What am i missing?

[keatingfamily2001]

I really want to like this game but after playing 70 hours and watching dozens of videos my big takeaways are: 1) There is an incredible amount of micromanagement. 2) you have to memorize or look up ratios of hundreds of things to make things work properly. 3) There are useful mods that are difficult to install.

It doesn't feel like a game to me at all. It feels like a job. I already have a job. What am I missing?

[PleB Hitzgi]

The objective of the game is to have as little micromanagement as possible. At the beginning you sure do have a lot of it. Everything you can do, you can automate.

[Morsk]

There can be micromanagement, but also automation. You may be missing a way of reducing the micromanagement.

Ratios are optional, but most people do like them. They will let you make smaller builds if you're careful with them, but it's not needed. You can look them up on the Factorio Cheat Sheet, use a web calculator to find them, or just ignore them. Transport belts are so powerful that you can bring in extra production from elsewhere if something is under-ratio. Just leave enough space between builds for some extra belts.

You may be installing mods the wrong way, if you think it's difficult. The in-game interface is supposed to do all of this itself.

[knighttemplar1960]

1) There is only micromanagement at the beginning of the game when you must do many things by hand because you don't have either the technology required or the resources required.
2) You don't have to use ratios at all. You can simply over produce every thing and not worry about it. You can also just look at base production times and aim at a goal of producing 1 item per second and then look at making sure that all intermediate products required also produce at 1 item per second times the number you need per second which will work all the way until you start using modules and beacons.
3) Mods being difficult to install is not the fault of the game developers. Their goal is to produce a game that works in vanilla as they intended and that the players enjoy.

I used to do engineering and logistics as a job. It was fun for me so it was like I was getting paid to play. This is fun in that very way. If you don't like solving puzzles, if you don't like planning ahead, if you don't like building or changing things, if you don't like watching a set of machines running perfectly and you do like games that have a plethora of unresolved bugs, then you are probably playing the wrong game.

There are lots of RPGs, first person shooters, and clickers out there.

[BattleMouth]

Look up factorio calculator. You don't have to memorize the ratios.

If you don't like building things twice, just make a blueprint for it and save in a book. (Alt + B, make a book at bottom right)

[Fel]

Originally posted by keatingfamily2001:

1) There is an incredible amount of micromanagement.

There is surprisingly little micro-management involved unless you want to really dig deep into the efficiency, and you are really not forced into that, especially not before having a great understanding of everything else.

Originally posted by keatingfamily2001:

2) you have to memorize or look up ratios of hundreds of things to make things work properly.

Unless you want to go for what we call "mega base" which stretches the limits of what the engine/CPU can handle, it is absolutely fine to use very aproximative ratios and over-produce everything.
If you over-produce everything, the machines that are not needed full time will eventually pause themselves and stop consuming items until the demand for their product grows high enough for them to start working again.

Some simple ratios like 3 machines making copper wires feeding 2 machines making green circuits are good to know, at some point you will want to know how many mining drills and furnaces are required to make a full belt of iron/copper plates as well, but even those are not exactly required if you just use belt merging and splitting properly.

Originally posted by keatingfamily2001:

3) There are useful mods that are difficult to install.

There is no steam workshop, but there is an ingame tool that downloads and installs the mods you tell it to as well as their required mods, it can also update them (but only if you ask it to, not forcing you like the workshop).
There is also a manual way by downloading the mods from the mod portal and moving the zip files in the mods folder (and that's it, so not really "difficult" either).

Originally posted by keatingfamily2001:

It doesn't feel like a game to me at all. It feels like a job. I already have a job. What am I missing?

This can depend on the person playing, for me it's instead one of the games I go to when I'm a bit depressed or tired, making a factory that works well and watching it work for a while is something I find calming.
Having to focus also helps to put other thoughts to the side for a bit.

There is also the feeling of having acomplished something when you launch your first rocket even though your factory is full of problems and barely works while looking like a big mess of belts going everywhere.

[keatingfamily2001]

I had a bit of an epiphany today in that many of the videos I watched were from prior versions where the interface was different. People kept talking about pressing B and looking for an insert to copy a blueprint into your book and there was no button there. Obviously it was moved along the way.

I did not even see the in game mod installer until after I had already figured out the year 2001 manual way of finding a hidden folder in appdata and installing my first one there.

Now than i have the nanobot mod installed things are far less annoying. Seems like this is something that ought to be native to the game.

[AlexMBrennan]

Now than i have the nanobot mod installed things are far less annoying. Seems like this is something that ought to be native to the game.

You can certainly make that argument - the first 30min of gameplay is undeniably boring - but the devs have thus far resisted my suggestion to scrap burner tech and just give you 50 electric mining drills at the start.

But that is the good thing about mods - different people can get different things from the game.

[Nailfoot]

I, too, prefer using nanobots. I install that mod on every playthrough!

[Warlord]

Originally posted by Nailfoot:

I, too, prefer using nanobots. I install that mod on every playthrough!

I ought to give it a try then. I use a mod called Construction Drone. It adds a fairly cheap drone (some circuits and plates, I think) and gives you 10 right off. They use the Infotron model, and make cute chirp noises when dispatching. They are ground based, so a large number of them or a dense construction plan (anything using pipes) can cause some to get stuck or build in-efficiently. Still worth upgrading to construction bots later, but up until then it doesn't feel like a slog when you build big from the start.

Since I hardly hear mention of it here on the forums, perhaps nanobots are superior while also not feeling "cheaty"?

[Drizzt]

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

.....scrap burner tech....

i love burner inserters for my turret perimeter - coal on one side of the belt and ammo on the other - no need for electricity :-)

also 3 burner inserters, a burner drill and a box gives you maintenance free coal mining :-)
(and can be upgraded to add an iron smelter if you have a coal and iron patch next to each other)

but yeah - the beginning can be a slog, but...

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

But that is the good thing about mods - different people can get different things from the game.

indeed - and i much prefer using mods to add new features to a game than having a feature added to the vanilla game that i don't want

that being said i still have yet to use a single mod after 1800+ hours - am considering making one to see if i can lower the flickering of coal in the minimap - and as soon as i finally get the Lazy B*stard achievement i shall be having a go at Space Exploration and Krastorio 2

and i expect by the time i'm thinking about what to do next after that, the expansion will be on the way

good times :-)

[Nailfoot]

also 3 burner inserters, a burner drill and a box gives you maintenance free coal mining :-)
...

Just point the burners miners into each other! Itll only back up 50 coal per miner, but depending on your beginning factory scale, you'll need 10 or so burner miners anyway.

Just make a looping chain of them, each pointing into the next!!

[Nailfoot]

Originally posted by Warlord:

Originally posted by Nailfoot:

I, too, prefer using nanobots. I install that mod on every playthrough!

Since I hardly hear mention of it here on the forums, perhaps nanobots are superior while also not feeling "cheaty"?

I feel they are well balanced. They cost resources to build, and are consumed so you constantly have to make more.

Also, their speed and range can be upgraded, and they can be integrated to work with vanilla bots. They will cooperate on construction orders!

Eventually, of course, you won't use them anymore.

[Drizzt]

Originally posted by Nailfoot:

also 3 burner inserters, a burner drill and a box gives you maintenance free coal mining :-)
...

Just point the burners miners into each other! Itll only back up 50 coal per miner, but depending on your beginning factory scale, you'll need 10 or so burner miners anyway.

Just make a looping chain of them, each pointing into the next!!

yeah - but still requires to run past and empty them or they stall - the maintenance free one will just fill up the box while i do my first big run around the perimeter to locate biter nests :-)

[Fel]

I also am among the people that prefer the pre-bot stage and making a big burner stage mining/smelting operation is something I quite enjoy for some reason (I prefer it with the even distribution mod but that's another debate entirely)

[Nailfoot]

Originally posted by Drizzt:

Originally posted by Nailfoot:

Just point the burners miners into each other! Itll only back up 50 coal per miner, but depending on your beginning factory scale, you'll need 10 or so burner miners anyway.

Just make a looping chain of them, each pointing into the next!!

yeah - but still requires to run past and empty them or they stall - the maintenance free one will just fill up the box while i do my first big run around the perimeter to locate biter nests :-)

That is true. I've never needed more than 500 coal stored in the early phases of the game though.

I'm well into electric miners in the first hour of my playthroughs. At that point, the burners are only a backup, just to fuel the furnaces making plates for personal use.

Even that isnt really needed, as my starting factory makes plenty.

But that's the simple beauty of the game. There is no right way!