
Factorio – a game where you can automate basically anything - staticelf
http://www.factorio.com/
======
patio11
This game is fantastic, and ate ~20 hours of a business trip earlier in its
development lifecycle.

I have one warning to you which I am not aware of seeing elsewhere for it:
something about the color palette gives me _severe_ eye strain, to the point
of "physically painful to play", in a way I have never experienced before or
since.

There exist several other games on Steam these days with the same core
build-a-(semi-)autonomous-factory mechanic. My favorite of those that I've
played so far is Big Pharma. It's substantially less advanced in terms of
factory mechanics than Factorio [+], but the strategy is very, very deep, much
deeper than you'd expect from looking it it. (For spoilers on that score, see
my Steam review, which is the topmost one on the page. Capsule non-spoiler
summary: best $20 I spent last year.)

[ + ] A fairly key skill for Factorio, which is present in Big Pharma but not
relevant except at the highest levels of play, is timing the production of
multiple subcomponents (which might happen in different quantities, at
different rates, at variable distance from where they are consumed) such that
one's production line never starves, blocks, or overproduces. It's Totoya
Factory Simulator 2016 in this respect. When you get it right you get visual
feedback (absence of congestion on your production line as e.g. coal stacks up
because your furnaces aren't burning it because they're blocking on
insufficient supplies of ore because you have insufficient electrical capacity
because...). It feels like you're playing a symphony of borglike capitalist
efficiency.

~~~
hobs
Have you tried Infinifactory (3d FPS ala Portal + assembly lines)? I loved Big
Pharma and its not exactly the same, but it felt like the same parts of my
brain were working on it.

~~~
andywood
I think Infinifactory is mind-blowingly amazing on many levels - an epic
triumph of game design. The components are few and simple, but provide
enormous combinatorial possibilities. There's a logic-language and aesthetic
that emerges, that includes the very things patio11 mentions: input ratios,
timing, and pipeline issues. The puzzles are sequenced so that each level is
initially shocking, but gradually yields to the player's contemplation and
experimentation. I think I've had more pure delight from this game than from
any other.

I liked TIS-100 a lot too, and Infinifactory is kind of like a visuospacial,
high-production version of it.

~~~
zedadex
> The components are few and simple, but provide enormous combinatorial
> possibilities.

Zachtronics in general seems to be pretty great with this.

~~~
jeffjefferies
I remember playing 'KOHCTPYKTOP - Engineer of the People' years ago, and
loving it. I've also really enjoyed SpaceChem, Infinifactory, and TIS-100. All
around very interesting and challenging games.

~~~
taneq
Currently working my way through this and it's awesome. The simplified
'transistors'are more like relays but since I want to build a relay computer
some day, that's perfect. :D

------
hobs
I have been playing this for a few years and just started again with the
release of the steam version.

If you ever enjoyed Tekkit (minecraft) or the more automated part of Dwarf
Fortress, you will like this game a lot.

My favorite part is that basically any action or building (up to the far late
game) usually pushes you to build it by hand once or twice, and then automate
the process forever.

It is extremely satisfying to build your first solar panel array while
fighting for every resource, and then a few hours later have your 5000 strong
robot army assemble a blueprint of that same array in 5 seconds while you
watch.

The game also has a really great mechanic where you are constantly unbalanced
for what resource you need to build up, but only because you decided to expand
and create, so that your plans always digress into other plans and other
problems to solve.

Also, the multiplayer is great and works really well, though it has a weird
setting where you can set your own latency, and it seems like the host and
clients are in lockstep not allowed to skew (so if you have a laggy client its
a problem.)

------
rl3
I have been avoiding this game like the plague due to its potential life-
ending, productivity-destroying effects (at least for some people).

This is one of those games where it starts innocently enough, a few hundred
hours of gameplay accrue, and the next thing you know you're wondering where
the last two months went.

Part of the reason for this is related to the decline of the SimCity franchise
over the years. Cities: Skylines was pretty, but it didn't really hit the same
notes in terms of gameplay. The last real SimCity game was 2004, so it's been
well over a decade of waiting for the next truly addictive builder/simulation
fix to arrive. Based on the amount of people I know having sunk triple-digit
hours into _Factorio_ , it's the closest we've come to a real SimCity game
since.

That said, it seems like a fantastic game and I look forward to playing it
some day.

~~~
Obi_Juan_Kenobi
Kudos for waiting, but the game is in a very good state. I think it reflects
on the ambitions of the devs that they're keeping it EA even at this point. It
is certainly improving, but it's really solid.

Even with very big factories, the game performs well. The improvements to be
made are really just related to the UI and some game mechanics that could be
modified or extended. Generally, there are lots of mods that will hopefully
make it into the base game (e.g. rail tanker cars), but good mod support is
part of the game.

It's quite different from SimCity, but I agree that both games are enjoyed by
a similar audience for similar reasons.

~~~
rl3
> _It 's quite different from SimCity, but I agree that both games are enjoyed
> by a similar audience for similar reasons._

Definitely. Factorio has a crafting system, so that's a major difference.

I'd say the "similar reasons" you mentioned above are twofold:

a) You design systems and observe how they behave. There's kind of an awe or
wonderment associated with watching how living, breathing systems behave
within a complex simulation.

b) There's also a feedback loop where the player attempts to make their
systems more efficient. This kind of massages a specific part of the brain in
people with OCD tendencies, generating huge amounts of pleasure.

------
hbt
This is an amazing game, especially in multiplayer.

When playing with others, it's comparable to programming with others. It's
about communication, people will try to optimize stuff that already works,
people will argue about how to build stuff or when to refactor stuff.
Sometimes they will build something in a weird way and argue why this is the
best way etc.

It can be a nightmare with the wrong people or a lot of fun with intelligent
people who can control their emotions.

Also, the community is amazing and there are tons of mods.

~~~
joss82
I would love to play Factorio multiplayer with someone that is interviewing to
become a colleague.

Playing this game in coop is like programming in many ways. You see the result
of your design mistakes, and you have to be able to communicate well but not
overcommunicate. To be independant but a team player at the same time, etc...

Is Factorio the new programmer interview?? ;)

------
KirinDave
If you like this game, you might also like Modded Minecraft. Many technical
mods strongly associate with developers who love to tinker on absurdly complex
physical systems. I've found the process to be a nice change of pace in the
evenings.

You might also like our Minecraft Modpack, Resonant Rise. You can grab it on
the ATLauncher (just search for ATLauncher). It's designed around complex and
interesting engineering challenges.

There's a similarly REALLY cool Minecraft mod on the scene for Minecraft 1.8
called "Psi" that you can try (available here:
[http://psi.vazkii.us/](http://psi.vazkii.us/)). It lets you use a visual
dataflow language and trigonometry to create "magic spells" that are very
technical in nature. It's a very fun exercise, and it's neat to write a
program (with almost NO flow control!) that does things like dig a tunnel or
build a bridge or throw zombies skyward, all by magic.

~~~
lbrandy
As my 3 year old began to recognize Minecraft, I decided to sit down and play
it for the first time. The base game was ok but the modded versions... let's
just say that was 3 months ago and I'm completely hooked. Like factorio, it's
basically programming in video-game form, building abstractions to tame
complexity to build yet more complex abstractions.

I've been playing Infinity Evolved recently but Resonant Rise is also amazing.
Thanks for that work.

~~~
KirinDave
I've been working on a 1.8 experience, and our RR core team is working on the
most epic skyblock you can imagine. I won't spoil it, but it starts off with a
time limit. :)

------
Twirrim
The whole game is _stunning_ quality for what is still "alpha", where in games
that frequently denotes "so buggy it's a miracle if the game runs for 10
minutes without crashing and burning".

It just works, and it's smooth as silk. It seems like they've concentrated
heavily on the game engine and now are focussing on content, but there is
plenty of content already to play with.

~~~
abstractbeliefs
The trick is to realise that thanks to the rise of "early access" in indie
games, "alpha" means release, but released absolved of any sort of commitment
to continue to develop the game or ship quality software. Final "release"
versions are often really "end of life" _final_ versions with no future
expansion.

It's not to say that many indie (and not-indie) devs produce good games under
this model, it's just there's been a huge shift in what players and developers
expect from each other, as well as how they market it.

Similar parallels can also be drawn to the pre-paid kickstarter systems which
were originally intended to help pay for upfront costs like manufacturing, but
are now really used as risk-management tools to help ensure a certain number
of sales before a project starts in earnest. There's no reason Peter Molyneux
should need to ask players to pre-fund a game [1] of unknown quality and even
scope, for example.

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

~~~
SolarNet
Well factorio is actually following the minecraft design. They have a bunch of
things they want to add, but due to the complexity of the game it takes time
to get there. Like in minecraft where they kept adding blocks until they were
like "alright we have all of the ones we initially designed in". Factorio
hasn't reached that point yet.

------
JackuB
I love the irony that you have to fight bugs.

PROTIP: Try multiplayer. Unexpectedly, my girlfriend loved it and we had a lot
of fun there.

Also, they are hiring:
[http://www.factorio.com/jobs](http://www.factorio.com/jobs)

------
Paul_S
It's a fun game but please, at some point you have to release and stop
pretending it's alpha to avoid any responsibility. It is now not unusual to
buy an "alpha" release of a game, play for a few years, shelve it and move on
and then notice 5 years later that the final release has shipped. I can't be
the only person who finds this silly.

~~~
BookmarkSaver
Where does it say that? All I see is that it is on Steam, they started
developing in 2012, and that they call it "very stable". I don't see "alpha"
anywhere.

~~~
wagglycocks
On the Steam store page it's listed as "Early Access," which is the alpha/beta
branding loophole that Steam uses.

------
skriticos2
I picked this up a few days ago on Steam and spent considerable time on it
since then. It's really addictive for people who like automation. It has a
nice pace, throwing in some interesting challenges, but generally let's you
focus on those little details on how to optimize the structure of your base.
Resources are generally bountiful, but they do run out eventually, so you are
forced to think about acquiring new sources - and until then you have plenty
of time to fill your conveyor belts..

By the way, thanks for supporting this on Linux! Wouldn't play it otherwise.

------
typeformer
I think it would be cool to be able to play the natives too and have to come
up with super ingenious ways of dismantling these unholy factories of the
invaders destroying your planet...

------
kentonv
This game is like crack for programmers.

This has been the most popular game at my LAN parties
([http://kentonshouse.com](http://kentonshouse.com)) for the last year and a
half. Here's a review I wrote in December 2014 that still applies (original at
[https://plus.google.com/+KentonVarda/posts/YHayo6sj42n](https://plus.google.com/+KentonVarda/posts/YHayo6sj42n)):

My new favorite game is Factorio ([http://factorio.com](http://factorio.com)).
It's like a cross between Minecraft, SimCity, and Civilization, and the result
is massively better than any of them. The game is currently in "alpha", but
I'm not sure why; it's far more polished and less buggy than many finished
professional games I've played.

Overhead view. Like Minecraft, you start out punching trees for wood to craft
a pickaxe with which you can then mine some ore to craft other things. But
soon, you are building an automatic mining drill, then a conveyor belt to
bring the ore to a smelting furnace, then robot arms to insert the ore into
the furnace and take the smelted bars out, then more conveyor belts to bring
those to other places where thy can be used. Eventually you can build power
plants, labs to research new technologies, walls and turrets to defend against
attackers, oil refineries, robot delivery drones, trains, and more.

The game is incredibly addictive (especially for programmers?). But what
really impresses me is how the game illustrates the complexity of the real
world. Factorio is a lesson in how logistics trump tactics and strategy
("strategy is for amateurs, logistics are for professionals"), and in how to
build a complex system for changing requirements. The lessons are broadly
applicable to the real world.

It's fairly easy to analogize Factorio to city planning. In your first game,
you will quickly discover that the city you built for the early game is all
wrong for the late game -- and then you realize: every real-life big city is a
horrible mess and this is exactly why.

I also find myself comparing Factorio to software, especially distributed
systems and networks. I find myself constantly using phrases like "buffer",
"flow control", "back pressure", "throughput", "refactor", "under-utilized",
etc.

One transition I find particularly interesting: around the middle of the game,
you research the ability to build "logistics drones", which are basically like
Amazon's quadcopter delivery drones. They can transport materials from point
to point around your base -- you set up "request" points and "supply" points,
and the drones pick up whatever items land in the supply points and bring them
directly to whichever requester is requesting that item.

Up until this point, you mostly use conveyor belts for this task. When you
first get logistics drones, you think "These are WAY more expensive than
conveyor belts and have much lower throughput. Why would I ever want them?"
But you quickly realize that the advantage of drones is that they are rapidly
reconfigurable. Once your base is entirely drone-based, you can switch
factories to build different items on a whim -- no need to re-route any
conveyor belts. This gets more and more important in the late game as the
number of different types of things you are building -- all with different
input ingredients -- increases, and maintaining a spaghetti of conveyors
becomes infeasible. This is tricky to grasp until you do it.

For a while, of course, you'll have part of your base running on drones while
another part is still based on conveyors. It's like using Google Flights in
your browser to search for airline tickets, while on the back end it is
integrating with 60's-era mainframe-based flight scheduling software.

I can't help but imagine that conveyor belts and logistics drones represent
two different programming languages (or, maybe, programming language
paradigms). Choosing your programming language based on how easy it is to do
something simple is totally wrong. The true measure of a good language is how
it handles massive complexity and -- more importantly -- reconfiguration over
time.

Another thought: In 10-20 years, when we have everything delivered to our
houses via drones and self-driving taxis populating every major street, will
we be able to just get rid of small residential side-roads? You won't need to
drive a car up to your house anymore: it's easy enough to walk a couple blocks
to the nearest major street and hop in a cab, or better yet to a train
station. You don't need to carry cargo since it's delivered by drones.
Delivery trucks: also replaced by drones. Will we suddenly be able to reclaim
a ton of inner-city space? What will we do with it?

In any case, thanks to +Michael Powell and +Brian Swetland for introducing me
to this game!

PS. Factorio is multiplayer! We've been having a lot of fun with it at LAN
parties, and I just completed a coop game with +Jade Q Wang, who is also
addicted. We tend to forget to do things like eat or sleep when we're
playing.﻿

~~~
acbabis
To your point about drones vs. conveyor belts as programming paradigms: I
think belts are procedural while drones (and chests) are declarative. With
belts, you have to layout routes and concern yourself with coupling (belts
literally getting tangled with each other) between different steps in your
automation. With drones and chests, you can just set demand for a given input
and trust that it will happen. I try to use drones for the most expensive
components because that gives the most throughput. Yes, this game is "crack
for programmers".

~~~
hobs
Both of you have not mentioned the rail system, the ETL of the game :)

~~~
mickronome
ETL as in extract transform load, or extract Train load ? :)

------
tobr
That trailer was surprisingly well made.

~~~
cdnsteve
I loved it too. The music felt like something from "honey I shrunk the kids"

------
nickpinkston
If anyone is interested in building an automated factory that can make
anything IRL, we'd love to talk with you:

[https://www.plethora.com/careers](https://www.plethora.com/careers)

Or hit me up: nick@plethora.com (Founder/CEO)

------
jomendoz
It seems to be a great game! Sadly, I think it encourages resource
exploitation as to what we, the human race, have been doing to Earth as a
whole.

I think a very good extension would be to provide new technology for
sustainable energy generation and even further the ability to harness and
excel the planet as a super living thing (as Asimov could imagine in its
Foundation series).

This would provide an even more constrained and challenging environment as to
maintain planet's equilibrium on one hand and progress on the other.

Maybe, those aren't really valid concerns from the beginning of a game. But
afterwards, it'll be important as massive industrialization reaches ecological
relevance.

~~~
noobie
>Sadly, I think it encourages resource exploitation as to what we, the human
race, have been doing to Earth as a whole.

It's actually worse, your machines produce pollution which drives the local
creatures mad and they start to attack you.

I think reaching an equilibrium with the planet's environment/creature makes
for a great end game milestone.

------
zokier
The thing that bothered me in Factorio when I played it some time back was
that once you hit the end of tech tree, which is pretty easy (or at least was
back then), then there wasn't really anything else to do, nothing more for
your highly tuned factories to produce. That said, I really liked the part of
building your factories, I just would like to have more reason to keep on
building. Maybe competitive multiplayer spices things up, but I don't feel
like that is where "the scene" is.

~~~
rictic
There's mods, like marathon, which add additional levels of complexity and
make ordinary things more expensive so that it slows the game down some. There
is a space-based end game that's planned by the developers. And there's
upcoming achievements, like make <111 items by hand.

~~~
simoncion
> There is a space-based end game that's planned by the developers.

It's planned, but it looks like it won't make it into 1.0:
[http://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-111](http://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-111)

------
StavrosK
Sidenote, I love how both Factorio and Big Pharma accept bitcoin for
purchases. It's by far my preferred payment method, and I'll buy one of the
two just to support them for that.

------
frenchie4111
I am going to have job candidates play this game with me

~~~
joss82
Great idea, actually!

------
bingeboy
I just started playing and find peace in automation.

~~~
fixermark
I appreciate the fact that you can automate some, but not all, things. Your
manufacturing is ultimately sourced to raw materials, and sooner or later
those supplies become exhausted.

------
TimJRobinson
I'm a huge fan of the Anno series (Anno 2070 multiplayer is amazing) because
of how much fun it is to try and maintain supply chains and production lines
of 50+ different resources. Have spent over 400 hours playing it according to
steam.

This looks right up my alley, downloading it now.

------
graeme
Looks fun. Is it potentially productive leisure? I run a business, and have
automated portions of it with processes. These run very well. Others I've
found harder to automate.

I'm wondering if playing a game like this can help train a habit of
automation. Thoughts?

~~~
simoncion
> Is it potentially productive leisure?

Yeah, potentially. I've found the automated trains to be particularly
effective at illustrating deadlocks and resource contention. Your early
factory will (by the early mid-game) have no doubt taught you all about
technical debt. :)

> I'm wondering if playing a game like this can help train a habit of
> automation.

Sure, why not?

The way you grow a habit of automation is to determine if you're spending "too
much" time on a task, and if it would probably be worth the effort required to
automate that task.

However, in Factorio you have no choice but to automate if you want to reach
the main scenario's end goal in any reasonable amount of time. In real life,
it's often not so obvious that this is the case.

Strong suggestion: Don't play in Peaceful Mode. Getting your projects
interrupted by P0 drop-everything issues (and figuring out how to effectively
deflect those issues) makes life _so_ much more interesting.

~~~
graeme
I accumulated much technical debt in my businesses processes. Seeing it
illustrated in a game might give some new perspective on that.

What I also need to work on are the intermediate steps where I do things
myself, but have a process written where someone else _could_ do it.

I'll try the demo.

------
r3bl
Can someone explain me the difference between 0.11.22 version and 0.12.26
version? The demos for both of the versions are available in the demo page,
and I can't figure out the reason why such an older version seem to still be
available for demo.

~~~
myhf
The 0.11 demo is probably still up because it is known to be very stable. I
haven't encountered any stability problems with 0.12 in recent months, though.

The big difference is the endgame: 0.11 had a placeholder "Rocket Defense" and
0.12 has a multi-step rocket and satellite assembly process. You would play
several hours before encountering this. There are also a lot of performance
improvements and quality-of-life things like personal roboports and more
detailed logic combinators.

I'm looking forward to 0.13 which will have much nicer train track placing,
fire that spreads, and maybe new vehicles and chest-loaders.

------
LoSboccacc
loved this game and hopped in since the indiegogo campaign.

I've made two mod that suits well the engineering mindset: static difficulty
stop time based increase of enemy difficulty
[https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?f=87&t=6433](https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?f=87&t=6433)

endless resource makes deposit endless (with diminishing return) so all your
railroads don't suddenly vanish
[https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?f=94&t=3130](https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?f=94&t=3130)

check them out :)

------
fixermark
True story: I remembered I had this installed on my home machine while I was
on a business trip.

I... _may_ have consumed copious amounts of hotel wifi playing it over VPN one
night. ;)

------
syncsynchalt
I really can't recommend this game enough.

------
bronz
Wow, this really sucks. I had the exact same concept in mind for my next game.
Like, during the trailer when he shows the crashed ship, my jaw dropped.
Almost every aspect of the game is the same as what I had in mind. I had the
exact same idea and I was really excited about it. Oh well.

~~~
brianobush
Can you enumerate the number of games that start with a crashing ship?

~~~
scarboy
[http://www.giantbomb.com/arrival-by-crash-
landing/3015-5658/...](http://www.giantbomb.com/arrival-by-crash-
landing/3015-5658/games/)

Maybe someone should add Factorio

~~~
bduerst
\+ Risk of Rain, Dungeon of the Endless, etc.

------
Pamar
Question: would this (or Big Pharma, or some other similar game) work for
children? Starting at what age?

~~~
Retra
What do you mean "work?" What are you trying to achieve?

~~~
Pamar
I mean: a friend of mine has a 11 years old child. Another has two girls, one
8, the other 13... Should I suggest one of this games to them? If yes, which
one?

------
proactivesvcs
In case you're still on the fence, take a look at the Steam reviews:
[http://store.steampowered.com/app/427520/#app_reviews_hash](http://store.steampowered.com/app/427520/#app_reviews_hash)

------
ccallebs
Another +1 for the game as well. As I get older, it takes a lot more for a
game to put me into "binge mode". This game did and then some. If you enjoy
solving puzzles / architecting software / survival games, you will probably
dig Factorio.

------
gbersac
I am the 42 school and (a french progamming school) and evryone is playing it
(myself include). This is a trendy game especially for programmers (for those
who love problem solving).

------
yread
This game is awesome, it was already great in 2013 when I supported them and
it keeps getting better, the developers are listening to the users and really
working with them

------
kawsper
I bought this game one friday, and have now clocked 46 hours into it. It is a
fantastic game, and it can really keep you up at night if you aren't careful.

------
thisisandyok
Wow, I really want to play this. I enjoyed the Kelfigs games on Xbox, but was
disappointed that they were so limited.

~~~
zo1
It's ~$15 on steam at the moment, and a relatively tiny 300MB download. If you
spend even 2-3 hours on it, enjoyed, then it's definitely cheaper than the
price of a movie.

~~~
nlawalker
Dude haven't you heard?

Unless a game delivers hundreds of hours of play in both single and
multiplayer, is moddable, gets at least an 85 on Metacritic and the devs have
signed a contract to ship free updates and content quarterly for 10 years,
it's a casual game and you should seriously think twice before spending even
99 cents on it.

Or you should buy it on Steam, play for an hour and 59 minutes, then get a
refund and proudly proclaim how it didn't meet your standards, alongside the
other four games you refunded in the last couple weeks.

Or pirate it, because you like the game but you don't want to support the
industry's high prices.

~~~
simoncion
Other than the ten-year-support-committment and the Metacritic score [0],
Factorio meets these requirements. ;)

[0]
[http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/factorio](http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/factorio)

------
techman9
As distinct from [https://factor.io/](https://factor.io/) LOL.

------
imaginenore
The only downside to Factorio is its graphic design. It all looks like grey-
brown mess. They need to allow 3rd party skins like Minecraft does.

~~~
simoncion
> The only downside to Factorio is its graphic design.

I _rather_ like its graphic design. It reminds me of many of the factories
(and surrounding areas) I've had the opportunity to walk through.

As for third-party skins, you can probably author a mod to replace the
existing graphics with ones that are more pleasing to you:
[https://wiki.factorio.com/index.php?title=Modding](https://wiki.factorio.com/index.php?title=Modding)

