Yea but......why do people love Factorio?

[Meursault]

I'll admit, I'm intrigued by this game, but I don't see why people love it. It looks like a strange base building RTS. What is the appeal to the game? Should I buy it? Also, this looks quite a bit like Rimworld, for those who own both games, can you tell me which of the two you prefer and why?

[Lawlzer]

I love Rimworld and Factorio. I got Rimworld first, saw Factorio and remembered wanting the game a few years ago, so I instantly bought it
I highly recommend playing the demo first, even if you know you'll love it.
It's similar (in a really, really obscure and odd fashion)
Rimworld is kind of about... Surviving, building a good base and getting better.
Factorio is more about.. Creativity, base-building, and "COLY CRAP THIS IS COMPLICATED" - me every 5 minutes

[Lawlzer]

Anyways, my point is, try the Demo, first, and I highly recommend watching a few Let's Play's if you're still undecided~ A few personal favorite are Zisteau's (HIGHLY entertaining) or KatherineOfSky's. She's sooo beginner friendly :D I'd be so lost if I weren't watching her series.
Good luck, and whichever game you decide to play more- Don't lose your base. Always prepare for the worst! (In Factorio, getting attacked is honestly really not a problem.. I wish it had a Begginer and Extreme mode. Ooohhh. Don't forget Randy Random or Cassandra Classic!
Also, Factorio is multiplayer, and isn't as.. roleplay-able as Rimworld.
In Rimworld, you have a few colonists (most of the time) and end up building personal relationships with each one, whereas in Factorio there's only you (and multiplayer buddies if wanted) So it's slightly harder to be roleplayish but.. Still. Amazing.

[Meursault]

Originally posted by Lawlzer:

Anyways, my point is, try the Demo, first, and I highly recommend watching a few Let's Play's if you're still undecided~ A few personal favorite are Zisteau's (HIGHLY entertaining) or KatherineOfSky's. She's sooo beginner friendly :D I'd be so lost if I weren't watching her series.
Good luck, and whichever game you decide to play more- Don't lose your base. Always prepare for the worst! (In Factorio, getting attacked is honestly really not a problem.. I wish it had a Begginer and Extreme mode. Ooohhh. Don't forget Randy Random or Cassandra Classic!
Also, Factorio is multiplayer, and isn't as.. roleplay-able as Rimworld.
In Rimworld, you have a few colonists (most of the time) and end up building personal relationships with each one, whereas in Factorio there's only you (and multiplayer buddies if wanted) So it's slightly harder to be roleplayish but.. Still. Amazing.

Originally posted by Lawlzer:

I love Rimworld and Factorio. I got Rimworld first, saw Factorio and remembered wanting the game a few years ago, so I instantly bought it
I highly recommend playing the demo first, even if you know you'll love it.
It's similar (in a really, really obscure and odd fashion)
Rimworld is kind of about... Surviving, building a good base and getting better.
Factorio is more about.. Creativity, base-building, and "COLY CRAP THIS IS COMPLICATED" - me every 5 minutes

Thanks for the advice

[Lawlzer]

Originally posted by Chill:

Originally posted by Lawlzer:

Anyways, my point is, try the Demo, first, and I highly recommend watching a few Let's Play's if you're still undecided~ A few personal favorite are Zisteau's (HIGHLY entertaining) or KatherineOfSky's. She's sooo beginner friendly :D I'd be so lost if I weren't watching her series.
Good luck, and whichever game you decide to play more- Don't lose your base. Always prepare for the worst! (In Factorio, getting attacked is honestly really not a problem.. I wish it had a Begginer and Extreme mode. Ooohhh. Don't forget Randy Random or Cassandra Classic!
Also, Factorio is multiplayer, and isn't as.. roleplay-able as Rimworld.
In Rimworld, you have a few colonists (most of the time) and end up building personal relationships with each one, whereas in Factorio there's only you (and multiplayer buddies if wanted) So it's slightly harder to be roleplayish but.. Still. Amazing.

Originally posted by Lawlzer:

I love Rimworld and Factorio. I got Rimworld first, saw Factorio and remembered wanting the game a few years ago, so I instantly bought it
I highly recommend playing the demo first, even if you know you'll love it.
It's similar (in a really, really obscure and odd fashion)
Rimworld is kind of about... Surviving, building a good base and getting better.
Factorio is more about.. Creativity, base-building, and "COLY CRAP THIS IS COMPLICATED" - me every 5 minutes

Thanks for the advice

No problem! You play one (maybe two, depending on if you like the demo) of my all time favorite games. I'm happy to help a fellow Rimworlder (or Factori-or-orer?)

[KatherineOfSky]

Thanks Lawlzer!

OP, I own and play both games. (Hundreds of hours in each). Rimworld is very random, very dangerous, whereas Factorio is more forgiving.

I love the challenges of Factorio because there are always ways to make improvements, always find more efficiencies. RimWorld is more about doing the best with what you have and (nearly) always being in crisis mode, whereas Factorio offers you the chance to plan things out and make grand designs.

They are quite different in terms of gameplay. I would suggest you try out the demo and see if you are interested.

[Meursault]

Originally posted by KatherineOfSky:

Thanks Lawlzer!

OP, I own and play both games. (Hundreds of hours in each). Rimworld is very random, very dangerous, whereas Factorio is more forgiving.

I love the challenges of Factorio because there are always ways to make improvements, always find more efficiencies. RimWorld is more about doing the best with what you have and (nearly) always being in crisis mode, whereas Factorio offers you the chance to plan things out and make grand designs.

They are quite different in terms of gameplay. I would suggest you try out the demo and see if you are interested.

Right. Thanks for the response.

[Rectus Nine]

Both games are excellent. Not only for their vanilla releases - but the modding community is great (Rimworld via Steam Workshop / Factorio by the Factorio mods repository).

Both kinda require a bit of organization, but I think Factorio takes it to the Nth degree. You can spend countless hours in vanilla Factorio just exploring the different ways to setup factories, increase production, setup custom crazy map generation scenarios, etc.

And if you're looking for more of a challenge - there are mods that increase the complexity of processing resources / products that take quite a bit of time to get a handle over (Bob's Mods, Angel's Ores, etc).

If you can snag friends - playing Factorio multiplayer is a great way to tell who has the biggest ego!

The game has also been out a while - there are plenty of Youtube channels that show basics from the ground up - as well as pretty nifty tricks. KatherineOfSky (posted above) has a few campaigns running now on her channel - as well as others like Arumba, Steejo, etc

Might be worth taking a look around those to see if you might be interested

[TaterShovel]

Personally, I love all the different ways that people play the game - the way I play it won't be the way the next person plays it. And I can learn from them, or (hopefully) they can learn from me. Lots of different challenges that are always re-approachable at any time - you could wake up in the middle of the night with a better way of laying out your science factories, for example, and not have to start a brand new game to implement it; just tear it down and rebuild. About 90% of the game is finding and eliminating bottlenecks somewhere in your production line, but somehow that's a lot more fun than it sounds. And when the basic challenges are no longer challenging, you can still add mods and set your own challenges, such as not using logistics robots, or not cutting down any trees.

(cough*cough*I-have-my-own-series-on-Youtube-as-well-cough*cough)

:)

[The_Pastmaster]

Originally posted by Lawlzer:

(In Factorio, getting attacked is honestly really not a problem.. I wish it had a Begginer and Extreme mode.

Toxic Jungle anyone? :P

[Elenesski]

For me I was instantly hooked. it's the ultimate game for tinkerers and for me so so so addicting. The first time I loaded it up and started playing it, I just loved playing and connecting all the parts to make my machines go, and the game just got more complicated and more complicated and more complicated. But in a good, fun way.

So my experience was picking up the game, playing it non-stop for several days, and 136 hours in, I just had to put it down and get back to life.

It's been a few months since I last played, and not because I don't want to play, but rather I know how much it would suck me in.

It's major thing going against it are the enemies (the bugs), and the next time I start up a world, I'd get a mod to be able play in a bug free zone. Just so I can tinker with the technology.

[Roxor128]

It scratches the same itch as SpaceChem or Infinifactory (both of which I highly recommend, though SpaceChem is very hard). To try and put a name to the itch, I would say system-based design. The RTS-like combat dealing with the locals who've taken offence to your building adds a bit of variety. Fortunately, I like RTS games, though I don't play them very often.

[Zyrconia]

Factorio also scratches the itch of building the perfect base. Anybody can just randomly plop down buildings and eventually, with a bit of trial an error, get a functional base. My first ever base was like that: small and inefficient, but functional. And for some it stops there.

But for me, that was not enough. I started building the perfect base, with great throughput and production, perfectly sustainable and 140 hours latter... I'm still not done. Restarted several times and I'm sure the next base will be a perfect mega base. I am getting very close to that. So I started looking into mods to mix things up a bit.

[Gregorovitch]

Factorio is a very special game but it is difficult to put your finger on exactly why it is. These are some of my reasons:

1. It's more liikke (old school) Mechano than like Lego. You got real minuture steel struts, plates, gears, wheels, pullies etc you have to fit together with real little nuts and bolts, not genenric plastic blocks. Your machines feel more "real" somehow. That's how Factoprio feels. Fallout 4 base building it is not. There is massive scope for differnt design solutions and self expression in Factorio. You base in Factorio is made from prefabricated parts, but it doesn't feel like it is, and actually it isn't becasue there are so many ways to fit them together. A house may be made of fairly stahndard bricks, but houses can look and feel very different.

2. There is something about how the massive scale of the game (it involves literally hundreds of thousands of pieces of "stuff" being moved around and trasnformed into other "stuff") yet at the same time you can physically see one individual lump of iron ore amongst thousands and thousands being mined from a patch of ore, put on a belt, l.loaded into a train, unloaded at your base, moved to a smelter, turned into an iron plate, then watch that moved to a machine that makes an electronic circuit, then watch that individual circuit.......There is something magical about this level of granularity in a game of this scale that is still so much fun to play becasue the automation steadily kills any hint of micromanagement hell. A remarkable achievement in game design.

3. Factorio is very much about crafting, but unlike most crafting games what you make, your factory bascially, is never finished, never static, it is a living breathing ever changing organic entity and you can see and examine in detail, every last little detail of it when you want to or need to, which is frequently since it will require your constant love and attention. There is something deeply satisfying about watvhing how the various parts of your base, your own creation and not some pre-determined construct made from prefabricated parts, work together and something even more satisfying about fixing problems and setting all to rights again.

4. Then there is your "enemy", the Biters. Like so much else in this game there is something very special about these critters and your relationship with them that almost defies explantion. They are fast and vicious, they will tear your beloved base to shreds is seconds, not to mention tearing you to shreds given half a chance,sinister in their sneaky nest building, represented as threatening encrouching red blobs on the map, as they move on your base when they notice it. The first time you get chased by a hord of Biters is not something you will forget in a hurry.

And yet, even as you manufacture the necessary hardware to slaughter them by the thousand, and then perforce use it, you will probably feel sympathy for them, an understanding of their point of view, feel you'd do the same in their position. And when you go out and murder a load of them from an area threatenimng your base it will probably feel like just a job you have to do, like getting rid of a wasps nest from under your roof when you'd be perfectly happy if they nested in a nearby wood 'cos they do a good job eating the greeenfly in your garden. Perversely, you may end up thinking of your local biters more as pets than anything else, talking to them almost as if to your dog as you massacre them.

In short IMO Biters are destined for iconic status in game monster design, especially as they are not really monsters. The way the game is balanced between your ability to scale up your base and tech to contain them and their ability to expand towards you and evolve into more dangerous sub-species is an astounding piece of game design too. What it does is to graft a serious slice of tension, exitement and narrative onto what is essentiallyt a crafting/survival game in a way that really works - although, as in more or less everything Factorio, it is difficult to put youyr finger on exactly why.

[Electric Donkey]

Originally posted by Roxor128:

It scratches the same itch as SpaceChem or Infinifactory (both of which I highly recommend, though SpaceChem is very hard).

Indeed it is. Completing SpaceChem is my greatest accomplishment in my many years of gaming. (Though it's the second to last level that's the hardest.)

I hope updates to Factorio (or a paid expansion to it) brings new challenges (other than "more enemy bases, enemies have more health" etc). Looking forward to nuclear power and universal liquid management (tanker cars that can hold any liquid, etc) coming soon.

[Zyrconia]

Originally posted by Electric Donkey:

Originally posted by Roxor128:

It scratches the same itch as SpaceChem or Infinifactory (both of which I highly recommend, though SpaceChem is very hard).

Indeed it is. Completing SpaceChem is my greatest accomplishment in my many years of gaming. (Though it's the second to last level that's the hardest.)

I hope updates to Factorio (or a paid expansion to it) brings new challenges (other than "more enemy bases, enemies have more health" etc). Looking forward to nuclear power and universal liquid management (tanker cars that can hold any liquid, etc) coming soon.

Try a Bob's mods with Uranium Power for a fresh challenge :).