Factorio Forums

MeduSalem wrote:That's interesting! I hadn't seen that paragraph up until now!

Reading this forum gives me the feeling that you are not the only one as many others seem to speak in a way that implies that the idea is totally and completely gone forever with no possibilities of ever making a comeback whatsoever. I was thinking that maybe their faith in a possible expansion was so little that to them the feature might as well be gone forever. However your words just now left nothing to interpretation.

The current end is a compromise, also not satisfying the devs, because they planned it differently. And they had surely a lot of internal discussion about that. But they don't want to promise something, cause they cannot know, how the game will sell in the future.

I think the devs need to make that point very clear before going on Steam.

ssilk wrote:The current end is a compromise, also not satisfying the devs, because they planned it differently. And they had surely a lot of internal discussion about that. But they don't want to promise something, cause they cannot know, how the game will sell in the future.

I think the devs need to make that point very clear before going on Steam.

At this point I'd thank the dev team for their openness. With the many releases and also with the many FFFs which give great insights into the develoment process. In the beginning things often go pretty fast and large advances are made. But after that phase it gets considerably harder to keep everything working well and to polish it for release. Changing the original Plans about the story line is hard. Look at the many games released with a weak story line. Running out of money and seeing the end approach way faster than you are comftable with is hard. I imagine the current situation like a ship in heavy (but not too heavy) seas. Fresh money needs to be acquired. Solid land is not yet in sight. Decisions need to be made. Some people will be disappointed. That's to be expected.

Going public with half-assed plans (as plans always are until you're actually 3/4 there) will disappoint many.
Not going public with the future plans will also disappoint many.

What factorio IMHO could use is a person smarter than anyone else in regards to epic storywriting. There are so many possibilites in factorio, it's overwhelming. There is so much content already made it would suffice for ten space adventures. I've already had enough fun that I'm satisified with what I got compared to what I paid for. I would be happy paying for well made episodes or singleplayer maps. It will get better and better from here on.

I always thought of my character in the game not as a crash-landed survivor, but as a early settler/terraformer working to build up some infrastructure for future colonists. Making the area safe, setting up production, etc. Just a step away from making homes, cars, and biter-skin boots.

Buggi wrote:I always thought of my character in the game not as a crash-landed survivor, but as a early settler/terraformer working to build up some infrastructure for future colonists. Making the area safe, setting up production, etc. Just a step away from making homes, cars, and biter-skin boots.

A bit off-topic but: I always presumed the biters had exoskeletons like insects. I don't think they'd provide any leather, just chitin.

Zhab wrote:Reading this forum gives me the feeling that you are not the only one as many others seem to speak in a way that implies that the idea is totally and completely gone forever with no possibilities of ever making a comeback whatsoever. I was thinking that maybe their faith in a possible expansion was so little that to them the feature might as well be gone forever. However your words just now left nothing to interpretation.

Well yeah, that's exactly the point of view I got back then. The conversations about the original proposed endgame went from active to dead pretty soon afterwards, implying that they are completely off the table.

But on the other hand I understand now why because if they'd still keep on poking around in the sore topic there would only be two possible outcomes (because I have seen similar during other game developments):

• Eventually give in and say "yeah we will do it", starting a second hypetrain which might crash because they can't promise anything yet.
• They get annoyed by the periodically recurring theme and finally say "It's dead Jim.", which would also cause a major depressing wave to go around.

So maybe it isn't that bad that the topic about their longterm plans isn't brought up daily and if it's just to keep up the moral.

I guess that there is nothing more to add to the topic now as the important things have been said and cleared up (at least for me). xD

Just a quick disclaimer regarding the endgame and the space platform. I haven't read all the conversation, but here is a sort of our current stand on the topic. This is not to be taken as a solid plan but rather as our current direction (which can shift as we have seen already=)):

The amount of work to do this is vast (almost feels like making another game), however the topic is still very interesting for us. Hence the most probable option at the moment is to wrap-up the game with the current end goal (launching rocket to space) and expand to space in continuation or data-disk.

As mentioned before we took a very big bite with the whole endgame. But this is a natural part of the open development process. By sharing our intensions we create illusion that this is how things will be done. One could say that we fix the direction in which the game is going. That is limiting for the development yet interesting for the players to know. We decided to share our intensions with the understanding that if we need to shift the direction (which is often necessary) then some people will be disappointed.

MeduSalem wrote: In late/endgame there are no consumers for the produced goods.

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After reading this and other suggestions my vote would go to some kind of trade facility with variable prices. This, combined with a randomized set of resources, would mean you would have to make up for a lack of one with mass production of another - so a playthrough would never be quite the same.

Hell, you could even imagine trading with another yourself in another gameplay (where you got different resources)!

Here is a simple fix to make the current endgame a lot better, and it just requires a few changes to the "story" of the game.

Instead of you being an advance party to colonise the planet, you have actually crashed there or arrived by mistake. You know you will not be rescued, so in order to escape and get back home, you have to build a new ship. Either... you build the ship on the ground, and then get in, and launch into space, in which case it functions like the current endgame (except you only have to build one), or if the devs are ever going to implement the space layer, you build the ship in orbit after launching materials up on rockets.
I think having a single solid endgame goal like that would be better. I haven't actually reached the endgame stage yet. I just play Factorio as a kind of city-building game, where my factory exists for the sole purpose of existing, so I can make refinements, improve the way it functions, ect.

MalcolmCooks wrote: where my factory exists for the sole purpose of existing, so I can make refinements, improve the way it functions, ect.

I keep saying that! Make that^ the endgame, but for that to work the devs would have to introduce some criteria by which one factory is better than another. Like in Simcity it was how much money a city makes or how much people it attracts. The keywords are "competition" and/or "achievement".

I put a post in suggestions about real-world economics stats, but any other goal to compete towards would do.

DailyFrankPeter wrote:

MalcolmCooks wrote: where my factory exists for the sole purpose of existing, so I can make refinements, improve the way it functions, ect.

I keep saying that! Make that^ the endgame, but for that to work the devs would have to introduce some criteria by which one factory is better than another. Like in Simcity it was how much money a city makes or how much people it attracts. The keywords are "competition" and/or "achievement".

I put a post in suggestions about real-world economics stats, but any other goal to compete towards would do.

Circuits per minute

kovarex wrote: Circuits per minute

Challenge accepted.

Is that something I'll be able to do more than once, though, each time becoming slightly better? 'Cause I have a hunch that all you need for more more circuits per minute is a bigger factory.

kovarex wrote:Circuits per minute

Circuits per minute is way too vague... anyone can ramp up the amount of circuits produced per minute.

So by which standards do we compare Factory A and Factory B, both producing exactly the same amount of circuits per minute?

If it is for example "Circuits per Minute per Area" that would make Factory A and Factory B more comparable to determine which one has the most space efficient Electronic Circuit layout and so on.

Of course other values such as Power consumption could be used too to rate the Factory.

Hi there!

My initial thought was to open a new topic but as it's kinda the same thing I thought I will just answer/ask in here.

Currently I'm rather new to Factorio (playing coop with a friend), like 12 hours in. I'm absolutely in love with the core gameplay mechanics (and the visuals and the sound design). I read a bit around and the only "endgame"/goal thing i saw was to be able to launch a rocket and thats kinda it.

Most things I found on the internet were either just idea posts in this forum or official blog posts from a year ago. So my question is: What is currently there? Is it really "just" getting that rocket launched and afterwards you dont really have anything to do apart from self set goals? I'd really love to know because if there isnt any endgame really, I might try to slow down myself to at least artificially prolong the looming "ending". I know myself and as soon as I don't have any goals to accomplish which (at least in my head) make sense, I lose interest rather quickly. And I don't want that to happen with Factorio. It's just too awesome (And tbh, just going the "create a more difficult to start out in map and play that afterwards" does not sound like that much fun to me). So is there something? Aliens getting more aggressive over time so you need to get more and more defensive things? Some other conditions you need to meet to keep going?

Please tell me that there is something to keep me hooked! (and as an idea to the devs if there isnt anything: IMHO (as a short term goal) if there currently is no endgame to keep people playing, at least add some meaning (a quick gain kind of thing. not really fancy, just something where a small amount of changes can have a huge impact of endgame playability) which one can relate to if he really likes the game. The endgame ideas i saw were very elaborate and would afford a ton of work to implement, which would most likely make them long term projects. When I looked at the Steam charts, I am pretty sure that money won't be a problem for this game to be completed properly, but I'd rather like to continue playing now than to wait 2-3 years and then come back :p )

Thank you very much for your time and have a nice day,
Flo

If you want a different and more challenging (and longer) experience of gameplay, at least before 0.13 comes with its load of new features, I advise you to give a try to marathon mod, coupled with RSO. It should help you have a lot longer playthrough.

I have not reached the endgame yet actually, because like you said, it doesn't seem like a worthy goal. Still, I've played dozens of hours at this game, playing it as if the point was just to survive. I think when I want to, I will imagine that launching a rocket lets me escape the planet and go home, but for now, I like living here I picked up RSO mod a while ago, and my "goal" in playing is to create a world with many distant outposts, with a complex and elegant train system linking it together.