I’ve played Factorio a lot in the past but stopped at one point because I didn’t want to get tired of it before it left “Early Access.” Now that they’ve added flying through space it might soon be time to revisit it.
It’s a great co-op game, too. I’d thought the limit was 50 players at once but it looks like it’s actually 65535 (though I assume no one has a setup that would actually work with that many). I’ve played with one or two at a time in the past but have mainly played it on my own (often unreasonably late at night because it’s so easy to lose track of time).
My favorite part of the game is the trains, which are totally optional.
I’m wondering how you’re getting along 2 weeks later, 'cause it sounds like we were in a similar place 2 weeks ago! And, as of now, I’ve only completed one other planet (to my immediate satisfaction anyway…) but am raring to go to my second.
For the record, that first planet was Vulcanus, which I found fun and not too complicated (as someone who has done the whole AngelBob thing anyway), and plan to utilize for various other things in the future, due to it having essentially limitless and super easy sourcing of iron and copper. I set it all up for longterm success for now by getting a rail network connected to big Coal, Calcite, and Tungsten patches.
I am committed to going to Fulgora next. I’ve really been feeling the squeeze on circuit production so getting both the electromagnetic plants and a few processing unit productivity upgrades sounds great right now. It might make sense for me to set up circuit production on Vulcanus after I’ve unraveled Fulgora’s mysteries…
There are lots of things I wish I did different on Nauvis, I made the beating heart of my base way too cramped and it’s getting difficult to route in new supply to my main bus. I also didn’t fully understand how cargo drop pods and the cargo landing pad works, I had kind of thought that it would be possible to build multiple ones and have them request different things to different places, but it all has to go to one place. I am thinking I am going to need to set up some kind of central intake location where I can have the cargo landing pad unload to either the logistic network (easy enough) or to a sort of modular train station that can accept multiple inputs (hard but not impossible).
I made short work of the utility and production science and I did manage to scrounge together enough military power to take down behemoth biters when I reached 0.9 evolution. I found new appreciation for the odds and ends in the Factorio arsenal like combat robots, poison capsules, and non-explosive depleted shells. In previous versions there was little reason to interact with miltiary that wasn’t a laser defense grid and some artillery. I am pretty set on going to Vulcanus first mostly for the artillery and cliff explosives tech. I think a lot of the challenges in Space Age are going to be novel to me; the only mod(s) I got far in was Krastorio 2 and I don’t recall it creating new types of production puzzles. Krastorio 2 was more of a remix of the base game with additional endgame content that I barely tapped into.
Just about two weeks ago, I launched my first rocket which is normally where I would stop. I’ve never messed around in the endgame for more than a couple hours with friends. I felt a little burnt out on the factory took a small break which has cascaded into a two week break. This is pretty typical for me and I’m thinking I’ll get back into it after my family’s Thanksgiving festivities end. I usually flip flop between a keyboard game and a controller game and I had beaten Death Stranding (decently long commitment, enjoyed it) right around when I made that first post and didn’t have a controller game for a couple days while I binged the last of Factorio base game. This lead to me overcorrecting and I played Link to the Past for the first time and chased it with a replay of Link Between Worlds. I really hope my hiatus wasn’t long enough for me to get programmer shame/amnesia of my base. I don’t want to look at my extensive Nauvis work and go, “What idiot made this?”
It happened again! And at exactly the same time—just after you get the steam engine running in the third tutorial level.
I think I’m just not cut out for this kind of game. Really disappointing cuz I love a lot of adjacent games, like SimCity or anything by Zachtronics. Honestly, I think having to control a little guy might be what’s putting me off lol. That and crafting. Walking back and forth between storage chests looking for materials in Minecraft or Stardew Valley has always exhausted the hell out of me.