Seeking advice in co-op with non-gamer friends

[neoChaos12]

Hi folks, I'm looking for some social advice around Factorio. I've got nearly a 1000 hours in Factorio and would like to drag some friends down to ruin with me introduce some friends to the joys of making the factory grow. I've ruined someone's first forays into gaming before since I was overenthusiastic and wouldn't want to repeat that. My issue here is threefold -

1. They have barely any experience with gaming in general whereas I've been addicted to games for nearly 30 years now, so there is going to be a huge gap in our perspectives.
2. I'm afraid about the fine balance of not ruining those moments of discovery when figuring out something in Factorio due to spoilers versus giving advice at the right time to prevent them from being super frustrated.
3. I would be liable to start getting bored myself if I have to tag along at a complete beginner's pace at the game.

So, I turn to you fellow Factorio addicts for advice. Any tips on how to handle this?

[eugenekay]

Different people like Different things about Factorio.

The simplest & easiest introduction for folks who have never played Factorio is the Demo - but your question is about Multiplayer. I have spent time with Friends in LAN games and I think that the same sort of server setup as other Infinite map games (like Minecraft) works well:
- Map with Limited Height/Width is a good idea to keep people from running way out into wilderness and ruining the Map running speed - 5000 x 5000 is still plenty of room for even a big mega base with multiple planets and Platforms
- Don’t use Mods if you can help it. Stick to freeplay.Lua scripts or try creating/finding a custom Scenario with familiar gameplay, like “rocket race” or “tower defense”
- Turn down the Enemy difficulty if they’re New - or make sure you build good Walls first
- Reserve room around the Nauvis 0,0 spawn point for a Supply mall, and space for Tanks to get around. Folks also enjoying playing with the Trains, leave some scenic Stops along a Taxi route so they can watch the Factory work.
- Maintain a “TODO” list (using Display Combinators!) of things for volunteers to try to work on. Dont worry about how fast it progresses, just that people are having fun.


Good Luck!

[waterBear]

Hate to say it, but from my experience the best path is the one that leads to you being bored. Let them start their own game and tag along, helping build stuff at their pace. Only intervene if they ask for help. If everything goes right maybe you can get more than one person to start at the same time, then they can work together when you're not there to speed up the learning process.

[ichVII]

My solution is usually to let them do their own thing with their section of the map, while answering any question they may have and giving advice if asked.

While that is happening, you start building your own base a bit away from them. You need to be a bit mindful of not completely outpacing them, so you probably should let them build science eventually (after possibly doing some red science research by hand to actually start the game).

[meganothing]

To add to the two previous suggestions, to avoid boredom you should give yourself a special task that keeps you occupied without going into expansion mode or needing you to do all the science production. For example:

* A totally green setup with least environmental damage.
* Some task that needs a complexity of circuit logic you never tried before
* Massively invest in quality production (a map with bigger resource patches may or may not be neccessary)

[Tertius]

In my opinion, and from experience with similar situations of my own, your attempt to drag your friends into the game is most likely doomed from the start. Either they like the game and are playing out of their own motivation, or they don't play the game. In either case your task is done after you showed them the game for the first time. You can ask them if they like to join a multiplayer game from time to time to play together, and if they do it's fine, but most likely you will not hear from them again.

It's not long ago I showed Factorio to a friend. He is a gamer with a huge library, so it's a bit different than with your friends. He downloaded the demo and reported back after a few weeks and said it's not to his liking. He said he likes building games in general, but Civilization-like. He doesn't like the mechanical/mathematical building of the factory building aspect in Factorio. His word was "optimizing" what he don't like, and although I don't feel you need to optimize anything in Factorio to have fun, I got what he meant - he meant the core challenge to do all the logistics and production ratios. So this was not his game. You need a special interest in this kind of game, as it is with every game.

[FunMaker]

I was in a similar place. Well my multiplayer mates played factorio a little bit but did not have the experience. The best way for me was to have the big picture in mind and give tasks for the other players(some players like to be given clear tasks) :

• Keep an eye on the scale on the different things
• Question them if they want play freely or if they want to build a bus and tell them the pros and cons
• Assign one of your mates to set up assembly of science packs or defenses to narrow there view if they are overwhelmed
• Keep an eye on big mistakes and future plans to give them the opotunity to make small mistakes but prevent game stoppers

In some situations you have to keep yourself calm and let the others make their mistake. If the are not looking at the ratio of green circuits it is okay and you can hint them if the output is not enough and let them fiddle with the problem alone for some time and wait if they come up with a solution or a demand for your group ("we need more copper platea for green circuits").

Hopefully no one struggles with the inputs of the game. If some one has problems like that your only option is to remap keys.

The hardest part will be to reduce you pace.