What's the replayability like?

[Mr Melon]

I've played the demo and really enjoyed it, i'm tempted to get the full game. But, as I understand it, the goal is to build the rocket and then you, well, "win". Is that it? What else is there to do? i see people with thousands of hours in this game and I'm unsure as to how you can get to that, I'd love to, but I just don't get how. If anybody can push me towards hitting purchase that'd be much appreciated :)

[luziferius]

It's your sandbox to build stuff in.
What you describe is the basic win condition, which gets you a nice "You win! Concrats!" window with some stats.

You can then go to build a megabase and chuck away at the infinite research levels
Or you go speedrunning, get the 8hr speedrun achievement. Try to get towards the 2hr world record.
You have basic logic blocks at your disposal (the circuit network), so wrap your head around programming with basic logic blocks and build computers with them or use them to build a smart factory.
Do challenge runs, like Deathworld with more and stronger enemies you have to defend against.
Or install one of several overhaul mod packs

[717]

sometimes i play factorio without actually running the game, by that i mean just thinking about better more efficient designs and all that. I have only around 200 hours.

Its true that goal is always the same, but how you achieve it is all on you, this is where your logic and creativity shine. There isnt one solution to this, your factory is unique (unless you steal designs from others)

For me personally its fun to come up with new and better designs than i used previously, so id say it has a lot of replayability, its a flexible sandbox. By the way, if you feel like it - you can keep playing after launching a rocket, theres even more extra stuff to do.

[Budmind]

also there are several overhaul mods which completely mix up recipe chains and add a lot of stuff, just to name a few: space exploration, krastorio2, seablock, bobs and angels, and many more.

if you liked the demo i can fully recommend getting the base game, beat it, expand your factory as much as you like, try out some of the many mods available and then get the dlc. replayability for me is endless, every few months i just start a new run, sometimes with vanilla settings, sometimes with deathworld setting, or a new overhaul mod.

this game has a lot of value for the money spend - provided you like solving logistical puzzles

[Universalgenie]

There is no need for replayability. You can spend thousands of hours in one playthrough :D

And if you like, you can optimize. And optimize. And optimize. In lategame you count rockets per minute.

[Fel]

All of the above, but also trains, it is one of those games with great trains that remind people of openTTD.

More importantly, the devs went out of their way to not funnel people in "one correct build", so there are quite a few ways to design your factory and none that are "best in all cases".

While it is not truly "easy to learn" because there are a decent amount of basic stuff you need to learn as you play, it still tries to follow the whole "easy to learn, hard to master".
This is part of the reason why people have hundreds or even thousands of hours in this one.

Plus, the devs went out of their way to make modding great and even fixed bugs that would only happen because mods pushed things outside of what the base game had, so there are quite a few good mods, from small quality of life ones to major overhauls.
And the best part is that mod compatibility doesn't rely on overwriting whole files and such, so it is much easier for mods to handle compatibility between each others.

Since the base game had a big update on monday, the majority of mods are still not updated for the new version, but the mod portal is much better than steam's workshop, allowing you to pick specific versions.
Together with the ability to select an older version for the game it is possible to go back to version 1.1.110 for example and have access to a lot of great mods if you want to jump into those before they update.

[Nellvan]

Yep, same as in every other sandbox building game: Technically you win by reaching some kind of goal, but for most people it's about the building and improving their designs, or about trying different approaches.

Specific to Factorio, the logic circuits and the trains are major rabbit holes that you can get lost in for a very long time.

[Gatebase]

It depends on what you want out of the game. Your first play-through is more of a puzzle game, where you work on good layouts and efficient logistics, learn ratios between productions, etc. So the first 30-50 hours the base game is a very creative process, an interesting game where you discover new things.
Once that is over the game transitions into made-up challenges that do not personally interest me. It's mostly rote repetition. You already have a book full of blueprints that you've figured out on your first play-through, now you just paste them down and scale up your through-put.
So if an incremental "make number go up" grind is the experience you're looking for, maybe something job-like like a farming game, then Factorio has good replayability. If you're in it for the discovery and the creative design process then Factorio has very poor replayability (there's a reason the majority of people eventually play modded games because the base game is super figured out after a few dozen hours).

[Haless]

Infinite? Just look at my gameplay hours lol

[YouTube.com/StoneLegion]

Replayability? Too much. Run if you like Factory games this game will suck your soul out of your body.

[Zaflis]

If you were to get the Space Age then launching a rocket is just a startup, only then the actual game begins.

But yeah if you run out of ideas in basegame then there are hundreds of mods.

[Nico]

The biggest amount of Replayability comes from mods, there are really many good full verhaul mods which more or less completely change the usual research tree and also change most recipes and add many new recipes. Even just trying out all of them once would take a really long time. And now with Space Age being released there probably will be new full overhaul mods in the future which utilize the new expansion content. There's a reason why many players playtime is in the thousands of hours, sometimes even much higher.

[Fletch]

Here is a video of some extreme Factorio skill: implementing PacMan game using Factorio's circuit network (a working PacMan game, with AI ghosts, etc). In my mind, you can burn thousands of hours anywhere between "launching a rocket" (the basic "win" condition) all the way up to implementing something hardcore like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VR_b9YwqH8

It's a sandbox game -- the replay-ability is infinite. If you enjoyed the free demo, purchasing the base game is a no-brainer. New players should not concern themselves with the DLC until they've spent considerable hours in the base game to know whether they want to "continue the journey" beyond launching a rocket.

[CptVodka]

Originally posted by Mr Melon:

I've played the demo and really enjoyed it, i'm tempted to get the full game. But, as I understand it, the goal is to build the rocket and then you, well, "win". Is that it? What else is there to do? i see people with thousands of hours in this game and I'm unsure as to how you can get to that, I'd love to, but I just don't get how. If anybody can push me towards hitting purchase that'd be much appreciated :)

Factorio is one of my top 5 most played games. I lose interest easily and change games often, yet i've managed to get ~450 hours put into factorio.
I'd say factorio is the kind of game where you really need to be in the mood to play, but also easily gets you sucked into it.

Last time i played was with the space exploration mod. I'm a bit of a perfectionist and usually don't care much about pace, so instead of speedrunning to space.. I spent ~100 hours before launching my first rocket. And that's pretty much just the starting stage of the mod.
So i can definitly see how people can spent thousands of hours :P

[Kyborek]

Factorio and replayability are basically synonyms. Seriously after 600 hours I have never launched the rocket in a vanilla game. There is plenty to do before or after you launch it, and then there are mods... They add so much content to the game, I think that space exploration alone takes like hundreds of hours to "win". It's like Silmarillion: one does not simply complete it, but one gets credits for trying.

Anyway I am off to space age and maybe do my first vanilla rocket launch... Weeeee

[Cyrlan]

This is a sandbox game, no campaign, no skirmish or victory condition. It is your own rules to play the game, replayability is already included in a Sandbox genre since you can do many things in just 1 playthrough and do different things on another playthrough, you already have an infinite ideas to go through with this game. Ask this question to other Factory games such as Satisfactory and Dyson Sphere Program. They will tell you the same answer.

The only problem for beginners on this genre is their reliability to play the game in long hours, you won't get the fun you expect by playing the game in just 6 hours, 12 hours, 24 hours even 48 hours of playtime, most of the beginner playerbase already quit at around 8 hours of playtime because they said it is boring, you will only see the fun when you are playing the game for over hundred hours and see the result of what you designed/