Quickstart

[Metzger43]

For me, the early game has always been kind of a pain. Everything before red science is just mind numbing. The move from mining and crafting stuff by hand to full automation is really a good and fun idea, but after the first or second time it gets tedious.

I think there should be options to essentially skip or speed through the earliest parts of the game. For me, the most frustrating part of the whole game is always just getting to the automation of red science. It always seems like I never have enough belts or poles, and sitting around waiting for stuff to craft is so boring. Setting up automated mining and smelting takes an age, and I think this could easily mitigated by a quickstart with some starting items like maybe some furnaces, belts, inserters, mining drills, steam engines, and boilers.

I think this would be an option to select at the beginning of the game when you choose the map. And possibly different levels of quickstart if you could figure out materials and techs to start with in order to start later in the game. It would obviously be something that needs testing and development to get the items and amounts just right to keep the game strategic.

For me, the game is never about hand-mining a bunch of coal to get started, it's always been about the later game with railroads and robots and mass production, and I think a quickstart option could help you get to a point where you can do that more quickly.

[ssilk]

For me, the early game has always been kind of a pain. Everything before red science is just mind numbing.
The move from mining and crafting stuff by hand to full automation is really a good and fun idea, but after the first or second time it gets tedious.

Might look like so, but depending of your basic layout the factory runs later with or without problems. I learn every time I do that a bit more.
If you don't learn anymore for yourself I recommend to use a mod, that jumps over that state. Or use other players maps. Or or or.

It always seems like I never have enough belts or poles, and sitting around waiting for stuff to craft is so boring. Setting up automated mining and smelting takes an age, and I think this could easily mitigated by a quickstart with some starting items like maybe some furnaces, belts, inserters, mining drills, steam engines, and boilers.

This underlines my thesis: Not so optimized development in part 1 will lead to waiting in part2.

I think this would be an option to select at the beginning of the game when you choose the map. And possibly different levels of quickstart if you could figure out materials and techs to start with in order to start later in the game. It would obviously be something that needs testing and development to get the items and amounts just right to keep the game strategic.

Does that point to the ideas scribbled down in viewtopic.php?f=80&t=13022 World Generation / Map Generator / Game Modes / Scenarios / Biomes
?

[mattj256]

Hi metzger43.

Here's a mod I think you would like:
"Skip First Hour"
https://mods.factorio.com/mods/ToadRoac ... ward-Start

If you want this change to be in vanilla I respectfully disagree. "Normal" Factorio takes some time to get everything up and running, and if you are bored by the beginning of the game you can use mods or console commands to skip past it. For what it's worth I typically use mods to make the game harder, not easier. Different people want different things. Once 0.15 comes out there will be adjustable difficulty settings so you'll have some flexibility to tune the game more to your liking.

Welcome to the forum!
Matthew