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

[Norfleet]

I tried to like the flammenwerfer, but, frankly, it's not made obsolete by any particular advancement of the enemy. It's defective by design. For starters, it's possible to damage yourself with it. Also, it's almost wholly ineffective at even basic tasks like, say, setting fire to forests. If enemies exhibited some kind of reaction to BEING SET ON FIRE, then maybe it could work, but just as in real life, they are not effective against opposition that has no psychological reaction to BEING ON FIRE.

If the rocket launcher could destroy a spawner in one hit, that would shake things up a bit, but it can't.

That, or more RANGE. Range...and a third-level of ammo that puts a NUKE on it.

Another thing I'd really like to see in the game is planes. Why does the "Flight" research lead to nothing that truly FLIES? I want a nice plane. (Also, a sword, so that those vehicles can drive/fly me closer, because I want to hit them with my sword.) A nice plane that can be used to deliver cargo...whether that cargo is in the resources and products to another outlying base, or just a mass of exploding things to be haphazardly dropped at some specific location you don't like very much. I want to build a big motherfucking plane and fill it with masses of big motherfucking bombs and just carpetbomb the fuck out of stuff.

 

[Blaine]

You want to know what's better at mowing down forests than the flamethrower?

That's right, the shotgun, baby. Shop smart. Shop S-Mart.

I agree: If the flamethrower did a smidge of damage over time and distracted them a bit (similar in function but different than distractor capsules), while the rocket launcher could be used well outside of nest aggro range and was guaranteed to destroy a building and cause a casualty or three but was slow to reload (say 5-10 seconds standing still), carried only a few ammo per slot, and attracted instant enemy aggro, that would be cool. You could begin combat with a rocket, pull out the flamethrower and hose them down, then spray away with the shotgun, distractors, and destroyers, with some defenders tossed in for shits and giggles.

There's a flying vehicles mod on factoriomods.com, and one of Factorio's developers even made a video of himself carpet bombing stuff with it. However, there are perhaps some simple and viable explanations as to why Factorio lacks aircraft: Maybe the little dude can't fly them, the atmosphere is too thin for known designs, etc. The story of Factorio is that you and your crew are engineers sent to set up large ground-to-space missiles (or maybe ground-to-spawner missiles) in preparation for the arrival of a human colony ship, but then something goes horribly awry and only you and the few tools you presumably have on you survive, leaving you to do everything manually.

 

[Incantatar]

Why isn't this on GOG?
Is there a DRM scheme on their store game version?

 

[jcd]

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[Incantatar]

Why isn't this on GOG?
Is there a DRM scheme on their store game version?

You can purchase off their own website for a DRM-free version.

 

[Blaine]

Well, things are coming to a head. This isn't the best and most efficient factory ever, and it most certainly isn't the largest, but it gets the job done. I'm almost finished with Follower Robot Count 12 now (screenshots are a bit old) granting me 54 total followers, and I have nothing left to research but ever-higher Follower Robot Count and strictly rocket-related stuff.

Of note: This is the base I started my first-ever game of Factorio with and I've endeavored to stay in it, notwithstanding the space restrictions and weirdness created by the water and old infrastructure. I've done numerous complete teardowns and rebuilds, expanded a bit several times, and finally got it running fairly smoothly, with few significant bottlenecks and only a couple of points where manual intervention is occasionally required. Problem is, it can't also sustain mass production of robot capsules, so I've gotten almost all of the research out of the way first, and will now blueprint what's there, rip most of it down, and build a robot production line with effect transmitters placed properly.

You may be thinking I'm doing it wrong, that I should have 200 factories in giant cascading production lines with more mining bases, more and better speed modules and effect transmitters, etc., but the aliens only attack me occasionally and in token numbers and I have yet to hit evolution 1.0.

I've deployed several radar arrays in addition to the inevitable line of mining bases, and noticed that once cleared out, nests will no longer respawn within a certain distances of placed structures. There are none directly between me and my mining bases, nor within a certain distance of my radar bases. This makes sense anyway since nests can't spawn within or directly outside your base, but I'd suppose that if you build pretty much anything on defeated nests (a few gun turrets with ammo and some walls), that will reduce the enemy's spawn area and eventually you could freeze enemies out of entire regions.

 

[Mr. Pink]

OH GOD WHAT DONE

 

[Blaine]

You want to see unholy? I'll show you unholy.

It started off so well-planned, so properly calculated, went so amazingly and elegantly smoothly, producing 4-5 Destroyer capsules (the ultimate bottomless pit in Factorio; almost everything you see below eventually feeds one single Destroyer assembler) per minute for the first half hour or so thanks to my reserves, then I realized not enough iron was reaching the steel smelters, so I ripped some speed mods out of the smelters and crammed them in the iron furnaces... then I realized I needed twelve bald eagles' worth of oilfields to create the plastic needed to feed the hungry advanced circuit assemblers... and I tacked on more assemblers, ripped out two of the Defender assemblers (there were eight once), and I forget the rest.

The point is, everything went to shit as it always does in this game. The beast must feast and if you can't appease its appetite, either it will consume you or the natives will.

 

[thesheeep]

OH GOD WHAT DONE

Yeah that looks more like my stuff. Completely wonky, awkward paths of coal and other materials meandering somehow around buildings placed a long, long time ago.
We are the goblin mechanics of our time.

 

[Blaine]

SEND HELP

 

[Perkel]

bitch please :D

 

[Blaine]

I've got the massively huge nests on my map too, where do you think they all came from?

They kept coming for at least ten minutes after I got back home.

 

[Quigs]

Started playing yesterday. How far down the tech tree are the little robot mule guys? I managed to cobble together some manufacturing plants putting out the green tech, but it's such a rig job that I could use the robotic help.

 

[Perkel]

Why isn't this on GOG?
Is there a DRM scheme on their store game version?

Because gog rarely puts early access games on their store. They don't want to be steam in that sense.

But when they release 1.0 they will probably be on gog.

 

[Jaedar]

Started playing yesterday. How far down the tech tree are the little robot mule guys? I managed to cobble together some manufacturing plants putting out the green tech, but it's such a rig job that I could use the robotic help.

They require a well developed oil infrastructure as well as blue tech. It's pretty late, the final infrastructure upgrade pretty much.

You can pretty easily check it yourself, since the entire tech tree is visible from the start.

 

[tripedal]

You shouldn't be using robots for something like green science anyway. The fun of the game comes from figuring out the puzzle of setting up a beautiful production chain. If you're unsatisfied, just remove what you have and start over again (with a plan).

 

[Quigs]

You can pretty easily check it yourself, since the entire tech tree is visible from the start.

Well, Kind of. Maybe I'm missing it, but the tech tree isn't the friendliest when it comes to telling you what you need to build things. In other words, it'll tell you electronics builds motors, but also that steel builds motors, rather than telling you to build a motor you'd need electronics and steel.

You shouldn't be using robots for something like green science anyway. The fun of the game comes from figuring out the puzzle of setting up a beautiful production chain. If you're unsatisfied, just remove what you have and start over again (with a plan).

Probably so. I suppose I'm unused to 'soft' failure, where restarting would be best, but not necessary. Like I'm blowing away alien bases left and right, but since I'm not dying, it seems wrong to just hit the reset button. I think I like that, the choice placed upon me, rather than having it chosen for me. It's interesting.

 

[Ironmonk]

I played the demo yesterday and I really liked it. I will definitely buy it when it leaves EA... btw, there is any estimate date for that?

 

[Norfleet]

Probably so. I suppose I'm unused to 'soft' failure, where restarting would be best, but not necessary. Like I'm blowing away alien bases left and right, but since I'm not dying, it seems wrong to just hit the reset button. I think I like that, the choice placed upon me, rather than having it chosen for me. It's interesting.

It's not really so much a failure or a restart as it is ripping out your entire factory and building it over. If you've gotten far enough, there is even tech specifically for tearing apart your entire factory, stuffing the entire thing into crates, and then rebuilding it. You get to the point where you have an entire factory that is specifically designed for you to be able to just disassemble the entire thing and move it.

Also, entire factory complexes that simply build copies of themselves.

 

[Blaine]

Quigs You need Logistic Robotics (and Construction Robotics for construction and demolishing), which require Robotics, which in turn requires: Electronics, Advanced Electronics, Automation 1 and 2, Steel Processing, Oil Processing, Sulfur Processing, Battery, Engine, Electric Engine, and Flight.

My friend's factory:

Long story short, give yourself plenty of space.

 

[Blaine]

If you really wanna see some shit though: http://imgur.com/a/TYrbl

 

[Blaine]

Factorio rocket launcher demonstration:

 

[tripedal]

Check out this monster: https://imgur.com/a/GKkPR

 

[Destroid]

8-12 fps that must have been painful to play.

 

[Blaine]

I've been calculating 8x turret bank spacing and coverage for my new big base. I must be a hair away from behemoths by now:

I've got the trees pulled down, the walls laid, almost done with concrete (I needed 80,000 concrete; base is 400 x 200 game squares) and I have 80 MW of solar going and 800 turrets made, time to place the turrets tentatively (some might need to be moved as I add doors, train portals, etc.) and start setting up for real.