My space age review

[Tertius]

sure I have not really learned how to run a nuclear reactor, or anything realistic about fluids usable in my house, but at least it was a nice technical challenge here and there not too difficult for someone who built and installed his own off-grid solar system in his house&garden, with cabling, balancing and storage all done in house myself.

Look deeper what Factorio does. It has more depth than just provide things to play with like a toy nuclear reactor. It's a simulation and teaches more about the real world than you think. For example, I learnt that transport and logistics is more than just calling a truck when I have to transport something from A to B.
I have a better understanding what happens if I read in the news that some never heard of company from the supplier industry manufacturing light bulbs is on strike and as consequence half of the automotive industry has to stop production.

Or about container trade: with the Corona shutdown worldwide trade had a crisis. It almost stopped, although there was still supply and demand. What happened? It had to do with empty containers. Ports were shutdown and it wasn't possible to ship filled or even empty containers to locations where goods waited for shipment. But there were no containers to package them. It was some kind of container crisis. If you're not able to package your goods, you cannot trade. Such kind of congestion crisis is what we see in Factorio every day.

[meganothing]

For me personally it was a missbuy.

I have to laugh every time I read somebody writing something like this. [...]

it sounds funny to me, too. like as if a video game was some kind of investment or something. basically every video game wastes time unless you go pro and earn money playing it. many zoomers probably still live in their parents basement or something so maybe they really count their dollarinos, not to make fun of them but if you ask me factorio was one of the best misbuys I ever made, and I probably only spent like $500 on video game entertainment in 20 years. the price needs to be compounded with the time invested which could be used to learn something useful (like learning how to make a video game, instead of playing one), so any price really dwarfs in comparison to the hours you did not get paid playing the video game. really silly statement to call any video game a miss-buy. again, to me it was one of the nicest ways to waste some time this winter in a long time, in the most positive ways imaginable. some even consider mentally challenging video games as stimulating for brain development and capacities, in which case it would not be wasted time at all. sure I have not really learned how to run a nuclear reactor, or anything realistic about fluids usable in my house, but at least it was a nice technical challenge here and there not too difficult for someone who built and installed his own off-grid solar system in his house&garden, with cabling, balancing and storage all done in house myself. it's a game for tech nerds or at least perfect for DIY guys like me. I mean I even repair my own green circuits in my synthesizers, came by lots of capacitors there, never one supercapacitor, and no superconductors yet though, so there's that.

Depends on the definition of missbuy. Once you have bought the game you either never play it then it trivially would be a missbuy, even independent of the quality and compatibility with your tastes. Or you actually play it and then it becomes more expensive even by your standards where you compound time invested with the price.

We can assume that Panzerknacker played space age for a while and didn't have the expected fun doing so. By your definition the total cost went up every hour so the missbuy is even bigger the longer he played it.

What he seems to be misunderstanding though is that game version 1 being compatible with ones tastes does not guarantee game version 2 to be compatible as well. So he adds even more hours of (IMHO) useless complaining to his tab making the missbuy even worse

[coffee-factorio]

What he seems to be misunderstanding though is that game version 1 being compatible with ones tastes does not guarantee game version 2 to be compatible as well. So he adds even more hours of (IMHO) useless complaining to his tab making the missbuy even worse

It's not necessarily useless though. It shows a level of investment with the vanilla 1.x experience someone who played the game before had.

There's a critical response I have to some of it. Practically; at a certain point I have to ask myself if the standard fluid simulation is what I want to repeat as a puzzle while playing a game about making factories. Nullius fluid simulation worked in that pipes have different capacities, so you had to know your inventory at least at the point of working with it or it wouldn't work. So it was a bit like this: all pipes had a pump attached to the end, and if you used a bad pipe it would be like using a 300 fluid pump instead of a 1200 fluid pump on say, a space platform engine set. You'd short feed your build in the same way. You could bypass that if you made a lot of carbon fiber and made pipes with 100% flow.

But other mod developer's aren't Anachrony. And the puzzle I was interested in was knowing my inventory. And Space Age provides that in spades.

Saying "you know, that simulation was fun" gives mod developers a chance to examine why it was fun. And build institutional knowledge in the company and community. A mod developer might be interested in fiddling around with the heat system because that has similar traits to the old fluid system, and make some kind of mega-reactor mod. It gives a chance for grief to be recognized as grief, and to be brought to a healthy resolution.

[mmmPI]

Saying "you know, that simulation was fun" gives mod developers a chance to examine why it was fun. And build institutional knowledge in the company and community. A mod developer might be interested in fiddling around with the heat system because that has similar traits to the old fluid system, and make some kind of mega-reactor mod. It gives a chance for grief to be recognized as grief, and to be brought to a healthy resolution.

That would imply the devs didn't know the simulation was fun, which i believe isn't the case, it was fairly well explained in FFFs the reason why the fluid system was changed, and this is not even the topic of the thread, it's fairly unhealthy to make a fixation on it, disregarding the actual feedback that was expressed by the person who made the thread.

[coffee-factorio]

Saying "you know, that simulation was fun" gives mod developers a chance to examine why it was fun. And build institutional knowledge in the company and community. A mod developer might be interested in fiddling around with the heat system because that has similar traits to the old fluid system, and make some kind of mega-reactor mod. It gives a chance for grief to be recognized as grief, and to be brought to a healthy resolution.

That would imply the devs didn't know the simulation was fun, which i believe isn't the case, it was fairly well explained in FFFs the reason why the fluid system was changed, and this is not even the topic of the thread, it's fairly unhealthy to make a fixation on it, disregarding the actual feedback that was expressed by the person who made the thread.

That would be circular reasoning. If the simulation was not fun, a developer can explain why the simulation was not fun.

And they would have explained why they used the simulation.
And the simulation wouldn't be fun.

It has no bearing on the overall utility of the thing which itself is undecidable in theory and has to be judged in practice. I'd take the position Wube took the right one (edit->option). Building a direct proof of anything is unfounded simply by kicking at either leg of the reasoning.

Some tolerance is necessary because one review was being reacted to with another.

A newsletter is an artifact, a consistently contributed bug report is a living document.

Saying the idea is gone is one thing. Noticing it exists in reactors is another one that has relevance beyond modders. As in the past, if you mess up your heat pipes you'll short feed your heat exchangers. It isn't the same puzzle. It shouldn't claimed to be. But if there's demand for it, someone interested in fine grained control of a power station might need a more detailed simulation to do it.

Recognizing an emotion critically does more to dispel it than to mock it. There are exceptions but, as you indicated, an unhealthy fixation can lead someone to make statements that are irrelevant to the matter at hand. Those exceptions are not the rule.

[mmmPI]

I think you misunderstood, i meant it's unealthy to make a fixation on a different topic that the one that originated the thread, it's about new game + it seems to me, like after the game, more content, more things to do, a new preset after you finish the game, but it's unclear to me what it should be doing differently to be more "survival".

[ES64U2]

My opinion:

If the point was to find the one optimal design that beats all, and you couldn't immediately find it.

It's not finding your optimal design. But the one intended design. And that's why both Gleba and quality are not very fun. Rather only okay.

Especially Gleba forces you a high speed, good throughput and plan ahead approach. If you prefer a "collect, accumulate in your inventory and do everything step by step" approach, you quit Factorio, before switching to the intended and only possible approach. Nor do you switch to other planets before quitting Factorio. In my opinion there is a kind of backup mechanism missing in Gleba, that still nudges you into the planed approach, but allows for step by step.

And quality has basically only one method, that is so vastly superior, that you were basically forced to destroy your whole factory. Which is not fun either. Upcycling. And Upcycling by itself also isn't fun.

And moreover you can't even play without enemies any more without feeling totally punished. It's not just nudging, it's basically punching.

Should I try to make suggestions for maybe possible solutions for all this three problems? But I'm not sure if anyone is interested, since the community is so large, that it's not clear, if anyone is listening.

However, for me Factorio is still worth it. It's just much below it's opportunities, especially from what version 1 made us expecting.

[mmmPI]

you quit Factorio, before switching to the intended and only possible approach

And quality has basically only one method, that is so vastly superior, that you were basically forced to destroy your whole factory.

This is incorrect, it may be your opinion, but it's not the case that there is a single possible approach, nor for quality, nor it is the case that you are forced to destroy your factory. Posting your "solution" to this "problem" may lead to interesting suggestions , but it's also possible someone points out something you missed, or an incorrect assumption in the premises. Looking at the different method people posted to beat the game goes to show that there are in fact several possible approach for the task you mentionned.

[angramania]

It's not finding your optimal design. But the one intended design. And that's why both Gleba and quality are not very fun. Rather only okay.

Especially Gleba forces you a high speed, good throughput and plan ahead approach.

Lol. Gleba is the most versatile planet. It can be solved in so many ways. Just try to read any discussion about it and you will see very different approaches. If there is only way, that you can see, that doesn't mean that only one way exists.

And quality has basically only one method, that is so vastly superior, that you were basically forced to destroy your whole factory.

Same here. At different stages there are different "superior" methods. And even at the final stage there are at least two "superior" methods.

Now try to think about the following question: how many ways to produce iron plates had you before SA and how many have you now? The same can be asked about many others aspects of classic factorio. SA has added a lot of versatility. And usually the real limitation is not game design but lack of versatility of particular players.

[Tertius]

And usually the real limitation is not game design but lack of versatility of particular players.

This is definitely true. I see this lack of versatility with myself, and I try to overcome this by checking what other people do. I have even overcome my ignorance when it comes to quality. And if I am able to do this kind of thing, everyone else is able to do this as well.

The most fascinating thing about the lack of versatility is the complete rejection of the 2.0 fluid mechanics by some players. It prevents the players from seeing the opportunities that open up and the whole new world behind them. I wonder how many worlds I myself have missed out on in a similar situation.

[ES64U2]

Let me explain:

When I first meet Gleba I did a "Play around with Gleba and build accidentally a factory in the process" approach, like what I did at all other planets, and the space platform. But I failed miserably. Basically because everything got spoiled when I tried to experiment with it. (I also failed at the space platform, but it did not feel bad there, because I simply tried again.)
The steam statistic in the other thread shows, that this is the point, where too much players quit. I obviously didn't. Instead I was digging into the recipes and built a factory that solved this. But this never felt like my own approach but always like finding out how it should be solved. However, this "how it should be" refers rather to "plan ahead" instead of a specific factory layout. But nevertheless, this factory layout never felt like mine either. This resulted that I often closed Factorio after the loading screen, because I remembered my save state being ~"trapped into a template, developed by the game, not me, and too tiered to expand the template in my manner, when it wasn't mine in the first place".
This is basically the same like lot of other users described in the other thread. In my case it was not something specific like "but I want to have nearly no pollution for a layout to be called "mine"." but rather general.
Nowadays I know how to bruteforce Gleba layouts to meet my requirements. The example in the other thread shows that a lot is possible. And if I enter Gleba with a clear target it is much more pleasant.

However, I think it is valid to shorten this to "find out the one intended design [of planing ahead]", even it does not match exactly.

PS: By the way: If you name the versatility: It's of cause great in Space Age. I did not doubt this. Of cause, a game this length needs this. And Factorio accomplishes it.

[coffee-factorio]

Quality has paradox logic in it. Because it's an optimization mechanic and you can always apply an optimization mechanic to itself. It's even more fun because it's hard to decide whether or not you have an ideal product. Paradoxes are like circular reasoning because underlying conditions contradict themselves; unlike circular reasoning the underlying conditions are true. The issue when dealing with that is the same as quality, everything ends up looking like a singularity.

Artistically? Brave. Extremely brave.

Strategically? It's actually rather fun to watch how the monster changes as you run it through stages and observe where the logic of improving something falls apart. Like you can get UC drills and UC+ drills early. But if you go for rare+ there's not a mill strategy that justifies the time investment till you have technology that lets you expand to a certain scale. Ultimately upcycling is the healthiest mill strategy available from a set of less desirable ones.

Tactically? Dealing with the paradoxes while you're operating is a bit different. Because if you want to explore the topic of running an efficient rare only factory you have treat the uc- items and epic+ items as defects. And both of those things are valuable because they are either available or extremely powerful. You're having to destroy valuable things to get something that's only personally valuable and dealing with that is psychologically difficult.

So I think there's just going to be a stress that's going to show up in discussions.

[mmmPI]

However, I think it is valid to shorten this to "find out the one intended design [of planing ahead]", even it does not match exactly.

I don't think it is correct to stipulate the idea of there being one intended way, when there are several, particularly on Gleba, when comparing with Aquilo, or Vulcanus. Had you posted on a Gleba thread maybe it would have been more explicit from the discussion