To play or not?

[je11693]

I played Factorio ~18 months ago and have since been playing board games mostly. I'm thinking of starting to game more on PC again, and am having a tough time deciding whether to come back to Factorio or to branch out into other similar type games like Cities: Skyline, Rimworld, Anno 1800, or Satisfactory.

I realise the audience is likely biased, but I'm going to ask anyway - what are people's thoughts on the above games and how do they compare to Factorio, particularly if anyone has played the above games as well?

[Amarula]

Why not come back for a while? Start a new game with the latest 0.18, check out the changes, and see how it feels. Maybe try out some mods (have you checked out the videos of Krastorio? wow!)

Some people just don't care for Factorio-style base building games at all; others are always looking for new challenges; and others are into the zen of growing a base, tending it like a garden, always trying new things, moving towards the ever unattainable goal of perfection. Oh have to go, looks like the ratios need a little tweaking...

[je11693]

Why not come back for a while? Start a new game with the latest 0.18, check out the changes, and see how it feels. Maybe try out some mods (have you checked out the videos of Krastorio? wow!)

Some people just don't care for Factorio-style base building games at all; others are always looking for new challenges; and others are into the zen of growing a base, tending it like a garden, always trying new things, moving towards the ever unattainable goal of perfection. Oh have to go, looks like the ratios need a little tweaking...

I think I will, I remember how addictive and all-encompassing the game is, and how much I enjoyed getting lost in the details of it.

I used to watch playthroughs by two guys on Youtube, Tuplex and Nilaus. I'm thinking of starting to watch one of their newer series (links below) and was wondering if you (or anyone else) had ever come across either and if so, which you would recommend?

Tuplex: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... r_TxpkT2Yu (and the follow-on series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... slCNO8qRms)

Nilaus: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... xs26PIZhwM (and the follow-on series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... gM-9rcbLSd)

I used to really like those two guys' videos. I was thinking of going with the vanilla game to get back into it, if you would recommend using mods I'd be interested to know which ones. I saw Krastorio, I am not sure how much more complex that makes it (is it very different to Bobs/Angels? I've never used any mods before so apologies if those are silly questions!)

[MakeItGraphic]

- I loved Anno 2205, paid 60$ for the game for it not to work. Ubisoft refused to refund it, there is one part where they know it is bugged and it will force you to reset your game. They were patching saves for awhile but stopped. I bit my tongue over this and tried again as per their recommendation, I actually enjoyed the game more on a second play through. But again ran into a critical bug but this time with the graphic processing, apparently none of save data was actually writing to disk and it eventually led my computer to crashing.

I don't know about the other Anno titles but that left such a massive distaste in my mouth. This is why I normally pirate games, and pay for them at a later date.

- Rimworld I've never tried tbh, it isn't up my wheel house but have heard amazing things.

- City: Skylines is an amazing game ONCE you know the actual limitations of the engine. This hurt me more then I'd like to admit lol. I understand all engines have upper limits to what you can do in game. But with the provided map tiles it is way too dense for any real enjoyment, especially with the DLC. I'd recommend the steam mod to unlock all tiles and build suburbs, little towns, and be able to focus more on infrastructure.

- Satisfactory I've never tried either but from I've seen it too has great reviews. I am used to top-down simulations, but the exploration aspects of this game seem really fun. I would definitely recommend giving it a try if it's your thing.

Another game I will throw out there I really enjoyed was Offworld Trading Company, it's a bit simplistic but it was fun, not as great reviews as the other games mentioned.

- Factorio: factorio has changed a lot interface wise its a love/hate thing especially if you're all ready super accustom to the old elements. But gameplay mechanics have mostly stayed the same, lots of improvements, and you don't have to worry about game breaking bugs. It's the one of the best supported games I've ever seen. If you all ready have a copy you can update it for free, it doesn't hurt to just jump back into it, try it out. Then if you're not in the mood go and buy a different game to try out. (not sure if you meant branch out as an inference to purchasing) otherwise yeah play factorio, and go from there.

I'd recommend Anno/Skylines though if you wanted something fresh to play mechanic wise. Skylines is great simply because of the wide range DLCs, I don't know too much about the other Anno games.

[ho84]

Satisfactory and factorio are both my favourite.
I do recommend to play satisfactory-->when its released on steam(larger community and player base) . Its not bugged, super fun and quite polished. Its not just a 3d factorio.
now, you can play factorio first, as satisfactory is coming to steam around may 2020

[je11693]

Why not come back for a while? Start a new game with the latest 0.18, check out the changes, and see how it feels. Maybe try out some mods (have you checked out the videos of Krastorio? wow!)

Some people just don't care for Factorio-style base building games at all; others are always looking for new challenges; and others are into the zen of growing a base, tending it like a garden, always trying new things, moving towards the ever unattainable goal of perfection. Oh have to go, looks like the ratios need a little tweaking...

I just logged in to my account to download the latest version and it says 0.18.18 is "Experimental" and 0.17.79 is "Stable". What is the difference and which is the correct one people recommend downloading? There is also a "Download headless" link - what does this mean/do?

Also, is there any way to tell if I originally bought the game on Steam or via the website? Does that make a difference in terms of getting the latest correct version?

[Koub]

0.17.79 won't whange any more.
0.18.18 is the very latest iteration of the game, with all the new features the 0.18 brings, but it's still in development and will change, in ways that might "break" your base, or at least compell you to refactor some things.
Also, the devs are working on the 0.18 version, so there might be bugfixing updates that break the game until fixed (which is usually done very quickly), but ... that's what the world experimental means : you have the most up to date version at the price of a gameplay experience not guaranteed to be streamlined.
Most people will agree on the fact that despite being experimental, 0.18.18 is as playable (and even more) than some games in definitive version out there, but it's not up to the standards of the dev team as a finished product.

[je11693]

0.17.79 won't whange any more.
0.18.18 is the very latest iteration of the game, with all the new features the 0.18 brings, but it's still in development and will change, in ways that might "break" your base, or at least compell you to refactor some things.
Also, the devs are working on the 0.18 version, so there might be bugfixing updates that break the game until fixed (which is usually done very quickly), but ... that's what the world experimental means : you have the most up to date version at the price of a gameplay experience not guaranteed to be streamlined.
Most people will agree on the fact that despite being experimental, 0.18.18 is as playable (and even more) than some games in definitive version out there, but it's not up to the standards of the dev team as a finished product.

I see, thank you for clarifying. A few more follow-up questions I had are: are the recipes for everything the same in both of them? Can all mods be used in both of them (and can I add a mod to a game already in progress or do I have to choose all mods I might want beforehand)? Are most people still using 0.17 or have most switched to 0.18?

[Koub]

are the recipes for everything the same in both of them?

A few recipes have changed between 0.17.79 and 0.18.18 (if I recall correctly), and nothing prevents a change to come before 0.18 becomes stable. It's unlikely, but not impossible.

Can all mods be used in both of them

Not all 0.17.79 compatible mods are compatible with 0.18.x. Most of the most used mods are, but some are not - and won't be ported.

(and can I add a mod to a game already in progress or do I have to choose all mods I might want beforehand)?

Yes you can add or remove a mod whenever you want during a playthrough. Beware, removing a mod can break some things, depending on what the mod adds.

Are most people still using 0.17 or have most switched to 0.18?

That I can't tell. My personal impression is that the majority of the people posting in this forum play at least with 0.18, but :
1) It's personal impression.
2) The community on this forum is an infinitesimal part of Factorio's player base, therefore it might not be representative of the whole player base.

[je11693]

are the recipes for everything the same in both of them?

A few recipes have changed between 0.17.79 and 0.18.18 (if I recall correctly), and nothing prevents a change to come before 0.18 becomes stable. It's unlikely, but not impossible.

Can all mods be used in both of them

Not all 0.17.79 compatible mods are compatible with 0.18.x. Most of the most used mods are, but some are not - and won't be ported.

(and can I add a mod to a game already in progress or do I have to choose all mods I might want beforehand)?

Yes you can add or remove a mod whenever you want during a playthrough. Beware, removing a mod can break some things, depending on what the mod adds.

Are most people still using 0.17 or have most switched to 0.18?

That I can't tell. My personal impression is that the majority of the people posting in this forum play at least with 0.18, but :
1) It's personal impression.
2) The community on this forum is an infinitesimal part of Factorio's player base, therefore it might not be representative of the whole player base.

Great, thank you. If I already have an old version of the game installed, should I be doing a full download and installation from the download page or is there an update I can download?

[Koub]

It really depends : are you willing to trash (more or less) your old games, or do you want to comne back to them later ?
If you want to have different versions of the game, and go back and forth between versions (usually with different modpacks, or with different games), the way to go is DL the standalone (zip) version, unsip it, and it will allow you to have a new game + mods set for a given experience.

[Amarula]

I would definitely suggest latest 0.18, lots of nice QoL updates to the interface (temporary train stops!) and to the graphics. And while you can have different versions of the game if you want, I just keep mine updated. When I start the game, it checks for updates and asks if you want to update, super easy.

[Pi-C]

Can all mods be used in both of them

Not all 0.17.79 compatible mods are compatible with 0.18.x. Most of the most used mods are, but some are not - and won't be ported.

In my heavily modded game (started with 0.17 and continued with 0.18), there are still about 30 or 40 mods that haven't been updated yet. I've fixed these locally, though -- for most, it really didn't take much more than changing the version number, others involved a bit more work, but nothing really too complicated. (Yeah, I know that's exactly what non-modders want to hear!)

Are most people still using 0.17 or have most switched to 0.18?

That I can't tell. My personal impression is that the majority of the people posting in this forum play at least with 0.18, but :

For the mods I work on, I still release parallel updates for 0.17 and 0.18. While most of these mods are relatively small, Bio Industries was already well established when I started to work on it, with a comparatively big user base (>300k downloads in total, between 400 and 1000 downloads daily lately), so my figures probably won't be completely representative, but they are real enough, not total guesswork.

I uploaded versions 0.17.37/0.18.4 about a month ago, and it was the latest version for about two weeks. To my big surprise, 0.17.37 had 4778 downloads, 0.18.4 only 3768! Starting with 0.17.38/0.18.5, I had to release several bugfixes, sometimes even more than one in a day. The latest updates in these series were 0.17.42/0.18.9. Added together, these versions have been downloaded 1504 (0.17 branch) and 2933 (0.18 branch) times. After 0.17.42/0.18.9, there was no update for about 4 days, so for these versions, the downloads stabilized at 600 (0.17) and 987 (0.18). The next versions (0.17.44 and 0.18.11 + 0.18-only bugfix 0.18.12) got 1586 (0.17) and 1599+1201=2800 (0.18) downloads.

So, looking at just this mod, there's something like a trend: The number of players using 0.17 was noticeably bigger than the number of players using 0.18 just a month ago. I guess a reason may be that many people use Factorio via Steam and didn't care to activate experimental versions (given some questions on the forum, some may not even have known they could do this). In the meantime, downloads for 0.18 clearly outnumber those for 0.17. Perhaps more people have figured out how to update to 0.18 on Steam, perhaps they've been more eager to look for a way to do this because the FFFs have shown so many new features of Factorio 0.18 that they wanted to try these -- or perhaps more people have time for playing now that they can't go out as much because of the quarantine. I really can't tell, and I really don't care.

Anyway, it seems that more and more people are turning to 0.18 now. However, the number of players who still use 0.17 is still far too big to be neglected. (Looking at the latest figures for BI, about a third of the users is still on Factorio 0.17 -- that's a lot!)

My advice to fellow modders: If you can do so, try to port back new features of your mods to 0.17! Unless you make use of new features that aren't available for 0.17 yet, some small adjustments here and there should be all that it takes -- and it is a nice gesture of appreciation towards your users.

My advice to je11693: If you have an old saved game from 0.17 and want to continue it, do so by any means! You may not get the latest versions of mods, and you may not get to experience the latest features from Factorio, but if you can continue your old game and have fun with it -- why not?
If you're feeling a bit more adventurous and want to have everything up to date: Jump on the bandwagon instead and give 0.18 a try! Sure, things may break, but usually bugs will be fixed quite fast. Also, think of the nice, fuzzy feeling you may get from actively helping to improve the game by finding and reporting obscure bugs that break things for you! The developers and modders will probably do their best to get everything right, but sometimes shit just happens -- and sometimes, you can't imagine what will happen with any given combination of mods on every OS with different hardware Factorio could be running on. So having more players to test stuff clearly is a win!

[je11693]

Can all mods be used in both of them

Not all 0.17.79 compatible mods are compatible with 0.18.x. Most of the most used mods are, but some are not - and won't be ported.

In my heavily modded game (started with 0.17 and continued with 0.18), there are still about 30 or 40 mods that haven't been updated yet. I've fixed these locally, though -- for most, it really didn't take much more than changing the version number, others involved a bit more work, but nothing really too complicated. (Yeah, I know that's exactly what non-modders want to hear!)

Are most people still using 0.17 or have most switched to 0.18?

That I can't tell. My personal impression is that the majority of the people posting in this forum play at least with 0.18, but :

For the mods I work on, I still release parallel updates for 0.17 and 0.18. While most of these mods are relatively small, Bio Industries was already well established when I started to work on it, with a comparatively big user base (>300k downloads in total, between 400 and 1000 downloads daily lately), so my figures probably won't be completely representative, but they are real enough, not total guesswork.

I uploaded versions 0.17.37/0.18.4 about a month ago, and it was the latest version for about two weeks. To my big surprise, 0.17.37 had 4778 downloads, 0.18.4 only 3768! Starting with 0.17.38/0.18.5, I had to release several bugfixes, sometimes even more than one in a day. The latest updates in these series were 0.17.42/0.18.9. Added together, these versions have been downloaded 1504 (0.17 branch) and 2933 (0.18 branch) times. After 0.17.42/0.18.9, there was no update for about 4 days, so for these versions, the downloads stabilized at 600 (0.17) and 987 (0.18). The next versions (0.17.44 and 0.18.11 + 0.18-only bugfix 0.18.12) got 1586 (0.17) and 1599+1201=2800 (0.18) downloads.

So, looking at just this mod, there's something like a trend: The number of players using 0.17 was noticeably bigger than the number of players using 0.18 just a month ago. I guess a reason may be that many people use Factorio via Steam and didn't care to activate experimental versions (given some questions on the forum, some may not even have known they could do this). In the meantime, downloads for 0.18 clearly outnumber those for 0.17. Perhaps more people have figured out how to update to 0.18 on Steam, perhaps they've been more eager to look for a way to do this because the FFFs have shown so many new features of Factorio 0.18 that they wanted to try these -- or perhaps more people have time for playing now that they can't go out as much because of the quarantine. I really can't tell, and I really don't care.

Anyway, it seems that more and more people are turning to 0.18 now. However, the number of players who still use 0.17 is still far too big to be neglected. (Looking at the latest figures for BI, about a third of the users is still on Factorio 0.17 -- that's a lot!)

My advice to fellow modders: If you can do so, try to port back new features of your mods to 0.17! Unless you make use of new features that aren't available for 0.17 yet, some small adjustments here and there should be all that it takes -- and it is a nice gesture of appreciation towards your users.

My advice to je11693: If you have an old saved game from 0.17 and want to continue it, do so by any means! You may not get the latest versions of mods, and you may not get to experience the latest features from Factorio, but if you can continue your old game and have fun with it -- why not?
If you're feeling a bit more adventurous and want to have everything up to date: Jump on the bandwagon instead and give 0.18 a try! Sure, things may break, but usually bugs will be fixed quite fast. Also, think of the nice, fuzzy feeling you may get from actively helping to improve the game by finding and reporting obscure bugs that break things for you! The developers and modders will probably do their best to get everything right, but sometimes shit just happens -- and sometimes, you can't imagine what will happen with any given combination of mods on every OS with different hardware Factorio could be running on. So having more players to test stuff clearly is a win!

I downloaded the 0.18 version and will start with that I think. I still have the icon for the 0.17 version I had on my desktop, so I think I still have my old game on there if I ever want to go back to it. But if some of the recipes have changed then I may as well start getting used to them as soon as possible... What do you mean by things "breaking" in the 0.18 version?

[Pi-C]

What do you mean by things "breaking" in the 0.18 version?

For example, the unannounced sound changes in the latest update of Factorio broke several mods, so the same code that worked without a flaw before the update would crash the game on restart after it. This wasn't really a bug in Factorio, though, just a consequence of a change they made. For real Factorio bugs, check here. Usually, there's only one update per week. If you see two versions released on one day, it's a sure sign that something has gone so wrong that an almost immediate fix was needed. Well, it's named "experimental" version for a reason, but that doesn't mean it's low quality.

[je11693]

What do you mean by things "breaking" in the 0.18 version?

For example, the unannounced sound changes in the latest update of Factorio broke several mods, so the same code that worked without a flaw before the update would crash the game on restart after it. This wasn't really a bug in Factorio, though, just a consequence of a change they made. For real Factorio bugs, check here. Usually, there's only one update per week. If you see two versions released on one day, it's a sure sign that something has gone so wrong that an almost immediate fix was needed. Well, it's named "experimental" version for a reason, but that doesn't mean it's low quality.

Thanks. So will I have to manually download an update from the website every time one is released, or does it automatically update once I open the game on my computer?

[Pi-C]

Thanks. So will I have to manually download an update from the website every time one is released, or does it automatically update once I open the game on my computer?

If an update is available, the game will notify you and offer to download it. Apparently, it sometimes takes a while until the updates propagate to Steam or GOG, but if you have installed the game originally from a copy downloaded from the website, this is no issue. However, you'll have to set the option "Settings --> Other settings --> Enable experimental updates" first.

[je11693]

Thanks. So will I have to manually download an update from the website every time one is released, or does it automatically update once I open the game on my computer?

If an update is available, the game will notify you and offer to download it. Apparently, it sometimes takes a while until the updates propagate to Steam or GOG, but if you have installed the game originally from a copy downloaded from the website, this is no issue. However, you'll have to set the option "Settings --> Other settings --> Enable experimental updates" first.

Thank you, enabled it now.

[GrumpyJoe]

Rimworld can be like Factorio, playstyle totally depends on if you mod it.
In Vanilla you need to find a balance between totally boring and stupidly overwhelming, depending on your settings, starting conditions, biome and skills/knowledge.
I haven´t played it the last 7 or so months, so im like you with Factorio. Take the above with a grain of salt.

Satisfactory: i´d totally wait for Steam release, or even later into development, as ive come the conclusion that the reviews are not worth the bits to display them.
I dont get why everyone was so hyped about the trains, which can clip through terrain and even other trains, while it has no meaningful signals and cant really be controlled. And controlling them needs quite a read through Discord etc. to set up schedules. Its not really intuitive.
While its not 3D Factorio, it could use a bit of its automation goodies, especially since the last update with fluids, where they introduced loops (water goes into aluminum chain and abit comes back out)
Overall, so far its about building a pretty factory, not an optimized one.
You can spend quite a few 100 hours in it, depending on how fast you scale up, but after a while its mindnumbingly repetitive, because you have to handbuild everything (without the zone mod)
So far it has no endgoal, so everything you build could need a rework. You could go for x/items per second as a challenge, cos noone knows at what ratio you need them with later updates.
Dont get me wrong, i like the looks and feel about it
But you are a real beta tester, while you wait for secret updates that take ages and some minor QoL stuff is brushed aside for the goal of being awesome when the update is out. Like multiple toolbars you´ll want since the latest update introduced lots of new attachment points and foundations, sorry please wait. It´s a show and meaningful updates take like half a year.
Tbh, when the last one came out it almost worked perfectly, but i didn´t touch the game for 5 months and missed nothing in between.
Ive spent like 200h in the game, paved the pretty world in concrete foundations, but its not as awesome as reviews make it. It wont ever get close to the sandbox feels of Factorio.

ANNO 1800 gave me the same feels as mentioned above. ANGER.
Bugged campaign, not able to start it through steam, even tho other Uplay games work. Afaik its only aviable on EPIC, or at least the pulled it from Steam shortly after release.
The few hours a had with it were quite meh, compared to earlier titles. If you only wanna play and dont care about new fancy graphics, i´d recomment 2070, the last of the series i really played with a passion.
There is a reason i avoid UBI if i can, they are almost as bad as the other big ones, luckily im not interested in anthing those try to push.

City Skylines i never played
If you like Sandbox, maybe take a look at Transport Fever 2. Ive played part 1 and Train Fever and it can be very pretty and time consuming if you are into trains. I´d recomment mods, they make verything more pretty, but the game machanics stay the same.

For Factorio: Yes, i could be biased at over 3000h, but i try to diversify more lately.
So I´ll only say something about mods. Since you mentioned A+B: Bring some coffee! You´ll need it!

[je11693]

Rimworld can be like Factorio, playstyle totally depends on if you mod it.
In Vanilla you need to find a balance between totally boring and stupidly overwhelming, depending on your settings, starting conditions, biome and skills/knowledge.
I haven´t played it the last 7 or so months, so im like you with Factorio. Take the above with a grain of salt.

Satisfactory: i´d totally wait for Steam release, or even later into development, as ive come the conclusion that the reviews are not worth the bits to display them.
I dont get why everyone was so hyped about the trains, which can clip through terrain and even other trains, while it has no meaningful signals and cant really be controlled. And controlling them needs quite a read through Discord etc. to set up schedules. Its not really intuitive.
While its not 3D Factorio, it could use a bit of its automation goodies, especially since the last update with fluids, where they introduced loops (water goes into aluminum chain and abit comes back out)
Overall, so far its about building a pretty factory, not an optimized one.
You can spend quite a few 100 hours in it, depending on how fast you scale up, but after a while its mindnumbingly repetitive, because you have to handbuild everything (without the zone mod)
So far it has no endgoal, so everything you build could need a rework. You could go for x/items per second as a challenge, cos noone knows at what ratio you need them with later updates.
Dont get me wrong, i like the looks and feel about it
But you are a real beta tester, while you wait for secret updates that take ages and some minor QoL stuff is brushed aside for the goal of being awesome when the update is out. Like multiple toolbars you´ll want since the latest update introduced lots of new attachment points and foundations, sorry please wait. It´s a show and meaningful updates take like half a year.
Tbh, when the last one came out it almost worked perfectly, but i didn´t touch the game for 5 months and missed nothing in between.
Ive spent like 200h in the game, paved the pretty world in concrete foundations, but its not as awesome as reviews make it. It wont ever get close to the sandbox feels of Factorio.

ANNO 1800 gave me the same feels as mentioned above. ANGER.
Bugged campaign, not able to start it through steam, even tho other Uplay games work. Afaik its only aviable on EPIC, or at least the pulled it from Steam shortly after release.
The few hours a had with it were quite meh, compared to earlier titles. If you only wanna play and dont care about new fancy graphics, i´d recomment 2070, the last of the series i really played with a passion.
There is a reason i avoid UBI if i can, they are almost as bad as the other big ones, luckily im not interested in anthing those try to push.

City Skylines i never played
If you like Sandbox, maybe take a look at Transport Fever 2. Ive played part 1 and Train Fever and it can be very pretty and time consuming if you are into trains. I´d recomment mods, they make verything more pretty, but the game machanics stay the same.

For Factorio: Yes, i could be biased at over 3000h, but i try to diversify more lately.
So I´ll only say something about mods. Since you mentioned A+B: Bring some coffee! You´ll need it!

Thank you for your thoughts, really helpful given your experience in many of the games.

You have over 3000 hours in Factorio?!