Factory Games - Work while you play

[Jordy]

Why are these fuckers so addictive? They NEVER have a decent end game but I find myself playing them anyway.

• Factorio - The first game that got me into the genre and had me dreaming about conveyer belts. I haven't played it since it came out of EA, probably out of fear. Resource nodes are limited meaning you have to move further afield and into enemy territory. Enemy power increases the more polution you create.

• Satisfactory - Factorio in irst person mode but not really but yes really. Does a lot of things Factorio does but a lot different too. Actually looks pretty good and had me dreaming math. You don't have to but you can design pretty buildings around your factories, although it's not easy. Resource nodes are infinite but capped at a certain extraction per/second/minute depending on your tech level. You come across enemies as you explore the world and they respawn every x hours. More valuable resource nodes have stronger enemies around them. Do not play if you have arachnophobia _{(Arachnophobia mode will just give you kittenphobia)}.

• Dyson Sphere Project - Kind of a combination between the two above. Has the freedom of Satisfactory but the style of Factorio. You're not limited to one planet or even one system (I haven't got as far into this as the others). You're on a planet so you have a weird grid to build with which is annoying. Probably have to restart a few times to find a decent starter planet with room to build. Starter planets have an enemy hive on it where aggression increases the more power you generate. Other planets may have more than one enemy hive. The system you're in also has a swarm in it that orbits the star.

This is just a quick memory dump and can provide more detailed info if anyone is interested. They all seem the same but have minor differences that make a huge change. For example, Factorio has two sides to a conveyer belt, DSP only has one but you can proliferate items as well as stack them on a belt. I'm still playing DSP when I get a chance so probably got a lot to learn.

I can't list an order of favourite to worse but feel free to discuss your favourite factory game.

[Tweed]

I've sunk an ungodly amount of time into Factorio and once you tire of the base game there's an endless number of mods to add to your suffering if you're into making the game even more autistic. I have yet to pick up the expansion though. I spent a lot of time playing it with my brother which also brings up an anecdote, we were having severe lag issues after a patch so we reported it on the Steam discussions, one of the devs asked us to submit our save so we did and a few hours later there was a new patch, all better.

I picked up Dyson Sphere, but I have yet to try it.

[Jordy]

I've sunk an ungodly amount of time into Factorio and once you tire of the base game there's an endless number of mods to add to your suffering if you're into making the game even more autistic. I have yet to pick up the expansion though. I spent a lot of time playing it with my brother which also brings up an anecdote, we were having severe lag issues after a patch so we reported it on the Steam discussions, one of the devs asked us to submit our save so we did and a few hours later there was a new patch, all better.

I picked up Dyson Sphere, but I have yet to try it.

From what I've read, the expansion is more about doing different story missions with various limitations and less about just building a factory.

Dyson Sphere project is good but it takes some getting used to. It doesn't feel as user friendly to begin with and the tutorial popups are annoying as hell. You have a constantly rising threat level and enemy bases level up with every attack. Stopping to read the guide doesn't pause the game so you feel like you're running out of time trying to learn how things work. I tried a new game with the enemy set to passive and while it does help to learn the game, it doesn't feel very challenging.
Once you get stuck into the game and understand how everything works, it's as addictive as the others.

I forgot to mention about both Factorio and Satisfactory that you can set up train networks, probably the best thing about both games for me. I'd spend ages just sitting on one of the trains, watching it do it's thing and seeing all the train signals work perfectly.

[asf]

fagtorio expansion is fun, there are no story missions, focus is more on logistic and hauling stuff via space platforms

[mercerxiv]

Any notes anyone wants to share on Satisfactory? I had this game for a while and just noticed it's got a 1.1 and is out of EA. Anyone would be interested in setting up a session?

[J1M]

How about SpaceChem or Opus Magnum.

[DemoGraph]

Why are these fuckers so addictive?

Short feedback loop.

Any notes anyone wants to share on Satisfactory?

Play Factorio instead.

[mercerxiv]

Why are these fuckers so addictive?

Short feedback loop.

Any notes anyone wants to share on Satisfactory?

Play Factorio instead.

I'd love to, but I've been itching for a specifically 3-d factory game so I could build gargantuan multi-floor factories with pipes streaming up and down, and trains I can ride.

[DemoGraph]

Why are these fuckers so addictive?

Short feedback loop.

Any notes anyone wants to share on Satisfactory?

Play Factorio instead.

I'd love to, but I've been itching for a specifically 3-d factory game so I could build gargantuan multi-floor factories with pipes streaming up and down, and trains I can ride.

Play Minecraft with mods.
Srsly, Satisfactory has long feedback loop because it has large buildings (you spend a lot of time just walking around) and spammy tech. Also, not enough diversity (and I mean in mechanics, not in *******, you're forced to play a woman of unknown color btw).
On the plus side, exploration in Satisfactory is nice. But there're no challenging enemies to speak of.

[asf]

you can make spaghetti 3d factories in dsp

[Norfleet]

Why are these fuckers so addictive? They NEVER have a decent end game but I find myself playing them anyway.

It's because kids these days didn't get to grow up working in a factory or a mine, and THE CHILDREN YEARN FOR THE MINES. You're just crave what you were denied in your childhood.

[nullSector]

Factorio - The first game that got me into the genre and had me dreaming about conveyer belts. I haven't played it since it came out of EA, probably out of fear. Resource nodes are limited meaning you have to move further afield and into enemy territory. Enemy power increases the more polution you create.

You should. You can go to space now and other planets as well, all of them have interesting aspect to them. Launching the rocket can now be considered mid-game. Though be warned if you start getting into Factorio again there is no escape, factory must grow.

Why are these fuckers so addictive

These games are so compelling because they tap directly into human's intrinsic desire for problem-solving and order. You are faced with small challenging problems which you solve one by one,and each solution gives your brain a dopamine hit, getting a rewarding feedback loop. Resolving those small tasks also in turn slowly solves a bigger task, automating blue science is a bigger problem sub dived into smaller ones like logistics, engine production, red circuit production, sulfur manufacturing, which can again be divided into smaller problems.

TL;DR: Solve problem -> Brain happy
Factory games -> Tons of problems -> Brain happy -> Can't stop playing the games

It's autism.

[Jordy]

Factory games -> Tons of problems -> Brain happy -> Can't stop playing the games

It's autism.

Been playing shapez 2. Can barely put it down all the while wondering what the point is.

[Jordy]

"Man I'm so impressed with how compact and efficient I've manufactured this complex arrangement of shapes. I could sit here and watch it forever."

"Goal complete, time to delete everything I just built and do the next goal."

[DecadeRiptide]

I only like factorio because it runs on pretty much anything, even my old laptoaster (and its a little bit fun). I don't really play it though and can't believe the Devs are still charging £30 for it fixed with no sale.

[Havitner]

exploration in Satisfactory is nice

I got about ~20-30 hours of fun out of Satisfactory, but lost interest once I realized* that there was no unique mechanical incentive for exploring different biomes. Sure, cresting that hill and seeing a new region for the first time right as the sun starts rising looks nice, but so what? The only things you'll find there are more of the same resources, more of the same collectibles, and more of the same enemies** dropping the same loot. Maybe some or all of those have different spawn rates depending on the region but, again, who cares?

*Also I ragequit because my foundation segments wouldn't snap together right. Oh, and there were weird graphical glitches on GNU.
**One of them has a palette swap determined by biome, I guess.

[DemoGraph]

The only things you'll find there are more of the same resources, more of the same collectibles, and more of the same enemies

Well, there are rare resources that are placed only in some biomes. You can check them here - https://satisfactory.th.gl/ (I haven't, to prevent spoilers, but I believe that caterium and some kind of crystal are pretty rare).
But you're right that there're no biome-specific "ecological" resources. And mineral nodes could be placed anywhere.
For biome-dependent management games you probably want to check some medieval game, though I can't recall any specific name... Well, Thaumcraft 4 for Minecraft 1.12 (or 1.11?) is the best I've seen, but it's only partially a factory game.

And yeah, I find Satisfactory to be much weaker than Factorio. I didn't manage to finish it even once.
PS. "And yeah 2." I still think that exploration in Satisfactory is nice. I like finding interesting looking terrain.

[DemoGraph]

Recently I've tried playing Satisfactory (SF) and DSP.
I've restarted SF after a half-year hiatus. This time I've almost finished 2 stage of the elevator. Made a "hypertube station" - room with tubes that lead to various parts of factory and expansions. Made small blueprints for all the basic materials (though inputs and outputs still could be blueprinted further). Made a multitiered bus that feeds a bunch of storage containers - what amounts to mall in SF. And then burned out. There's too much running around on the one hand and too much waiting for quest items to complete (I didn't scale them pretty much at all, so quest items would take about 30-40 minutes to produce when fed with all mats).
The machines are large in SF, so running takes a lot of time for my taste.
I've skipped cars completely, because I remember them being kinda dumb and long to make. Instead I made hypertubes to expansions. They're fast and inventory is really large in this game. So after about 10 minutes whooshing I brought home 5-6k worth of each steel good.
Still, I might return to the game later. It has some charm.

I've tried DSP for the first time. And couldn't handle it. The main put off was graphics. Everything is so bloomy and plastic-looking, as if it's Oblivion all over again. I find that machines look too samey - production machine is a cube, turret is another cube, goods are more cubes. Cubes-cubes-cubes. Meh. In Factorio everything looks very sharp and readable, and the machines look different.
I've also watched LP a bit and found that the scale also puts me off. It takes 2-3 minutes for your mecha to fly between planets. And starting factory takes about a quarter of a planet. The scale seems off, everything looks toy, and I couldn't suspend my disbelief.
I liked the idea of the game in general. Still, I've dropped it and don't want to get back to it at all.

[asf]

you seem like the kind of person who cares about clipping in satisfagtory

[Tweed]

I need to finish Opus Magnum.

[Jordy]

Reinstalled Satisfactory and went back to my old world because my wife likes doing the in-game advent calendar.

Finished the game ages ago and there's not really any post game content which means there's not really much for me to do, so I just rode around on my various choo choos which is very satisfying.

[asf]

satisfactory is incredibly gay

[loregamer]

More like Faggotry Games ^{I didn't mean that I'm sorry}