have different reactions at different points in their life.

Re: Seven Years of Factorio Friday Facts (2020)

#25

Post by FredPret »

TOGoS wrote: post #17
derefr wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An interesting thing about Factorio to me (beyond what’s stated in the linked article), is that it contains a nearly a perfect 1:1 analogy to software concurrency. • Belts are blocking CSP channels, as seen in e.g. Golang (where N producers have to share — or eventually “merge onto” — one channel representing the blocking-receive point of the consumer; which are best only used to transport messages of a single type,…

I wanted, but never got around to, creating a mod that accepts some kind of data outside the game (lines of text, JSON objects, packets from the TUN driver, whatever), wraps them up as Factorio objects, and plops them onto a belt, and another that reads them and sends them back out. The idea being that this could be (A) a cool hack (belt speed factoring into ping time, lmao), but (B) a way to visualize data flow in c…

Hell, why not turn Factorio into a programming language?

If you can translate a real-world problem to in-game problems, it'd be so much fun to solve them that you'd probably launch a new epoch in human history - the Factorio Age

Re: Seven Years of Factorio Friday Facts (2020)

#26

Post by spieswl »

TOGoS wrote: post #14

The Friday Facts were fantastic. I don't know of any other non-open-source project (but counterexamples are of course welcome) that encourages the developers to put that much technical information about what they're up to out on the website. I especially loved the ones about belt optimizations, multi-threading, and the networking model, since those are all interesting problems that any game developer is likely to thi…

Absolutely. I'm a sucker for good writing and I feel that you all set an excellent example of how to do technical writing and analysis correctly.

Re: Seven Years of Factorio Friday Facts (2020)

#28

Post by js8 »

m0ngr31 wrote: post #12
nindalf wrote: post #6

For those wondering why this game about factory management keeps showing up on the front page of HN, it’s because the gameplay reminds its fans of software engineering in subtle ways. People who are good at one are likely to be good at the other. More about this here - https://blog.nindalf.com/posts/factorio-and-software-enginee...

I've seen this said literally hundreds of times and can only imagine that these comments are hyperbole now. I've given Factorio dozens of shots now, and have played for hours and hours with people who are great at the game, but it just isn't for me. I get bored in the monotony of the early game, and I'm too stupid to keep things going in the mid game.

My recipe to monotony of early game was to design a really small starter base (~20 red/green/black/blue science per minute) with the explicit target to produce construction bots. With bots, things become easier.

That being said, I understand the sentiment. I have been playing lots of modded Minecraft and Factorio over the past decade, and lately I felt a bit of guilt because I feel I could be working on some other, more meaningful, project.

Re: Seven Years of Factorio Friday Facts (2020)

#29

Post by throwawaw »

scrollaway wrote: post #13
alexwebb2 wrote: post #2

Quick links to the five "must read" posts that William highlighted: > FFF #243 - New GUI tileset: Showing off their GUI design document. A MUST READ, if only for a good example of a comprehensive design style that fits the game theme perfectly. ( https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-243 ) > FFF #176 - Belts optimization for 0.15 : Incredible analysis of transport belts and optimizing their performance. A MUST READ. ( h…

356 is a really nice read. inspirational indeed.

Yeah, that one caught my eye (and then moistened it).

The way he breaks his slump by sharing Factorio with his son -- what a wonderful, unexpected benefit of working in games. How many of us will get to do something like that?

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