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If you're wondering whether to get involved in this game, and you've ever suspected you're a little vulnerable to getting addicted, then I'd suggest keeping a very cautious exclusion zone around Factorio.

Alternatively, if you do get ensnared, then installing a mod which allows you to edit and experiment freely might help you "see the matrix" behind the game and dispel the enchantment somewhat.

The jokes about losing days, months, sleep, relationships, and jobs are not always jokes.

I bought it for myself Christmas 2023. I spend the first week of 2024 playing in 36-hour streaks, did not show up to friends and relied on SO to supply me with food. Second week in January i went back to work, but spent most of my time outside of that playing. I restarted social activity in February, around May the addiction had largely burned out and playing increasingly didn't give "the kick" anymore. I had around 500 hrs of Gameplay at that point.

These weeks i still plan to waste every other evening with Factorio, but usually i end up programming or doing housewife stuff instead.

I think i would do that again. Thanks to SO for supporting me when doing silly things.

You might want to check out Dyson sphere program if you haven't already. The fixation will likely go away much quicker then factorio's, but its another take that has its own charm

The way I stopped myself is by launching the rocket to space once and then never opening the game again, as I have seen everything it has to offer.

I think my worst nightmare would be if Factorio and Civ had a baby, as in the same Factorio gameplay, but with a bunch of playable characters that essentially just tweak the numbers a bit.

I think I fall on the vulnerable camp but after a very intense phase I fortunately lost interest after a few weeks. Refactoring is not fun, and I prefer to be payed for it. So for me long term addiction is not a risk , but short term you better have nothing else to do.

I like to tinker, but at some point it all just becomes overwhelming and I just loose the feeling. As next step would be having to rebuild everything again. And that would mean setting up the production for bots, parts, and so on with big enough scale... I just don't have that in me...

"If you think you'd really love playing this computer game, please consider avoiding it" - I'm sure Wube will be delighted to see this advice at the top of the HN comment thread!

> "If you think you'd really love playing this computer game, please consider avoiding it"

Addiction isn't equal to "really lov[ing]" something, and it's childish to equate them.

Video games are incredibly addictive and ruin a lot of lives. That's not to say they're not valid or good forms of entertainment. Some people just can't handle them.

100% agree. My friends and I have played WoW on and off since release, and I never thought much of it. I could easily step away from it and used it mostly as a way to keep in touch with that group. We recently found out how much of a toll it has taken on one of ours friends lives who has pretty much always played even while the rest of the group was taking breaks.

OK - call me childish, but Factorio is a one-off payment of £35. There's no danger of spending more money than that, so the only thing you'll be wasting is your own time playing it. It's an over-reaction to characterise it as posing some kind of life-threatening danger.

Play a lot of Factorio and yep - you've wasted a bunch of your time (ask me how I know :-) ).

(of course there's the Space Age expansion - that's another £35)

I have found that procedural generation tools such as Blender are a good substitute for (single-player) Factorio. Especially the node DAGs such as shaders and now geo-nodes feel a lot like belts, inserters and assemblers.

Plus in the end you are not just increasing some game item count, but get beautiful scenes to marvel at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vW9pCT5ouZ8

I mostly just leave it running in the background and tweak as things happen. I don't rush it, but the game has a tendency to try to rush itself on me, thankfully you can make settings changes.

Man I wish I could have gotten into Factorio the same way other people have. I bought it very early and have been trying to play it at least once every 6 months or so since then, but somehow it just didn't "click" with me.

I think it's because of the graphics, while they look cool in close-up, they are just a bit too cluttered and "washed out" when zooming out, making it hard to see the whole picture of your factory.

I will probably try this one as well but I don't have very high hopes...

More than 3000 hour in. Although I’m not playing currently, I feel like I have to take the last quarter off work.

I got sucked into Satisfactory for weeks and as much as I want to try Factorio, I am heeding your advice

I am curious what draws you to Satisfactory. I played a decent amount of Factorio and thought Satisfactory would scratch the same itch, but could not get into it

I think it's the same progression treadmill a lot of games have. Subnautica did this really well too, and Stardew Valley. Doing something manually and then getting to automate something that used to be really tedious really engages my brain in just the right way. I also generally like world exploring, I liked the music, I liked the immersive 3D element of it, the sort of vague quirky story/premise. It's making me want to play it again to talk about it - thankfully got rid of my gaming PC.

I generally install cheats in these games to move them along faster so I can get bored with them ASAP and get back to regular life.

Cracktorio, Satisfactory, Captain of Industry, Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic...

Who needs drugs when you have these.

If you want to pass the time until October, i would recommend the Ultracube: Age of Cube mod [0]. It does not stretch out the base game with additional tedious steps, instead it gives a big twist to what you knew about factories. Here is a good let's play introduction to the early game: [1]

[0]: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Ultracube

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOOANJhv2MU&pp=ygUJdWx0cmFjd...

Pushes back the timeline for AGI by a good 3 months!

Lol. But yes, every productivity hack blog article should start with “never install Factorio”.

The only worse offender is Factorio. But it was so worth it.

I always feel like "I should rather do real work instead" while playing such complex games that almost feel like work to learn. maybe that's just a byproduct of a "toxic productivity" mindset I developed

I have a similar feeling playing sudoku and others where I can “see” the algo to solve it right in front of me.

But I love factorio. It’s like programming something fun without all the meetings.

Same here. I played a lot more games in my teens and 20's than I do now. I also prefer games with less of the "you need to read the guides and watch tutorials before really groking things" type of games these days.

Factorio is actually really well designed that you don't need guides or tutorials to "beat" the game imo. Sure, there's guides and tutorials if you want to reach peak efficiency, but that's true for any game.

Factorio is extremely approachable. There’s no need to refer to outside materials or guides at all. There’s nothing hidden. All the information you need is right there in the UI.

And it's getting improved in 2.0 further with regards to the inline documentation of all the recipes (https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-397).

"Includes Factorio 2, which is a free upgrade for all users."

Honestly, Factorio is one of those games I would pay extra to keep going. Kudos to them for making the base game upgrade free.

They just put out a bug fix patch, almost 4 years after the 1.0 release. Very rare in the industry today.

Pairing in Factorio for an hour could replace a round (or two) in an interview loop. I'm convinced it would produce much stronger signals for engineering teams on how folks approach solving problems in a collaborative/team setting.

I agree with you, but then you risk losing the whole team to Factorio.

I can't wait.

I played it years ago and it was a lot of fun. Recently I've been playing Workers & Resources which has a similar focus on logistics so it'll be fun to go back to the OG.

I am debating whether i should take time off work. Though the release date may still slip by a week or more, i guess.

The incoming bot, blueprint, and train updates are so good I can’t play 1.0 anymore :(

I’m still not sure how I feel about the planet stuff though

I'm a big fan of rail networks in Factorio, I am really looking forward to the new changes. They're going to improve quality of life a lot, it's very exciting!

I'm also looking forward to whatever happens with the Angel's and Bob's mods, because I really enjoy the vast web of materials I can create.

Pic of my previous playthrough's rail network: https://imgur.com/a/XcamKQB It kind of looks like a CPU to me.

Oh, how odd. That’s exactly the day I am catching the flu!

Hmm, looks like some Hacker News mod did not like this post :/

(title was edited (OK, it was not strictly following the rules) and post moved to bottom of the front page)

If you don't want to wait, the rather stupendous Space Exploration mod to Factorio is available now:

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/space-exploration

Warning: this is stupidly time consuming (as in, hundreds of hours just to get to orbit) and you'll need to already be proficient in Factorio to make any headway.

Fun fact for those that didn't know. The dev's hired the author Earendel to come convert said mod into a full DLC. It's interesting seeing how the different dynamics of making a polished and widely playable DLC changes what does and doesn't make the cut from mod -> DLC. I hope some of Earendel's love of secrets do make it.

Wube hired the creator of that mod to develop this expansion, and he says that they are nothing alike (except for the “going to space” part).[0]

[0] https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-373

Is it harder than Sea Block? That's the one that was finally too much for me to finish, after doing other big ones like Bobs Mods, AngelBob, Pyanodon, etc. I've got a Sea Block attempt with hundreds of hours in it, my largest base ever, before I fell off. If Space Exploration is more complex I'm a little afraid of it.

Much easier than seablock. But it's a chore. The end game is a grind instead of a challenge like sesblock

I really dislike the idea of "quality" in the context of Factorio.

For myself I am holding off on forming an opinion. They have already said that you can play the whole game without ever using it, if you want.

It was hard to track down a source to confirm a half-remembered fact, but apparently the expansion content will be split between a number of mods so that you can independently enable/disable them, including quality:

https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/16ja44x/friday_fa...

Well, assuming they haven't changed their plans in the year since, and won't in the next few months.

I think quality is fine, the issue is the strings, having "Legendary Wire" in a serious factory game.

I always bounce off of Factorio because I want to be able to play with the default settings but I always end up getting killed by bugs/aliens not long after starting the game.

- Generate new random seeds until you spawn in a forest / grassland area. Greener areas absorb more pollution so the pollution travels less across the map.

- Set spawn area to largest. Earliest biter nests get generated farther away, making it more difficult for your pollution cloud to reach them

This way you can play largely in peace without having achievements disabled.

I turn them off entirely. I'm playing Factorio to make trains and things to make the trains train about the place. Ain't got no time for random critter waves.

Well... When you level up a bit, your trains become an unstoppable bug-mashing barrier around the perimeter of your base. The bugs try to cross the tracks and SQUISH! No more bugs. No need for turrets or ammo, just trains.

It's the Factorio equivalent of the mine cart blender room trap in Dwarf Fortress, certified to kill even clown invasions.

Starting in a forest/grassland area will give you more time until the biters come.

Or just play in peaceful mode, there is still so much good gameplay left even without the challenge of biters.

The first time I played was right at the beginning. I bought it on Friday afternoon and spent the entire weekend playing. I did almost nothing else, and I must have spent over than 50 hours that weekend.

After that, I kind of avoid the game, but if you are a controlled person, I highly recommend it, especially if you are familiar with Kafka or other queues. Setting up the assembly lines is basically the same thing.

Perhaps I'll be finished my K2SE run by then. Probably not.

I started my K2SE run in march and I've come to accept I'm not going to finish by the time Space Age comes out.

I was really put off by the pricing fiasco. Was that unreasonable?

There is no pricing fiasco. It was respecting their customers. If "pricing fiasco" is how you describe respecting your customers, than yes, you are being unreasonable.

For those unaware, It's always the best time to buy Factorio. You dont' have to worry about buying it and then it going on sale. You can buy it, and know what you are buying and that you are getting the best deal.

It's a wonderful game and 100% worth the price. If you don't like those types of games, no reason to buy it. That's fine. No reason to pretend that there is some fiasco. No customer feels that way.

One possible valid criticism is they charge the same price (in USD) everywhere in the world. Many (but certainly not all) games are effectively discounted in poorer countries when converted to the local currency.

They do charge regional pricing. They don’t on their website where it’s always the same price. But they do regional pricing on Steam.

When I initially heard that the dev doesn't do sales, I felt similarly, but it makes sense for a lot of people (as other commenters point out)

What pricing fiasco?

There was approximately 1 day where the pricing in some currency was off by 1-2 orders of magnitude. I believe the conjecture was that it was politically motivated.

Edit: https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?t=102895

iirc the developer doesn’t do sales? idk it was never a fiasco, just bad if you like sales I guess.

How is that a fiasco? Per hour played, Factorio is stupendously good value, you pay once and you can play forever.

The absence of sales is a big win for me. It made it a no-brainer purchase for me.

Yep, having sales makes a fair number of people wait until there is a sale. Without sales you're pushed back to a (more) binary decision, do I want the game or not, rather than do I want the game at $X price.

Also with sales you get some portion of people that buy things because they are on sale rather than knowing if they really want the game or not, which can lead to complaints on forums.

Yes, you are unreasonable.