[Arkdy]

I gave up on Factorio when I realized that if I was gonna think that way, I might as well just write some code and make something tangible.

But if it's just shapes, and I don't have to memorize as many new concepts, maybe the load will be light enough to be relaxing like Mini Metro.

[adkadskhj]

I found it hilarious how much Factorio and Satisfactory tired me out in the same way that programming does.

I love them, but the difficulty curve that they give the player just strikes too many similarities with my day job. I feel like i want to play a Satisfactory-lite. Something that gives me the fun of programming without the complexity. Help me build an abomination of complexity that i don't have to maintain. Refactoring shouldn't exist in this hypothetical game, maintenance should never be a concern - just forward movement and the joy of unburdened chaos.

[Dauros]

> Refactoring shouldn't exist in this hypothetical game

Without refactoring the factory planning phase would be more difficult since I don't want to fill the best places on the map with unmaintainable, non scalable factories. Refactoring should be very easy, e.g. like in Factorio with construction bots: just press ctrl + x and the bad part of the factory is gone.

If you want to build an abomination, try SeaBlock mod [1] for Factorio. You don't have to refactor anything, space and resources are infinite, so just build a new factory next to the old one after you research a new tier of technology.

[1]: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/SeaBlock

[scotty79]

I used Factorio to train myself to overcome psychological barriers to progressing my projects. It's easier to do it in Factorio because Factorio is more engaging and problems with overwhelming chaos and complexity and legacy barriers to progress and the needs for refactoring are the same.

[theptip]

Have you tried any of the Zachtronics games? Magnum Opus, Spacechem, etc?

Still scratches the “programming puzzle” itch for me, still complex in the later stages, but more bite sized problems so no refactoring/maintenance to speak of (unless you want to try reimplementing to beat your previous score).

[mdaniel]

I believe it was spacechem that made me long for testable components in the game, since the stage was conceptually getting several submodules to work, and then orchestrating their outputs into the final product

When I started longing for unit testing in a game, that was the end for me

[tomc1985]

I've heard Inifnifactory is like Factorio lite

You know what's funny? I'm a programmer and I think the same of XCOM 2. It's a game where everything's always on fire, everything always goes wrong for you to fix, and there's never enough time to sit back and relax. It was a game about grit and perserverance against overwhelming odds... and it felt exactly like my most previous job as as a Senior SE at a small startup.

No fucking thank you.

[m463]

With factorio you can automate defenses and concentrate on building.

[tomc1985]

And here I am playing Satisfactory and wishing the fauna would attack my base :/

[lsaferite]

I wish there were a wider variety of fauna. I imagine if they made them as a moddable component you'd see the mod community add a bunch.

It's actually one of the aspects of Don't Starve that I love. Practically everything in the game is some sprites, sounds, and Lua. That makes it fairly easy to extend the game.

[tomc1985]

Satisfactory is early access, though I have no clue how close to finished they are. (Though, from what I have played -- just got up into Tier 4 -- it feels really complete)

[m463]

I came to the same conclusion. But every once in a while I pop in and clear an area of bugs with spidertron and copy/paste a factory.

When I'm clearing spidertron wears many exoskeletons and I wear many lasers. When I'm building, I put spidertron back in my pocket and switch to wearing many roboports and exoskeletons.

[dexwiz]

I have put about 100 hours into the game and hitting about that same wall. But I am now learning sequential circuits, because my familiar algorithms and constructs don’t map well to the signal system in the game. So even though it’s programming, it’s a different kind.

The refactoring thing is up to you, it’s pretty easy to give up on a base and build one next door. Space is pretty much infinite.

Stretching your brain in similar but new ways in not always a waste.

[afterburner]

Also, Factorio looks ugly as sin.

[ineedasername]

That depends on how you "code" your world. Sure, individual sprites aren't pretty, but then again it's supposed to be industrial.

Regardless, you can optimize your builds for symmetry or some other aesthetic goal and come up with some really beautiful designs. Though just like real world programming, lack of planning will result in spaghetti code.

[blackbrokkoli]

Alrighty, what design philosophy would you apply to get millions of animated, individual objects to interact with an astonishingly high and constant tick rate on everything down to absolutely shitbox-laptops? Because that is what Factorio does!

[afterburner]

Wow people are missing the forest for the trees. I wasn't talking about resolution or texture quality, it's the colour choices that are inherently ugly.