A critique of Factorio’s power generation systems
Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2020 4:29 pm
Factorio is a game about building increasingly advanced industry. Progression is at the heart of the game – is the game’s ultimate aim. To reach technology advanced enough to build a rocket and fly to space. As such, throughout the game, there are several technologies that help you to advance the technology you use so that you can make better use of the resources you have – time, power, and literal physical resources.
A fantastic example of this comes in the form of the various oil processing technologies. The starting technology (basic oil processing) is enough to start your production of plastics and other oil products. However, the higher yields of products as well as the more advanced materials (such as lubricant) are locked behind tackling a more advanced system. The advanced oil process is literally more complex – requiring the player to deal with three products rather than one, potentially requiring additional processes like cracking to balance production with need.
Now consider the difference in setup cost between the basic and advanced oil processes. The difference boils down to a pump, possibly a few chemical plants and a bunch of additional pipes (which are essentially free in the grand scheme of things). The “price” of the advanced process is not primarily or solely in material resources, but rather in the player being clever enough to implement it. A cracking operation is not difficult to set up, but it requires some critical thought and implementation of the circuit network (a system which, although fundamentally simple, is not massively intuitive for a new player). And whilst there is a literal difference in price, possibly even a large one in the case of some technologies, that difference is necessitated to make the progression feel balanced and natural.
By thinking about the problem and implementing the more complex but more efficient system, the player can increase their factory’s productivity (which is perhaps what truly separates advanced and basic technologies). This is a big part of what makes Factorio gratifying to play. The hook of the game is in inviting the player to think about their problems and solve them in creative ways to get the best result. This idea, demonstrated with oil processing, is true of the rest of the game too.
Implementing a smelting setup or a crafting line can be as simple as one might desire. But there are optimisations that can be done in order to improve efficiency in terms of resource usage and time efficiency. You can make your factory objectively better if one is willing to put in the time and energy (and maths) required and doing so is innately satisfying.
And this brings me to my criticism of Factorio’s power generation system. In general, Factorio’s power generation isn’t as complex as the rest of the game. Going into this, I want the reader to keep a question in mind. The question I put to you is this: what is a good price for a more advanced technology? What should the player have to pay in order to get to the more productive methods? Bearing in mind that a “good price” is one that makes the game “good” (satisfying, engaging, balanced, fair, enjoyable, etc.) to play. As designers, surely, this is our aim.
For the most part, the power generation systems (all three of them) are very basic. Take the steam boiler to start. The boiler is the most basic technology, and there isn’t really much of an optimisation to be done on a basic boiler setup. You could maybe change the fuel over to solid fuel and add a burner inserter rather than an electric one to ensure the system never goes down, but neither of these is very difficult. There is also perhaps some fun to be had designing a circuit network system to automatically route fuel to where it is needed, but ultimately, most people never feel the need to do so because saturation (as in, providing the power unit with so much fuel that the belts are constantly full) is such an effective method that more advanced systems are pointless. Unless you plan on fuelling your boiler with rocket fuel (a prospect so ridiculous that I am sure to try it next time I play) there isn’t much need for anything more complicate than a belt and an inserter.
And this is fine – the boiler is meant to be basic. but consider similarly tiered systems; basic belts and assembly machines are used throughout the game for low priority or niche purposes, and setting them up requires an understanding of mechanics like splitters, inserters, and (depending on the purpose) potentially the circuit network. Similarly, the boiler will probably last you a good portion of the game, at least until you have access to solar panels, and quite likely all the way up until nuclear power, since solar is so relatively low in power output. Despite this longevity, there are no real later-game optimisations that can be made for the boiler.
Solar panels are no better – indeed, they might even be worse. Solar panels themselves need little more than to be placed down with an appropriate number of accumulators. Working out this exact amount ultimately comes down to understanding how your factory uses power – which can be found literally by looking at a graph of your factory’s power usage. Again, however, this is fine. Solar panels exist for the purpose of generating power either without producing any pollution or in remote situations where connecting to the main plant is impractical or not desired.
This brings us then to the most advanced power generator in the game. Nuclear reactors are without any doubt extremely advanced technology. The author is too lazy to look up exactly how much more energy a reactor system produces compared to a boiler system but knows from experience that even a huge boiler system can be compressed down into only two or three reactors. Reactors are indeed, “big bois”.
Given this, you may think that the cost of a reactor, both material and in design, would be high. And whilst it is true that reactors and centrifuges are expensive, reactors are not particularly difficult to design, besides perhaps fuel reprocessing, steam management and shutoff to prevent energy waste. I do not mean to say that there are no challenges in designing an efficient and good reactor – the problems above, especially the last one, present a real challenge for the player to solve. For me, the reason the reactor design seems so egregious is because the setup cost seems to be less than the crafting cost. I have spent far more time crafting reactors and centrifuges than I have spent in setting them up in an intelligent manner. This is, of course, simply the author's personal opinion, and in general, the nuclear reactor is more complex than alternative solutions, and therefore, a more satisfying solution to implement. If I had to choose only one solution to redesign with more complexity, it would probably be the boiler, with the solar panels being a fair second. The point I make is that reactors are a very expensive thing to build for something that requires so little setup.
I also believe that there isn’t necessarily a huge change required to make boilers more interesting. Simply allowing for beacon interactions would immediately make boiler setups much more interesting to design, as they more or less fulfil all the specific requirements that make a beacon useful (densely packed machines, constant operation). It would also be interesting to see how one might precariously balance the beacons’ own power usage with the net gain granted by boosting the generators. Indeed, beacons are a very complex (read- “good”) mechanic that allows for a huge amount of variation for a player interested in making impactful marginal gains.
There are obviously also other ways boilers could be made more interesting – perhaps allow the player to manage the amount of pollution produced with additional logistics. And the same is probably true of solar panels, although I have difficulty thinking of any definitive solutions myself.
As far as reactors go, one possible solution to making them far too complicated (in a good way) would be no longer requiring all three heat pipe connectors for the adjacency bonus. For instance, perhaps if there is only one connection, then the bonus is 1/3 that of what it would be with all three, etc. in this case, the formerly simple question of “what is the most efficient reactor layout?” becomes much more complex. As it is now, a double row of reactors is naturally more efficient than any other since others are either clearly less efficient (allowing fewer connections per reactor) or impractical due to inaccessibility.
To wrap up, I want to bring us back to the question I asked at the start of the criticism. What is a good price for a more advanced technology? Hopefully, I have demonstrated that requiring the player to think about how to implement an advanced solution makes it a more satisfying system to play with. And I also hope that I have demonstrated that to an extent, there is still room for improvement in this department within Factorio’s power generation mechanics. This concludes my essay.
TL;DR – boilers are very simple, especially when compared to other technologies around similar tiers and use cases, and some additional functionality could make them more interesting to play with, especially considering that they are the power generation system used by people for probably most of the game.
A fantastic example of this comes in the form of the various oil processing technologies. The starting technology (basic oil processing) is enough to start your production of plastics and other oil products. However, the higher yields of products as well as the more advanced materials (such as lubricant) are locked behind tackling a more advanced system. The advanced oil process is literally more complex – requiring the player to deal with three products rather than one, potentially requiring additional processes like cracking to balance production with need.
Now consider the difference in setup cost between the basic and advanced oil processes. The difference boils down to a pump, possibly a few chemical plants and a bunch of additional pipes (which are essentially free in the grand scheme of things). The “price” of the advanced process is not primarily or solely in material resources, but rather in the player being clever enough to implement it. A cracking operation is not difficult to set up, but it requires some critical thought and implementation of the circuit network (a system which, although fundamentally simple, is not massively intuitive for a new player). And whilst there is a literal difference in price, possibly even a large one in the case of some technologies, that difference is necessitated to make the progression feel balanced and natural.
By thinking about the problem and implementing the more complex but more efficient system, the player can increase their factory’s productivity (which is perhaps what truly separates advanced and basic technologies). This is a big part of what makes Factorio gratifying to play. The hook of the game is in inviting the player to think about their problems and solve them in creative ways to get the best result. This idea, demonstrated with oil processing, is true of the rest of the game too.
Implementing a smelting setup or a crafting line can be as simple as one might desire. But there are optimisations that can be done in order to improve efficiency in terms of resource usage and time efficiency. You can make your factory objectively better if one is willing to put in the time and energy (and maths) required and doing so is innately satisfying.
And this brings me to my criticism of Factorio’s power generation system. In general, Factorio’s power generation isn’t as complex as the rest of the game. Going into this, I want the reader to keep a question in mind. The question I put to you is this: what is a good price for a more advanced technology? What should the player have to pay in order to get to the more productive methods? Bearing in mind that a “good price” is one that makes the game “good” (satisfying, engaging, balanced, fair, enjoyable, etc.) to play. As designers, surely, this is our aim.
For the most part, the power generation systems (all three of them) are very basic. Take the steam boiler to start. The boiler is the most basic technology, and there isn’t really much of an optimisation to be done on a basic boiler setup. You could maybe change the fuel over to solid fuel and add a burner inserter rather than an electric one to ensure the system never goes down, but neither of these is very difficult. There is also perhaps some fun to be had designing a circuit network system to automatically route fuel to where it is needed, but ultimately, most people never feel the need to do so because saturation (as in, providing the power unit with so much fuel that the belts are constantly full) is such an effective method that more advanced systems are pointless. Unless you plan on fuelling your boiler with rocket fuel (a prospect so ridiculous that I am sure to try it next time I play) there isn’t much need for anything more complicate than a belt and an inserter.
And this is fine – the boiler is meant to be basic. but consider similarly tiered systems; basic belts and assembly machines are used throughout the game for low priority or niche purposes, and setting them up requires an understanding of mechanics like splitters, inserters, and (depending on the purpose) potentially the circuit network. Similarly, the boiler will probably last you a good portion of the game, at least until you have access to solar panels, and quite likely all the way up until nuclear power, since solar is so relatively low in power output. Despite this longevity, there are no real later-game optimisations that can be made for the boiler.
Solar panels are no better – indeed, they might even be worse. Solar panels themselves need little more than to be placed down with an appropriate number of accumulators. Working out this exact amount ultimately comes down to understanding how your factory uses power – which can be found literally by looking at a graph of your factory’s power usage. Again, however, this is fine. Solar panels exist for the purpose of generating power either without producing any pollution or in remote situations where connecting to the main plant is impractical or not desired.
This brings us then to the most advanced power generator in the game. Nuclear reactors are without any doubt extremely advanced technology. The author is too lazy to look up exactly how much more energy a reactor system produces compared to a boiler system but knows from experience that even a huge boiler system can be compressed down into only two or three reactors. Reactors are indeed, “big bois”.
Given this, you may think that the cost of a reactor, both material and in design, would be high. And whilst it is true that reactors and centrifuges are expensive, reactors are not particularly difficult to design, besides perhaps fuel reprocessing, steam management and shutoff to prevent energy waste. I do not mean to say that there are no challenges in designing an efficient and good reactor – the problems above, especially the last one, present a real challenge for the player to solve. For me, the reason the reactor design seems so egregious is because the setup cost seems to be less than the crafting cost. I have spent far more time crafting reactors and centrifuges than I have spent in setting them up in an intelligent manner. This is, of course, simply the author's personal opinion, and in general, the nuclear reactor is more complex than alternative solutions, and therefore, a more satisfying solution to implement. If I had to choose only one solution to redesign with more complexity, it would probably be the boiler, with the solar panels being a fair second. The point I make is that reactors are a very expensive thing to build for something that requires so little setup.
I also believe that there isn’t necessarily a huge change required to make boilers more interesting. Simply allowing for beacon interactions would immediately make boiler setups much more interesting to design, as they more or less fulfil all the specific requirements that make a beacon useful (densely packed machines, constant operation). It would also be interesting to see how one might precariously balance the beacons’ own power usage with the net gain granted by boosting the generators. Indeed, beacons are a very complex (read- “good”) mechanic that allows for a huge amount of variation for a player interested in making impactful marginal gains.
There are obviously also other ways boilers could be made more interesting – perhaps allow the player to manage the amount of pollution produced with additional logistics. And the same is probably true of solar panels, although I have difficulty thinking of any definitive solutions myself.
As far as reactors go, one possible solution to making them far too complicated (in a good way) would be no longer requiring all three heat pipe connectors for the adjacency bonus. For instance, perhaps if there is only one connection, then the bonus is 1/3 that of what it would be with all three, etc. in this case, the formerly simple question of “what is the most efficient reactor layout?” becomes much more complex. As it is now, a double row of reactors is naturally more efficient than any other since others are either clearly less efficient (allowing fewer connections per reactor) or impractical due to inaccessibility.
To wrap up, I want to bring us back to the question I asked at the start of the criticism. What is a good price for a more advanced technology? Hopefully, I have demonstrated that requiring the player to think about how to implement an advanced solution makes it a more satisfying system to play with. And I also hope that I have demonstrated that to an extent, there is still room for improvement in this department within Factorio’s power generation mechanics. This concludes my essay.
TL;DR – boilers are very simple, especially when compared to other technologies around similar tiers and use cases, and some additional functionality could make them more interesting to play with, especially considering that they are the power generation system used by people for probably most of the game.
