Friday Facts #283 - Prepare to Launch

[Sander_Bouwhuis]

The lazy bastard achievement is the only achievement I actually went for. I loved that one!

I launched rockets only in my first 2 wins. Since then, I've played at least 5 game lasting about 75 hours each where I stopped just short of launching a rocket.
I'm not sure whether I will ever launch a rocket, because I think it's pointless and boring.

[SpleT]

"I'm not sure whether I will ever launch a rocket, because I think it's pointless and boring."

Yeah building factories on this planet is way too awesome! for most of us it'll become a permanent home :p

[CDarklock]

I don't see how the game becomes any less fun after you launch the rocket. If it was fun producing a thousand rocket parts and a satellite, why isn't it fun producing some other arbitrary thing? It can be whatever you want.

I think this logic is to simplified. The motivation for a game is different for each player.

That would probably be why I don't see the reason for the other player's motivation. You know, because I have a different one. Which is normal.

The lazy bastard achievement is the only achievement I actually went for. I loved that one!

The interesting thing to me was that it was generally more work than just crafting by hand. Whereas I would normally just click the icon in my inventory to make one of this thing I need, now I have to build an entire production line to construct all the intermediate pieces. I think it actually taught me better habits.

I'm not sure whether I will ever launch a rocket, because I think it's pointless and boring.

Yeah, it doesn't seem all that helpful. You launch one rocket with a satellite, and then another for the easter egg if you care about such things, and then you don't really ever have to launch another one. Unless you want to do infinite research, but... why?

[Avezo]

There are people that should find themselves something to do - I mean something more interesting than continuously F5-ing the release subforum to see it the update is there.

I've bought Oxygen Not Included recently, so I'm not that impatient anymore.

...I'm still F5ing this forum lol.

[Jan11]

I`m so prepared. Now I want to launch.

[Serenity]

I'm not sure whether I will ever launch a rocket, because I think it's pointless and boring.

Infinite research is a huge resource sink. It's the only motivation to really expand much. Why else build a large factory? And mining productivity helps with resource extraction

More challenging late game biters would be great though. At least as an option. But the devs apparently never want them to be anything more than a slight nuisance

[SamuelCombrinck]

To everyone F5ing the forums, you can subscribe to them and get notified when there's a new post

[Maciej]

[Drakken]

[/quote]
More challenging late game biters would be great though. At least as an option. But the devs apparently never want them to be anything more than a slight nuisance
[/quote]

They are much more than a slight nuisance if you adjust the settings correctly. I lose a lot... And I think I am actually really good at this game.

However, once you envelope enough resources to launch a rocket with flamethrower turrets, it seems the challenge is then over...

If the developers read this, I would recommend a simple late game modification to the biters. Once biters reach their maximum evolutionary form, they should evolve a bit to resist whatever type of weapons the player is using to kill them. For instance... for every thousand biters that die from a certain type of defense, (lets same flamethrowers) they develop a small percentage of resistance to that type of damage. I am not sure if this could even be tracked currently. But it would be really cool. It would also encourage building a variety of base defenses.

If not possible, I would recommend a generic slow increase in biter resistances late game based n pollution absorbed so it continues to be challenging.

[meganothing]

Just because people don't finish the game, doesn't mean they have lost.

I never said they did. But the Steam userbase is effectively a random representative sample of all users, which is statistically valid. Whatever percentage of "Steam users playing strictly vanilla" are completing the game, the percentage of "all users with or without mods" completing the game is probably not that different.

And if over 85% of players are abandoning the game, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for it to have tens of thousands of "overwhelmingly positive" reviews. A game that 85% of players abandon before completing is generally not a very good game. I think it's more likely that a substantial portion of those players are playing for a different objective, instead.

A game that 85% of players abandoned before completing is generally **every game on steam**

I have a few hundred games on steam and gog and haven't played the majority of them (many of them aquired in bundles or from kickstarter or bought to play on a later date that never came around). Of the rest I have played the overwhelming majority just a few minutes to hours and stopped somewhere in between. Maybe 10 to 20 games I have really finished to some end.

I may be a notorious case, but it seems common that players have such a "pile of shame" (I assume most have heard of that expression). Consequently steam statistics (when they were still accessible) showed steam users ON AVERAGE only have played a small percentage of the games they own.

I bet you will find not a single game on steam that was finished by more than one third of its owners. 13.8% is probably a percentage Wube can be proud of. I bet most games have far less than 10%. I don't think it makes sense to view all owners as players of the game.

[lordaeron1]

Think i am going to freeze myself till 0.18, Cartman had a good idea. time to execute it.

[bobucles]

"pile of shame"

It's a backlog. I'll get around to it, I swear!

[LordWampus]

"pile of shame"

It's a backlog. I'll get around to it, I swear!

With all the best intentions you probably won't...
...because Factorio!

[lordaeron1]

couldn't resist ^_^

[Jamesie]

To everyone F5ing the forums, you can subscribe to them and get notified when there's a new post

Don't ruin it for us, it's part of the fun we have waiting dammit!

[christian]

I'm not F5ing at all. But I am checking every hour LOL

[Sander_Bouwhuis]

The lazy bastard achievement is the only achievement I actually went for. I loved that one!

The interesting thing to me was that it was generally more work than just crafting by hand. Whereas I would normally just click the icon in my inventory to make one of this thing I need, now I have to build an entire production line to construct all the intermediate pieces. I think it actually taught me better habits.

I agree 100% with teaching better habits. At first I thought it was nearly impossible to do. Then, when I got the hang of it I noticed it was actually MUCH more efficient. Probably the fastest/shortest game I've played (high efficiency!). I did, however, unbind the shortcut key for building things by hand. The muscle memory habit was so strong that I would have ruined the achievement hundreds of times by auto clicking the craft key.

A game that 85% of players abandoned before completing is generally **every game on steam**

I have a few hundred games on steam and gog and haven't played the majority of them (many of them aquired in bundles or from kickstarter or bought to play on a later date that never came around). Of the rest I have played the overwhelming majority just a few minutes to hours and stopped somewhere in between. Maybe 10 to 20 games I have really finished to some end.

I may be a notorious case, but it seems common that players have such a "pile of shame" (I assume most have heard of that expression). Consequently steam statistics (when they were still accessible) showed steam users ON AVERAGE only have played a small percentage of the games they own.

You think that is bad? I have (checks Steam library)... 767 games in Steam alone (besides games in Gog and Itch and Epic store and Origin). I have installed only 184 of them!!! So, 583 games in my Steam library I haven't even INSTALLED yet, let alone played. For only 27 games I've played at least 10 hours.
Yes, I keep telling myself that one day I'll have the time to play some/all of them! ONE DAY!!!

Edit:
I just realized that over 50 of the games that I installed and 'played', I only did for Steam cards. Never played a minute of them, just had them idling in the background while doing something else.

[CDarklock]

A game that 85% of players abandoned before completing is generally **every game on steam**

I'm not suggesting it's abnormal for this few people to have completed the game. I'm suggesting it's abnormal to expect the playerbase as a whole to play the way the active and vocal members of the community are playing, because clearly a lot more than 15% of us have launched a rocket.

Both of these things, in my experience, are true of every game everywhere. They're true in the console space and the F2P space, for example. Why they're true doesn't really matter. You always have a relatively small group of people who unlocked everything and got all the trophies and achievements, while the great majority of people are still in the early stages of the game.

I may be a notorious case, but it seems common that players have such a "pile of shame"

Seems, yes. If you are an active Steam user. I have over 500 games, few of which I have completed. And the people I meet on Steam are the same. But when I meet someone on Facebook that turns out to be on Steam, they tend to have a relatively small collection of games. Definitely under 100, usually under 20.

Basically, heavy Steam users are not normal. It's common among us, in our community, to behave in certain ways. But that is not how the general population behaves.

I don't think it makes sense to view all owners as players of the game.

I'm not suggesting that. You basically have three groups of people: owners, players, and fans. The fans tend to get in one place and make a lot of noise, which makes it easy to mistake us for the largest group. But we're not. We're just the loudest. Owners is the largest group, but most importantly the players outnumber fans dramatically. And it's easy to forget that.

[darkfrei]

Buy good games, don't play good games.
Same thing, but if I have some time, then I make mods for Factorio. And waiting until the day when I can some another game from huge and mod played steam library.

[emp_zealoth]

I'm gonna be THAT GUY

Preamble: I've just passed a 1000h mark in Factorio, but I've never launched a rocket before (yes i kno i kno) I've seen one up close and in such detail for the first time.

As a bit of a space nerd it really triggered me a "bit" how nonsensical the rocket looks in Factorio from the point of view of actually getting to space.
In this configuration it can't really be staged in any way, so the three tips make zero sense. The style is totally consistent with the rest of the game, I'm not whining about that.

I'd suggest adding a second stage (shorter [half or less of the current rocket?] and thinner [2/3 or less of one "tank or whatever it is"]) above the three distinct "tanks" (or whatever they are supposed to be), centered on a vertical axis of the craft.

I don't have KSP installed so... The proportions and numbers of boosters are obviously all wrong, it's just a first pic in Gimages I could find that shows the concept