Should I Buy Factorio?

[cheesebellies]

Here's the deal. I've been looking at this game, and I've heard a lot of good things about it. I've heard it being called crack, and I've seen people with thousands of hours in this game, but I still don't know if it could be for me.

You see, the problem is past experiences and limitations. The two main things are:

1. I've played Satisfactory, a similar game to factorio, but dropped it after around 50 hrs (I think,) because I kinda got bored.
2. (the main reason) I only have one hour a day to spend on games, and I'm not entirely sure what that means for game enjoyability.

If anyone has any insights regarding the two main things I foresee that might make this game unenjoyable for me, please share them.

Thanks for the help.

[DCYW]

Basically Satisfactory is 3d version of Factorio, so get what you please. Dunno really.

I reckon both as enjoyable.

[Roxor128]

I haven't played Satisfactory, so I can't comment on the first point.

It takes around 60-80 hours to launch your first rocket in Factorio (though the game has an achievement for speed-running it in under 8 hours, should you ever get good enough (which I'm not)). If you're only playing for an hour a day, it'll take you a couple of months before you finish it for the first time.

Part of the addictiveness is that there's always new things to make, or you spot a better way to do something you're already doing.

[kevinshow]

well if you get even 50 hours from Factorio, will you consider that a good time investment into the game? Based on your profile you had about 100 hours in Satisfactory, though some of it may be AFK

with 1 hour a day, you were still able to keep going in Satisfactory. You may find a similar play time and progress with Factorio.

If you only want to finish the game in the freeplay mode, that can be done in 30-100 hours, depending on how you build and your progress on the same map. In other words, don't keep restarting.

But if you like it enough and keep playing after you finished the first goal of the freeplay mode, or you want to repeat the freeplay to do better, or you want to play some mods, then that's where the potential 100s or 1000s of hours comes in.

What would be your break point where you think amount of time you've spent playing it, was worth it?

[DCYW]

Originally posted by navorskatie:

well if you get even 50 hours from Factorio, will you consider that a good time investment into the game? Based on your profile you had about 100 hours in Satisfactory, though some of it may be AFK

with 1 hour a day, you were still able to keep going in Satisfactory. You may find a similar play time and progress with Factorio.

If you only want to finish the game in the freeplay mode, that can be done in 30-100 hours, depending on how you build and your progress on the same map. In other words, don't keep restarting.

But if you like it enough and keep playing after you finished the first goal of the freeplay mode, or you want to repeat the freeplay to do better, or you want to play some mods, then that's where the potential 100s or 1000s of hours comes in.

What would be your break point where you think amount of time you've spent playing it, was worth it?

I on 10k hours.

[Galileus]

1. Satisfactory and Factorio are widely different. They share similarities like Quake and Arma do - but play vastly differently.

2. I would say, as much as I hate to do it, that's probably a spanner in the works. It's one of these "one more turn" games and sessions can take a long time. While there is nothing stopping you from saving and quitting at any moment, you might get frustrated having to drop everything and trying to remember your train of thoughts again on the next day. It's not something that cannot be overcome, but personally, I would find that infuriating when playing Factorio - it doesn't separate into bite-sized chunks well.

End of the day - it's your call, but your time limitations might affect your enjoyment of the game negatively.

[knighttemplar1960]

Its very easy to lose yourself in Factorio If you can only dedicate 1 hour in a day you'll need to set an alarm clock to remind you to stop playing.

There is a free demo of Factorio that you can down load and play to see if you will like it or not.

[Shurenai]

1 I don't think will be a problem- I play both, and while I like satisfactory, I find myself getting bored in it a lot. Factorio though, I'm always enjoying- There's always more to do in both, but, in Factorio it changes the thing you're putting your focus into frequently enough that you never really get bored of any one thing.


2 could be a problem- But if you can sincerely put an hour in a day, every day, I think you'd like factorio. It doesn't even have to be every day- Just often enough that you don't forget the specifics of the project you were working on before.

However, As someone has already stated Most likely your first completion of the game will be in the realm of 80 hours. In spite of that, I think most projects in Factorio are small enough that you could reasonably complete them within an hour, letting you basically complete one important thing per play session- Especially once you get far enough to unlock construction and logistic robots.

Overall, I'd say yes the game is amazing. I think you should give the free demo a try, See if you enjoy the game for several sessions- If you do, I think it's worth a buy.

[Fel]

Compared to satisfactory, factorio is more about making a factory with simple parts and scaling it up to ridiculous levels.

You are not just making belts from one machine's output to the next machine's input, a belt can transport quite a few machines worth of materials and deliver them to several places that need them.

Basically, where satisfactory gives you many different machines and makes you do something that's more like a logistics chain (belts and power but nothing else), factorio gives you a lot more of the smaller parts and asks you to design what happens inside factorio's machines with inserters and the likes on top of the logistics.

If you decide to, you can go pretty deep into the rabbit hole that is optimisation with ratios, throughput and such but you can also play without minding those too much, which is pretty nice.

[GAMING_Alligator]

Factorio ... I only have one hour a day to spend on games.

Ahahahahaha.

[ExpoSensei]

I clocked 18500 hours so far... no 1 hour per day possible...

[ChillCore]

just try the demo and decide for yourself ....


just know that in the full game you can disable the biters and you'll have plenty of mods to make the game more intesting/compiocated to you

[ShutEye_DK]

Originally posted by ExpoSensei:

I clocked 18500 hours so far... no 1 hour per day possible...

Around 7h/day average since EA.
Sounds ... unhealthy :)

[Galileus]

Originally posted by ShutEye_DK:

Around 7h/day average since EA.
Sounds ... unhealthy :)

Average 19h/day past 2 weeks. Sounds... I will let the good people of the Interwebs make their own conclusions.

[Mason]

Y E S

I will admit the very beginning of the game is a bit slow, but once you get red and green science automated the game really starts to pick up.
Plus side, this game doesn't require a very good computer.
Heaps of mods as well.

Edit: And if you find yourself getting bored after 50 hours in Factorio, remember the purpose of this game is to automate EVERYTHING. Which should give you plenty of tasks to do for hell a few hundred hours probably, maybe more. Of course you always have the bugs to contend with as well, so you could always vanquish your enemies in endless conquest for more land.

[SilverBanshee]

So, my situation is somewhat similar, in that I encountered Satisfactory first and have played about 1100h of its early access. I really enjoy Satisfactory and it is the kind of game I can set an objective, achieve it and go on to something else and enjoy coming back when I can. I encountered Factorio while looking for other games like Satisfactory, and went back and forth before I finally bought it. On paper, it should be everything I love in this sort of game, but in practice, I'm having real trouble getting in to it. I've restarted games many times, but can't sustain the interest to build things out . YMMV, of course, but I think Satisfactory spoiled me a little for Factorio, and I don't find it as engaging, personally. I know that Factorio and Satisfactory are not the same, but broadly speaking they have similar goals and mechanisms for the gameplay loop,. If you got bored after 50 hours of Satisfactory, Factorio may not offer what you are looking for either. Also, if you have only one hour a day to devote to it, that may not be enough to get you into the more engaging part of the game - it certainly hasn't been for me. As a sort of left-field hybrid suggestion, you might take a look at Riftbreaker. It's a bit of base building, a bit of tower defense, a bit of research tree, and a bit of story progression wrapped in a pretty package. If your time is short, it might be worth a look . This is in no way a comparison to either Factorio or Satisfactory, but it does allow me to scratch that itch for a lower commitment - it still has some bugs, but for me that's overshadowed by the gameplay which can be pretty fun and frantic. Also, I believe there is still a Factorio demo you can try to check out the game play . I tried the demo before I bought it, so I must have seen something in that even though I appear to be struggling to find enjoyment now. Hope that helps