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Seven Years of Factorio Friday Facts (2020)

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Re: Seven Years of Factorio Friday Facts (2020)

#31

Post by mikewarot »

I find myself playing Rocket Rush, without the rush. This allows access to all the tech without the grind. I've built so many small nuclear plants with a bunch of steam tanks to store the power until needed. I've also built a ton of solar arraignments.

The constant things I always buy are 4 heavy oil, and 200 plastic. I usually get 10 miners, electric furnaces, and level 2 assemblers. Once I have power, and coal gasification up and running for plastic/explosives/batteries, it's just a grind.

I've settled on using an Island terrain, to give it an end, rather than just not wanting to keep expanding forever. Once the island is cleared, and has radar, it's time to start again.

Re: Seven Years of Factorio Friday Facts (2020)

#32

Post by Jakobeha »

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.

When I first picked up Factorio I loved it for about ~12 hours. Then I just felt, everything is too hard and there isn't a sense of purpose.

For me, I think it would me a fun game if there was more strategy or something else to do besides build the factory. It seems to me the progression system is actually really linear.

> I get bored in the monotony of the early game, and I'm too stupid to keep things going in the mid game.

This is my other big issue. I don't like putting in much effort when playing video games. It seems like just getting blue science takes hours of work, and those hours were fun for the first factory, but now it's just repetitive.

Re: Seven Years of Factorio Friday Facts (2020)

#33

Post by hanikesn »

FredPret wrote: post #25
TOGoS wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There's a verilog2factorio compiler: https://github.com/Redcrafter/verilog2factorio

Re: Seven Years of Factorio Friday Facts (2020)

#34

Post by [deleted] »

agentwiggles wrote: post #5
TheMerovingian wrote: post #4

Probably the best game I have ever played and the only game I bought not once, but thrice (two were gifts). As a developer, it allowed me to determine what kind of developer I am, where my interests lie, and how I contribute to code (or a base). The analogue between coding and Factorio is incredible.

Preamble: I mean this as a compliment to the game, so I hope I don't come off too negative. Factorio is so analogous to coding that I just couldn't get into it. I laid out a neat little factory and then requirements changed and I realized that I needed to basically abandon what I had and build something new. My factory was not really "open to refactoring". Something about that feeling felt so similar to what I have t…

[deleted]

Re: Seven Years of Factorio Friday Facts (2020)

#35

Post by cogman10 »

daolf wrote: post #3

I've been a huge fan of Factorio since 2014. A huge fan of the game, the team, and the entrepreneurial adventure. Their willingness to share insights, every weeks, for 7 years is quite rare in the industry. It was also awesome to read the thought process behind each design decision alongside some nerdy story about C++ optimization. Factorio team, if you're ready this, thank you!

The game is also seriously fun :D. It has such replay-ability for me. You can either make new factories or you can infinitely tweak old ones. So much fun tweaking lines to increase efficiency and throughput.

Re: Seven Years of Factorio Friday Facts (2020)

#37

Post by nthj »

RangerScience wrote: post #22
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?!"

My day job is getting alignment and approvals on fixing things. Factorio is deciding to fix something and then doing it.

Re: Seven Years of Factorio Friday Facts (2020)

#38

Post by imiric »

scubbo wrote: post #24
m0ngr31 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm square in the second group. Factorio is fun for a while, but after somewhere around mid-game you realize that it's much more frustrating and less enjoyable than actual programming.

I can't easily "refactor" parts of my factory without fearing it will break some pipeline that depends on the changes. I wish there was a way to "write" "tests" or do mass changes safely. Blueprints and robots help automate things, but it's not that flexible.

I wish I could use a "debugger" and step through the execution and play with changes to see how it affects the factory.

And then I finally get to the conclusion that this would all be easier from a text editor using proper programming tools, and more enjoyable to work on a real project that could have tangible benefits (and then never finish that either...).

Re: Seven Years of Factorio Friday Facts (2020)

#39

Post by FredPret »

hanikesn wrote: post #33
FredPret wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There's a verilog2factorio compiler: https://github.com/Redcrafter/verilog2factorio

That's amazing!

Re: Seven Years of Factorio Friday Facts (2020)

#40

Post by munchbunny »

RangerScience wrote: post #22
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?!"

Having a PM to help me stay focused would not be a bad thing when I play Factorio. However, that would probably come bundled with having a PM constantly ask me to half-ass (I mean MVP) three different new projects in the factory in the time it would normally take me to full-ass one project.
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