71–76 of 76 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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?!"
Of course Factorio doesn't come with obligations to document and hand over your glorious creation...
I wish they had expanded on the demo/tutorial mode's "story line". I liked how there were these secret half-built/half-destroyed bases waiting to be found.
To anyone who loves Factorio as much as I do, I strongly recommend the new game Dyson Sphere Program. I never truly beat Factorio the way I did DSP, so I can't compare them completely, but DSP takes the concept to a 3D planetary scale and is in many ways much friendlier. Also no combat/bugs, at least not yet. The dev team is Chinese and are releasing amazing quality-of-life updates at a rapid clip, too. Truly impress…
To anyone who loves Factorio as much as I do, I strongly recommend the new game Dyson Sphere Program. I never truly beat Factorio the way I did DSP, so I can't compare them completely, but DSP takes the concept to a 3D planetary scale and is in many ways much friendlier. Also no combat/bugs, at least not yet. The dev team is Chinese and are releasing amazing quality-of-life updates at a rapid clip, too. Truly impress…
Glad you mentioned DSP so I didn't have to ;) It really feels like the perfect extension/progression, or what I imagine Factorio 2.0 would/should be. The graphics are absolutely stunning as well, which is one point that started to really turn me off of Factorio after hundreds of hours, especially on a 4K monitor... not to mention watching spaceships fly cargo around the solar system is way cooler than trains ;) Also…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…