[wyager]

The entirety of factorio is centered around automated combat and production. Even with all automation mods I'm aware of, minecraft pales in comparison.

I don't think minecraft's engine could even handle the number of concurrent actors that factorio does. When I used to play minecraft, you couldn't make complicated redstone devices on big multiplayer servers because the engine couldn't afford to simulate chunks that weren't occupied by players. Factorio simulates the entire map, all the time. It's heavily optimized for thousands of concurrent actors.

[scrollaway]

Oh my god and the optimization in Factorio is seriously impressive. They have an excellent blog and often post technical details, it's a real treat to read.

[jcranmer]

It's worth adding that they successfully had a multiplayer session... with 400 concurrent users that was actually playable. There's not many games that can run 400-player sessions on a desktop computer (albeit a powerful gaming desktop).

[qwertyuiop924]

World Anchors have long been a feature of many mods, which let you keep map segments loaded while you're away.

Mind, you still can't simulate the entire map, and it's generally rough around the edges, but it mostly works.

[scrollaway]

Speaking as someone who managed plenty of Minecraft servers back in the days, it really doesn't compare. Factorio is able to handle several orders of magnitudes more circuitry than Minecraft ever could, on far weaker hardware at that.

[qwertyuiop924]

That's totally fair, and I would expect it.

So there's a major benefit for server owners...

[jackmott]

the map in factorio isn't very big....

or does it grow or something?

[MaulingMonkey]

Non-campaign maps are 'unlimited' in size unless you configure them otherwise. You may be playing the campaign/tutorial, or may be confusing the visible map (which will indeed expand/reveal as you get near it) for the entire map.

[scrollaway]

The Factorio map is unlimited (ish, maxint and all that). However the map matters a lot less in Factorio than it does in Minecraft, as the latter relies a lot more on the preexisting world than the former.

[Namrog84]

It is quite big. And even that might be an understatement. And I believe there might even be unlimited modes. You probably played a forced small campaign mission if you think otherwise.