Just bought the game; What were Your first impressions?

[zhree1]

So far, I really enjoy it! I've spent 16 hours just playing the tutorial and a sandbox game. I'm learning so much and having a great time. Well worth the price! Not playing with hostile aliens just yet because i'm not fast enough to build weapons/defense in time to avoid being wiped out - but i'll get there. I like that there's an option to turn them off while i learn.

I have a few questions and a possible bug --but i'll explore this forum for answers and if there aren't any, I'll post them here. Thanks for making a fun game!

[RMJ]

Only thing i rebound why the enter vehicle key and moving map from M to the TAB key. M is just so far away, and i open the map quite a lot. And the TAB key isnt used for anything besides the moving text messages forward, and there isnt really any of those in custom.

[Mattif]

Hi there,

i bought factorio a week ago. i just checked steam and saw that i have already 70+ h played
i don´t know if this are still my "first impressions", but i think feedback is always welome.

first of all..the tutorial. well. lets say. skip it. horrible. i really needed a lot of videos to understand a lot of problems. you really need to extend the explanaition

but...the game is addicting as hell! i really like the depth of the game. building one thing and ressearch another. the techtree is really nice! also the logistics are great. you need to solve problems all the time. not enough of this, not fast enough there.
i am currently playing for the second time and got currious about the replayability. but i read about tons on mods existing for the game Mods? so many? holly s***! i am affraight i will never stop playing this game! the only problem is where to begin. i played vanilla a lot. now i want to start playing a mod. but which one? any got suggestions?

fly save and dont crash!

[ouphe]

Hi there,

I bought this game a few days ago, it's quite addicting. That said:
- The game needs a better tutorial, it's all quite complex
- The campaign is bad. It's daunting when you are killed by critters while still trying to find a nice way to automate the green science (mission 2)

I realise it's still in development. Still loving it though

[Akela]

Bought the game this friday night.

This weekend was sunny and warm with a cool breeze, here in Tampa.

Sunday @ 8pm i turned my puter off.....thanks a lot...

I want my weekend back

[Koub]

i just checked steam and saw that i have already 70+ h played
i don´t know if this are still my "first impressions"

Factorio is like these countryside villages where you're the newcommer even if your grand parents are the ones who moved there. You're still in your first impressions until you're in your several hundreds

[AcolyteOfRocket]

Bought the game 3 weeks ago, just finished my first game (108 hours).

I love this game, my diary hates it

The key bindings for combat suck, I need to change fire at enemy to right click before going into combat, which can add some inadvertent amusement to moving plant later on....

[ShizukaMiyuki]

I played this game a few months before, had to resort to piracy because I don't have a credit card, Now I'm a proud owner of it on steam, but before that, during the first time I played the demo, I fell in love with it, and pirated the full version, I was a bit lost at first, confused and felt overwhelmed, but once I get grasp of the mechanics, it felt like playing something fresh, I was like a kid receiving a gift during Christmas, the fact that it felt fresh was something amazing, during those months the game didn't feel stale at all, even after playing it for a long time, and that surprised me, and as you know I enjoyed it, so once I saw it on Steam, I kept bugging my friend to come with me to a mall to get some steam wallet cards, and I immediately bought it.
you guys have something special on your hands, keep it, and keep on working on it. can't wait to see what new features you guys have to offer on the next massive update

[Gabba Gandalf]

First impression? Fuck i play the hole day xD
This game is so funny, and so much work to do.

[cswiger]

I had a life, and then I played Factorio. Now I have Factorio.

The interaction between building out an infrastructure from scratch, balancing production and consumption of power and resources, and then realizing that pollution seems to be provoking the enemy critters into trying to gack my power plants and mines. Even small enemy nests are trouble until you tech up enough to have a car or tank. And the highly evolved critters are fairly nasty-- always nice to have a friendly laser tower or three to run and hide behind.

[Packer]

I saw a quick game-play footage some where, thought I'd pick it up as something I'd play on the side, ended up sinking 70 hours into it within 4 days. its been a long time since I've done that.

[mastamage]

bought game, started playing, fun!!!

lets do oil, cuz i need batteries now -> sulfur recipe not working -.-'

going to do a clean start now, to check if it is a one time thing

[pyrokineticrage]

I would like to start by saying you have created a game I have been waiting for, for a very long time. The base mechanics and game play are amazing. I can't wait to see the finished product. I bought my copy from steam after watching Day [9] play the first few missions on YouTube. I've played through the A New Hope Campaign and the experience, while fun leaves a bit to be desired, but i am excited to work in the map editor to create my own version of the campaign. I have a lot of experience in Table Top "DM-ing" and this game has sparked a desire to tell a slightly different version of the story. I can't wait to get to work on it and share it here.

[Kazaanh]

Another freakin minecraft clone?

Survival game ehhh?

*downloads demo*
*plays a bit*
*proceeds to buy the game and continues to play*

Some game just deserve the money, its fun, refreshing and challenging (mind-wise). I enjoyed this game more than Fallout 4 or MGS5 and iam very serious here.

[Nubm2]

A newbs first post


Hi there! o/

I saw the game on YT, played the demo, bought the game. I really enjoy it and also it reminds me of a lot of other games (and movies, including the soundtrack). It feels a like a weird mix of - among others - Dune II, Atomix, Minecraft, Sim City 2000 and an accountants wet dream. So far im a few recipes away from researching everything there is with my first game, currently working on the rocket silo. I didnt even had to leave my base much and established a single train route for iron/copper/oil. The critters outside do not bother much, some packs attack from time to time but are taken care off. Energy never was a problem.

So, i'd like to share my first impressions, and ask some questions:
Sometimes i had the feeling that there is stuff missing. For example, i really missed early mid game repair turrets, stationary and slowly repairing targets one at a time. Its rather annoying to run around and repair them by hand while everything else is automatized. Also tank upgrades were sorely missed. And the tutorial could go into more advanced stuff later on (outside the demo of course). It still does a great job in teaching the basics though.

I cant say i like the combat system, although i like tower defense games in general. But there should be more freedom in the possibilities on how to deal with critters. The options to attack those are fairly limited. I now have big bugs around my base, and i deal with them by placing turrets and hitting the bases with my tank, moving foreward a little bit and repeat, siege warfare. Traps would be nice, or areas to influence them, calm them down or enrage to get different effects.

Terra-forming and bridge building were also something i missed. Its great that underground belts and pipes can be placed below water though. Well, there are always mods, and i hope to get into that enough to write some myself. Have some humble experience with LUA scripts, probably not enough.

However, for starters i'd like to install some of the big mods, and i'd like to ask: Can i copy/install multiple clients? Can i play a game with only a few selected mods, and do save games remember which mods to load and which not? That would be important, since i'd like to try out several mods without destroying my save games.

Also, use a stack of 6 exo skeletons in my Power Suit, and IMO the effect shouldn't stack. I'd rather would like to see some upgrades on those items, and a lot more energy management. The idea is awesome though, and i wish vehicles had an option for costumisation like that too, maybe even trailers (for example, with batterys, to provide small but mobile support, or even deploy/-undeployable turrets that can be linked to vehicles).


Thanks for this great game!

[IIIStrife]

Well the first thing I always do is look at the tutorial if it's not the usual kind of game I'm used to.

My impressions before playing wasn't too big of a thing, the score not really making an impression on me tbh, I've desensitized myself from getting hyped over review score averages, though... the 99% positive rating did influence me a bit. I'd never seen such a high rating on Steam before.

The first thing I did though FOR SURE, is open a tutorial. I read the dialogue boxes, but at the time I was a bit iffy in the head, so it took me a while to get what it was suggesting.
Once I got a hang of it, I kinda lost myself in Freeplay for about 5 hours before starting over once I knew a few things to not do... and also there was no aliens on my first world.

I was extremely impressed with how it runs and how little I got annoyed at the game. I've yet to get annoyed at little more than the world generator and the fact my 3rd world has little copper in it, some of it on an island two tiles away from my landmass, making it unreachable.

I've yet to find any problems with the game aside from what I only see to be holes in content, like... Water has no use currently, like bridges would be great. There's no polluting energy types yet. and I'd also like to see Aliens get an overhaul, be able to expand and build various things and grow, but also manually upgrade the buildings as well, etc, etc.

So my first impressions were nothing but wickedly awesome, save for the tutorial, which is a bit bad tbh.

[Carnivale]

So, I was happily playing XCOM 2, had almost finished the game...but then my friend starts playing this weird game called Factorio and taunts me to play it. My first thoughts were "Almost 20€ for an early access game, no way!". My second thoughts were something like "Maybe I'll give it a quick shot". And now after playing it for over 200 hours in three weeks I vaguely remember I still have my XCOM 2 playthrough unfinished. But it has to wait because I have a factory to optimize!

[The_Mormegil]

I've bought the game and played through it. I wanted to post some kind of feedback somewhere. This seems like the place. Feel free to disregard it or use it as you wish.

First of all, the game is amazing. Everything I never knew I wanted and more. I really enjoyed the game so far, so good job But, I'm going to get negative for a while and outline a few things that irked me - mostly because this is still in prerelease so I suspect some feedback is welcome. Most of these are minor things, but minor things are rarely reported in my experience.

First moments
I was kind of lost at the start screen. Clicking "Play" is the logical first step, but then there's a bunch of options. Consider gating some of those behind a completed tutorial, or at least highlighting the campaign button. the first time you boot the game (or until the tutorial is finished). The term "campaign" also doesn't really make it clear that it's the tutorial either. It reminds me of Age of Empires, but that's almost twenty years ago. I expect modern games to be a bit more user friendly.
Also, the color scheme, what. It's ALL GREY. I mean I get it, it's a game about factories etc, but it's a bit depressing. You probably shouldn't emphasize the fact that we are building a huge industrial complex that destroys a world and an environment. I mean it's awesome to do so, but really the message is a bit ew. Also protesters and ecologists are monsters to be slaughtered? :/ That's an unfortunate implication if I've ever seen one. Even just a friendlier color scheme de-emphasizes that a bit.

The tutorial
Here's something I really disliked. I started playing the tutorial, and it was pretty damn good... up to the mission with trains. The game is really complex and has a lot of possibilities. I especially appreciated having some example setups for automation as a starting point, and needing to repair a base to get it working again. However. There is NO TUTORIAL for the trains. That is bullshit. I had to look it up on the internet (a recurring theme, as you'll see). The bare minimum I expected was to have a quest to build a train stop and connect the iron mine, and a tips and tricks window explaining that the train either needs two locomotives or to be able to turn around to work. I understand wanting us to experiment with the systems as that's the point of the game, but... there needs to be some introduction to the basics before we can mess around with stuff.

And then, the mission after that? You KNOW the one. The one with enemies and no resources. That mission is GARBAGE. I was completely unable to do it on my own, looked it up on the internet, found LOADS of complaints, and the suggestions were to leapfrog with turrets??? That is the most boring piece of gameplay in the entire game! Picking up walls even costs a BUNCH of time! If you want a combat tutorial design one that is better suited to this game. I never completed that mission and went directly to freeplay, skipping the rest of the tutorial. I'm sure I'm not the only one. If a mission in your tutorial makes a player ragequit it's PROBABLY not a good mission IMO.

This meant I had to look up a bunch of other stuff on the internet. I have no idea if they were detailed in the rest of the tutorial or not, because I didn't even have access to the rest of the tutorial because of a stupid mission about being killed over and over by swarms of enemies I mean come on! So same complaint as with trains. I would have appreciated some info on liquid handling, logic and logistic networks, robots in general and maybe power armor (it took a while for me to notice I needed to right click it to open it). Having to look up on the internet how things worked also took away some of the magic of experimenting. Now you could say that's my fault and I could have experimented more to learn things and that's the whole point - but then I would answer that I experimented plenty with systems I just had the basics for, like inserters belts and production lines, as well as electricity; having a starting point is a necessity for good exploration to follow. Maybe just a tips and tricks page on those things.

Minor things
A few things I will otherwise forget:
- you probably shouldn't allow people to zoom in to the point where you see the pixels. It's ugly and serves little gameplay purpose (opposite of zooming out, which is very important).
- you could stand to improve the coastline graphics a bit. The squared coasts are very '90s. I know there's a few simple ways to make sure the coast feels less rough around the corners and more organic. It would cost time for your graphic team but I found it jarring.
- speaking of coasts, why can't I build bridges? That seems like an obvious inclusion, especially since concrete doesn't seem to have many other uses right now.
- I would be happier if right clicking on blueprints prompted a question and didn't just delete them. Especially since right clicking in your inventory is apparently used for power armor (why??? No other items need a right click AFAIK! That's just counterintuitive!)
- I think logistic robots violate a lot of what the game is about trivializing complex problems. I avoid giving ideas on how to solve things in my feedback because I believe users always know when something's wrong and never know what is actually wrong (or how to fix it). However I will venture forth a suggestion here: the advantage of robots should be recognizing pieces and sorting through different materials; the disadvantage should be transporting them long distances. Requiring electricity and charging time, and being kinda slow at the beginning, go in this direction; however nothing is currently stopping me from building a giant swarm of bots and using them to bring completed resources around the base. I think robots should be unable to carry resources for more than a short trait. Requester / Provider chests should have a small, personal radius of effectiveness, rather than working while inside the giant robot network. That way you can still use robots to sort things, but would need to use belts to transport the things around the base.
- Vehicles feel totally pointless, especially since fighting the aliens head on is always a disaster anyway.

Enemies and fighting
Look, this is not a fighting game. I'm glad it isn't. I understand the purpose of enemies in the game, and the role they play. Creepers are important in Minecraft.
I even understand, and agree with, the decision to make alien artifacts necessary for game completion. It gives incentive to explore another part of the game.
The problem is, it's annoying as all get out. Here's how fighting went for me in my first game: I covered a huge patch of the map with solar panels and accumulators, up to the point where I had virtually infinite electricity. I built about a thousand laser turrets, maybe more, and set them up on ALL my borders. Then I used construction bots and a blueprint to make a fort, with laser turrets and walls. I built forts near the enemy bases. I built a power armor with exoskeleton and two shields using the first few artifacts (which I died a lot before finally getting). I built a rocket launcher. I walked in, launched two or three rockets, then ran out to my turrets. I repeated this process two or three times for each nest and worm for each base I needed to conquer. I think I spent more time running up and down the same forest than I spent building stuff I wanted to build. It wasn't very fun. I mean, it was... the first time. Maybe the second. I had to do it a lot more than that. The combat system in general doesn't seem to be very good - and that's fine! It's not the focus of the game. But then it shouldn't also be a major portion of gameplay. Focus on the things the game accomplishes well.

Game flow
Setting up for science production 1 and 2 is cool. Science 3 takes a lot of time and I almost ran out of resources before getting it - there's a gap here that feels a bit too wide. Then Science 4 is just annoying (see above). Getting more resources with railway stations and such is a bit weird too. It got to the point where I could have almost more easily set up transport belts than railways. And even then, a lot of mines didn't last very long. Running out of resources was a good incentive to invade nests and fight, and use trains. However after a while it was just annoying.
And then I had literally nothing to do for a lot of time while my factories produced the resources needed for the rocket. Why is the rocket so expensive? I was ready to end the session I think at least a few hours before the rocket actually launched. The production was set up, so I just needed to wait around, without much to do. I could research more, but it all felt meaningless since at that point the game was basically over. I just needed to waste a bunch of time to actually get the end screen. Meh.
I think overall the game could stand to be shortened a little bit. Some parts just drag on too much, and if you are ready to proceed to the next step then you have to wait around for a while with almost nothing to do.

System mastery and rewards
This is probably the most serious complaint alongside the tutorial. So the way the game works, in my mind, and in your trailer, is: you set up automated factories and have them produce resources for you. The emphasis is on factory design and automation. That's great. I recognize there are a lot of interesting engineering and logistic problems which can be smartly solved. I really like that. However, the game isn't properly rewarding that. I feel like every time I could do something smartly and efficiently, I could also just be lazy and have some conveyor belt madness and overflowing resources that do the same thing, and there is no reason for me to try to be a good engineer except just for the sake of it. I feel like something is missing in the game - a major incentive of some sort. I'm not getting a score for how smart I am being, nor anything close to it. Sure, there's time, but I don't think speed should be the focus either. Sharing good designs on social media is something, but... :/ eh. I feel like there should be something that rewards you for building good stuff beyond the simple idea of building good stuff. I admit I'm lost as to what should be done here. But I really feel like building good setups should be at least acknowledged somehow.

Again I don't like giving suggestions as a user. However I don't know if I did a good job explaining what I mean. For example: there is currently no reason to mess around with logic circuits beyond having fun with them. Railways feel like they could be skipped. Robots are overpowered (they trivialize a lot of problems by just delivering what you want where you want it bypassing a lot of constraints), but also feel unnecessary. You could probably beat the game without ever doing anything except setting up furnaces and factories with belts and inserters, and building walls and turrets. That's... not what the game is about. There should probably be something more in the endgame. Something to use all these systems for. Something that requires you to understand these systems to properly be set up. The solution is probably to subtly change each of these systems in a way that makes it important. Random ideas that should probably be ignored: maybe the resource patches should be much further away after the initial area, so that exploring in a vehicle and setting up railways is more relevant. Maybe alien artifact processing and production of science 4 is more complex than just using factories to crack open artifacts, and requires some logic circuits to properly be set up (for example, processing an alien artifact could give a random intermediate resource, and these resources need to be processed differently before merging into a science 4 pack; if you design the system in a way that isn't trivially solved by just putting everything on the same belt and letting inserters pick up what's needed for each factory, but rather requires some balancing of where to put what... IDK I'm spitballing here). And I already suggested something for bots.

Conclusion
After all that negativity, it bears repeating that I found the game excellent. I launched my first rocket after more than 40 hours of gameplay. That's worth the price I paid already, and I still have a lot more to do. Y'all are amazing developers and I wish you the best in this and all future endeavors.

[Koub]

@The Mormegil : You should really give your feedback in separate topics, because it is very valuable. If you burry it in this topic, only few people will ever read it.

I also encourage you to separate your feedback into distinct categories. It will help a lot when other people will want to answer and give their point of view on either point you raise.

[Man-of-location]

Merged from suggestions, cause I think it's fits much better here - the chance, that the devs read the generated insights is much higher here -- ßilk

Hello everyone , i dont know if that suggestion are already suggest but i want to share my feel back about this game . I tried this game with a friend and after some hours , we are okay about that : The research tree are not adapted for a good experience . Let me explain ...

When we begin the game , the only start in the "development" is the ore production . Iron/cooper or coal . Only ! After that , we got the electricity and all the factories need to be "replace" . Okay , the game are based on/for the upgrade , after all . But , we are feel the same .The game become a mind game , where the only think what you can do , is "upgrade and optimise" like a robot .


Items
Some items in game are never use . Like small pump or acumulator . What ? because solar panel can't produce enough and because steam machine produce much better . When we know that , the accumulator can't be used . The steam machine can be used all the time . Alien ? Nah , if you build a wall and some turrets , the problem disappear ... Same think for the pump , you have water everywhere ! Why are you need to use the pump for much pression , if your machine are just next to your pipe .

Map generation
The game is really funny , but some items are useless if ore or water are abundant . This is my suggestion , you need to improve your map generation and the skill tree for more dependency . You dont have any water ? I have to search oil pump to produce oil and powered my furnace or my machine . I'm on a planet without ore but only with water , some trees and oil , no problem , i can convert wood into coal and oil into plastic . Add an option for choice the map type (Desert,...) and the map preset (random , no water , no ore , ....) in "start zone" The game will be really interesting if i had really use train or vehicules for have resources .

Late Game and Constraint
For the late game , you dont need to think more , you need to use another resource named "mankind" . For now, the machines does not require maintenance . But we have a tool named "Repair kit" , we can use it for that . the Humans need food and water . The Food can be one another ressource in the game : Hunt and eat the Aliens , trade with Aliens or produce food (like potato) . Humans can use repair kit for repair the factories , and robot can replace human , but need repair/to be kept . But robots need to learn , how repair , how produce food , ect... We can do the same for humans , Humans need to grow and learn in school or get that capability from the skill tree . Maybe lab , can search only if you have the human searchers and helixir ? Settlers can be found only in a colony next to the aliens colony and need to take train for increase population . Humans maybe can die , and need to be replace after a while . Turrets and polutions can be really interesting here !




For me , if you want to improve the game , you need to rethink the skill tree and adapt situation in the world where you be . If you want to add planets in your development , you need to improve the "game start". And increase the constraint for one technology . Like the pollution .

Thank for having read so far .