New player, overwhelmed

[je11693]

Hi guys,

I've silent a bit of time playing the demo and find it to be a really interesting game. However, i find it to be incredibly complex and overwhelming, so I was wondering what methods you guys found most useful to learn to play the game?

Many thanks!

[eradicator]

what methods you guys found most useful to learn to play the game?

Play more of the game :P. As everything in life and gaming, just...do more of it.
You can learn from your own mistakes, and enjoy the journey of discovery :D. I still remember my first base where i didn't expand fast enough and the aliens blockaded all the surrounding ore fields. Started a new map several times, until i was fast enough ^^. Ofc there's options to just disable them now.
Factorio looks complex at the beginning, but looking back now it's all really only a collection of lots of simple mechanisms.

Personally i don't like watching youtube video tutorials, but there's s heap of them if you search for "factorio tutorial".

[zOldBulldog]

There are two tutorial youtube series that I would recommend to anyone: Katherine of Sky (KoS) Megabase series (especially the first episode where she covers map options) and Nilaus' Base in a Book. They take very different approaches so they cover different and very useful insights.

You can of course Google for YouTube tutorials on any topic you need.

You can also do the campaign/tutorial missions, but keep in mind that they are a bit messy and try to not get frustrated when it gets harder too fast. You might find it best to do some of the missions, stop, play a normal game, then return to continue missions once you are more experienced.

You can reduce the difficulty (and also make different flavors of games) by tweaking the options in the New Game tabs. For learning at your own pace without being overwhelmed by too much happening too fast I recommend two settings: Turn off biter/alien expansion, and (at least very early on) turn off pollution or set the mode to peaceful. That should help prevent alien attacks while you are still learning the game, but let you experience combat at your own pace when you choose to fight them.

Finally, the Share Your Creations part of this forum and factorioprints.Com both have excellent examples of how to do things. Use them, but try to not do it blindly,. Instead study them, learn the principles, and modify them to make them your own.

Good luck and enjoy the game.

[Mr. Tact]

Don't worry about doing everything. Just pick a project, say like making green science, and then work towards it. You can't start out saying, "I'm going to launch a rocket." There is a lot of stuff to learn, it is going to take some time. And most everything you learn, you'll learn later it could have been done better or easier. It is just the nature of the game. Don't worry about it. Just solve the issue you are working on, and move on.

[je11693]

Thanks for the replies guys. I finished the demo, I was able to automate some things but not others e.g. getting coal into the boiler to produce steam for the electricity production. It felt like there was so much happening at once, and that I didn't even scratch the surface of what's possible.

Edit: in the actual game, does it explain what new items actually are and how/what they can be used for? Or is there a feature that does a step-by-step walkthrough so you can learn what different items are without having to do it in the main game?

[theolderbeholder]

Most of the stuff is self explaining, items also have pop up infoboxes. Concerning item production, you just have to add ingrediends to assembly machines and move these products to other machines. (And then rebuild the entire thing as it does not scale and you need waaaaay more of x than you expected.)

[eradicator]

Edit: in the actual game, does it explain what new items actually are and how/what they can be used for? Or is there a feature that does a step-by-step walkthrough so you can learn what different items are without having to do it in the main game?

Most of the non-combat part of the game (the main part of the game) is focused around making science bottles. Even the rocket is just there to make more science bottles nowadays. So, all items are kinda just science ingredients. :p (Factorio is at its core a logistic puzzle game where there's always a better solution to the puzzle.)

So the basic "workflow" is to look at the recipe of the science pack that you want to automate to see what items you need for them. And then you look at those recipes and see what you need for those...until you reach iron/copper ore.

The main game does have some mini-tutorials on how to use different things like train signals, robots, etc. But generally you're expected to trial & error until you understand how something works instead of waiting for someone to explain it to you. (At least that's how i played it, so this must be the one and only truth, right :p?)

But yea, generally don't worry about the things you don't understand yet. Just do the things you do understand. Until you're comfortable enough with them to try other things.

[evopwr]

And of course, you can always post any questions here when you get stuck. Chuck in a screen shot, and people are always willing to help.

[Koub]

Also, just in case you don't know the trick, the [Alt] key adds useful information as overlay (what a machine is crafting, where the inserters take items from /to, ...).
First thing I do on every new game is to hit it, and never turn it off.

[zOldBulldog]

Also, just in case you don't know the trick, the [Alt] key adds useful information as overlay (what a machine is crafting, where the inserters take items from /to, ...).
First thing I do on every new game is to hit it, and never turn it off.

Yep, love the Alt.

Similar to that, there is an option to make constant combinators show their values. I apologize, but I can't remember how to turn it on. TBH, that option should really be the default, as it is common practice to label belt contents in blueprints by using constant combinators.

Another useful similar feature is F4 / turn on "Show tile grid" / F4. It makes it so much easier to align things. I keep it on almost all the time, turning it off only when I take a screenshot I plan to share.

[eradicator]

Also, just in case you don't know the trick, the [Alt] key adds useful information as overlay (what a machine is crafting, where the inserters take items from /to, ...).
First thing I do on every new game is to hit it, and never turn it off.

Yep, love the Alt.

Similar to that, there is an option to make constant combinators show their values. I apologize, but I can't remember how to turn it on. TBH, that option should really be the default, as it is common practice to label belt contents in blueprints by using constant combinators.

Another useful similar feature is F4 / turn on "Show tile grid" / F4. It makes it so much easier to align things. I keep it on almost all the time, turning it off only when I take a screenshot I plan to share.

It's in Options -> Interface. Here's my current settings:

interface.png (99.02 KiB) Viewed 4856 times

I recommend against using F4 (debug overlay) for a new player who is already overwhelmed by the game. You can press shift+space to pause the game and it'll show the grid too if the option is enabled (also on screenshot). Also imho a new player shouldn't jump right into OCD mode, they should just play the game without having to care for some imaginary grid. (Constantly showing the grid also makes the game noticably uglier :p)

Also you can press ctrl+f (or click the magnifying glass icon) to search recipes by their name quickly.

[zOldBulldog]

I think it is a personal preference. For me the grid and the Alt combinator options made life easier and less frustrating,

Yes, the grid makes the display a little uglier, but let's face it, Factorio was never a "pretty" looking game, it's graphics are what we would see 10 or more years ago. After a little while I stopped even noticing the grid. It helps a lot with very little negative impact.

[zOldBulldog]

Deleted. Double post. New forum is still buggy as hell.

[evopwr]

I wish doing alt-tab to switch to a different app, didn't toggle the "alt-mode" at the same time. Should toggle it just if alt is pressed/depressed by itself.

[zOldBulldog]

I wish doing alt-tab to switch to a different app, didn't toggle the "alt-mode" at the same time. Should toggle it just if alt is pressed/depressed by itself.

Try setting the options to windowed mode, then maximize the screen. You should still see the windows taskbar and be able to switch to the other app with your mouse. Tip from Geeks R Us

[eradicator]

I wish doing alt-tab to switch to a different app, didn't toggle the "alt-mode" at the same time. Should toggle it just if alt is pressed/depressed by itself.

I just learn to live with it, but honestly, i don't ever want to turn it off. So, might as well change the button to something less mis-pressable like "[home]" or something. Or write a mod that turns it back on again :p.

@zOldBulldog: How about deleting that double post?

[zOldBulldog]

@zOldBulldog: How about deleting that double post?

Ty for pointing it out. This new forum still has many bugs to be fixed. Not my first double post since they changed it,.