My experience with Factorio so far

[Nightbringer]

Introduction

I wanted to make a post detailing my impressions about this game. I tried game once when it was in beta, but I did not played far. Stopped before going into fuel production. Now as I'm playing it once more, I wanted to share my impressions of a mid game before going unto the deep end. It might also be interesting how different players tackle same challenges in a completely different way.

Electricity

The first thing which I had noticed is how OP is solar panels. They are easy to produce by hand. They produce electricity by night. Factory does not care about unstable power supply. It will work anyways. Here is power graph of my factory:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2949199588

I was wondering why there isn't any wind or geothermal electricity in this game. My friend said that there was, but it was removed/not added in order not to cheese biters in this game. He probably talked out of his behind like he loves to do. However, I do think that Factorio players are getting a lot of freebies.

• Infinite energy generators - belts.
  
• Click and drag power infrastructure. As a senior engineer working in electricity/gas company I can't help, but to cringe on how simplified this whole process is. No, it is not even remotely realistic and it will not work like that in real life.
  
• There is no maintenance of factories. No pollution generated. In reality coal power plants would generate a steady stream of trash which you would have to automatise of getting rid of. Entire game is like that, it is missing whole dimensions of complexity.
  
• There is no lifespan disruptions. No broken parts. No less electricity due to clouds. Solar panels generating power during night, etc. You get so many freebies in this game.

However, I came to dislike one thing with nuclear energy. It is U-235 production. It has 0.007% rate. This is insanely low drop rate which had resulted in long black outs due to my poor luck extracting it. Initially, I went on just fine for many hours with a lot of nuclear fuel in reserve. Then I ran into a long string of poor luck where it just did not dropped no matter what. Now I increased mining operation to get more of it, but it is again the same situation. I hundreds of nuclear fuel lying around for dozens upon dozens of hours gameplay. However, I can't produce any U-235 for Kovarex enrichment process. This whole deal feels like opening lootbox after lootbox.

Kovarex enrichment process in itself looks like a terrible thing. It is basically just another freebie in this game for players to make gameplay unnecessary simple. Another free energy generator after conveyor belts where you get more and more stuff ad infinitum. Life is pretty good in Factorio world, eh?

I heard argument that drop rate is good, because it is realistic. Alright, granted. However, what the hell Kovarex enrichment process is supposed to be? I checked out what actual enrichment process is and it is seperation of trace amounts of U-235 from U-238. Maybe someone could prove me wrong by showing similar real life process. However, this technology just seems just as a cheat code where you are getting more stuff for free. This also makes me feel that game is inconsistent when it wants to be realistic and when it wants to be just a game. This pretence comes at expense of gameplay.

This is peaceful building simulator

Now, pollution and bitters had me scratching my head even when I played during beta. Even if I would set bitters to maximum aggressiveness, they would just refuse to attack me. Throughout entire playthrough, I got only a random attacks. I then just lowered my pollution level and attacks stopped. I spend entire game just standing and thinking how to do stuff. Bitters are continuously evolving. However, they are non present in this game. They never attack me nor they are never an obstacle to me. They are just here. I broke this mechanic just by mere presence.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2949201826

I thought that further manufacturing will be extremely polluting which would attract attacks. However, that is not the case. As you see there are two bases. The second base is where I produce all my oil related production. I transfer coal with train and send back my oil related goods. It is not very polluting to produce oil or its goods.

I just spread bases depending on complexity of production.

• First grade products are stuff which requires one base material. That is being mined and smelted like: Iron Ore -> Iron Plate -> Steel Bar.
  
• Second grade production is production which requires several different components. I'm planning to make distant base in order to spread pollution across wider map more equally.
  
• Third grade production is the most advanced parts which require combination of various lower tier parts. Like engines being combined with other equally difficult to produce elements.
  
• Oil products. I split them into separate group, because they are location specific. I mine them in an area and just produce all base goods related to them in a same area.

This is my layout of my planned base. Bitters to me are non existent in this game. I do not know why Factorio players to me seems those rapid polluters who crave to destroy environment all around them. Even developer seems to promote this anti-green message in their game via achievements and lack of ecological solutions. My friend was like: "I hate trees" and I was like "Whut? Why?".

As I played, I learned that trees are the most valuable and advanced machinery which I own. They do not require any complex logistics chains. They are perfect, all inclusive solution for air pollution. They also prevent desertification, create humid environment and enable local wildlife to exist. Sure, none of it is modelled in this game. However, trees serve as a wall against pollution. It stops it right in its tracks and I take great care in avoiding destruction of forest or any trees in my playthrough.

The only thing which is slightly annoying is how bitter colonies are spread evenly across the map. Finding some unoccupied zone seems more like a bug of random generation than a feature. To me it is unrealistic and annoying gameplay feature that I just can't pack my stuff and go somewhere where are no bitters.

Programming

I tend to play this game by just standing a lot. To me, each new technology needs mastering. This is why when developers gave me programming, it was just a massive stop on my progress. Of course I will use them immediately when I get them! I need them to balance clogging of my belts. Due to inability to control inputs and outputs, I cannot fine tune to give a precise amount of output despite how much input it has. In other words, if I add a million smelters and extractors, entire line is going to get swarmed by production and it might break without further re-adjustment. So, I needed a solution which would solve that.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2949211540

This is my solution. This simple thing took about 5 hours until I figure it from grounds up myself. It is a computer which tracks how many inputs were are in a chest. It is programmed to insert only 4 metal plates and 2 copper plates. When it is full, my other inserter unloads its content. When signal goes back to signal - 1, computer re-checks contents of a crate. At signal 0 it unloads the crate. It also can act as a clock which defines a frequency at which various elements can work.

This is a programmable belt inserter computer. I can modify it to check any kind of content and work at different speeds. In general, I found programming in Factorio to be archaic and awkward. It lacks features which you would normally expect from such low level programming. Other features are unintuitive as hell. It also gives you massive freebies. I had to check how people check contents of a crate, because....really? Just to check contents of a crate is an impossible task which even most cutting edge AI would find problems detecting reliably. Here however it is given as a freebie together with infinite energy belts. This is how you know it is s a game and it has those extreme simplification in some areas while curiously lacking such simple things like variables and memory in its programming language. The end result is this mess of a language which never was fully developed or given attention which it otherwise might deserved. It is sufficient for game's needs, but it feels like you are really struggling to do things which in actual low level language would be a lot more straightforward when you spend time and effort to learn it. Instead we are learning fake programming languages which are complex enough to require an actual effort, but is fake enough to be useless in real world applications.

First Home

As for my base, it is an original layout of my base. Initially I had made a blueprint where I could expand infinitely with assemblers if I needed more manufacturing capabilities. I got burned in a tutorial where I made a factory layout where I was bottlenecked with manufacturing at the back end. So, I started making a layout which I could scale infinitely. However, it seems that 6 assemblers are a complete overkill for pretty much anything. So, I ended with a lot more manufacturing capacity than I needed and I just abandoned it. I'm going for a segregated approach where I would split my manufacturing capabilities across the whole map and would supply ingredients via trains.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2949209951

Conclusion

Overall, I do like Factorio. It is decent enough of a time sink. Mods probably give you even more tools to play with which are at the moment lacking in a base game. It is also just deep enough to enable something respectably complex. I can see how people can spend thousands of hours in it. However, after completing goals which I set out for myself, I'm planning launching a rocket and just moving on. There are countless great experiences out there and there is no need to get stuck in one which can't offer you anything new anymore.

I will update my impressions as I play through this game

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Signal Stops

This is probably the best representation of what is wrong with Factorio. It is complex enough to be difficult, but lacks flexibility and logic of a real thing. You can make some things work with it, but you can't make complex things with it which you would be able with a real thing.

It takes talent...

First of all, it takes talent to spend so much time and effort in trying to teach something to people and then completely fail at it. Developers are uniquely gifted in creating huge tutorial about train section, filled with real exercises and theory which utterly fails to teach players anything.

It reminds me of my time in university studying circuits. I spend the whole weekend in trying to understand my project with textbooks and given examples. I could grasp some things, but just could not really understand it properly that I could make something useful out of it. Then my colleague came and asked if I completed it. I said no, I'm trying to understand it from textbook. He laughed and handed me examples of other students works. I instantly understood everything by looking at other student's project and could complete my own work easily! I even aced examination, explaining professor method in most complex way possible. This is the vibe I'm getting with in game tutorials. I somehow managed to complete tutorial several times and still have no clue how it is supposed to work...

Problems with Train Signals

I spent about 5 hours trying to figure them out and I just gave up. I do not think that task can be even accomplished as I want to. A simple chain is easy enough. However, when you need to attach independent train line with another, this is where problems happen. Even after creating a miniaturised model, I was unable to send a signal to nearby line. It seems that signal is being sent directly through the line, which means that you need to send signal linearly upwards next connection. This is very cumbersome as you need to set signals kilometers apart and you still won't be able to send a signal to adjacent line. It also does not allow realistic expansion to a lot interconnected lines. Game allows you to control junctions that another train would not crash into a passing train. However, when you need to check for an entire route, this becomes problematic.

Rail signals also seem to be bugged as I experienced them receiving a negative signal when line should not be controlled elsewhere. Rail signal received a signal all whole railroad even without a visual confirmation that this part is being controlled. I removed a signal on the other side and my rail signal went blank.

This is the problem I have with this game. There isn't an interface to debug anything. Logic is designed around single routes. You cannot use same signals to control several routes. You cannot use same rail for different directions and trains with different routes. Game is designed around single rail going to a single destination. When you try to use same infrastructure, you get into engine limitations like signals not working on very long lines.

Solution

In the end I had given up. I decided just to program my rail network. In-game programming is a lot easier than figuring out this rail networks. It is good enough when you do simple connections like presented in tutorial, but its logic is not adapted to more complex networks. Even with programming, I found various bugs. For example, station sends signal of: "Red V 1" when it should send signal of: "V 1". In logic gates "Red" does not exist and I have no clue from where this 13 comes when I set value to 1.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2963282698

Another issue is that train signals cannot be programmed. They have Read function, but it does not work. Even if conditions are met, you cannot change signal from red to green. So, I decided to use Train Stop for programming. It also had issues with very confusing interface. First, for some reason you need to send signal to the train, but Signal Stop has its own separate logic check. So, there is a thing which was overlooked. Normally train checks condition at a Train Stop. However when it comes to programming, it ignored conditions at a train stop and you need to send condition directly to the train...Yeah.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2963282779

Programming is also not without its bugs in this game. Train Stops are a prime example how archaic this game is in regards to a lot of things. It is very unintuitive in random places. It also has various bugs which just frustrates you when you are trying to accomplish something. In the end, I had finally managed to set up my train controller after many hours.

If there is one thing which Factorio had managed to impress me is how convoluted and backwards it is for doing any complex task in it. I seriously started watching videos how you can make computer from electronics parts and I find THAT more fun and easy than this BS in Factorio.

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Programming

Programming in this game is bad. While it is powerful, it is incredibly messy and buggy (objects sending wrong signals, your computers not registering signal if it goes too fast). It gives you massive freebies in some areas while not in others. You can do incredible things with it, but when you play with it, you have to ask yourself. Why I'm spending so much time on a video game? Maybe more fulfilling use of my time would be building an actual computer with my own electronic components? These are the questions I was asking myself while trying to learn programming in Factorio.

Simplifications

This game gives you a lot of simplifications. You can sum, divide, multiply, send signals, compare signals. This is what you would expect from a video game. You do not want to be programming computer when playing Factorio. Massive simplifications like reading content of a crate helps players a lot.

However, then we come to the main issue. A lot of basic elements of programming is missing. Where is Memory? You can't store value in this game! That is right, you have to create the entire circuit on your own. Game holds your hand with giving freebies left and right, but a fundamental block of programming is missing and it is a massive difficulty jump. It contradicts entire design of programming in this game. It tries to simplify things everywhere, gives you freebies, sometimes massive freebies and then in random places it is unnecessarily and unreasonably complex.

Along other elements which I had missed is:
-Signal generators;
-Clocks;
-Flip flops;

Debugging

The absolute worst part in this game is that programming elements are all put into one box. This arithmetic combinator serves as a logic gate with many functions. However, this makes same combinators very crowded as you will be putting same signals back into their inputs. All of it are done through wires. Quickly any circuit becomes incomprehensible. There are only two colour wires, there isn't any way to handle wires. You can't remove wires without removing the whole logic gate. In other words, any programming in Factorio is nightmarishly messy.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2949211540

As you proceed with circuits, anything simple like my written circuit to control flow of resources into conveyor belt end up as a massive bundle of wires and computers. It is really messy to see what is going where. This is a big failing of programming in this game. Programming is supposed to be elegant, not messy.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2963288588

There is also isn't a menu where you could build a blueprint. You would need a separate window where you could see logical expression of your circuit. Connect lines to elements and run a simulation to see if everything is correct. If it is, you then could press a button: "Transfer to blueprint" and have everything set up to be built, together with variables which you had set up in simulation. At the moment debugging is needlessly complex.

In my view

It is a powerful tool, but it has a problem. It is complex enough to reasamble the real deal. However it lacks everything that makes real deal so enticing. It also makes you question if you shouldn't just play with real circuit programming as it has more value in a real world. As it being off shot of a game, an additional feature written off developer's bucket list. It remains unfinished in a lot of parts. Have missing features which you would have with a real programming. It is also a pain to use in a game.

In the end it is quirky and archaic in game programming which end up more difficult to learn and to understand than a real circuit programming, because insufficient tutorials, bizarre developer logic and missing features which you would get with real programming.

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2023-05-28

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Modules

As you progress through the game, you unlock modules. At a first glance, they provide small boosts for your factories. However, in reality it is just another cheat code given to players which significantly simplifies gameplay for improvised Factories and creates pointless resource decreases for meta gamer.

What is Wrong with them

Modules looked benign to me at first. When I started utilising them, I discovered just how badly they twist the entire game. They break entire game and introduces its own rules on top of it. Every Assembler must have best modules with transmitter. Not only it is a mess from design perspective, but also it further reinforces its tendency to give players unrealistic freebies.

Little bit confusing
• This is the least striking criticism I can come up with those modules. They are unintuitive which is a general trend with a Factorio. Modules says something along the lines: "30% energy efficiency" or "20% speed", but game does not tell you how it translates to pollution. It is something which had to be learned through practice what those modules do exactly and how effective they can be.
  
  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2981787451
  
  Makes pollution management obsolete
  
• In this game Biters are broken. You might spend a hundred hours in this game, but they will never offer serious assaults on your base as game promises. Sure, there are cases when Biters are actual part of a game, but they all involve late game when players are building more Factories than CPU can handle. Any reasonable interaction with game pollution mechanic will see it plummet to the point of irrelevancy. Combined that with clearing of Biters nests, they will never be close enough to consume said pollution.
  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2981788329
  Here you can see just how huge of a hit my Factory took when I started using efficiency modules on my ore extractors. They make them out of the most polluting buildings you have to least polluting ones. That is just broken game balance.
  
  Is a crutch for a badly designed Factory
  
• The key problem with these modules is that it greatly simplifies gameplay. You thought Factorio was a complex game? Not at all! It is designed to be as difficult at first as possible, but after that, difficulty curve goes right back down. After you reach mid game, you get tons of freebies. One of them are best factories and modules which makes any Factory layout irrelevant as you progress through the story.
  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2981794660
  Here is an example of that. I never needed to increase my wire production, because one assembler is enough. They speed up to such insane levels that any spaggeti layout can be saved as you never need to scale up production. You just need to add ever increasingly BS stuff in its place.
  
  Is a free energy generator
  
• This game gives a lot of freebies to players. Conveyor belts is one infinite energy generator. Perfect and cheap solar power is another. Now to that list you can add modules which breaks laws of thermodynamics and through magics gives you extra +9999% productivity out of thin air. Game moves away from its organisational layout and simulation towards arcade where it balances game out with silly multipliers which makes gameplay unrealistic. Instead of getting a weapon which does +10% damage, you get a factory which are +400% better. Exactly the same stuff and I'm deeply disappointed by path which Factorio decided to take.
  
  Distorts balance of production
  
• Another massive issue with modules is that it ruins game balance. There is no need to balance your pollution levels, because you can easily make it non-relevant with efficiency modules. Electric Ore Extractors suddenly become from most polluting assets you have to most green ones. That is such an arcade thing to do. It also makes interaction with Biters irrelevant, because game balance is out of whack, because of these modules. A player can easily avoid most interactions with them, given that he makes some basic gameplay interactions with them like wiping nearby nests and putting efficiency modules on worst polluting offenders.
  
  Meaningless
  
• Ultimately, these modules are meaningless. It is a superficial and cheap way to play with game numbers, but they do nothing more than to inflate amount of stuff players build. What is the point of doing 10x damage in World of Warcaft if everyone is 10x times more survivable? It is just artificially inflated numbers. The same thing had happened in Factorio. These modules allow players to produce more stuff, to control pollution not to attract Biters. However, they could had easily done that by limiting amount of Factories they build and by spreading them around. There were already organic solutions to this problem. These modules merely allowed players not to worry about pollution mechanic at all and inflate their own production numbers which ultimately leads to CPU bottlenecks. There is no difference if your output is 1M steel plates per hour or 100k steel plates. These are just abstract numbers over which Factorio players go Ape. You could easily nerf productivity and resource requirements by order of 10 and nothing in the gameplay would change.

Game starts to unravel

Factorio superficially seems like a complex game. It can be daunting for a new player as ever increasing demands, force player to constantly re-evaluate its Factory. It is time consuming and demanding to constantly adapt to new requirements. This is why so many Factorio players, even ones with hundreds of hours never finish this game. However, this is just an illusion. As a player progresses through the mid game, its difficulty already had peaked and after that point, game becomes significantly easier. All the new tech simplifies production rather than complicates it. Gone are coal management. Gone are multiple Factories, you can fuel everything with just one Assembler. Bots ignore belt lines. Turrets do not need ammunition. Nuclear power becomes infinite with Kovarex tech. Game becomes significantly easier and player moves from thinking and solving problems to just actively managing resource inflows and what goes wrong at his own Factory.

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2023-06-27

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Now to wrap things up.

Mega projects were hollow

To me this game falls into the same place as Minecraft did when it first released. I went in. Were vowed by its world. Explored its caves. Build some stuff. However, quickly I realised that there is very little to do in that game. Better recipes were not obvious to me or at that time did not existed. Building stuff felt just empty. Sure, I will build a wall. So what? It is not like it can do something. Finally we have Factory type games where stuff you build actually does something. However, I felt same emptiness inside. Why I'm building this wall? There is no threat at all. I want to build my army which would patrol around the perimeter, but I cannot. Everything is so static. I felt the same emptiness and lack of purpose in this game. I explored in game world and it felt so simple to me. Like that I had explored everything there is to know about it. Sure, people will be quick to point out to mods. However, I'm not evaluating mods, I'm judging the game itself.

Game presented no challenge

What contributed the most to this sense of emptiness is that game presented no challenge to me. It falsely markets its own gameplay as this survival game against swarms of Biters. No, it is not. Biters are hardly any more than annoyance in this game. In fact, they are so useless that I do not even need to fight them. I would just walk into middle of their nests and would just stand there until they all die. This is how ridiculously they are outmatched in this game.

Since Biters were not challenging when what is? Game objectives? Alright, I built the rocket. What remains after that? Just do it again and again, researching ever more ridiculously time consuming recipes? It is more of a same. Sure, modders will come out with new stuff to do, but it all shall fall under the definition: "just the same, but more autistic" or in other words, you shall have unnecessarily complicated recipes those main difficulty shall be in how much time you are willing to sink in to complete ever more ridiculous requirements.

I'm not interested in that at all. I could set myself on a project like creating a computer which would judge the amount of inputs incoming and consumed. Then it would only input ingredients which are missing at the exact ratios which belt needs. I had made such system in my game already though, but never bothered implementing it on a larger scale though. However, I think that is the problem. I already solved what I wanted to solve. Applying this solution will just be inferior to what players are doing in regards to belt saturation. Yes, it would be cool, but for that purpose? It is not like I have an organic challenge in this game. All what I need to do is to expand my production. Things like I dream are just games versus to what this game was designed for. It feels that I experienced everything what in game mechanics have to offer me and I'm not interested in excelling at those mechanics. Come to think of, I do not think that I was ever interested in excelling at such mechanics.

When I play like Kerbal Space Program, I'm most excited in trying to make my contraption to work against all the odds. I still remember fondly go I went STRAIGHT TO THE MOON (rather than going around the Earth to make far more efficient use of fuel). I have fond memories how I landed on a moon literally on my engine, because I did not knew any better. I just love an idea that I landed there with something massive like that SpaceX project. I loved the idea that I had so much fuel to come back. Not like those panzies from NASA, calculating every drop of fuel for their safe arrival. Game motivates me with an idea to go to different planets. To construct unholy contraptions. I always have an idea to make two stage spacecraft. However, instead of having two engines, it would be two different launches. I would launch a space craft into the orbit. Then I would launch its engines. Then I would launch its fuel. I would also create a starbase where I could park everything and construct myself a spaceship which would have insane characteristics, because I did not needed to bring everything in one go from Earth. Stuff like this motivates me to play such games. That joy of discovery. That challenge of figuring stuff out. I feel that I figured out how this game plays and any additional content would be equivalent of doing the same thing, but for longer periods of time.

Fake difficulty barrier

I also disliked how this game presents itself. It is not particularly difficult game. Players get tons of freebies and once they figure out base mechanics, game isn't that incredibly difficult. If someone wants to flex playing 300 IQ games, they would not be playing this, but rather various puzzles which are hard all the time. This game was hardest initially, mostly due to how I would take the most extreme examples in this game and would brake systems in the ways they were not designed to be used. Sure, I could just built another track, but why should I? One track is perfectly sufficient. This is how I started at the hardest possible self inflicted level and after overcoming mid game, late game was rather simple and tiresome. It is all about just running around, adding more production and fixing whatever goes wrong in your Factory. People just blueprint their Factory layout and just add more of the stuff. Wow, it is so hard to press two buttons to double your production! How exciting it is to connect your blueprinted, self constructing factory to blueprinted transport network and putting ore extractors on ore fields. All player bases look similar to me and once you figure out how to construct for example, your metal smelters, what is the point of doing it again in a new run? This is what this game had become to me. Even if there were more difficult recipes, they all relied on producing even more base materials, but redirecting them to new recipe. How exciting...

Drags its feet

This game is really dragged out for longer than it needs to be. It raises resource cost for some of its techs for no reason. There isn't enough gameplay to maintain researching all the tech and white science tech. At that time game feels hollow which is no surprise that at that point you spent more than a hundred hours on a same map.

Entire game is like that. In order to do any task you need a lot of resources and production time. It is not enough to just build your Factory, but you also need to figure stuff up as you go. Game will throw different requirements as you progress, forcing you to redo your base over and over again. This is probably why most people never finish their base playthrough. I myself had to redo my base many times due to ever changing requirements both in recipes and amount of produce required. This really drags out the game and I felt that I was done with it dozens of hours before I finished it.

In the end

It is a great game. It was a fun experience and this is what gaming should be all about. I had great time with it, but game really overstayed its welcome. Game has an addictive quality which makes time fly quickly. However, it relies on player finding its own projects to complete if it wants to play for long time. Community for such games tends to be rather hardcore which actively alienates other groups of people. You are not encouraged to share and to have fun. It is all about optimising your fun out of your own game. Game itself had somewhat confusing direction with some things being simplified too much while others remaining overly difficult for a video game. It is also lacking on its own in many regards without mods and I saw ton of various odd behaviours which I generously considered to be bugs.

In the end, this is game for more serious and dedicated player. For more casual players I would probably recommend Satisfactory which is the most popular Factory type game with pretty graphics and all that. Factorio is for more hardcore player which wants to emerge itself to countless hours of playing with mods since more simplistic game engine gives way to purer gameplay and easier modding of new content.

[Galileus]

I have no idea what you expected of this game... It has to be realistic and more like you day-to-day work, full of repetitive and useless tasks just for "realism"? You complain biters are not a part of your game, but then complain you cannot move to whenever you want because there are biters? You complain this game does not require you to put time and effort into learning an actual programming language?

I'm sorry, but this seems like forced nit-picking to me. You end up saying that there are countless other great experiences, but all your problems with the game is that it's not slowing you down, forcing you to grind and filled with for-the-sake-of-being-there alternatives.

Most - if not all - of your nit-picks to me sound like they are smart and positive game development choices, and I can tell for sure I would not trust any game designed by you. Forcing player into repetitive task or punishing him randomly just because "REALISM!" and "they cannot be spoiled" is a red flag already, expecting them to pick up real-life programming language is just dumb.

I could agree map gen is uninspired and lazy. Perlin clouds are so 1980's.

[puschit]

I stopped reading after a couple of paragraphs because I spotted so many false assertments:

Solar panels do NOT work at night! Even your screenshot shows production drops to zero.
Solar panels are also not OP bencause they need so much space and yield so little energy. They seem good midgame if you are playing the first time setting up a mini base but anything beyond that is a p in the a.

The factory does NOT "just continue without power"! Belts do and of course everything that is powered by burners. The rest is slowing down proportionally to how much power is left. If you have nothing but solar panels it WILL shut down.

You also claimed that coal power plant produce no pollution which is NOT true! The actual steam engine doesn't pollute but the coal burning part DOES produce pollution. In fact they are the top pollutors of your factory next to miners!

Since all your conclusions base on these falsehoods I stopped reading because argueing is pointless then.

[Nightbringer]

Like I had mentioned, it gives a lot of freebies to a player. Conveyor belts do not need to be powered. Electricity generation is simplified to the point of it being trivial. There are no by-products and waste to worry about. When I played this game, those simplifications immediately struck me out. I was expecting more challenging game when it comes to planning and designing phases.

There is no need to defend a game. You know, you are not forced not to like game now, because I found some faults in it.

[juliejayne]

There are a lot of settings that can be adjusted to make the game easier or harder. I think that you must have it set on a very easy level.

A couple of points though. Solar panels do NOT work during the night. That is why you need accumulators to store energy overnight.

Biters WILL attack unless you have them set on peaceful mode.

And don't forget this is a GAME not a Simulation. So yes conveyors work by magic, as do offshore pumps. But overall the devs have carefully crafted a game that is fun and continues to challenge.

If you want Uber hard, then there are plenty of settings to tweak or mods that make life much much harder.

[Galileus]

Originally posted by Nightbringer:

There is no need to defend a game. You know, you are not forced not to like game now, because I found some faults in it.

Thank you for letting me know addressing your complains is useless. I addressed your complaints honestly, if you cannot do the same, we have nothing to talk about.

Though, I will leave you with words of wisdom:

There is no need to love a game. You know, you are not forced to like a game just because it is good. And you not liking it does not mean it's at fault.

[Nightbringer]

Solar panels do NOT work at night! Even your screenshot shows production drops to zero.
Solar panels are also not OP bencause they need so much space and yield so little energy. They seem good midgame if you are playing the first time setting up a mini base but anything beyond that is a p in the a.

Solar panels do indeed work at night. They drop power generation to zero for like 2 hours and then they start powering stuff up again during the night.

The factory does NOT "just continue without power"!

I'm not sure where you get second part from. However, I do think that implied a similar point elsewhere in my post. Machinery in reality does not work at 50% efficiency if there is 50% of power which is unstable. It doesn't work at all or breaks. In this game it does. This is why solar power is so overpowered. There is no need to have stable supply of electricity.

While there can be some greater disruptions due to messing up of frequency how much stuff gets put on conveyor belts, it is nowhere as problematic. I could go full solar without any batteries without it being a worthwhile issue to me.

You also claimed that coal power plant produce no pollution which is NOT true!

Maybe you needed to continue reading, because I never said that. I said that it doesn't produce any trash.

[puschit]

If you spotted actual faults we could talk about them but you didn't. Instead you complain about things like this:
"I got burned in a tutorial where I made a factory layout where I was bottlenecked with manufacturing at the back end. So, I started making a layout which I could scale infinitely. However, it seems that 6 assemblers are a complete overkill for pretty much anything. So, I ended with a lot more manufacturing capacity than I needed and I just abandoned it."
IT WAS A TUTORIAL! It wanted to teach you a specific thing and that wasn't infinite scaleability. Why don't you finish a regular game and try your hands on a megabase or something, you'll need scaleability for sure! "I have enough of X" is a sentence a Factorio player say at some point but it will ALWAYS turn out to be untrue.

[Nightbringer]

Originally posted by puschit:

If you spotted actual faults we could talk about them but you didn't. Instead you complain about things like this:
"I got burned in a tutorial where I made a factory layout where I was bottlenecked with manufacturing at the back end. So, I started making a layout which I could scale infinitely. However, it seems that 6 assemblers are a complete overkill for pretty much anything. So, I ended with a lot more manufacturing capacity than I needed and I just abandoned it."
IT WAS A TUTORIAL! It wanted to teach you a specific thing and that wasn't infinite scaleability. Why don't you finish a regular game and try your hands on a megabase or something, you'll need scaleability for sure! "I have enough of X" is a sentence a Factorio player say at some point but it will ALWAYS turn out to be untrue.

Uhm, are you aware that this is my experience with a game and impressions I got with it?

You come to defend its faults without realising:
1) I'm sharing my experience;
2) You did not even read the post which you are critiquing;
3) You are assuming that a personal taste is objective metric;

This is why your comments are so completely off the point. You do not know even what you are arguing against.

[Nightbringer]

Originally posted by Somewhat Frontal Admiral:

Originally posted by Nightbringer:

There is no need to defend a game. You know, you are not forced not to like game now, because I found some faults in it.

Thank you for letting me know addressing your complains is useless. I addressed your complaints honestly, if you cannot do the same, we have nothing to talk about.

Though, I will leave you with words of wisdom:

There is no need to love a game. You know, you are not forced to like a game just because it is good. And you not liking it does not mean it's at fault.

You do realise how you come to other people with being defensive and combative straight from the start?

Maybe ''faults'' were a wrong word to use by me. However, I'm sharing what I liked and disliked and these are faults to me while other people might like game exactly for these faults.

Your problem is that you do not understand that taste is subjective. You should not argue with people about it. You should learn to accept that people are entitled to their own opinions and that is fine. You can have your own views and I can have my own without an urgent need to immediately discredit someone just because they think differently than you. Your initial comment was a subjective, contrarian arguing against me out of an instinct. This is why it was received so negatively by me.

[brian_va]

trees are commonly called the enemy as they stand in the way of expansion; you have to either chop them down or blow them up or something

and while you are correct that power generation can cut out without any consequences (expect for laser defense from attacks), your production will slowly fall as the power output of the panels fall, eventually going out completely, then slowing building back up. if you are fine with the downtime, so be it.

it would be interesting to read an update about your experiences and how they may or may not have changed once you get to the point of launching the rocket, if you remember.

[RiO]

Originally posted by Nightbringer:

Solar panels do indeed work at night. They drop power generation to zero for like 2 hours and then they start powering stuff up again during the night.

Barring the fact that the real-life process goes flat a lot earlier due to minimal thresholds needed to produce actual noticeable power, the observable process is to a lay person essentially the same. Panels produce at their best at high noon and slip off into reduced output in the twilight and early morning; and only go truly 100% dead in those few hours where it's complete night time.

As a game, Factorio of course takes some creative liberties and abstracts out some of the nitpicking and exact details to provide a streamlined and above all playable and fun experience to most.

If you're looking for a more die-hard experience, then there's mods for that.
Want by-products? Then play a total conversion like Nullius[mods.factorio.com]. Or play Angel's[mods.factorio.com] or Pyanodon's[mods.factorio.com] mod suites.

Want a different way of handling power that may feel a bit more realistic to you?
Then use Fluidic Power[mods.factorio.com]; or Power Overload[mods.factorio.com].

Originally posted by Nightbringer:

Your problem is that you do not understand that taste is subjective.

In turn, you should also understand that aside from the fact whether taste is subjective or not; as soon as you start mentioning objectively wrong facts; or mention your own experiences as a fixed fact, you invite back critique on that.

You claimed solar panels always produce power. They don't. You later had to double back on that and move the goal post on what you originally stated.

You stated as fact that the game doesn't model waste. It does; that's what pollution models. Both aerial as well as soil & ground water. This is why bodies of water also discolor.

You stated your own experience with biters not engaging you as some kind of given fact as well; right down to painting the entire mechanic as broken and non-functional, no matter how high you configured biter aggressiveness in game settings.

[Galileus]

Originally posted by Nightbringer:

Your problem is that you do not understand that taste is subjective. You should not argue with people about it. You should learn to accept that people are entitled to their own opinions and that is fine. You can have your own views and I can have my own without an urgent need to immediately discredit someone just because they think differently than you. Your initial comment was a subjective, contrarian arguing against me out of an instinct. This is why it was received so negatively by me.

Jesus, not this gaslighting BS again.

Like I said: There is no need to love a game. You know, you are not forced to like a game just because it is good. And you not liking it does not mean it's at fault.

Plenty of games I appreciated for what they did and considered great... and greatly disliked.

As long as you don't try to pretend you disliking something means this something is at fault, I have no problem with it. As much as you pretend I do.

[Pumpernikkeli]

Not sure how frowned upon it is here, but it really sounds like Captain of Industry is made for you and I think it's fair to at least mention it. No freebies, all things need something to keep working, failures can cascade into total collapse. Waste, byproducts, pollution need to be handled. More realistic production chains.

[brian_va]

Originally posted by Pumpernikkeli:

Not sure how frowned upon it is here,

only time a mod pops in is when something gets reported; there's almost no supervision.

[Hedning]

Originally posted by Nightbringer:

This is peaceful building simulator

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2949201826

Peaceful eh, pollution small eh? OK that's your pollution cloud. Here's part of mine:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2938557784 Quite the difference, don't you agree? My biter and pollution settings are default on that map.

You should be a bit more humble and not make judgments about things you don't yet understand.