Factorio - a factory building game - now with Space Age expansion

[Blaine]

Well, I'm playing Factorio again. You know how in the interval between a cRPG and its sequel, the protagonist sometimes loses all of his skills and powers and starts back at level 1? Well, that's how I feel right now. I've forgotten a lot.

Want to see something incredible? The Factorio Wiki is ad-free. Alongside the Underrail and EVE University wikis, it's one of the only ad-free game wikis I can ever recall seeing.

They haven't really added anything significant in years, and I don't think they're planning to in the future either, only small incremental improvements/features. Just play it.

They've added and tweaked an incredible amount of stuff between 0.15 and 0.16: more diverse terrain and trees, better and more varied map generation, cliffs, artillery turrets and artillery rail cars, in-depth interactive tutorials for new players, most of the remaining higher-resolution graphics, and a slew of other features, tweaks, and improvements. Soon they'll be reworking and updating the entire game engine. Still, no one would even notice that the game isn't 100% complete.

 

[Perkel]

Lately i have gone back to Factorio and man did mods change a lot !.
AAI gave me finally what my autism spectrum really needed.

Currently playing Bobs Mod + Angels + AAI and Expensive everything + 4x tech cost.

Just got around 135 iron plates a minute after around 7 hours of playing and biting nails because biters would show up to fuck up stuff constantly. Now i need to research Carbon Processing for that sweet sweet Carbon and i will start to make different outposts via AAI vehicles (need depots !).

 

[Perkel]

wow:

Rampart AI + alien biomes

 

[Norfleet]

Now imagine that with Factorio as directed by Michael Bay, where everything explodes on death.

 

[The Vanished One]

To anyone who's reading and is still on the fence about the game, the price is due to be increased soon, to $30.

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/016-price-change

Personally, I got enough quality entertainment out of it to justify three times that price.

 

[Blaine]

More like ten times the price.

Personally, I really don't think they should increase the price. Wube has also vowed never to offer the game for a discount during any sale. Regardless of the true value of the game, generally speaking, the lower the price point the better. It helps you to bring in more twelve-year-olds and potato, it's more competitive with other games, it gets you more exposure, and I have to wonder if the game would reach more people while ultimately turning a near-identical profit at a lower price point. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that 50% more people would ultimately buy it at 2/3 the final price.

"But Blaine, who cares about twelve-year-olds?" you may wonder. Nigga the more twelve-year-olds we can get playing real-ass games like Factorio, the better off we'll all be.

 

[Zarniwoop]

12 year olds are the only ones with enough free time (and let's be real, remaining lifespan) to figure out that insane switching system or to build complexes capable of the 57 varieties of research that you need after recent updates.

Well, them and unemployed autists like Prosper.

 

[Blaine]

12 year olds are the only ones with enough free time (and let's be real, remaining lifespan) to figure out that insane switching system or to build complexes capable of the 57 varieties of research that you need after recent updates.

I don't understand why people say things like this. If a game is good, and you can only play it a little bit a few times per week, you'll still be able to finish it—it'll just take you longer. I put hundreds of hours into Wing Commander 1-4, Sierra On-Line adventure games, etc. as a kid while I was in school, involved in extracurriculars like baseball, etc., and my mother would only allow me to play computer and video games for limited periods of time, especially on weekends when there were chores and family activities to do. These days there are a lot fewer genuinely excellent games anyway, so it's even less of an issue.

Combinators are logic gates, which all computer engineers and roboticists and many programmers and specialists will already be familiar with. Everyone should be encouraged to learn about logic gates.

Anyway, I'm a lazy retard who doesn't have autism regardless of gay Internet memes, and I still manage it. The game offers extensive automation and sophisticated blueprinting, so once you work out the logistics puzzles and gain familiarity, it's really not all that taxing or time-consuming to build the big complicated-looking shit.

 

[Blaine]

 

[Jaedar]

12 year olds are the only ones with enough free time (and let's be real, remaining lifespan) to figure out that insane switching system or to build complexes capable of the 57 varieties of research that you need after recent updates.

Logic gates are fairly complicated, but also mostly unnecessary, you can make do with no or very simple designs. When the devs make real tutorials for it too, anyone will be able to figure it out (probably).

Making 7 kinds of research is really not that much more complicated than making 3, especially when you consider you'll have logistics bots for the later ones (before you had to have the final research up and running to get them).

 

[Citizen]

Logic gates in videogames? It's fun, really.

 

[Lazing Dirk]

Logic gates in videogames? It's fun, really.

Someone called Circuit might be a bit biased there

 

[Blaine]

Right, so I've cordoned off an area encompassing approximately 1160 x 800 tiles. A tile is about one meter square when taking into account the proportions of cars, turrets, gates et al., so this little reservation is almost a square kilometer in area. It's 12.78x times larger than my "mid-game base."

The benefit is that I don't have to wall off or defend any of the mines or compounds I'll be building, and I'll have a luxurious amount of room to do whatever I please. The amount of extermination and wall/turret emplacement building necessary to secure the area was obscene, and the logistical challenges will be many,

I've got a mod that adds marked asphalt roads and a companion mod that helps vehicles actually stick to roads, and I'm thinking I'll run a main artery (yellow), secondary roads (green), and tertiary roads if needed. 45-degree angles look much better with the tilesets and also make turning a lot less of a headache. Of course, I'll have to lay down some railways for interior logistics, which means I'll need to build safe crossings for the roadways utilizing the circuit network.

This is why this game is so great. You might call it emergent problem-solving.

 

[Jaedar]

This is why this game is so great. You might call it emergent problem-solving.

Looks like a waste of time. You've got barely any iron in the walled off area.

I've also always found that you barely need to wall off expansions, just putting down a blob of a dozen (or two) laser turrets does the job.

Also, how are you preventing new bases from spawning inside the perimeter? Not sure the game still does this, but it used to.

 

[Ironmonk]

As far as I know, to spawn new bases, there is a need of a few aliens to move and form a new colony, if the perimeter is sealed and aliens can't go in, then there isn't going to be any alien spawning inside.

 

[Blaine]

Looks like a waste of time. You've got barely any iron in the walled off area.

The apparent size of patches can be deceptive, and isn't always indicative of richness. However, I didn't build the enclosure primarily to wall off the resources, although it'll make harvesting what's there more convenient to setup. The fact is that it's so huge there's no way not to contain a bunch of resources, so they might as well be halfway-decent.

Plus, iron is significantly scarcer than copper everywhere on this map, for some obnoxious reason. I've also yet to encounter any cliffs.

The main reason I built there (aside from having room for various discrete manufacturing compounds, missile silos, etc.) is that large amounts of resources are also present in a long smattering off to the east, simplifying the logistics of getting them west to the enclosure. Also, there's just enough water to significantly reduce the amount of BUILD THE WALL needed and to provide water for oil and concrete processing and nuclear power, but without obstructing the interior too much/requiring too much landfill.

I've also always found that you barely need to wall off expansions, just putting down a blob of a dozen (or two) laser turrets does the job.

Also, how are you preventing new bases from spawning inside the perimeter? Not sure the game still does this, but it used to.

You do if it's a big expansion. The turrets must cover the entire perimeter. As Ironmonk stated, shitters build new colonies by sending out groups of biters to found new ones. I believe the Wiki says existing matured colonies send out expeditions every 2-60 minutes. I've seen this in action: The biters all assemble on the site of a new colony, gather in a big wad, stay motionless for a while, and then a spawner is born.

 

[Blaine]

Today we've learned that I must never be allowed to design real intersections.

 

[Blaine]

THE REACTOR LIVES AGAIN

 

[Blaine]

Tentative parking lot design. Side note: I must never be allowed to design parking lots.

This Asphalt Roads mod and its companion mod, Pavement Drive Assist, are pretty incredible. It's as if they were always part of the vanilla game. Vehicles stick to and follow lane markings, smoothly auto-correct, take very sharp corners and combinations of corners easily and naturally, and even change lanes incredibly adroitly, organically, and intuitively. You can post variable speed limit/speed limit lifted signs along roads, set cruise control, and toggle the drive assist on and off, among a few other features.

 

[Blaine]

I'm so proud of myself. I definitely deserve a banana sticker for this one, possibly even two banana stickers. This roundabout allows a train driving along either of the parallel east-running rails (bottom) to safely switch over to the parallel west-running rails and vice versa, regardless of traffic.

shitty failed pleb design

Realized while I was contemplating that design that it could potentially create a through traffic bottleneck as two lanes merge very briefly. Probably wouldn't be an issue in practice, but even so I extended it so that two parallel trains can move through without slowing down.

 

[Nutria]

I definitely deserve a banana sticker for this one, possibly even two banana stickers.

You deserve an "autism but in a good way" sticker.

I just realized today that I'm going to need to learn about train signalling so I can get more coal. That's my job for tomorrow. I'm guessing that my solution will involve being okay with the possibility of trains colliding and me having to fix it manually.

 

[Blaine]

You deserve an "autism but in a good way" sticker.

Exactly, a banana sticker.

I just realized today that I'm going to need to learn about train signalling so I can get more coal. That's my job for tomorrow. I'm guessing that my solution will involve being okay with the possibility of trains colliding and me having to fix it manually.

As latte-sipping vegan hipsters like to say, it's a process. I've got over 500 hours in this game over the course of various different playthroughs, one of which was in multiplayer, and only just now am I reaching the point of being comfortable enough with signals and chain signals to relatively easily freestyle just about anything.

All of the interconnecting spaghetti rails and intersections I built around my intermediate base worked flawlessly without needing any tweaking, which I suppose is how you know you've got it down pat.

 

[thesheeep]

There is now also an in-game tutorial for the signalling.
I even got it after doing it 2-3 times

 

[Blaine]

Yeah, I finished the new tutorial in about two minutes. Unfortunately, it's easy to sort of cheat by placing just one signal while still fulfilling the objective, and not actually learn anything about high-density intersections, advanced switching, etc.

Last time I played was with a friend 0.15, and he did most of the large-scale rail designs, so my signal knowledge atrophied a bit.

It used to be a lot more time-consuming to design rails without the spacing indicators, segment indicators, and smart-build ghosting. Still, for very advanced rail design, none of those crutches can help you and in fact it's easier to do if you've already gotten the feel for rails placed manually. Eventually you develop an eye and intuition for how many straight rail sections must exist between two curves to reach X tiles north and similar.

 

[Lazing Dirk]

I'm so proud of myself. I definitely deserve a banana sticker for this one, possibly even two banana stickers.

Those chain signals in the far corners aren't necessary. Also you added an extra track so 2 trains can cross at once, but both of those tracks are counted as a single section, so they'll still block each other.

You want another signal where the blue is to split the red section into two, since trains at either yellow circle will block the other side. No banana stickers today.