Few personal feelings, and thoughts about new features

[zzy]

I really love the design and mechanism of this game, the last game I love so much is Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, which is another story.

Before I bought the game, I browsed the introduction and predict to my friend that: “This game do seems very interesting, but you will not open it again after built the last structure, unless years after you suddenly want to play a game like this but not able to find one.”

The prediction partially came true. The first run of Factorio takes me 80 hours in peaceful mode (including sleeping in 3 nights, the factory is running overnights, though the mine depleted fast). I unlocked all the research, tried all the recipes, weapons and finally launched the rocket, like a normal player. Getting full achievements also didn’t take too long for me, and reading wiki helps me a lot on understanding the game deeply.

After that, since I’m not satisfied with the layout of the final factory, I restarted a new game in standard mode, built something that I think was optimal (calculated by a complex Excel table), and finally had 100k solar panels, full chests of modular III, and a turret-radar great wall spreads for thousands of tiles. I also think I’m professional enough on using belts, splitters, and inserters.

Up to now I spent no more than 200 hours in total, but I’m lost on finding new objectives in this game. I do know that in general 20 hours to beat the game and 60 hours to deeply explore is enough for a good game. I just wish there could be more.

When I first heard the plan of introducing dirty mining and infinity research, I was really excited that there will be something to do in the very-end game. However, after thinking for a while, I ask myself that do I really need it?

Well, if the research is infinite but there is nothing about productivity (as what we have already, the technology which has levels are mostly on weapons and robots), then there is no hope to be fully researched, or even reach much higher research level compared with what we have (one bullet to kill a Behemoth?). People may just wait a bit longer, and give up while reaching a reasonable level. I’ll definitely not copy and paste my full factory just to research one more level. Nothing is changed.

If there is some productivity technology, like increasing the ability of modules, then there are two issues. One is the numerical stuff: How to make sure that there is always something researchable but not too fast? This may be a hard question for the dev team. Another is that in the end this will make the game looks like some stupid web games/mobile games which you do one click---wait some time---do another click---wait a longer time.

Though you still have some work to do like finding more mines (which may be unnecessary after dirty mining), the number of mines you can handle at the same time is not so big. The most previous one will be depleted before you find a new one, and your factory will never grow up after a certain time. (Though the mineral reserves is proportional to the distance from the starting area, the time to expand also has positive correlation to the distance)

To me, I still feel like Factorio is a one-run game, despite achievements will take a few more. (I’m not enjoying on playing mods in general, because it’s hard to find a mod that do extend the mechanism of the original game, most of them are low qualified, just adding a few items or changing numbers. Hopefully these words will not hurt the heart of mod designers, there do have some exceptions.) Optimizing early game is useless since it only happen once and does not take too long. It also has a limitation. The late game is full of copying and pasting once you have an/several optimal designs (optimal in pollution, productivity, or whatever you are pursuing). You will lost the interest after doing it several times.

Probably it’s too harsh to ask for more from only one game. I just doubt whether there is a way that makes sure we always have some new stuff to handle, to optimize, without copying and pasting, or waiting, even in the very-end game. Infinity research and dirty mining may be part of a solution, but not the full solution. Anyway, it's always better to have these features rather than not having them. I'm still looking forward to the powerful dev team. (Requirement of programming circuit network may also be a good idea to extend the game life, when it is designed to be useful enough. Lua blueprints on robots can also be added?)

Few words for the nuclear power. I’ve been focusing on FFF for a while. Since the recent design still uses the steam engine, I can’t find its advantage compare to the solar panel. At least we still need to copy-paste the steam engine (which is not much much powerful than solar panel), and it will be much harder to construct, expand, and maintain. Probably it will cause more pollution while mining fuels. I’d rather clear the map and put solar panel all over the map. In my point of view, such a facility in late game may be made from a complicated recipe with large resource consumption, but using it is very easy: just a large 10*10 square which input is water and outputs electricity. (It may be better to have some tool to expand water tiles) Seems like someone in the forum has already proposed.

By the way, I do like the blueprint library (which will essentially be the official blueprint mod). That will be pretty useful.

[Mooncat]

I’m not enjoying on playing mods in general, because it’s hard to find a mod that do extend the mechanism of the original game, most of them are low qualified, just adding a few items or changing numbers.

Changes on numbers can cause huge change on gameplay.
If you want high quality mods, try Angle's mods and Yuoki Industries. They have high quality graphics (tho look different from Factorio style).

Natural Evolution, Satellite Uplink Station, Orbital Ion Cannon, KS Power, Laser beam turrets are always in my mod list.
Note: I consider graphics before gameplay.

With mods, you will hardly feel bored.

[Boogieman14]

If you want to get a longer running game experience, you can always just get Marathon mod. That'll surely give you quite a few more hours to chew on.

[urza99814]

You have to make your own objectives!

For example, I'm a huge fan of the old Command and Conquer RTS games. If you look at rise games as "can I defeat a hard AI?" the game will be over in an hour, tops. If instead you take an objective of "can I beat this team on this difficulty on this map using this strategy" you can play for *years* and never repeat a game.

Factorio is the same way. I've done a half dozen games so far, all totally different and all running for weeks. Can I launch the rocket? Can I build a vast empire with great walls? Or one without any walls? Using a single belt? Using a large main bus? How does trying to use more trains impact my strategy? What's it take to get to 1RPM?

Find your favorite strategy. Then start a new game and try not to use it.

[Daid]

Bobs mods + Angels mods + Ion cannon is what I'm currently playing.

While the graphics of Bobs mods are not great. The complexity of the electronics construction is a nice logistical challenge. Last electronics needs 6 different components. Which you could produce on site or bring in on a main bus. However, your main bus might become a square with the sheer amount of different things you are putting on it then.

Angels mods are great for a different reason, they add waste products to both mining and fluid production. This totally changes the game, as you have to balance and buffer things. (Bobs does this slightly with chlorine production, but Angels adds a whole lot more) You do hit a bit of a "wall" the first time you need Acid, as that is quite a complex setup which you need semi-early.

The Ion cannon adds a better end goal then the satellite. As it has ingredients from all areas of Bobs and Angels. For example, you will need to setup gem production for lvl5 laser turrets.


I just launched my 2nd ion cannon. And my factory still involves quite some manual labor for this, after about 30 hours of play time on that save. I do play without logistic bots.