My "200 hour" review, with suggestions! (long post)

[ActionJackson]

Background

I've been playing Factorio for a little over 200 hours now over the last few months. I know to many that doesn't seem like a long time, especially for this game, but as a father, husband, and pretty busy guy reaching 200 hours in any game is quite the milestone. Let me start off this review by saying I'll be playing for well over 200 more.

I love building games. Some of my favorites include: Rollercoaster Tycoon, Sim City going back to the original, Incredible Machine, Terraria, 7 days to die. They are probably my favorite genre of games going back as far as I can remember. This is probably the most satisfying and most fun one to date for me. I've launched a few rockets and each time I try to do something new and different, my latest to be going for the no-logistics and no-laser achievements simultaneously. Oh man, was that an experience. As a professional programmer, this game gives me the same euphoric "Aha!" sensations as it does when I finish a project, identify a pesky bug, or make that breakthrough to something better. Love it. But, as with any programming language, there are always pitfalls and improvements to be made, and Factorio is no different.

Suggestion 1 - Blueprints

In programming you can make your lives easier by writing a library, and using that library to help in other applications. And that's where my first suggestion comes in. I LOVE the addition of the blueprint book. But I would suggest to take it one step farther. I would remove the blueprint book as an item and instead replace it as a menu button. Your blueprint book would become unlocked when researching the correct research and would persist from world to world, server to server. There's no reason in my mind why I should have to re-create the blueprint each time I make a new world. Blueprints that have tech in them that are not yet researched would not yet be available for construction. Furthermore, I would integrate this blueprint book to be accessible online, so that i can find/manage/create/download other blueprints and add them to my book seemlessly. I've seen so many good ideas on reddit and forums and I spend 10-20 minutes copying them, tweaking them for my needs, and implementing them. While 20 minutes is not long in factorio world, 20 minutes for me is a good chunk of my playtime on any given night, and I think this process could be improved. This MAY cause an issue with achievements that are time-based (launch a rocket in X hours) and this might need to changed to (launch a rocket in X hours without the use of global blueprints) or something.

Suggestion 2 - Achievement Warnings

When .13 first rolled out I immediately started a new world, not realizing that being a steam user, I had to enable experimental builds. I played probably 5-10 hours before realizing it. Once I did, I reloaded my game and map and continued on, not realizing that many achievements required a new map. A more highlighted warning of this would be nice. Furthermore, taking an action that prevents you from getting an achievement (say, building an active provider chest), could also be handy. I would implement it as an option that defaults to on that could be hidden on first popup. I know this would be fixed by me reading a bit more, or paying more attention, but as the game gets bigger and more achievements I could really see people being bummed when they miss stuff.

Suggestion 3 - More power options

This is probably the single most frustrating thing for me in this game. I prefer to play on peaceful mode, but to get many of the achievements that means biters, and that means I have to deal with pollution. So my choices are way too many solar panels (I'm using over 800 in my latest game and it's still not enough), or steam power with tons of pollution. Neither are in my mind are optimal in the current state. I see a lot of comments/suggestions for fusion power being made but that seems too easy. Maybe if you have to find nuclear sources and set up processing and waste management sure then MAYBE but I feel like we're missing out on something easier and more "Factorio"ish. Nearly EVERY item in the game has an upgrade until you get to the grand-mama of whatever that product is. But steam engines and boilers don't? It would stand to reason, with engines and factories and circuits I could produce a more efficient, less pollutant steam engine. Similar to how bob's mod's does it. They have mk2, 3, 4, etc steam engines and I think the idea of how it's implemented works beautifully. I also love Bob's inclusion of steel gears and bearings for higher level items. It just makes sense. Please, PLEASE consider adding more efficient engines to the base game. Then I can just replace my current setup with more advanced versions, and get more output. It just makes sense. How many times have you upgraded a gray factory to a yellow one just to get that crafting speed faster and more module slots? Same premise here.

Suggestion 4 - Underground Belt/Pipe Length

Should be a researchable thing, please, make it happen.

Suggestion 5 - Different Pipes

Would love to make more pipes. I used these in bob's mods, and while they did provide newer attributes (longer underground length, more throughput, etc), what I loved about it more than anything was the different colors to easily identify what was in them and where they were going. Copper pipes for X, Plastic Pipes for Y, etc. Also could make it so these pipes do not connect to each other for those moments when you REALLY need to run 2 above ground pipes parallel.

Suggestion 6 - Allow my to destroy items

That spare iron stick sitting in my inventory is infuriating. Let me destroy it! I made a simple mod that let me put any 5 items into an "incinerator" and it gave me 1 "compact trash" that worked as a fuel source slightly better than coal but worse than solid fuel. I thought that was more in-line with the game than just removing it, but I'd glady take that too.

Suggestion 7 - bigger chests

I don't mean more spaces, but rather chests than can go from 1x1 tile size all the way to 4x4 tile size. There's nothing sexy about lining up a bunch of chests with inserters to act as a big "smart" buffer. Why can't i have just a big chest with many spaces in it that I can push/pull items from it using more than 1 inserter per side.

I could add more, but I think I'll stop for now. I love this game and love the crew working on it. Your dedication and support is truly wonderful, and is a great example of how game developers should be. Would love anyone's thoughts and opinions on what I've wrote. Until next time!

[ssilk]

Thank you for your suggestions.
I need to mention, that it is quite difficult to handle such kind of "suggestion-list" by the community and very unlike, that a dev will ever find/use it. Please have a look into viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3394 that explains why. So you're really welcome to post more suggestions, but I recommend to post one suggestion per thread.

Some comments:

#1: There are many suggestions around blueprints storing. I think the way to go is to store whole blueprint-books. Currently I can recommend a mod named "Blueprint String" that enables saving of blueprints. Many blueprints are already posted in that format here in the forum.

#2: Maybe that is a bug, you can create a bug report here in Bugs board.

#3: Have a view into viewtopic.php?f=9&t=5 Electric energy

#6: Often suggested. Have a look into viewtopic.php?f=80&t=21278 Recycling/Disassembling of Waste / Scrap / Trash

#7: Not sure if that is useful. The community experiments currently with a device called "Loader", which is in 0.13 and can be used by installing a mod.

[bobingabout]

#7: Not sure if that is useful. The community experiments currently with a device called "Loader", which is in 0.13 and can be used by installing a mod.

Trust me it would be useful.
An example... a single requester chest to feed a factory, but it has 4 different ingredients. the inserter can only move 1 type at a time. if it were 3x3, you could have 3 inserters between it and an assembling machine to load 3x as fast, or just 3 different ingredients at once.

As for the loader... I had a play with that, and could only get it to function as an unloader. Maybe I'm missing something?

[ActionJackson]

@bobingabout yes this is one thing that would be nice. Also I'd like a larger tile for excess storage so I can have multiple inserts pushing/pulling to the belts for smelting/etc.