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Developers have an accord with the community that game will never go on sale. Having a small discount when buying in bundle with an expansions is fine, but if game ever goes on sale, this review will become negative.

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Factorio is one of those games which will remain classic to most people. It is a game which filled a niche and created a genre upon itself. It is a standard to which other factory style games can be compared to.

It is a game designed around producing as much stuff as possible. Entire game is designed around allowing player to produce more stuff. It has front-loaded learning curve where game appears to be difficult, but it is not when you learn it. It has very strong modding community. However, due to its isometric nature, this is a game which favours function over form and thus is not as pretty or approachable to people as Satisfactory is. Hence, it is a second most popular Factory style game which is better suited for more dedicated, hardcore individuals due to its ease of modifiability.

Game is like Minecraft. It is devoid of purpose. You must set them yourself if you want to enjoy playing it and it would be better be along the lines: "factory must grow" or else you might end up disappointed. You can sure try to launch the rocket and be satisfied by it. However, if you will not have goals or desire to try something new, game will eventually feel empty. It does not have enough polish or dynamic content to make you engaged any more than a playthrough and it relies heavily on modders keeping you entertained.


This game is full of little quirks which takes you away from an experience. Some of these are little things which are still left unfinished like seeing windows mouse. Others are about unrefined features like combinators which as a result are a pain to use. Other parts are about unintuitive and odd choices which game chooses to take like going against established convention with in-game armor or a questionable relationship with a reality where game in one area tries to be realistic then goes to complete wonderland in the next.

Small things
• Something simple as pressing left mouse button on your armor causes you to drop everything on a ground. Game defies classical user interface. When you want to open something, what do you press on Windows? Left mouse click. When you want to drag a bag in Boulder's Gate to your ally's inventory, does it spill all the potions, scrolls and gems on the ground? No it does not. However, this game does it and lack of basic features like a sub-inventory causes a lot of frustration when you learn this game.
  
  Then there are other things. Why I can't say how much my smart inserters have to turn? Why they do U-turn thus forcing me into awkward situations? Why this game still has windows mouse? Why this game does not allow you to re-order your manual building menu? Why I can't name my conveyor belts or just areas what does what? There are ton of such little things which would be of minor annoyance when I would play this game.
  
  Going more complex
  
• This game is not designed for more complex relationships. For example, using rail signals for anything else than intersections between various rails is just asking for trouble and they just do not work for a single rail network. Trying to use signals for rail management is a nightmare, because developers for some reason decided to give new train ID if you add or remove a wagon for it. More complicated signals are a complete pain to do. Train for example will not move out under fully loaded cargo, because artillery wagon also has a cargo which you must load before moving out. Game is logically inconsistent to what a player would expect to happen. This creates a very unintuitive game where you constantly get frustrated when trying to do something complex and it is often game's fault as it defies a common logic and expectation of how things behave in a real life. Here is an example of this. I had a bug where my trains will not obey signals. I noticed that I put on the same network two signals with a same ID. They added up and this caused a bug. However, in reality if there are two different signals, they will not just add up. They will most likely subtract from each other's value. In this case, game does not simply have two different T named signals with T 50 and T 25. Instead, game produces T 75 signal. This is unrealistic and it needlessly complicated gameplay when game could had implicit rules to avoid such issues.
  
  Bugs
  
• People often get emotional when you call something as a bug. However, that is far more charitable description than calling something as broken or badly designed. A bug is merely an unintentional behaviour. What is unintentional is usually referenced to a design document or to developer's vision. Lack of documentation how a software is supposed to run opens a door of calling anything which does not behave as an user expects to as a bug. This is why definition of a bug can be subjective (outside of hard crashes) if we do not know what is intended behaviour and what is not.
  
  However, was it developer's vision to place artillery cannons on inaccessible places and then for that to cause Biters to bug out? Biters do not know what to attack anymore as they were programmed to attack artillery cannon and not the direction from which shot came. That little bit of lazy programming in the end causes game to break in unforeseen ways. I even saw Biters attacking rocks out of sheer frustration or just freezing in place. At other times, they attack my base after an artillery attack, but then they immediately stop. Freeze in place and then move away in slow motion.
  
  In other areas bug happens, because developer did not properly programmed their code. Why inserters insert materials into a train disregarding circuit condition and train ID? If that is intended behaviour, then I can only call this part of Factorio simply as broken. Why? Now we have higher level tools - circuit conditions which are supposed to define behaviour of in-game elements. However, these tools do not work, because underlying code is poorly programmed as it constantly overwrites conditions and rules I set up for inserters.
  
  Other bugs happen, because developer came to conclusions which are unintuitive and even wrong compared to common practices. Why train ID changes with adding new wagons? Train ID traditionally is tied to locomotive and not amount of wagons it has. Why automatic train scheduler stops working when you mess with it? A lot of these bugs happen, because programmer just programmed code to whatever makes sense to them and did not considered what these things really mean. As a result, it was supremely frustrating in figuring out why my trains just constantly stop working. Community was clueless in regards to this bug either, giving me mixed responses in whatever they agree it is an intended behaviour or not. Even developer's response in forums about similar topic implied that this is not something which logically should happen.
  
  I saw that developers does have a thread, ''it is not a bug, it is a feature". I do hope that they do that in good humour, because that is a meme in itself. Even if we assume that all of these things are how game should run then it leaves me with even more damning conclusion. This game is badly designed in a lot of areas and even broken in some others. In my playthrough I had experienced a lot of weird behaviour from Biters. I had experienced a lot of frustration from trains and circuitry. I saw a lot of illogical and unrealistically designed systems.
  
  I made a video which goes into more details to some issues which I had in this game. Mind you, not all of them are bugs.
  https://youtu.be/ITaeXU8L9OQ

I tried to create a computer which adds only a specific amount of items in the box and then if it reads that there is that amount of items in the box, it removes them. This allows me to create computerised belts as I can input specific amount of input to a belt. If I want for example 100 iron plates per minute on a belt, I can just program this computer within a game to only lay on the belt 100 iron plates per minute. No less and no more. I had built a clock, a signal generator, a counter and programmable inserters myself with very little outside help. However, through my journey I only was frustrated by in-game programming.

First Issue
• It simplifies some things to the point of absurdity like reading crate content. However, something as crucial as a clock or signal generator is nowhere to be seen. You are expected to build that. Then memory and all the other electronics parts. This simplification is bizarre, because in circuit electronics you are actually given these things as freebies. You put microchips which are combination of various electronics parts meant for training. However, in this game there are no such things. It gives you instead the most useless Constant Generator when any other part from electronic circuits would be far more useful. Game expects you to go online to their wiki. However, if I'm expected just to copy everything from online, is it a game anymore? Is it even a puzzle? What is the point of having programming in game if you are forced to copy everything from an internet and just slightly modify it for your own base? At that point, actual graphical programming becomes a lot more fun than a video game...
  
  Second Issue
  
• There isn't an interface for that. In nearly 150 hours, making forum posts and asking friend for help, I still do not know how to cut damn wires. That is of course on me, but since I was receiving a lot of outright wrong information how to do it, it shows that even community doesn't even know it. This then is extended to how difficult it is to connect more complex machines. There are countless wires and they all are mixed together. If you need to debug something, it is a complete pain. Game lacks a clear interface for its combinators. Actual electronic circuit has simulated electronic circuits where you can place elements and simulate how it works. There are games on Steam which does this thing marvellously. I will repeat myself. An actual thing is a lot more intuitive and fun than a simplified version meant for gamers in Factorio. It feels that this feature was just shoved in for checkbox reasons.
  
  Third Issue
  
• This game isn't even designed to do something more complex. Notice how most implementation of circuitry are rather go-to, easy things to do. Lights, carrying specific amount of stuff, stopping/starting to work after X. However, rarely someone does anything more complex and when they do it, they often do despite the game engine. I feel that circuitry in this game gives you a lot of complex tools and potential, but it is meant for simple cases and simple things. Trying to do anything more complex just leads to frustration by having to deal with odd Wube's choices and inherent limitations of an engine. At that point, just take on actual circuit electronics. They are more fun and easier to understand than a poorly implemented version of them in this game.
  
  Fourth Issue
  
• Most minor issue is that I encountered bugs, according to forum. I tried to create a clock. However, I could not capture when i = x. I would feed combinator output to input and it would go very fast. In my case, it had failed to capture a specific value and I had to go around rough amounts like i > 10. That might be on me as I did not gone back to test it again.

Game is designed around producing as much stuff as possible. Producing stuff for the sake of producing more stuff. Entire game seems to be designed around enabling player to produce more stuff rather than making it difficult for a player to manage producing more stuff. Then first I started playing, I had an impression that difficulty will come in trying to get all these different materials together to produce everything I needed. However, the difficulty comes solely from trying to increase your production quotas for the sake of ever more ridiculous recipes and research.

Power Generation
• One of the areas where this is apparent is power generation. In this game, it is simplified to the point of absurdity. Only coal power is somewhat balanced method. Solar panels are pollution free and even generate electricity at night. However, for mega factories you need nuclear power. Nuclear power at first seems to require a lot of uranium ore, however there is Kovarex enrichment process which converts all of your excessive U-238 to useful U-235. However, that is not how enrichment process works at all. This process defies laws of thermodynamics and produces more energy from a closed system than you inputted. This results in you producing an infinite amount of electricity without needed to worry about running out of fuel. Since nuclear power produces a ton of electricity and fuel for it is practically infinite, a player does not need to consider electrical management in its Factory design. Factories as a result tend to be grossly inefficient and it is designed that way to crank as big of the numbers as possible.
  
  Modules & Beacons
  
• I never liked modules, because they demand you to rethink how you design your base from what game just taught you. Then they introduce arcade-like stackable bonuses like -50% electricity consumption which somehow directly relates to pollution. Then you get speed modules which can add up to 150% speed and combine that with 50% extra speed. You do get ridiculous performance gains. This can be used as a lazy excuse not to design a better factory, because you can just make it magically far better or it can be used to inflate production at a whim instead of building more lines or just using lower end assemblers. They also trivialise things like pollution management in this game. This mechanic breaks a lot of systems in this game and it is done to inflate players production quotas and to allow them to control production/pollution speed with a switch of a button. This raises a question for me. Why you can't just design a factory to do such a thing? Isn't designing a factory the whole point in Factorio? As it happens, no it is not. Factory must grow, as they say. The whole point of this game are big numbers as you produce stuff for stuff's sake.
  
  Conveyor Belts
  
• Conveyor belts are another affront to God. It defies natural order of things and is an infinite energy generator. You do not need to fuel it or to maintain it. It is a perfect solution to solve all your logistics needs for free. This had stuck with me, because I remember playing Settlers 2 and how much fun I had in that game managing roads and logistics of my workers going to the various production buildings and bringing back goods. Logistics of an economy game was always the part which I enjoyed the most. This part is greatly simplified in Factorio. Instead you have a perfect line which delivers goods anywhere you want to quite extreme speeds. Massive speed of Express Belts allows players to fully saturate a single belt without having to think amount multi-belt approach due to bandwidth limitations.
  
  Even trains are not intended to transport goods between bases. This is something I did naturally myself for my own fun. However, this game does not encourage that and it is sub-optimal play. Game only encourages you to build lines to transport resources to the main base. Logistics and challenges of transporting goods is greatly simplified in this game and it is something which I did not appreciated.
  
  Drones
  
• These little fellows actually surprised me, because they are fun to use and ability to construct factories from blueprints on global map is actually a very useful feature as it is an auto repair. However, that is just another example how logistics is overly simplified in this game. Drones allow you to transport anything anywhere without a need to worry about physical connections. They essentially nullify need for logistics for anything, but most volume intensive tasks. Since electricity is essentially free in this game, drones also become a free tool to use.

Game markets Biters as some sort of threat which are going to attack you. I do not know how Biters behave when player pollutes a lot. However, any sensible approach to Factory building in vanilla campaign leads to you simply not producing enough pollution to make them as anything more just mild annoyance. Just don't destroy environment around you. Clear nearby nests. In late game add artillery for stand off range. Here, you successfully made Biters non-existent in this game.

Pollution
• First of all, in this game it is way too easy not to pollute. This in turn makes Biters around you pretty Zen, especially if you destroy their nearby bases. If anything, they are more of an annoyance which you effectively solve with an artillery battery keeping them away from nesting near your base. Biters seem to be designed for a player who completely pollutes and destroys his environment, because any run where you are not tree burning monster results in them....just not doing anything. Game feels broken as it places them everywhere and they just do not do anything for an entire game. Developers could had removed Biters completely from my game and it would had been a better game. At least, they could allow player to find spots devoid of them rather than them being spread evenly and predictably across the map.
  
  Scalability
  
• Another problem is that they never become a threat. You can easily wipe their bases in early game. Just add plenty of turrets next to them and load them with ammunition. BAM, entire base evaporated. In late they can't even kill you. You can easily walk into their base and destroy their nest without firing a shot. Game markets biters as some sort of threat. I was under impression in beta and now that they will be a threat to me. However, they never were. A minor annoyance at best. I was disappointed by game's inability to make them a threat or to give some meaningful interactions with them. I never seen them trying to nest and expand dynamically. They would just sit there. Sometimes a swarm of them would go to a random place and just freeze in place. After being frozen for a minute, a nest will pop out of a thin air. They did that in my game always to the same area. You would wipe their nest and they would just keep trying to come to the exact same space. It doesn't feel natural nor it helps you to get immersed into this world. Eventually I just built a massive wall to keep biters out, but at that point, they were not even an annoyance to me anymore. They did not even tried to harass my bases anymore. So, I built a wall and kept them in, because removing them was pointless. I might as well burn trees as they were as much threat to me and my base as Biters were.

Factorio has an extensive modding support and I heard that it has many hardcore and quality of life mods. That is great. However, I'm not reviewing game mods. I'm reviewing Factorio itself. Reviewing game modes adds additional complications. What if game mod changed gameplay in a way I did not liked? Should I blame the mod or a game? Why base game can suck, but it is okay, because some modder might or might not had improved that area which you did not liked? Shouldn't credit go to the modder instead? Why it is okay to justify this practice where a game uses modders as a crutch and refuses to provide good initial impression to people trying out their game? You know, first impressions is everything and 'you must play this game for 100 hours until it becomes actually good' is an actual meme.

Games like this often attract people with deep personal issues who use games as an escape mechanism. Such people often make everyone else as miserable as they are. I tried to share my experience in Steam forum, but it is an open battleground. People can't accept that a person might have something negative to say. They do not understand what an opinion is. They try to argue against an opinion and to prove that your opinion is wrong and their opinion is right. They pretend to talk in place of developers and create toxic, unwelcoming place where you must either fall into the party lines of "FACTORY MUST GROW AT ALL COSTS" or get ready for constant harassment and questioning. These people will contest literally everything you say. Will scream how wrong you are at everything and then immediately drop the conversation in the middle of discussion and never talk about it again.

However, I kept pushing through not for them, but for my right to use public places to express my own experiences. I'm sharing more detailed version of them here:
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/groups/Calicifer/discussions/0/3824158244554053005/

If you want to see what a mess this community is, you can go to watch circus here:
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/app/427520/discussions/0/3826410044369061413/?tscn=1689276285

Factorio is a long game. It is a giant time commitment. It was fun at times, bothersome at other moments and plain boring in the end. It front loads its difficulty at player at the start and then proceeds to simplify all the processes after mid game. However, mid game was where I had most fun in trying to figure out and do something unique. After that, it was about redesigning my base over and over again to meet ever increasing production demands. Then it was about constantly doing mundane stuff and connecting more base materials supply. In the end, I achieved sustainable production which allowed me to fully complete the game. It felt empty and hollow as it overstayed its welcome. It drags everything mercilessly. You get unreasonably high requirements of everything and thus you have to spend a lot of time growing your factory. It constantly shifts what you need, from where you need it and how much you need it. This drags out gameplay and complicates it to players which causes high drop out rates even among veterans who tried main campaign many times, but dropped it. Fully completing vanilla experience is a chore. Then you do it, it just feels empty as game has nothing else to offer.

I did had fun. Factorio ranks as a great game in my book. A game which I can recommend to others, but with some caveats. Like a warning about time commitment required, its steep initial learning curve. It is a game which shines for more dedicated gamers, but I do wonder if more casual people would not do better with something like Satisfactory.

Calicifer's Reviews

If you are interested reading full review (in this case there are a lot more) or want to discuss something with me, please follow the provided link. I do not allow endless discussions under my reviews, because it rarely ends well.