Factorio or No Mans Sky

[FUR]

I have some extra cash and was thinking about picking one of these titles up. has anyone played both? im looking for something chill to play while i do other things (watch shows, listen to podcast, draw) any input would be welcomed.

i asked the same question on the no mans sky forums but wanted to know about factorio players thoughts as well.

thanks in advance.

EDIT: going with no mans sky. thanks for the feed back. but i will probably pick up factorio once i get some more expendable cash.

[Hedning]

My prediction is here people will say factorio, and vice versa.

[FUR]

Originally posted by Hedning:

My prediction is here people will say factorio, and vice versa.

probably but if someone says something negative about the other i might consider that as well. i know that no mans sky got some heat in the past but seems to have better feedback now.

[Igor]

Play'd both.
Hmmm, I completed factorio (launching the first rocket) with 60ish hours.
I have 160 hours in No Man's Sky and still didnt travelled to the center of my first galaxy. But NMS sometimes can make you feel lazy. Or bored, i dont know. Still like the game and it has a lot of things to do now, but dont know.

NMS can immerse you in it universe sometimes too, what is a good thing.
Factorio makes you mad until you understand what you have to do to things work, and when it happens, dude, the joy...

Dont know, dude, really dont know.

[FUR]

Originally posted by Maokonyn:

Play'd both.
Hmmm, I completed factorio (launching the first rocket) with 60ish hours.
I have 160 hours in No Man's Sky and still didnt travelled to the center of my first galaxy. But NMS sometimes can make you fill lazy. Or bored, i dont know. Still like the game and it has a lot of things to do now, but dont know.

NMS can immerse you in it universe sometimes too, what is a good thing.
Factorio makes you mad until you understand what you have to do to things work, and when it happens, dude, the joy...

Dont know, dude, really dont know.

lol thanks.... man, i just dont know what to get and it goes off sell soon. good info tho. helping me ponder.

[Fel]

It would depend on what you like to play since the games are not really close to each other.

In no man's sky you explore a large number of planet, collecting materials along the way to upgrade your ship and gear.
The gameplay rapidly becomes grindy for the sake of grinding so its main strength is exploration, which can be good or bad depending on what you enjoy.

Factorio on the other hand barely rewards exploration, there is nothing to find outside of more of the same resources and more of the enemy nests, in fairly bland environments.
The vast majority of the gameplay is about designing a working factory from a fairly small set of tools and machines, adding to your factory as you go and refining your design while keeping it safe from the natives that start attacking when your pollution reaches them.

One is about look above gameplay, the other is about gameplay above look.


If your aim is to use it as an idle game I would think no man's sky would probably suit that task better.

At the same time I have been playing some of my playthroughs in factorio while alt-tabbing to read a light novel or watch a youtube video about something completely unrelated and leaving my factory to produce on its own.
But that was with a mod pack that was kind of meant to have down times in the early game and that didn't really have enemies to deal with.

[FUR]

Originally posted by Fel:

It would depend on what you like to play since the games are not really close to each other.

In no man's sky you explore a large number of planet, collecting materials along the way to upgrade your ship and gear.
The gameplay rapidly becomes grindy for the sake of grinding so its main strength is exploration, which can be good or bad depending on what you enjoy.

Factorio on the other hand barely rewards exploration, there is nothing to find outside of more of the same resources and more of the enemy nests, in fairly bland environments.
The vast majority of the gameplay is about designing a working factory from a fairly small set of tools and machines, adding to your factory as you go and refining your design while keeping it safe from the natives that start attacking when your pollution reaches them.

One is about look above gameplay, the other is about gameplay above look.


If your aim is to use it as an idle game I would think no man's sky would probably suit that task better.

At the same time I have been playing some of my playthroughs in factorio while alt-tabbing to read a light novel or watch a youtube video about something completely unrelated and leaving my factory to produce on its own.
But that was with a mod pack that was kind of meant to have down times in the early game and that didn't really have enemies to deal with.

yea i get that they are different and only fall under 2 check boxes for me. they seem chill and seem interesting to me. i just had a feeling that they are the type of games that maybe share some of the same player base. its such a coin flip for me that i think im just waiting to see if theres any negativity for ether of them that might help me pick.

thanks for your detailed reply.

[Grisnir]

Originally posted by FUR:

yea i get that they are different and only fall under 2 check boxes for me. they seem chill and seem interesting to me. i just had a feeling that they are the type of games that maybe share some of the same player base. its such a coin flip for me that i think im just waiting to see if theres any negativity for ether of them that might help me pick.

thanks for your detailed reply.

No man's sky is a niche game for space exploration and unless you love Space Sims with a large focus on exploration there is a good chance that you will drop the game because of boredom,
you may want to watch some Let's Plays for it.

Factorio is on the other hand is a Logical Puzzle Game, that will stop non stop throw problems at you, that wants to be solved, a bit like a Zachtronic Game you just want to cry less. Because of it Factorio will consum your time and in the end your soul ... THE FACTORY DEMANDS IT.
There is also a Demo for it.

and at last, Factorio is the seconds best rated game on steam while No Man's Sky rating is extreme volatile because of the bad start and people see more then it's there, imho No Man's sky is just more colorful Elite: Dangerous with base building and a lot more ♥♥♥♥♥♥ combat.

[FUR]

Originally posted by Grisnir:

Originally posted by FUR:

yea i get that they are different and only fall under 2 check boxes for me. they seem chill and seem interesting to me. i just had a feeling that they are the type of games that maybe share some of the same player base. its such a coin flip for me that i think im just waiting to see if theres any negativity for ether of them that might help me pick.

thanks for your detailed reply.

No man's sky is a niche game for space exploration and unless you love Space Sims with a large focus on exploration there is a good chance that you will drop the game because of boredom,
you may want to watch some Let's Plays for it.

Factorio is on the other hand is a Logical Puzzle Game, that will stop non stop throw problems at you, that wants to be solved, a bit like a Zachtronic Game you just want to cry less. Because of it Factorio will consum your time and in the end your soul ... THE FACTORY DEMANDS IT.
There is also a Demo for it.

and at last, Factorio is the seconds best rated game on steam while No Man's Sky rating is extreme volatile because of the bad start and people see more then it's there, imho No Man's sky is just more colorful Elite: Dangerous with base building and a lot more ♥♥♥♥♥♥ combat.

thanks for the reply. ive decided with all the feedback to go with no mans sky but ill probably end up getting factorio later once i get some extra cash again. maybe once im "bored" with NMS it will line up with me having some extra money lol.

[Igor]

Things you can do in NMS:

Explore
Mine
Kill
Build
Research
Catalog
Farm
Learn languages
Small ships
Big ships

Things you can do in Factorio

Hey, scape this planet and try to not ♥♥♥♥ things up in the process.
Build
See if works
Think
Research
Think again
Think a little bit more.
Here, take this problem with production x, solve this
THINK HARDER YOU ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ MORON
Build
Repeat.

[Ragnaman]

Simple fun: NMS
Complex fun: Factorio

Factorio has insane amount of mods and...well, turing complete circuit networks so you can create your own computer inside the game to play nuclear powered pac man.

But at times Factorio demands more complex analysis than your average game, mostly logistics is the complex part. Automation is kind of simple in comparison to logistics. So if you dont like analysis paralysis then maybe NMS would be better. If you enjoy observing graphs and how your designs improve throughput and etc. then Factorio is a nice cup of tea.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VR_b9YwqH8

[ElBarto56]

How can you draw and play at the same time??

[FUR]

Originally posted by ElBarto56:

How can you draw and play at the same time??

sometimes i watch drawing tutorials while i play CK3. i pause CK3 and the tutorial. draw a bit and then get back to both CK3 and the tutorial. so having a game thats easy to pause and my focus can be elsewhere while playing is what i was looking at for these 2 titles.

sometimes i eat/watch/play/draw/talk all at the same time. i really like multitasking. probably to a fault.

[Anejey]

I see you have already decided, but I'll still leave this here anyway.

Factorio isn't really great to play in background. Unless you are waiting for something to be done, you'll always be on the move and you'll always have something to do.

If I could recommend a third option I'd say Elite Dangerous. It is somewhat similiar to NMS (space exploration etc., but more focused on the ship). In my opinion it's a great game to play in background because you'll often be traveling somewhere, which can take several minutes or more than a hour (the game has 1:1 distances). You can do anything from peaceful exploration or mining to bounty hunting.

I'd wait for a sale though. ED often goes for less than 7€.

[Grisnir]

Originally posted by FUR:

Originally posted by ElBarto56:

How can you draw and play at the same time??

sometimes i watch drawing tutorials while i play CK3. i pause CK3 and the tutorial. draw a bit and then get back to both CK3 and the tutorial. so having a game thats easy to pause and my focus can be elsewhere while playing is what i was looking at for these 2 titles.

sometimes i eat/watch/play/draw/talk all at the same time. i really like multitasking. probably to a fault.

and i completely overlooked that part ... oops

in that case No Man's Sky is definitive the better pick also something Factorio can't give you is a mind blowing scenery

[MXK]

Factorio won for me after I realized there really is no point to NMS.

NMS is just a never ending grind with no real point. How many resources can you collect to build bases that don't do anything at all for you? Or how many planets can you visit that have the same resources and fauna and flora?

On top of that I then realized that the supposedly never ending universe is cleverly disguised by load times in form of the warp portals.