The Theme And Philosophy You Found in Factorio

[Vladmirangel]

What Theme or Philosophy does Factorio Convey to you?
For me factorio is telling us
"Humans are the plague of this planet."

In-game there is no motivation nor a way for you as a player to actually preserve or save the life currently on the planet. No way to plant trees, or eventually make friends with the aliens. As long as tree farms don't exist. Factorio is there to always remind us that the planet is better off without us.

Below is just some backstory as to why i even posted this in the first place:
TL:DR The gameplay should always be within the philosophy of the game
This whole day i was thinking about what to post in the suggestions section. looking up in advanced search about trees and such. thinking up ways to plant trees, automating the farming of trees, and what purpose is even there to grow more trees. i already had a bunch of ideas i wanted to post but i just scrapped every one of them. I came to realize that this game doesn't even care about trees, so why give it a purpose? If the suggestions section is a "list of ideas to add for vanilla gameplay." Then apparently the tree farms should just stay in the mods section. You see, the philosophy of factorio as i said is all about humans being harmful to the environment they're in. If you add tree planting then that doesnt actually support the game in the philosophical sense. So, yeah, if we treat factorio as an artfrom, then all the gameplay mechanics must support only one common theme. And Helping life prosper is not one of them. Mods, sure, but in Vanilla? a nope for me.

Edit: Also i kind of wanted the factorio playerbase to be able to contribute to creating a sort of slogan or simple one liner quotation which the devs could align their ugh "Art"

[Koub]

You should have a look at this topic : viewtopic.php?f=5&t=22302
It shares a lot with your own.

Now my personal opinion. I don't play games to live what I am in my everyday life. In real life, I'm a kinda good guy. Not a saint, but someone who tries, when possible to be on the good side. If there's an effort I should make to be even better, I will do it in real life, not in a game. I like honesty I find in Factorio : Even if most people are average-good people, as a species, we's a bunch of mofos that burn the ressources of the planet that gave birth to us like there's no tomorrow, we enslave, opprime, invade, we're objectively awful (which might change, or not, nobody knows). And Factorio does not say "that's how you should behave", but that's what mankind is. It's a testimony of our civilization's current orientation. It's honest.

[Cleany]

The theme is creating a large logistical system.

Any philosophy you apply to it is subjective. Actually, the "philosophy" that mechanics can temporarily overpower organic life more accurately describes the game.

Personally I think that politics should stay out of gaming.

But if you want to apply liberal globalist myopic self-aggrandising deluded nonsense to it, that's the freedom we all have!

[Cleany]

And Factorio does not say "that's how you should behave", but that's what mankind is. It's a testimony of our civilization's current orientation. It's honest.

It isn't "honest", it doesn't have the attributes of honesty or dishonesty, it is benign, it is abstract. It doesn't have political opinions.

Even if most people are average-good people, as a species, we's a bunch of mofos that burn the ressources of the planet that gave birth to us like there's no tomorrow, we enslave, opprime, invade, we're objectively awful (which might change, or not, nobody knows).

It's worse than that. All of this activity has spawned a generation that so takes for granted the convenience it criticises, it has forgotten the struggle of millennia to overcome the challenges of survival on a chaotic planet, and at the same time still happily uses all of the resources at hand, while paying lip service to some utopian solution that will somehow serve to enable current lifestyles while satisfying some perverse self-inflicted postmodern guilt trip.

TLDR; Learn before speaking.

[Vladmirangel]

The theme is creating a large logistical system.

Actually, the "philosophy" that mechanics can temporarily overpower organic life more accurately describes the game.

P

I'm quite interested with the word "temporarily" in this statement. Does this mean the Biters get pretty annoying later on? well, actually the behemoth biters have been screwing me over on my turret fences with no roboports

[Cleany]

I'm quite interested with the word "temporarily" in this statement. Does this mean the Biters get pretty annoying later on? well, actually the behemoth biters have been screwing me over on my turret fences with no roboports

Haha

Name a human culture that has never destroyed itself or been destroyed by nature. There aren't any, all empires rise and fall and we are next. The pattern is clear from history if you wish to see it. Most westerners are so detached from reality they think they can create their own morality to fit their circumstances and live like this without consequences.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W33HRc ... tu.be&t=87

So yeah temporarily, but the agenda bashing about "how bad we are" will continue by those who have reaped the most benefit from that bad behaviour.

[featherwinglove]

I consider Factorio (and my other favorite games) to be heaven simulators. I finally found a decent discussion of exactly what these are simulating.

[MeduSalem]

I'm quite interested with the word "temporarily" in this statement. Does this mean the Biters get pretty annoying later on? well, actually the behemoth biters have been screwing me over on my turret fences with no roboports

Haha

Name a human culture that has never destroyed itself or been destroyed by nature. There aren't any, all empires rise and fall and we are next. The pattern is clear from history if you wish to see it. Most westerners are so detached from reality they think they can create their own morality to fit their circumstances and live like this without consequences.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W33HRc ... tu.be&t=87

So yeah temporarily, but the agenda bashing about "how bad we are" will continue by those who have reaped the most benefit from that bad behaviour.

Well... Factorio doesn't really simulate the complex dependencies between organic life and their surroundings.

So if you wipe out all Biters or Trees you aren't going to cause a huge disaster to the planet's ecology... so in the end there's no real butterfly/boomerang effect that eventually punishes reckless and shortsighted overexpansion and overexploitation politics. It's not like you really need the Biters or Trees for anything... they are just obstacles and don't contribute anything to the planet.

In Factorio there is absolutely ZERO reason to develop a natural balance with the surroundings. It couldn't be possibly any more dull than that.

If Factorio was reality it would be a capitalists wet dream... endless expansion and exploitation with endless profits at no penalty.


So on that terms... Factorio actually doesn't teach any good lessons at all... At least not how to create a better planet/society and sustainable economy/ecology. There are other games doing a much better job at that philosophy... and I think that is something Wube should be considering for Factorio 2... to make expansion come at a cost... and that the natural life found on the planet should have a much more severe impact on the expansion/exploitation politics.

Maybe that could be a part of a possible endgame... see how far you can go and turn the ecology of the planet upside down before the Planet starts to become unstable... like Biters/Plants mutating into even more dangerous forms that are near to impossible to kill/remove or even the entire planet starting to break apart due to overmining.

[Koub]

So on that terms... Factorio actually doesn't teach any good lessons at all... At least not how to create a better planet/society and sustainable economy/ecology. There are other games doing a much better job at that philosophy... and I think that is something Wube should be considering for Factorio 2... to make expansion come at a cost... and that the natural life found on the planet should have a much more severe impact on the expansion/exploitation politics.

Factorio 2 : The wrath of the biters.
You have destroyed their homes and polluted their planet recklessly.
Now, they have evolved. They come back for you... And they are pissed off.

Dat trailer

[Green_Baron]

"Never change a running system"

[MeduSalem]

Factorio 2 : The wrath of the biters.
You have destroyed their homes and polluted their planet recklessly.
Now, they have evolved. They come back for you... And they are pissed off.

Dat trailer

Now my imagination is something like the following (in this order)...

Starship Troopers

Alien vs Predator

Riddick

Funny how some of the most cheesy B movies seem to have some of the most iconic/epic scenes.

[Sicnarf]

Theme and Philosophy wise I don't really see much if any in this game as it's far to flexible at start. You can turn off pollution, biter expansion and evolution. Not to mention all the resource options.
But even if we limit the discussion to default settings the pollution, expansion and evolution mechanic were designed that way to create interesting game play options with external pressure forcing resource decisions.
Myself and lots of other players from post I have seen went around in early games putting efficiency modules in everything and rushing to solar. Mostly due to self preservation and a little trying to be nice to the planet. You can handily get to a Rocket launch with a reasonably small pollution footprint long before behemoths show up and all without killing to many biters. Now I don't care a bit and pollute and murder like it's on clearance sale.

The Theme and Philosophy you take from this game is mostly just a reflection of what you put in. You could look at it from the point of view that no matter how big you build no matter how much much you destroy eventually you will run out of resources or more likely the time and will to acquire more. You are but one man and no matter how great or perfect your construct eventually the machines will fall silent. The biters will never stop coming and your defenses will eventually fall. Your base will be consumed, the land returned to the biters and all the pollution absorbed. In time nothing will remain of your achievements. As one day Steam will fall.. or you will and your account will be forgotten.

Ok that got a bit goth there, apologies. The point being the experience is subjective and what you bring with you to the experience with color your view. I just like building a really big optimized base and have it be only mildly annoying to expand to new area's.

[featherwinglove]

In Factorio there is absolutely ZERO reason to develop a natural balance with the surroundings. It couldn't be possibly any more dull than that.

Um... ... ...oh, yes, it could get waaaaaaay more dull than that, lol!

As one day Steam will fall.. or you will and your account will be forgotten.

Lotsa lulz in the context of the vid I just linked

Factorio 2 : The wrath of the biters.
You have destroyed their homes and polluted their planet recklessly.
Now, they have evolved. They come back for you... And they are pissed off.

Dat trailer

I think there are two good ways to do that concept (which might be interesting to combine, lol!)

a) Graphics for Swarm Simulator

b) License Avatar <--- Can I make him "Mr. Blue"?

[Koub]

Starship Troopers

Actually that was exactly the kind of things I had in mind
Also : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIIKUpryl2Q

[Cleany]

Perhaps those concerned could create a Left Wing Globalist game overlay that made each game ally with their political ideals? Give the idea to Rock Paper Shotgun, they love imbuing gaming reviews with their utopian ideals.

[MeduSalem]

Perhaps those concerned could create a Left Wing Globalist game overlay that made each game ally with their political ideals? Give the idea to Rock Paper Shotgun, they love imbuing gaming reviews with their utopian ideals.

Maybe in a world where a lot of people just don't give a crap about what will be left for future generations (which ironically includes their own children and grandchildren and so on) that might actually not be that bad of an idea if someone with enough knowledge and experience did that... because otherwise the mindsetting of people will only change when it's too late if they just continue to hope that everything turns out just fine all by itself.

But I don't think that one has to be especially on the politically left to have common sense about the fact that we only have this one planet and that resources are limited... and if we completely fuck it up then that's about it for mankind... we won't get a second chance. We need the planet, the planet doesn't need us. No political orientation or idealism will change that fact.