Scared of the learning curve

[RedHaze1911]

Can you compare it to a well known game? Civ? Total war? Surviving mars?
What am i in for? Those three games are the types ive played around with for a few hundred hrs and seemed to figure out. I mostly play immersive RPG games and im probably a high level casual gamer by skill. What am i in for? Whats some good advice to have a smooth start?

[Chindraba]

Best advise: play the free demo. It lacks much in comparison to the full experience of a full game playthrough, what with it being limited in how far you progress in the tech tree and how small the map is. Mechanically it is identical to the game in the so called "early game." The biters are a bit more of an issue there than in early game. I think that's intentional so you can "meet" them without taking forever to get the introduction.

[ManiacalManwich]

I was put off by the curve too at first. It really wasn't 'my type' of game- the 'depth' of something like Hearts of Iron or even Stellaris was intimidating. The tutorial is actually quite helpful here. Give it a try, there is a demo as Chindraba said. I've seen conveyor belts in my sleep lmao.

Edit: feel I should add this, I went from being sure this 'wasnt my thing' to currently having about 196 hours in it. So... yeah.

[Fel]

It's actually pretty simple to learn the basics, a few hours (between 2 and 5 depending on your previous experiences in most cases) are enough as long as you try to understand how belts, machines, inserters and power poles work.

The game's advanced concepts like ratios, throughput and efficiency are completely not needed for a new player and the base game has been designed in such a way that nothing of the stuff required to launch a rocket is particularly complex either.
Some later recipe chains might look daunting at first glance but as long as you start from the finished item and work your way backwards one step at a time they are not really more complex than the early recipes.

As for other advices, don't stress completing the tutorial, it isn't all that good at teaching the game and puts a heavy emphasis on combat.
Go for a "freeplay" map (the main mode in this game), possibly setting the enemies to peaceful if you don't want them attacking your factory all the time (it can be distracting enough to learn and try to design your first factory without the added pressure).

Also, leave a whole lot of space between machines that are not doing the same recipe.
You will need to route belts as well as add machines with the same recipe later to increase the production, so when you think it is enough space already, at least double it.

Belts show you the status of your factory pretty clearly, so once in a while have a look at their status to see if everything is working as intended.
For starters, belts shouldn't carry different items most of the time, and when they do it's only 1 type per side (belts have 2 sides/lanes).
If there are no items on a belt (or just a few zipping by), it means that you are not producing enough of that item, possibly none if there are no items moving on it at all, so it is easy to go look at the machines producing that item and the belts leading to them (it is possible that the problem comes from further up the chain and belts will tell you that visually).

If there are items but they are never moving (or very rarely), it means that nothing is consuming those items so the machines having that item as an ingredient might have an issue.

If there are items and they are moving regularly, it means that everything is fine (over-production is more than welcome in this game for this very reason).

And lastly if the items are constantly moving with no visible space between them, it means that you reached the maximum throughput/capacity for that belt and need another line or an upgrade of the belts.

It sound slightly confusing at first but you will quickly notice how the belts lead you to the problems in your factory.


Regularly put your mouse cursor over a power pole to see details about your current power network (clicking said power pole also opens a screen with more details about it), a fully filled green bar is good, a partially filled bar means that you are not producing enough and your machines/inserters are slowing down (so you need to produce more).


Of course the game does have complexity, plenty of it too, but none of that is required to launch your very first rocket.
You will take between 30 and 60 hours to do so instead of 5-10, and your designs will be atrocious (often barely working and messy belts weaving everywhere), but that is completely fine and mostly everyone had to go through that at least once (often a few times).
Once you are comfortable with the basics, you can start to think about things like better layout, basic ratios, how to better use all three logistical tools you have (belts, trains and bots) at your own pace.

And if/when the base game is too basic for you, there are plenty of mods that greatly complexify the recipe chains and technology tree, with the culmination of it being a collection of mods that can be called "for masochists only", and it is not just "stuff takes more resources to build" kind of complexity but many recipes having several products, meaning that you need to properly handle all of the products if you don't want the whole thing to stall.



TL;DR: Factorio's basics are fairly simple to learn and you can "clear" the game with a rocket launch without touching much of the complex stuff at all, but if you want complexity it also has plenty of it.

[knighttemplar1960]

If you can play the CIv games you won't have any trouble with Factorio at least after you learn the basics from a difficulty perspective. In Factorio each new tech you open takes basics from the previous techs you've unlocked. You'll find Factorio's tech tree similar to the tech trees in the Civ games. The difference is Civ is turn based and Factorio is real time based.

[ciel]

it's a little like sim city, but instead of building roads and houses for people, you're building belts and machines for resources. what they share is a gameplay oriented around resource management, and the challenges of trying to satisfy all of the needs of a neighborhood/factory with an efficient layout, avoiding bottlenecks.

my best advice is when starting out, don't be afraid to build assemblers that will make the basic building blocks for you (inserters, assemblers, belts) you can make them in your own inventory, but you'll save yourself so much frustration while learning if all you need to do is reach into a chest to get all the parts you need to build your next project. good way to get your bearings with how it all works.

my second advice is that 48 stone furnaces will use up the exact maximum throughput of a basic conveyor belt full of ore, so when you start building lots of furnaces, put them in a big row with 24 on either side of a belt - maximum efficiency!f

my third advice is don't be afraid to take something apart if it doesn't work. don't be afraid to sprawl and use up extra space. the game world is there for you to build on.

[brian_va]

with respect to surviving mars (haven't played the others mentioned), don't be afraid to let them suffocate or starve. there's no real penalty for productivity dropping to the floor; do it if you have to fix something. i suppose an exception is fighting off the bugs, but you can turn them off or deal with them easily enough.

for a smooth start? maybe turn enemies off and just mess around and see what you get. and then go from there for the next game.

[Fel]

Also, while not a tip for the game itself, don't be afraid to ask questions here even if they sound too basic.
The people around here are generally friendly and helpful when the person is genuinely asking to get some help (not some trolls and such).

[That Fish Guy]

Don't be scared, it eases you in, and before you know it you're in it's embrace, never to escape, never to find another like it.

The "learning curve" is very gentle, you'll have no problem going just one more step.

The pain is when you look behind you, not only to see how far you've come, but to cringe at how bad you were before (and clean up all the damn spaghetti!).

[Chindraba]

Originally posted by That Fish Guy:

Don't be scared, it eases you in, and before you know it you're in it's embrace, never to escape, never to find another like it.

The "learning curve" is very gentle, you'll have no problem going just one more step.

The pain is when you look behind you, not only to see how far you've come, but to cringe at how bad you were before (and clean up all the damn spaghetti!).

The real "pain" is when you look behind you at the spaghetti and realise that spaghetti is the only thing you've eaten in 24 hours. It can get to the point that making a cheese sandwich takes too long.

[Alshain]

Just don't go into expecting to win your first game. At some point you will likely get overrun by the enemies and have to learn from your mistakes and go again. It has a good challenge but it's a rewarding one.

[radkid10]

Originally posted by RedHaze1911:

Can you compare it to a well known game? Civ? Total war? Surviving mars?
What am i in for? Those three games are the types ive played around with for a few hundred hrs and seemed to figure out. I mostly play immersive RPG games and im probably a high level casual gamer by skill. What am i in for? Whats some good advice to have a smooth start?

turn biters off and this mess around and get the basics down you could YOLO your way through or you can watch some YouTube videos on how to play I'm sure there's quite a few beginners guides for this you could also play the demo of this game it's basically the tutorial before you buy it so if you think it's too complicated you don't have to get it

I think the game is easy to understand but difficult to master

[Khaylain]

Originally posted by Alshain:

Just don't go into expecting to win your first game. At some point you will likely get overrun by the enemies and have to learn from your mistakes and go again. It has a good challenge but it's a rewarding one.

A note on this, I think new players should consider whether they want to just play without biters to begin with just to learn some of the concepts without the threat pushing at them. Get something like 5 hours in and then start a new game with biters on. Or just run them as peaceful in the first one to have the option to go out and fight them.