
What is interesting about Factorio - ivee
http://fuseki.net/home/WhatIsInterestingAboutFactorio.html
======
fouc
As someone that stopped playing games in university, I've found it weirdly
hard to get back into games many years later.

Factorio seems like the type of game I would've liked as a teenager, but now
it just feels like work to me.

As do most interesting games. It seems like there's a learning curve to games
that I don't want to spend the time dealing with anymore.

~~~
spyckie2
I understand the need to treat life as a dichotomy between work and play, but
I feel you might have lost some of the magic of your childhood. For me it's
the opposite, I hated complex games as a child but really enjoy them today.

For me, the best feeling is working hard for something and really getting into
the details and enjoying all the complexity of the experience / challenge.

I think that most human beings are wired to enjoy this kind of activity if
they can get past the energy activation barrier.

I've been in situations where I did not value the above. Looking back, I
believe I was:

\- too mentally drained to enjoy anything

\- any free time goes to diving into Random Access Media (reddit, hnews,
youtube, etc)

\- Never feeling full of energy or excitement and unable to find meaningful
recharge

I saw a psychiatrist and got diagnosed with depression (systematically defined
as not wanting to do anything at least once a week). Since then I've taking an
active approach to monitoring and improving my mental state. Specifically:

1\. Identifying true energy restoring activities: 3 of them are - 1) engaging
in conversations where there's a decent amount of laughter 2) Sleep / naps and
3) exercise

2\. Identifying energy traps - things you do when you have no energy but don't
restore energy. Several examples: 1) Netflix, 2) social media, 3) reddit, 4)
youtube

3\. Figuring out my mental health dietary needs (what is it that you're
longing for that is unconsciously affecting your decision making) and making
active plans to get them in a regular way. This could be social validation,
laughter, new engaging experiences, feelings of accomplishment or accolade,
etc.

Instead of feeling like I don't want to do anything when I wake up, I more
often find life as exciting and looking forward to the challenges and new
experiences of each day. And yes, I enjoy Factorio a lot when I have the time
to play (which is rare).

~~~
burntoutfire
> 2\. Identifying energy traps - things you do when you have no energy but
> don't restore energy. Several examples: 1) Netflix, 2) social media, 3)
> reddit, 4) youtube

So, do you avoid them now? If so, what do you do when you're tired after work?
It's hard to feel entire afternoons with exercise, sleep and conversations...

~~~
panta
Not the OP, but for me energy restoring activities are “active” ones, like
hobbies where you create/build something. Working on a painting, photo,
sculpting, writing, working on a side project, playing intelligent games with
your dog, ... Passive activities, like consuming TV or Netflix or worse social
networks, at least for me are draining my energy levels.

~~~
lonelappde
By they definition, isn't going to work an energy restoring activity?

~~~
aleksaxyz
A hobby is something you go out of your way to do because of personal passion.
If you approach your job like it's a vacation, then probably.

------
piercebot
> Isn't it amazing that someone could do something for 100 hours and not think
> about obvious improvements, and not even wonder if they've been setup?

I have co-workers like this: people who don't bother to learn the tools of*
their trade and waste dozens of minutes every day.

Taking the time to master your tools is a COMPOUNDING benefit and, at the risk
of sounding inflammatory, is the type of activity that creates "skill gaps"
between regular and "10x engineers."

~~~
kryogen1c
> Taking the time to master your tools is a COMPOUNDING benefit

this is problematic, and the problem is made obvious when you take this fact
to its natural conclusion.

are you juggling credit cards to simultaneously maximize the benefits of
opening new cards with promotional offers, limiting your interest rates, and
maximizing your credit score?

have you investigated the air quality of your working and living spaces? do
you know the optimal concentrations of O2 and CO2? do you have plants around
you that provide other benefits besides air quality? do you even know what
those compounding benefits are?

what about your spinal posture? do you know about wrist shoulder hip and knee
angles? do you know how this impacts bloodflow and neuromuscular activation?
maybe you just run and/or stretch for 30 minutes a day and call it good
enough?

> I have co-workers like this: people who don't bother to learn

no matter how smart you are, youve got finite bandwidth and a finite time to
spend it. everyone picks most things they dont bother to learn.

~~~
danielecook
I agree that people have finite bandwidth but we are talking about people
investing in skills that are useful for the primary function of their job.
It’s the first thing to consider if you want to improve your productivity at
work.

~~~
kryogen1c
>useful for the primary function of their job

the number of things that affect your job performance are endless and it is
arbitrary where you choose to stop improving. not only is it arbitrary where
you draw the line, its arbitrary that you chose to optimize your job in the
first place. these things are non-self-evident choices based on personal and
societal feelings rooted in first-principle thinking about the meaning of
existence.

"invest in your exponential job growth" glosses over some pretty significant
life choices that are more important to recognize than saving 30 minutes a day
at the office.

~~~
klmadfejno
This reads to me like someone telling you that you could shave 30 minutes off
your commute, and then justifying that you don't have time to look at a map.
Plenty of things are very easy to learn with large payoffs; some of which are
so basic and so necessary that it is criminally negligible to proceed with
such vast incompetence for someone in the trade.

E.g. doctors spending no time to learn about new drugs and prescribing them.

------
percentcer
I think the biggest hook for Factorio is that it's an _actual_ visual
programming language. So much of what we do day to day ignores this
(dominant!) mode of perception. It's extremely refreshing to be able to simply
look at a system to reason about it.

(as an aside, I think this is also why the Zachtronics games are so effective)

~~~
Polylactic_acid
I seriously struggle with factorio, You have to have a seriously good planning
ability to create something that doesn't instantly turn in to a spaghetti. I
always end up having to scale up things and then having no room. I find text
based programming to be much much simpler. If I need to add more somewhere, I
can, my text editor will push everything else out of the way.

~~~
kccqzy
> have a seriously good planning ability to create something that doesn't
> instantly turn in to a spaghetti

If you only design factories from scratch by yourself, that's akin to being
handed an assembler programming manual as your only reading material and
building up every programming abstraction yourself. You likely won't discover
the best abstractions.

After a while playing factorio I decided to watch experts play the game on
YouTube, and that's like a programming novice watching an expert. They know
how to create well-known patterns (especially with belt mechanics) and deploy
them readily. Watching these videos is like someone handing you a library of
programming abstractions your can put into your own code.

~~~
waynesonfire
at least on the initial play through, i think that would ruin the game for me.
i personally would prefer to discover the patterns on my own, or at least to
the best of my ability. it's tempting, but i've become aware that reaching for
the strategy guide tends to be a huge spoiler.

I picked up Pillars of Eternity a while back and couldn't get past the
character creation screen without looking up strategies for character
building. I couldn't get through the "it doesn't matter just pick something
that sounds good" block. Bad experience for me, ended up dropping the game
very quickly even though it has great ratings.

~~~
diegoperini
It's really hard to play a hardcore CRPG[0] like PoE if you haven't been
playing some similar games lately. PoE gives you everything the moment you
launch the game, then leaves you alone. This is intentional and really fun if
you already have the muscle memory for theorycrafting[1].

I find RPGs which let you rebuild your characters in the middle of the game
very approachable. They are good gateway drugs to get some familiarity with
the genre. Divinity: Original Sin 1/2 are good examples, I highly recommend
them. Any ARPG[2] will also do since they ask for less number crunching and
more reflex building. Many of them never allow you to set your character
before you progress in the game. Some JRPGs[3] are like that too (i.e Pokemon
games).

Find me on Steam if you need some good RPG recommendations:
[https://steamcommunity.com/id/diegoperini](https://steamcommunity.com/id/diegoperini)

[0]
[https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=CRPG](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=CRPG)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theorycraft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theorycraft)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_role-
playing_game](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_role-playing_game)

[3] [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/JRPG](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/JRPG)

~~~
klmadfejno
Divinity 2 is a really interesting one. The beginning of the game is utterly
terrible when you're just starting out. Almost all of the battles are out of
your league, there's very limited opportunity to get stronger, and if you're
not interested in stealing the most basic scraps of equipment, it's hard to
get anywhere in the game if you're not familiar enough with the battle
mechanics.

Great game, but probably one of the most unreasonably difficult starts of any
I've seen (relative to what seems to be the intended level of difficulty in
the game). I nearly dropped it because I couldn't find the few stupid
crocodiles that were killable after hours of walking around getting thwomped
by everyone. Which was really annoying because the characters have strong
personalities, so they say shit like along the lines of "let's go kill them
all" and then be pathetically underpowered.

------
Mengkudulangsat
This game made me empathize less and less with environmentalists. Forests are
an impediment to a transport network. Wildlife are pests. Renewable energy has
extremely low ROI.

~~~
ivankirigin
Solar + storage lowers your pollution and the pests.

I wish there were a way to restore the environment like planting trees in
order to also remove the pests.

~~~
abtinf
For a sizable factory, massive spaces must be dedicated to renewable energy,
which means obliterating lots of pests. And building the renewable
infrastructure--mines, crude pumping, transit, smelting, refining,
manufacturing, landfilling lakes, bot deployments, defense--are massively
expensive and polluting. By comparison, nuclear (or even coal!) is much easier
on the wildlife.

------
avalys
My computer gaming has been pretty modest for the past 6 or 7 years. An hour
here or there, mostly on the weekends. I don’t really get absorbed in games
that much anymore.

Factorio is something different. I started playing it on a Saturday morning.
Slept a few hours that night. When the sun started rising Monday morning I
realized I should probably try to get a little sleep before heading into the
office. Never had that experience before or since. Probably the closest I’ve
ever come to a “bender”.

------
jfim
> It's also extremely addictive to engineers.

Quite the understatement. Pretty much every engineer that I've introduced to
the game has played for at least 40 hours.

~~~
TaylorAlexander
Interesting. I used to play video games but now I mostly 3D print stuff and
design robots for fun. I don’t think video games are a bad use of time
generally, but I feel so good about doing actual engineering for fun that I’m
always a little surprised with games that are supposed to be fun for engineer
types. I kind of wonder why actually doing engineering for fun isn’t more
popular?

~~~
jfim
Certain game types basically are puzzles that are similar to the kinds of
puzzles one would encounter during engineering things.

Factorio is one of them, but other puzzle games such as topological ones
(Spacechem, Opus Magnum, Infinifactory, Molek-syntez), programming (Shenzhen
IO, TIS-500, Human Resource Machine, Silicon Zeroes) or logic ones (Baba is
you) kind of scratch similar itches.

As for doing engineering for fun, some of us are stuck doing rather boring
tasks at the office, and the idea of having a game that one can just put away
seems less daunting than having a code/hardware project that could potentially
sit uncompleted. Designing robots definitely is fun, although it requires a
fair bit of working space and tools.

~~~
TaylorAlexander
Well I guess the idea behind engineering at home for fun is that it doesn’t
have to be boring tasks. And I tend to work on completely unnecessary things
such that there’s no time pressure. That makes it a lot more fun and rewarding
than working at the office. Like I recently designed a pair of headphones from
scratch. They sound better than any of my other headphones which are all a bit
cheap. It totally didn’t need to be done so I could put it away whenever. But
it was lots of fun to dig in to. That feels more rewarding to me than a task
where all of my progress is virtual. I should say I’m not trying to criticize
others who play games, I’m just curious about it. Thanks for sharing your
thoughts.

~~~
jfim
That's pretty cool with regards to the headphones. Do you have a link to your
project?

I agree that it's really enjoyable to build physical things. I have one 3D
part that I've been meaning to print for a while, but without a 3D printer at
home it's a bit trickier to get it done. I wish I had a home workshop, but
Silicon Valley prices make that a rather expensive proposition. There's no
more TechShop either. :-(

------
raxxorrax
I bought the game on a hunch in its very early development. At some point they
introduced their weakly reports on development, which were extremely
interesting about the problems they were facing. Great developer and I love
how successful it became. It seriously deserves all the praise.

Even in very early development, when it still looked horrible, the core
elements were already a lot of fun. I am no game developer, but for everyone
that wants to go that route, I would seriously recommend reading their "friday
facts". And even if you are just a developer of the mundane, it is super
interesting.

~~~
mtreis86
The definitely set the bar for developers interacting with players. They
change things back when people don't like it. They fix problems quickly. They
keep everyone updated on what they have worked on recently, and what will be
worked on soon. No BS, no promises, no PR. It reads more like an internal dev
blog than something you'd print, but I like it for that.

------
Netcob
I've played it for many hours, and the thing that still asthonishes me the
most is how incredibly efficient the code must be. While I haven't played with
that specific purpose in mind, I've never managed to create a factory big
enough where you'd notice a slowdown in the simulation.

Thousands of grabbers, trains, drones, belts, factories, aliens, environmental
effects, different sorts of networks, all with their own logic, and somehow
this game simulates it all like it's nothing. And it never crashed on me. You
can make amazingly intricate factories all you want, but the truly great piece
of engineering will always be the code that runs it all.

~~~
Filligree
The developers frequently blog about how they're doing it, often going into
immense detail.

Without spoiling too much, I have no qualms about calling them some of the
best in the industry. The entire industry, that is, not just in games.

~~~
orangefarm
Their blog posts are great. They sometimes blog about really obscure parts of
game development. It’s interesting to read even if you are not building games.

~~~
keanzu
...and here they are: [https://factorio.com/blog/](https://factorio.com/blog/)

------
ashtonkem
Factorio is probably one of the best $$/hr values outside of Dwarf Fortress,
which is free.

It’s also basically engineering catnip, consider yourself warned.

For those who are interested, it’s the stated goal of the devs to never put
the game on sale. They think it’s worth $30, and they intend to sell it for
$30. So if you’re interested, don’t wait for a sale, buy it now!

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I'd be interested in reading their analysis on price setting.

$30 is much more than it was 3 years ago. I've been waiting for a discount on
factorio. I guess I'll take it off my wishlist.

~~~
pixl97
>I've been waiting for a discount on factorio.

Don't unless the company is bought out. They will never discount the sale
price as it leads to the behaviour you just listed, people will only buy the
game when it goes on sale leading to low sales when said game is not on sale.

~~~
sharkdog
That is definitely not the reason why they don't go on sale. Sales are a good
business practice and they usually result in higher sales. They don't go on
sale simply because they want to be fair to their customers. They've said many
times that they are financially well off and that they don't need the large
amount of money that a sale can bring in.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
One might justify keeping the original ticket price as it being unfair to
early acquirers to lower prices but I don't find that a compelling argument;
people are usually happy to pay extra for novelty. The early acquirers get
something for paying the higher price.

Usually second hand goods draw prices of older items (ie less novel - shop-new
but not design-new) down. But quashing of secondary markets for software
allows prices to be kept high.

I have an irrational urge to acquire this 2nd hand now ...

------
xixixao
This is a good write-up, and the most interesting point is about self-
efficiency. It kills me to see software engineers not use multi-paste or
multi-cursors. But I agree this is “human nature”. I have totally proven this
to myself when I tried “lazy bastard” play through (the rule is once you
basically get the first assembling machine you’re not allowed to craft in
inventory). It wasn’t annoying, it was actually much more pleasurable and less
stressful, because I set up automated process for everything. That’s what
Factorio is about, and it is a very educational game (also a severe time
suck).

------
pmoriarty
For anyone here who's only played vanilla Factorio (ie. Factorio without
mods), you should really try it with mods.. the mods enhance the game in so
many ways (from eliminating annoyances, to making things more convenient, to
adding way, way, way more content).

I absolutely loved the base game, but the mods made it 10 times better for me.

~~~
squiffy
Would you have a small list of recommended mods for someone like me with ~50
hours in Factorio? Thanks.

~~~
pmoriarty
I don't know if you finished the game yet, but if you haven't, I suggest that
you do so before adding mods, just so you have a good feel for what the
vanilla game is like before you start changing stuff... it'll also give you a
sense of what you don't like or would want more of, and that'll let you more
intelligently pick mods.

That said, I'd divide mods in to several types:

First, there are convenience mods, which make certain parts of the game less
annoying or less tedious. Among those, I'd recommend:

\- Squeak Through - Lets your character squeeze through spaces that you
couldn't in the vanilla game. It doesn't sound like much, but it make a huge
difference and makes the game much less annoying.

\- Tree Collision - Similar to Squek Through, this lets you move through
forests easily.

\- Splatter Guard - Keeps you from getting killed by trains.

\- Repair from Inventory - Automatically repair items in your inventory.

\- Packing Tape - Lets you carry filled containers.

\- Fill4Me - Automatically fills things things like turrets with ammo when you
place them.

\- Even Distribution - An easy way to put the same amount of something in to
multiple entities (ex: same-sized batches of coal in furnaces).

\- Belt Reverser - One keystroke to reverse the direction of a belt. Much
easier than doing it by hand.

\- Atilla's Zoom Mod - Zoom out much further than you can in the vanilla game.
Also has keystrokes for quick zoom in/out.

\- Todo List - I couldn't live without this mod, which lets me keep track of
what I need to do.

\- Far Reach - Lets you manipulate far way items as if they were near by. This
could be considered "cheating" by some, but it makes the game much more
convenient. If you are concerned that the game is too easy this way, you could
always raise the difficulty with other mods.

\- Where Is MyBody - When you die a line will be shown on the screen pointing
to your body, so you can find it more easily and get your inventory back.

\- What is it really used for? - A nice way to find what items are used for
(which the vanilla game does not tell you.. it only tells you how to craft
items).

The second category of mods is one that adds major features to the game and/or
lots of different items. In this category, I can reommend:

\- Factorissimo2 - adds "factory" buildings that can contain other buildings
(including, if researched, more "factory" buildings). This is very useful for
packing a lot in to a little space. If you're constantly running out of space
this could be a good mod for you.

\- Bob & Angel's mods - if you want a trillion intermediate products to extend
the game

\- Yuoki Industries - lots of strange, different items and intermediate
products that feel very different from vanilla

Finally, if you found the vanilla biters too easy and want more combat, I'd
recommend the Rampant mod, which makes the biters smarter and tougher. If you
find Rampant too hard, you can dial down the difficulty in its options and/or
install some other mods that give you more powerful weapons.

Ok, so this wasn't a small list of mods.. but I couldn't narrow it down any
further without feeling like I'd left out some crucial mods. Hope you find
something here that interests you.

~~~
DpThought0
Thanks for this! I haven't played in a while, and have been meaning to get
back into it.

------
nixle
I find myself playing factorio every few months. I play and play and play
until at some point i realize that I'm fooling myself: Adding that extra steel
production plant, with all the blueprinting, train routing and refactoring
that is involved... I'm no longer escaping work. Actual Work now seems like
less effort. And that's when I'm cured for a few months.

------
proc0
Factorio is the DOOM of factory games. It has spawned a new Genre that is a
blend of RTS like StarCraft, and city builders like City Skylines, HOWEVER it
adds a crucial element to distinguish it from a simple mashup of genres -
automation. Only after Factorio are we seeing automation factory games, like
Satisfactory, recently Industries of Titan.

Automation is truly a genre on its own. It's just about growing your economy
by removing yourself from the equation. It's about how efficient and scaleable
your base is, both which revolve around automation. Unlike RTS or 4X city
builders, the quality of your automation will determine how fast your grow and
how long you survive.

------
billfruit
One annoying aspect in Factorio in the short time that I have played it was
that there is a player character, who needs to move to each location before an
object can be placed there. It adds a degree of tedium in building, if having
requiring the player sprite to move about..

~~~
AgentME
The game does introduce a few ways to deal with this: there's cars and trains
for getting around fast, but also you can command construction bots from any
distance if they're in an area with radar coverage. It is a bit limited, but
it does give some encouragement to create controllable long-range
contraptions.

~~~
7777fps
6 exoskeletons (yes, they stack) and a couple of personal nuclear power plants
and you can outrun cars and some trains for that matter.

------
djhworld
Absolutely blown away by how good Factorio is, fiendishly addictive, seemingly
endless possibilities.

I can see why it appeals to those with an engineering/tinkerers mindset.

Also from this post I just learned that Copy/Paste is a function in the game,
_sigh_

------
tdy721
Factorio is my current favorite train set. Community feedback and a very long
development cycle made it awesome.

You asked is it devils? But forgot the parts about nuking bugs. Shooting bugs,
killing all the bugs

------
billfruit
I haven't played it for long, but one thing I felt with Factorio and with the
Anno series is that there is no RNG. I feel it would perhaps be more fun with
an RNG element. Like, the assembly lines won't create identical items, but
there will be some statistical variability. Also sometimes total duds are
created that will cause problems downstream. Also random plant failures and
downtime. In my imagination it would be more exciting.

~~~
ecuzzillo
Angels & Bob's mods and/or Seablock might scratch this itch.

------
guardian5x
I can also recommend Satisfactory. Similar game with more immersion through 3d
world.

~~~
TheMerovingian
Only down side is that it can't scale to the levels Factorio can. (Only
applies to us that like to build massive megafactories).

~~~
TOGoS
Yep. I've enjoyed both, but I think it comes down to:

If your draw to the game is is your sense of connection with the place you're
in, Satisfactory probably does a better job of that, with the pretty scenery
and ability to build in 3D. Factorio's world feels very flat in comparison. I
wrote a bit about that and possible ways to make it less so in
[https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-309](https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-309)

If your draw is wanting to build very large, complex factories, constantly
pushing production to new limits, that is what Factorio excels at.

------
artche
If anyone is looking for an immersive game to play I would recommend
Subnautica.

~~~
djannzjkzxn
If you liked Subnautica, try Outer Wilds.

------
notthemessiah
One thing notable about Factorio's game mechanics is that crafting is
idempotent: the tech tree is a directed acyclic graph. If one is looking for a
different experience in which one thinks about closing manufacturing loops, I
would recommend Oxygen Not Included, where you have to sustain life amidst an
asteroid colony.

~~~
beesbuzz
> One thing notable about Factorio's game mechanics is that crafting is
> idempotent

What do you mean by this? You craft a thing once, you have one thing. You
craft it again, you now have two things. That doesn't sound idempotent to me.

~~~
7777fps
I think idempotent wasn't a good word but I think the idea being described is
that crafting is acyclic.

For example Copper Wire + Iron = Green Circuit.

There's no recipe chain that takes in Green Circuits and produces either Iron
or Copper Wire.

So once produced, you need to find a higher function for your products. You
can't 'unmake' through a cyclic recipe.

Contrast that to ONI's water cycle, where clean water gets made dirty then
cleaned again.

So ultimately in Factorio everything is leading toward the only resources that
get destroyed - Science, Rockets, or Coal (or other energy types).

~~~
pmoriarty
_" There's no recipe chain that takes in Green Circuits and produces either
Iron or Copper Wire. So once produced, you need to find a higher function for
your products. You can't 'unmake' through a cyclic recipe."_

There are Factorio mods that will give you access to recycling machines that
will let you get back the ingredients that went in to making whatever it is
that you put in to them.

So Factorio's recipes can be fully cyclic, if you want.

------
winstonewert
WARNING: stay far away from this game... way too addictive. I've lost so much
time to it... you have been warned!

~~~
scotty79
Was it really lost? Can you imagine yourself on your deathbed regretting that
you played Factorio?

~~~
Faark
I hope I'm not even half the way to my deathbed and already regret how much
time I spend on games (and the knock-on effects).

It's not that playing games (incl Factorio) doesn't feel satisfying. But the
time we have is pretty much the only finite thing in life and thus what we can
do is limited. Spending time somewhat deliberate seems like a good idea.

Again, that doesn't mean playing games is bad. It can be a great source of joy
and broaden your horizon, just like other media. But moderation is key.
Spending time in ways that allows us to meet people/ learn skills (we might
even use professionally)/etc will probably have a bigger impact on our lives
down the line than the 2000th hour of playing Factorio.

~~~
scotty79
You regret it now when you have more than half of your life ahead of you. But
when you have nearly all of it behind you do you think you'll still regret it?

I don't think I will.

~~~
Faark
What do you think you will regret? Is it not something that could have been
changed with more time? Or are you trying to imply you won't have any
regrets... and wouldn't that make the question kind of meaningless?

As for me, that depends... I might end up a lonely bitter old man who
constantly/wistfully mourns the wasted potential cause of all the
whishes/goals I had but never worked on. Getting away from spending that much
time on games should make this scenario less likely. Thus my attempt to get on
a different path.

But yeah, your constraints of only thinking about past and present is kind of
interesting. That can pretty easily lead into the meaning(-lessness) of life,
but lets not open this can of worms for now.

~~~
scotty79
I think I'll regret not using more of my time to do things that bring me joy.
I think I'll regret the times in my life when I was doing something other than
exactly what I wanted to do that moment.

I can't be sure though because at 41 I don't regret time spent working because
it wasn't that bad and money earned allowed me to have a lot of fun gaming.
Also I don't regret time spent with people. So I can't be sure if I regret
anything on my deathbed, other than that I don't have more time to enjoy
things. I'm pretty sure I won't regret wasted potential, because I know how
unique it is to realize it in any spectacular manner. I could as well regret
not winning the lottery, and I'm at ease with that.

My life might be meaningless in any objective sense. But some people have
drawn some utility from it and it's absolutely meaningful for me because I'm
the one living it. It's the only thing I got and I'll never have anything
else.

~~~
Faark
Your life experience seems quite different from mine. When you describe
someone as "doing only exactly what he wants to do in that moment", I'd
imagine something quite different. A heroin addict. Someone excessively
overweight. A kid never doing house-/homework. Or, well, someone playing video
games excessive amounts of time.

The thing I wouldn't picture is moderation. Or awareness of long term
consequences.

Again, most things that feel good are fine, as long as done in moderation.
What you describe doesn't sound excessive at all, so sure, play more. Sounds
like you've got the foresight to understand the trade-offs and hopefully have
the willpower to not let it get out of control.

Since once it's out of control and you spend 14h/day on games and media for
years straight, getting yourself back to normal can be quite hard and require
external help.

> I'm pretty sure I won't regret wasted potential, because I know how unique
> it is to realize it in any spectacular manner.

"spectacular manner"? I feel you're overestimate my standards. It's more a
case of "I justified that excessively expensive GPU in 2008 not with gaming,
but wanting to do _more_ GPU programming. So why is the best thing I've got to
show for the last decade a (nearly finished) CS bachelor?".

I understand to have many years ahead of me. And all of that might leads me to
a great path with a happy ending. But right now I'm certain having played less
would have made such a path more likely.

~~~
scotty79
> When you describe someone as "doing only exactly what he wants to do in that
> moment", I'd imagine something quite different. A heroin addict.

Fair enough. But heroin addict wants to do heroin in every moment and nothing
else. While in my cases it varies wildly from moment to moment. At any given
moment I might want to play a game, talk to human, craft a response on
stackoverflow, read about some obscure database, build a prototype in language
I barely know, connect solar panel to LiFePO batteries, sculpt large ugly head
out of polymer clay, read online about covid19 related research, think about
how you can prove simple tautologies within axiomatic logic system, attempt to
fix a bug in a program I just started using, discuss philosophical ideas with
you, watch youtube video and then game some more. All of it just as useless as
heroine (although less harmful), but all of it something that I wanted to do
in that given moment.

> The thing I wouldn't picture is moderation.

Moderation comes from diversity of whims.

> I understand to have many years ahead of me. And all of that might leads me
> to a great path with a happy ending. But right now I'm certain having played
> less would have made such a path more likely.

I wish you all the best. When I was younger I had this urge that everything I
do should ultimately give some monetary benefit. Once I felt secure with what
I had materially this feeling subsided and I felt (bit aimless) freedom. Now I
just want to be as happy as possible. Even if that desire has nihilism as a
foundation.

------
skybrian
They should do a pandemic version where you make masks.

------
slothtrop
It looks like programming but in a more cumbersome fashion. I enjoy and
understand the appeal of puzzles (Recurse is a good game), but this is too
much like work.

~~~
wincent
It is intentionally cumbersome, at first, but as you master the technology
tree you get access to ever faster robots, blueprints, automation via the
circuit network, self-maintaining defenses etc. You can construct and
dismantle distant parts of the factory from the map view etc. Basically, you
journey from insignificance to near-omnipotence.

------
tasuki
The author might be interested in knowing that both the cofounders of Factorio
are dan-level go players.

------
ainiriand
My brother gave me this game for my birthday and, oh man... I couldn't stop
playing even though I was on a holiday trip. Now I have detoxed and I'm back
to having a life. One day at a time.

------
leonvv
Mindustry is a game similar to Factorio. It's open source and free to download
on the Play Store. Warning: it's super addictive

------
jbgt
Does anyone know what the website is made of? I like the simple markdown and
especially the tagging!

------
whatanattitude
Look up Satisfactory

~~~
013a
Satisfactory is interesting in its own way. It'd be easy to initially think
that its the better/easier game to get into for someone who hasn't played a
game like this before, but I'd argue the opposite. The three-dimensionality
introduces logistical insanity that is startlingly difficult to wrangle, and
the first person viewpoint makes planning the factory floor very difficult.
The terrain is also a constant challenge, whereas the terrain in Factorio is
generally pretty easy to work around.

But, the world design is totally incredible; it begs you to explore every nook
and cranny, and its non-random, so you can link up with friends and share
secrets you've found. There's far more super-fun goodies to unlock, like the
hypertubes or bounce pads.

Its just different, and I think someone who enjoys one would enjoy both. I
tend to tell people to start with Factorio, though; its simple, yet infinitely
deep. After about 50 hours in there, you'll gain a new respect for some of the
simplified mechanics and fun-factor of Satisfactory; 50 hours there, and
you'll gain a deeper respect for the nefarious complexity of Factorio. They
complement each other perfectly.

~~~
GrumpyYoungMan
> " _The three-dimensionality introduces logistical insanity that is
> startlingly difficult to wrangle, and the first person viewpoint makes
> planning the factory floor very difficult._ "

As a former player of the Tekkit mod for Minecraft, the three-dimensionality
is what I miss. As good as it is, Factorio is so disappointingly _planar_ ,
despite the tools they give you to manage belt intersection and materiel
transfer.

~~~
013a
One of the big advantages Minecraft, and Factorio, have is their strict global
grid system. Factorio's is two-dimensional, Minecraft's is three-dimensional,
but they both have one.

Satisfactory does not have this global grid. It does have very limited local
grids, when you lay down foundations, but even these are less powerful than
the grids on Minecraft/Factorio.

This makes every stage of logistical planning more difficult, which is both
good and bad. Highly organized Satisfactory factories are, visually, more
chaotic than highly organized Factorio factories. But, they can also be more
satisfying to look at; from chaos emerges beauty, against all odds.

------
timwaagh
You know what else is interesting? Their "no sales" sales philosophy. For me
its the reason never to buy it. I actually revolt when I hear their reasons. I
feel like it comes down to: we are willing to hurt our options for making more
profit to prevent people with lesser budgets from buying it. But its very
interesting since a lot of people have the opposite reaction. They feel it is
more valuable if it doesn't go on sale and they can support the developer by
paying a 'fair' price.

~~~
notthemessiah
Factorio is a polished experience, with devs committed to bringing it not just
to completion, but to perfection (with performance, aesthetics, and balanced
gameplay). In contrast, most AAA games are bland experiences built under
sweatshops, and most Early Access games wind up half-assed or as abandonware.
If there's any game worth your money, it's Factorio.

~~~
timwaagh
I don't doubt that it's worth the money. I just dislike their attitude. If it
was a perfect fit for me, I'd swallow it and get it, sure. But thruth is I'm
only a very occasional puzzle gamer. So i'd probably not play it much or at
all. Also, let's not overgeneralize. I'm pretty sure a lot of indie devs are
effectively sweatshops too. They face much less regulatory scrutiny and people
tend to forgive them easily. Examples like Telltale and Riot tell us how ugly
things can get if they grow too quickly and continue operating that way. Which
doesn't mean factorio devs are that way too. there is just no way to know. It
also depends on the country. For example gaming AAA giant Ubisoft is French.
French regulations do not permit much in terms of unpaid overtime.

~~~
notthemessiah
> But thruth is I'm only a very occasional puzzle gamer. So i'd probably not
> play it much or at all.

Then why should you care about what the makers of Factorio do?

> Examples like Telltale and Riot tell us how ugly things can get if they grow
> too quickly and continue operating that way.

Do Factorio developers show any sign that they're "growing too quickly"?
Telltale took on dozens of contracts for games that showed no sign of selling
well, and Riot went public and were acquired and became Tencent's bitch. How
is any of that relevant to Factorio not going on sale?

~~~
timwaagh
> Then why should you care about what the makers of Factorio do?

As I said I find it very interesting how people respond to it. This whole
thread is an example why. That makes it interesting. Why Factorio? Why not
'Farming Simulator'? Theres other games like this too. For example Dominions.
You can't criticize that either without getting /significant/ pushback. What
do Dominions and Factorio have in common. I'd say they are both very hardcore
games that attract a certain audience. It reminds me of review wars when
coding. trying to find every little thing to nitpick on. People really butting
heads against each other for no good reason. The spite, the vindictiveness.
How we all get caught up in these arguments.

> Do Factorio developers show any sign that they're "growing too quickly"?
> Telltale took on dozens of contracts for games that showed no sign of
> selling well, and Riot went public and were acquired and became Tencent's
> bitch. How is any of that relevant to Factorio not going on sale?

It's not... The comment I was replying to was making other assertions. I would
also like to ask you to not use that word again.

------
umvi
I really want to play this game. I've put it on my wishlist 2 years ago, but I
swear, I've never seen it on sale! I wonder if it's because technically it is
still Early Access.

~~~
roel_v
It's $20. For a game you will spend 100's of hours on.

~~~
deathanatos
The price was raised a while back to $30.[1]

[1]: [https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/016-price-
change](https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/016-price-change)

(I purchased it for myself at the $20 price, but I've also purchased it as a
gift at the $30 price. I have _definitely_ gotten my money's worth.)

~~~
roel_v
Oh OK, I too bought it years ago at $20 - but still, that $10 doesn't
materially change my point.

------
jaggederest
I found

> There's gotta be some innate machine-focused "interest in things" that this
> is tapping. I've never taken apart or rebuilt a machine, but this gets me
> anyway.

fairly sad. Factorio is fun, but it's a pale shadow of the experience of
making even relatively simple machines work better or differently. Even
getting a 2-stroke motor that has a dirty filter running again is immensely
satisfying.

~~~
potatochup
Kinda. But then you don't have the right o-ring and the store is closed until
Monday. And you mixed up the BSF and UNC threads on your carbs. And the cloth
wiring is intermittently shorting out. Computers are nice in some ways.

~~~
teddyh
“The reason is that, in other fields, people have to deal with the perversity
of matter. You are designing circuits or cars or chemicals, you have to face
the fact that these physical substances will do what they do, not what they
are supposed to do. We in software don't have that problem, and that makes it
tremendously easier. We are designing a collection of idealized mathematical
parts which have definitions. They do exactly what they are defined to do.

And so there are many problems we don't have. For instance, if we put an if
statement inside of a while statement, we don't have to worry about whether
the if statement can get enough power to run at the speed it's going to run.
We don't have to worry about whether it will run at a speed that generates
radio frequency interference and induces wrong values in some other parts of
the data. We don't have to worry about whether it will loop at a speed that
causes a resonance and eventually the if statement will vibrate against the
while statement and one of them will crack. We don't have to worry that
chemicals in the environment will get into the boundary between the if
statement and the while statement and corrode them, and cause a bad
connection. We don't have to worry that other chemicals will get on them and
cause a short-circuit. We don't have to worry about whether the heat can be
dissipated from this if statement through the surrounding while statement. We
don't have to worry about whether the while statement would cause so much
voltage drop that the if statement won't function correctly. When you look at
the value of a variable you don't have to worry about whether you've
referenced that variable so many times that you exceed the fan-out limit. You
don't have to worry about how much capacitance there is in a certain variable
and how much time it will take to store the value in it.

All these things are defined a way, the system is defined to function in a
certain way, and it always does. The physical computer might malfunction, but
that's not the program's fault. So, because of all these problems we don't
have to deal with, our field is tremendously easier.”

— Richard Stallman, 2001: [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/stallman-mec-
india.html#conf9](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/stallman-mec-
india.html#conf9)

------
corecoder
I had stayed away from the game for fear of being hooked up, but decided to
give it a try when I was confined home, so I downloaded the demo. I really
wanted to like it, but I gave up after an hour or so, because I felt that the
game devs want me to be frustrated. Now, of course nobody likes frustration,
but I hate very much everybody who wants me to feel bad.

First of all, I was expecting a sandbox game, and instead I got objectives,
and a stupid popup telling me what I am supposed to do.

Secondly, one of the first non trivial objectives is to reach a certain
production speed, which, at least in the early stages of the game means hustle
(I haven't bothered to check if it changes later on). The game promises hustle
from the beginning: you have to feed coal to a machine that extracts coal; you
can use robot arms to feed the coal extracting machine with coal, but you have
to feed coal to the robotic arm. WTF?

Finally, I'm really done with games where you have to do your thing but also
fight monsters. Compare that to, say, Minecraft: you craft a bed, spam lights
everywhere and never, ever have to fight a single monster if you don't want
to, while you're still free to go and fight monsters with your bare hands if
that's what you like.

Is there a sandbox game that is not hustle for the sake of hustle, that
doesn't tell you what to do and in which you can do your thing without being
too much bothered by monsters?

~~~
pmjordan
Anno 1800 might float your boat? Or any of the previous games in the Anno
series for that matter. The campaign does very much have a story and specific
objectives, but the interesting bit is the regular sandbox game:

Turn off pirates and competitors, and either turn off or ignore NPC quests.
(There's no penalty to ignoring them, but they sometimes can be useful if you
need money.) You'll still have incidents like fires, industrial explosions,
disease, and riots, but those are influenced by factors you control, and with
well-placed fire stations, hospitals, and police stations you can very much
contain them so they're a non-issue.

~~~
EdwardDiego
I quite enjoyed Banished[1] and Surviving Mars[2] for city builders with no
needless fighting.

[1]:[https://store.steampowered.com/app/242920/Banished/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/242920/Banished/)

[2]:[https://store.steampowered.com/app/464920/Surviving_Mars/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/464920/Surviving_Mars/)

