I've never played multiplayer. I have some basic questions...

Arrange meetings with other people to play MP, announce your servers.
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T__C
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I've never played multiplayer. I have some basic questions...

Post by T__C »

My family gets together many times each year, and I'm always looking for fun new things we can do as a group. I got the idea that we could play Factorio together in multiplayer mode. However, I have never played multiplayer mode, so I need to do some research first. (Please forgive me if these are dumb questions; I'm not an experienced gamer.)
  • Can I create a private multiplayer game with 7 players?
  • I will invite about 10 family members to play, but I estimate that only about 5 will play seriously. The others can share 2 hotseat games, for a total of 7 simultaneous players. Does that mean I need 7 licenses, or do licenses for multiplayer work differently in some way?
  • Is multiplayer Factorio a cooperative game, with everyone working together to build the rocket? Will the resources be shared by everyone, and everyone alerted when there is an attack by the biters?
  • My oldest two nieces will be away at college. If we want to have a conversation going with them, I assume we will need to use something like Skype. Or is there a better way?
  • If two players are connected via the internet and all others connected to the same LAN, is that a feasible configuration?
  • If some people are using Windows computers and some using Mac computers, is that a problem?
  • What happens if a player dies in multiplayer? Can they get back into the game?
  • How do mods work in multiplayer? Does everyone need to have the same mods installed?
  • It would be nice if we could reach some satisfying conclusion after maybe six hours. I don't think we can launch the rocket within six hours with the basic game. (I suspect that "cooperating" will slow us down, not speed us up.) Are there settings or mods which make the game easier, so that launching the rocket takes about half the time it usually does?
  • Are there any other Generation X players out there who have tried playing multiplayer with their Generation Z sons/daughters/nieces/nephews? How did it go? Does the younger generation have the attention span required to stick through an entire game?
-TC

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Re: I've never played multiplayer. I have some basic questions...

Post by Adamo »

  • Can I create a private multiplayer game with 7 players?
    Yes.
  • I will invite about 10 family members to play, but I estimate that only about 5 will play seriously. The others can share 2 hotseat games, for a total of 7 simultaneous players. Does that mean I need 7 licenses, or do licenses for multiplayer work differently in some way?
    Anyone who wants to use the in-game menu to host and join games will need a licensed account.
  • Is multiplayer Factorio a cooperative game, with everyone working together to build the rocket? Will the resources be shared by everyone, and everyone alerted when there is an attack by the biters?
    Yes. It is more difficult to setup a competitive game, but by no means impossible. In my experience, people typically play cooperatively.
  • My oldest two nieces will be away at college. If we want to have a conversation going with them, I assume we will need to use something like Skype. Or is there a better way?
    You can text chat in the game, but many people use Discord and similar services.
  • If two players are connected via the internet and all others connected to the same LAN, is that a feasible configuration?
    I think so.
  • If some people are using Windows computers and some using Mac computers, is that a problem?
    No.
  • What happens if a player dies in multiplayer? Can they get back into the game?
    They respawn and have 15 minutes to get their stuff from their body.
  • How do mods work in multiplayer? Does everyone need to have the same mods installed?
    Yes, but if you're using mods from the portal, the game can handle syncing them.
  • It would be nice if we could reach some satisfying conclusion after maybe six hours. I don't think we can launch the rocket within six hours with the basic game. (I suspect that "cooperating" will slow us down, not speed us up.) Are there settings or mods which make the game easier, so that launching the rocket takes about half the time it usually does?
    You are correct that cooperative multiplayer is slower except in the cases where experienced players have a plan. It's also more fun. Hang out in green science, with tons of stuff to learn and do, and have fun. Get people to build lots of ammo and then take the group out on bug raids. Trust me, people love that.
  • Are there any other Generation X players out there who have tried playing multiplayer with their Generation Z sons/daughters/nieces/nephews? How did it go? Does the younger generation have the attention span required to stick through an entire game?
    Yes. Some are fine. The experienced Gen Z factorio players lack artistry, electing instead for monolithic solutions, in my experience. :) But I'm just ribbing.

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Re: I've never played multiplayer. I have some basic questions...

Post by T__C »

Thank you for the advice. This is starting to look like a feasible plan.

-TC

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Re: I've never played multiplayer. I have some basic questions...

Post by Adamo »

T__C wrote:
Tue Jul 30, 2019 4:45 am
Thank you for the advice. This is starting to look like a feasible plan.

-TC
Random sharing of experience. There's a mod that causes bug evolution to decrease when you kill bug bases and worms. If you're introducing a truly green group to the game in a multiplayer map, which I have done a number of times, I strongly recommend this mod. Everyone is going to take forever to figure out how the game works, and the bugs keep evolving, so with this mod, every time you manage to herd people together to gun down some bugs, it buys them a little more time, you see, rather than speeding up the bug evolution. If you use the EVO GUI mod as well, you can lead people out, have them shoot bug bases until you see the evolution reader is back to 0%, then send them back to the base with all the wood you collected for burnination. This way you're sort of helping to keep your people safe. ;)

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Re: I've never played multiplayer. I have some basic questions...

Post by darkfrei »

Adamo wrote:
Tue Jul 30, 2019 5:03 am
There's a mod that causes bug evolution to decrease when you kill bug bases and worms. If you're introducing a truly green group to the game in a multiplayer map, which I have done a number of times, I strongly recommend this mod.
There is a lot of such mods.

For example by my mod Evo.
The speed of evolution is higher by contact of not absorbed pollution near of enemy bases.
But the evolution goes slowly down just by the time and you can keep the evolution low by air cleaning or destroying of enemy bases.

Another good mod is a Next Gen Evolution, but the evolution grows by absorption.

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Re: I've never played multiplayer. I have some basic questions...

Post by Adamo »

darkfrei wrote:
Tue Jul 30, 2019 7:18 am
Adamo wrote:
Tue Jul 30, 2019 5:03 am
There's a mod that causes bug evolution to decrease when you kill bug bases and worms. If you're introducing a truly green group to the game in a multiplayer map, which I have done a number of times, I strongly recommend this mod.
There is a lot of such mods.

For example by my mod Evo.
The speed of evolution is higher by contact of not absorbed pollution near of enemy bases.
But the evolution goes slowly down just by the time and you can keep the evolution low by air cleaning or destroying of enemy bases.

Another good mod is a Next Gen Evolution, but the evolution grows by absorption.
To be clear, I was suggesting this simple mod that only changes this one aspect of evolution: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Evolution%20Reduction. But yes, there are many options. :)

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Re: I've never played multiplayer. I have some basic questions...

Post by Light »

T__C wrote:
Tue Jul 30, 2019 2:13 am
Are there any other Generation X players out there who have tried playing multiplayer with their Generation Z sons/daughters/nieces/nephews? How did it go? Does the younger generation have the attention span required to stick through an entire game?
Depends on their maturity and overall interest in engineering and design.

I'm Generation Y and take the game to the most serious degree compared to my Gen X and Gen Z family and friends, likely due to my engineering background. The older folk like to take their time and the kids sometimes don't take things seriously enough to get anything done efficiently, usually screwing around with the cars and preferring combat over factory design.

I've found that assigning tasks to everyone has been the most successful method in ensuring things get done, especially the younger ones who need the direction and guidance to prevent screwing around since they're unsure what to do. By the time I've set up a ratio perfect setup, the older members probably have half of a setup done and the kids probably have something workable, but it's often completely unbalanced and messy which eventually needs replacing depending on what it was for.

Bare in mind this is with heavy mod usage which does amplify the amount of work to be done and tends to be over the kids heads a bit too often; However, they still enjoy helping out anyway they can even if it's something very simple, as they feel needed and accomplished when things get done. With vanilla the game becomes easy enough that the kids can get things done by themselves without any help, though it's not engaging for us older players who breeze through it too rapidly since there's not much involvement.

So with that said, find what level of depth works best for your group and ensure everyone has something to do. Assign the more involved processes for the adults and the lesser ones for the kids, that way they can work themselves up to the higher level of problem solving required for more advanced systems and eventually collaborate alongside the adults once they feel comfortable with it. That's if they decide to stick with it and are willing to learn and improve though, as there's always that one kid who's easily bored and just wants to kill biters and crash into stuff with the car. Test the waters to see who can play for more than an hour without complaining and you've got a possible candidate for the group.

Consider adding the Todo List Mod which allows people to assign themselves to tasks they want to perform so there's no confusion on who's doing what. It's an essential in my large family and friend games and will greatly aid in yours too.

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Re: I've never played multiplayer. I have some basic questions...

Post by T__C »

Thanks for all the suggestions. I will definitely check out the evolution mods and the Todo List Mod.

I'm getting an idea of how this will play out: I can confidently predict that my nephew will just want to drive around and shoot bugs, so I'll put him in charge of defense. One of my nieces is an electrical engineering student, so I'll give her the tough crafting challenges. I'll find some busywork for the baby boomers. And my bossy niece - she can be the foreman. It will be a fiasco, but it should be a lot of fun.

-TC

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