Factorio: A game all about automation

[MaxAstro]

Just wanted to take a moment to praise Factorio's game design.

My friend and I finally got to oil processing and were struggling to figure it out without wiki/walkthough. I was having a really hard time with some bits - why do my refineries keep stopping? What is the point of the conversion recipies?!

When it finally clicked that for what I was trying to do (make plastic) heavy/light oil were waste products and the game was forcing me to manage said waste, I had a really great "Aha!" moment.

It would have been a lot simpler to just have the refinery silently lose unused products (and in fact that was my assumption of what would happen) but forcing the player to deal with it creates a much better experience, IMO.

[Taleric]

There have been recent hints to the pollution caused by your progress and angering the locals :)

It is a neat idea! It would be cool to have to tech your way to a massive spacecraft build component by component. Flight computers, hydroponics, cryogenics, refine uranium for reactors, plasma processing... Ultimately you would be able to leave but you would have to fend off ever increasing attacks by the locals and their evolving cadre :D

Agree though, very excited for this years progress.

[MaxAstro]

Hah. Yeah, I'm seriously considering using the mod that turns off time-based enemy evolution but seriously cranks up pollution-based evolution, as to me that is a really interesting mechanic.

[devak]

It would have been a lot simpler to just have the refinery silently lose unused products (and in fact that was my assumption of what would happen) but forcing the player to deal with it creates a much better experience, IMO.

Yea i love this too. I didn't use the wiki though, it's actually very visible in game (once you know where to look ;)). I've had setups where i built 4 or 5 tanks just to deal with "waste" products until such a time that i need higher-tech stuff.

Oh and by the way: oil wells run "dry" after a while, significantly reducing their output. I've found it fairly confusing to be honest. First you build a factory, it can barely deal with the flow, then later on it's barely running.

[AdmiralJonB]

Have any of you guys played multiplayer yet? I tried with a work colleague of mine, and I was surprised at how stable it was. Ok, we had one... well, I don't know if you would call it a crash. The game 'froze' on each end, but the program was still running and allowed us to save on both sides and reconnect again.

Otherwise, we had a very interesting evening of our two factory styles clashing with each other :)

[MaxAstro]

Yeah, I've been playing almost exclusively multiplayer and greatly enjoying it.

...Especially when we discovered that our current defenses were... shall we say, insufficient to deal with Spitters... Being able to multitask ("I'll rebuild the turrets and kill anything that breaks through while you go automate batteries; we need laser turrets NOW!") made dealing with that a lot more entertaining than it would have been in single player.

[Taleric]

What settings do you guys play? The default is just too easy! I want to feel some pressure to tech up and expand. At the moment I am nearly asleep just blitzing early research.

[DerAlex]

What settings do you guys play? The default is just too easy! I want to feel some pressure to tech up and expand. At the moment I am nearly asleep just blitzing early research.

I play with ore and oil deposits set to low frequency, very small or small size, and richness set to very good. With that setting, once you find some ore, you can expect it to last a while, but on those small fields you can only place a hand full of miners, to make expansion an a little more pressing issue because ore production is the bottle neck, most of the time

I'm not messing with enemy density, it leads to strange results in difficulty. With these settings, given that you have a much greater area or more areas spread further apart from vanilla settings, it naturally get's harder to defend, even without additional enemies.

There are also a few very big mods/modpacks with some interesting ideas, the biggest and most played is DyTech but I have no experience with it myself. Might be worth a look thou, it at least describes itself as "A mod that extends some machines of the base game, but adds alot more then that. DyTech is an Endgame mod! And VERY Hard with the newly added Biters!"

[MaxAstro]

Not happy with DyTech myself. It's basically the lowest common denominator of endgame design, IMO. Solar Panel Mk2. Also Mk3. Also Mk4... Also ~everything~ MkMOAR. I think the design notes list an Assembler Mk10 or something insane like that. It doesn't seem to add a whole lot of actually new content, just additional pointless complexity to existing content.

Treefarm, on the other hand, I like a bit better. Still don't like a couple things (I disagree with research packs being used as a basic crafting material), but at least it adds a couple entirely new kinds of processes to optimized. F Mod also seems to be a bit better at adding new content, but that's just from reading the description, I haven't played it. Overall it's hard to find mods that aren't just "Let's add higher marks of things because that makes the game better!"

...Speaking of disappoint, from the latest release notes: "Capped the range of all spitters at 15 so they no longer outrange gun turrets". I guess even a little bit of pressure to upgrade to laser turrets or suffer losses was too much for the complainers, and the devs buckled...

[Taleric]

Thank you for the recommendations, I got closer to a sweet spot and see that strange enemy behavior you were talking about Alex.

I set everything to very low frequency, ore small and biters big, everything else the same. Oddly the biters nearly surround me (on very big bases they actually encircle your start). Still not quite the pressure I would like, I have gotten to plastics without creating the pollution for more than a few waves.

I have reached a point that I need to clear enemies to get more iron. It is far enough that I could train it in but also belt at the same material cost (all the train bits add up quick to load/unload).

I do not fear the biters much but assaulting the worms are scary lol.

I would definitely require belts to be powered as it just feels wrong and would make total sense.

Edit: I suddenly want Dune size worms and spice to mine :P

[Taleric]

Endgame http://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-64

"Now, when the stable for 0.11 is starting to look possible, we can start to talk about our plans for the 0.12. The main thing planned for 0.12 is something we were referring as "The endgame content" that would replace the current cheap ending of the game. Once the player reaches the corresponding level of technology, he will be able to build rocket bases + rockets. But not those small rockets used for fighting enemies, but huge rockets used to get things into the orbit. Once he gets something on the orbit, he will use the material to build the spaceship there. The building will be similar as in normal game, but the player will first have to build the foundations (space platform) first. The platform will get the more expensive the bigger it gets. The player will then put all the needed machines, engines, and the valuable stuff on the ship. Once he is ready, he will start the ship. The ship will have to survive the trip on itself, it will have to contain small factory setup to process the energy and materials found on the way. It will have to provide the defense from all the asteroids and other dangerous stuff it can encounter. Once it reaches its destination, the valuable cargo can be sold at the local galaxy market. Once the player sells enough of the stuff, he won the game by becoming a rich bastard. No saving of the planet or the race, we decided to go for much more realistic storyline :) There are other plans for the 0.12 but let's keep it for the future friday facts :)"

Lol love it!

[Katalliaan]

Makes sense to me. Factorio's strengths lie in the player's ability to build stuff rather than the combat system. It's kind of like how in BTW killing the enderdragon isn't the last thing to do, but rather just something you need to do so you can get access to materials needed to build the most powerful stuff in the mod.

[MaxAstro]

Hm... I dunno how I feel about that plan, honestly. It kinda sounds to me like "Our plan for the endgame is to force you to start playing an entirely different game than the one you have been playing so far".

I can see it working... but it also sounds like the kind of "grand plans" that never really pan out, since doing that would basically require ~coding~ an entirely new game. It also kinda doesn't feel to me like it fits the style Factorio has had so far.

[Larmantine]

Any mods that you could recommend? I agree completely with the aforementioned of DyTech. I played around with a mod that adds roads, and bonuses of building them but nothing much else. Oh wait no. I've spoiled myself with the TimeButtons mod. Can't play without them anymore.

Recently came across the Offshore dump mod (it lets you waste your unused refinery products), which gave me a laugh, despite feeling a bit cheaty.

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http://www.factorioforums.com/forum/vie ... =14&t=6826

Edit: lol, after reading through the comments, I realized that you can use these liquids for boilers.

[MoRmEnGiL]

After ALL these months I finally managed to grab this game. Right off the bat it decided to mess with me. My first iron patch was..not what it seemed. It was iron mixed with stone. My furnaces kept jamming, because there was very little stone compared to iron, so I would go back and find 7 furnaces with 1 stone each perpetually waiting for another so they can smelt, but never getting it because the belt was backed up with iron and full.. What a nightmare!

Was not able to fully resolve this until I got smart inserters later on. Also the pre-electricity stage is quite tedious but cool on its own way, wish there was some way to extend it without it all boiling down to tediousness.. As it stands it is not that hard to rush electricity and do away with burners completely.

Hm... I dunno how I feel about that plan, honestly. It kinda sounds to me like "Our plan for the endgame is to force you to start playing an entirely different game than the one you have been playing so far".

I can see it working... but it also sounds like the kind of "grand plans" that never really pan out, since doing that would basically require ~coding~ an entirely new game. It also kinda doesn't feel to me like it fits the style Factorio has had so far.

Really calling it a different game is a bit too much imho. However you dress it it is still the same game until you reach that planned endgame. Also I think you are imagining grand space operas here, where as my guess is that entire space trade stuff will simply be how the game ends once you complete your spaceship. But hey, if they decide to introduce an economy and trading as the very late game I wouldn't say no.

For e.g. using all those raw resources and manufacturing luxury or basic goods and selling those off to make spacebucks which you could use to buy blueprints or whatever that opens up a new branch of tech unavailable from non outside sources has its merit as an idea.

[MoRmEnGiL]

Ok, I finally reached a somewhat advanced stage in the logistics network, and it is the coolest thing ever. You do not have to manually build anything any more, not resupply anything. Just introduce everything to the logistics network and your drones will take care of the rest. It is a bit slower than ferrying stuff in bulk where it is needed yourself, but if your security is solid you can let the drones take their time and do other stuff.

For me the big weakness is the reliance on killing nests for all late game research. Especially since this is my first playthrough and I set the nests to a bit smaller and sparser to figure things out first. I literally spent 2-3 hours killing nests and all I got to show for it is 250 artifacts, not even enough for a single research. I'm not going to continue this game, this is extremely tedious and grindy. Might start a new world with aliens set to huge nests and frequent. But then it will be a constant race to fort up and keep every wall and turret repaired manually until drones arrive, which is not going to be fun either..

[murillokb]

I literally spent 2-3 hours killing nests and all I got to show for it is 250 artifacts, not even enough for a single research. I'm not going to continue this game, this is extremely tedious and grindy. Might start a new world with aliens set to huge nests and frequent. But then it will be a constant race to fort up and keep every wall and turret repaired manually until drones arrive, which is not going to be fun either..

I'm playing on "normal" settings, I get around 100+ artifacts each time I raid some alien bases and it takes no more than 15 minutes.

I also can keep up with the alien attacks with no big problems too. I still have lots of fun with it :)

In my opinion, the "normal" mode is already easy enough but ramping up the number/size of alien bases can make it really hard real fast. I have yet to try this settings but i don't feel mentally prepared to it. It's like starting a new world on BTW where you know you need to take care of each step you take and plan ahead or you will die :D

[Taleric]

Very much agree on the normal settings but at least there are option sliders. I am will to wait for this spaceship endgame to have everything balanced and tweaked :)

[devak]

For me the big weakness is the reliance on killing nests for all late game research. Especially since this is my first playthrough and I set the nests to a bit smaller and sparser to figure things out first. I literally spent 2-3 hours killing nests and all I got to show for it is 250 artifacts, not even enough for a single research. I'm not going to continue this game, this is extremely tedious and grindy. Might start a new world with aliens set to huge nests and frequent. But then it will be a constant race to fort up and keep every wall and turret repaired manually until drones arrive, which is not going to be fun either..

You can use modules to squeeze more research out of the alien artefacts.

But yea, i found the whole alien artefact thing extremely tedious. Especially since i got to lategame biters and so every base invasion was an endless turret crawl.

[LupusExMachina]

i found a mod changing the ressource distribution most enjoyable

http://www.factorioforums.com/forum/vie ... =14&t=4761

it basically gives you some starting ressources and distributes everything else very far apart and very rich, often guarded by nests. I found trains in this setup to be actually worth the effort.
having to maintain outposts all over the place did the rest. the post also had some additional mods mentioned like the earlier mentioned roadworks, which complements the change very well.

[MoRmEnGiL]

So this is old news but I just stumbled across it:

http://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-74

Endgame brainstorming

The ideas for the endgame content are slowly crystalizing. With kovarex, we have spent quite a few tram rides back home in the evening by talking about it. On top of it yesterday we have explained our ideas to everyone in the team and then we all discussed it. I will very briefly (we have talked about it in the past posts) summarize what the plan is as of now. From the story perspective we are building (and sending) a spaceship for civilians rescue mission (they are stuck in a broken ship in space). This will involve:

1. Building a silo on the ground and sending necessary material to the orbit via rocket launches. This will be the production part. The spaceship parts will require a lot of resources and your factory needs to provide them.
2. Building the ship on the orbit. This will be the thinking part. Basically you will need to build a small fully automated factory on a space platform.
3. Running the simulation. This will be the movie part. You can sit back and see whether the ship you built stands the test of rescuing the fellow citizens.

The ship will need to be able to move, generate electricity, get the resources, defend itself and ... (we will see). We will keep you up to date about exact ways of how we plan to do this in the future editions of Friday Facts. Stay tuned :D

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[devak]

I occasionally check the development of the game, but it looks like MP is such a time sink on development that there've been no new features in ages.

[Larmantine]

They're almost through with it. Haven't played in a while, will when the new 0.12 update drops. Modding content is awful in the sense of gameplay mods. There are some good ones out there, that add small tweaks or a single feature, but new ones that add new gameplay... well let's just say there aren't any.

[FlowerChild]

I occasionally check the development of the game, but it looks like MP is such a time sink on development that there've been no new features in ages.

Whistles knowingly...

;)

I wince every time I see a single player game get pressured into adding multiplayer by rabid fans late in development. Nothing can fuck up a project faster than that.

[devak]

I occasionally check the development of the game, but it looks like MP is such a time sink on development that there've been no new features in ages.

Whistles knowingly...

;)

I wince every time I see a single player game get pressured into adding multiplayer by rabid fans late in development. Nothing can fuck up a project faster than that.

They started work on MP in like, september and it's now almost april. nearly 8 months of development into MP with next to no new features for anything else.