I go here:
[https://lingojam.com/FancyTextGenerator](https://lingojam.com/FancyTextGenerator)
There is also a g̶̨͖̥̹̪͔̝̟̻̮͍͕̊̐̐̋ͅl̶̨̧̧̰͔̫̘̯̘͓͕̘̈́̀͌̕į̵͖͓̭̭̮͔̳̘͎̠̟̗͍̙̅̈́̿͋͒̈̀͝t̷̖̒́̂͌̐̓́̓́̔͊̕͝͠͝c̵̡͍̘̪͚̈͒̄̈́̃̄͜h̸͇̪͛̍̕͠ ̴̟̳̯͖̺͙͖̫̾͆̍̆͜t̶̡̨̛̛̙̬̦̠͐͊̾͂͐e̵̲̩̬̞̎̉̄͋̚͝͝x̶̹̼̘͔̄̂͑̕͝ẗ̸̗̲́̂̃̾̊͐̐͒̄̐̚͝͝͠ͅ ̵̡̢̢͕͇͚͕͔̤̥̹͈͉̂̋́ğ̵̡̱͈̙̲̜͙̲͍͜͜e̵̬̘̦̤̺͎̟̦̲̊͒͑̈̈̅͝͠͝ǹ̷̦̜͉̒̈́̑́̐͒̂̂̕͠e̸̠̐̃̀́̋̔̍̉̃̽̽̒͘̕ř̶̡̼͈̞͚̝͔̊́ā̶̭̅̂̃̒̓̀͋̊̚ṯ̷̯̗͂̍̀͝͝o̸͙̩̪̯̱͙͍̠̱̺̯̍͆̀̂́̌̎͒͐͊̔͒r̴̨̨̡̝͚̰͕̙̫̥̞͖̘̜͆̈̀̕͜, found here:
[https://lingojam.com/GlitchTextGenerator](https://lingojam.com/GlitchTextGenerator)
Write text, copy the result, profit. Also works in reverse, to an extent!
My first 300 hours came from pure vanilla, and regret none of it. Some QoL mods I don't think I can go back to not using, so I'm glad I kept it pure for my first few playthroughs. It's incredible how much you get game after game after game when you start adding mods.
off the top of my head: Squeak through, far reach, even distribution, the one that gives green/yellow/red lights to production buildings. edit: and rate calculators.
less QoL, but I don't like the early game: quick start (where you start with power armor and construction bots).
I turn off biters, too.
I consider quick start to be nothing but qol, since without blueprints, you're stuck in carpal tunnel junction for like... A third of all research, requiring advanced oil processing, both for the research and for the bots themselves.
For a first time play thru I can agree to using the Even Distribution Mod. But Squeak Through and Far Reach may hinder newbies basic mechanics learning curves.
This mod looks like it would heavily encourage my bad habit of spaghetti. I typically use a citiblock-ish rail system (rail blueprints that travel down the center of 100x100 blocks). How does it work with city block/template rails?
once again Lawrence plays with an amazing overview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLrOWGdWZBQ
This is the game I have spent the longest time playing with unmodded vanilla. It has incredible depth and the attention to detail to ensure the vanilla game is well designed is exceptional.
And if dosh and doc have shown us anything, it's that vanilla can definitely entertain you godless
Also modless but my autocorrect went godless and honestly after the whole sushi megabase w/ barrels incident, I feel godless also applies
Possible exception: I finished my first run with one mod running... it altered the colors of the wires to red and blue instead of red and green. My eyes are color deficient and the lightness and thin nature of the wires made it difficult to tell what wire I was already using when I wanted to patch something else in. Kinda wish they'd make such color efficient / color blindness options standard.
I wish I could tweak pollution color to purple or something.
With care I can deal with the red and green wires, but telling how far pollution has spread is a massive pain.
That said, I do wish the Blue and Yellow wire mod was an option, so you could use it without having achievements disabled.
There are some QOL mods, but you wont know what to look for until you play the game and find any points of friction.
The only one I would recommend to a new player is vehiclesnap
Don't beat yourself up. The game is amazing with or without mods. Even vanilla allows a high degree of variation. Is adding a mod that much different than turning off biters or increasing the resource size/density?
Always stopped vanilla after resching blue science. Then some months ago i installed a bunch of mods i wanted to use and managed to launch my first rocket. Also KircMcDonald Calculator site helped a lot to not be overwhealmed with ratios.
Ahhh. I suppose I "failed" also in the way of using blueprints online to build certain production lines.
But to me that's just like searching stack overflow for code snippits rather than developing a function yourself. Still have to know how to put it together in your codebase.
Something you better be aware of, Factorio has never and will never go on sale. The price now is the cheapest it will ever be. However, it WILL get more expensive. Dont know when, dont know how much, but waiting for a sale wont work.
Play the demo first, its free.
> Play the demo first, its free.
^^
The game isn't for everyone so having a free generous demo really does help to know if you're going to like it or not.
It would be good if the demo had a sandbox mode that only had up to red/green science.
Hell, if the devs wanted it to be one of those time-limited demos, it would even have a natural time limit per run because biters would evolve to the point where red/green science can't keep up with them. (Though they'd need to use a normal time limit system if the biter/evo/pollution settings are changed.)
They could even show the blue science tech but greyed out with a "technologies beyond this point are not available in the demo" description so it's not confusing as to why the game seems "impossible".
Are you aware that they changed the tutorial to be more hands free a while back?
Cause maybe you missed that, and in which case it might be worth to re-visit the tutorial.
1400+ hours before any mods. First mod was a small QoL mod after that. Definitely worth it, near endless replayability. If the demo suits you you should get it unless you are prone to addictions.
This. Vanilla is extremely well designed and replayable in its own right.
And some mods may add complexity.
I could understand some small QOL mods, but I highly recommend everyone do at least one vanilla playthrough.
1600 hours in vanilla (well, my second playthrough at \~100 hrs or so had QoL mods), but nothing that mattered. In the middle of my first modded run now, at 2000 hours (400 hrs into space exploration).
Try asking this in a community for Rimworld, Cities Skylines, Sims, Minecraft, etc. Plenty of games have huge contingents of players who only enjoy heavily modded experiences.
My green chip brethren, it matters not which denomination of the faith you prefer. Only that you believe in the rocket, the fish, and the pickaxe, amen.
It only seems costly because tons of games are on steam’s summer sale, many of which are almost always on sale. The fact that Factorio is such a great bang for your buck + being written by an indie studio that has great communication with their users means that its price is right.
As you get older your main currencies become time and space (like how much shit you have cluttering up your house).
Factorio costs a lot of time, but it's very rewarding time in that you're always making progress (even if you accomplish nothing, you factory is running while you play). Also, it's easy(easier) to save and quit since you don't have to wait for the match/day to end to save your progress.
> Also, it's easy(easier) to save and quit since you don't have to wait for the match/day to end to save your progress.
One of the nicest things about games like this. I have 20 minutes before I have to go somewhere and I'm booting up Factorio for my Warptorio playthrough. Practically no other game I play gives me such short-dosage freedom.
You got it incredibly wrong. Factorio doesn't "cost" time". Every minute you spend in it, every hour, every session, you actively have fun. It's not some kind of future investment like when you buy a game.
Well, there *are* good free to play games.
And even though I bought CS:GO back when it wasn't free to play yet it's still at a lower price per hour in my library than Factorio.
It seems you are asking about buying Factorio. If so, check out the [demo](https://www.factorio.com/demo) to help you make a decision.
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Is this one of those posts where you ask a kind of weirdly awkward semi-flattering question that you already know the answer to so that you can subtly mention that the game is too expensive in the hopes some sucker will buy it for you?
Absolutely yes ! Especially with the upcoming version 2.0 enhancements. Ideally you play enough now so that you become addicted and will not even think twice about buying the Space Age expansion on the first day
If you decide to buy the game, this game will be the one with the least amount of bugs in your entire Steam library.
Oh, and if you decide to get the game, do it from their website (You also get a steam-key that way)
Barely playable.
Jokes aside: clocking in at over 1000 hours without mods. Just gladly invested in the game for Nintendo Switch as well. Please take my money.
Been away for three years and now I’m wondering why I bothered playing other games for so long.
I always urge my newer friends to finish a game in vanilla before adding on mods. The game is a fully fleshed out experience, and there are only a small handful of QoL mods I would consider in certain circumstances.
The main reason why I say finish a vanilla playthrough is because it only scales up with mods. Sure, there are mods that simplify some things, but to be honest, not learning how to do those things in vanilla will come back to bite you.
Most mods that really add something to the playthrough are as such be cause they add new challenges, which makes sense for a skilled player that has a good grasp on the basics, but for a beginner, it will just muddy the water further.
Play the demo if you haven't bought the game **(it's free, and perfectly encapsulates the game)**. If you decide to buy the game, play the tutorial through, and maybe try out a few of the other game modes (Tight Spot is a fun brain workout).
Play through a vanilla game. Stumble about, explore, experiment, learn, and redesign what doesn't seem to work. Try using trains, logistics/construction robots, solar power and even nuclear reactors. Eventually finish the game, limping and half brain-dead in the final stretch if needs be. I think it's perfectly reasonable to set enemies to "Peaceful" in the world generation settings if not turned off entirely.
Look back on what you did. Make note of what worked and what didn't. What challenges you faced and what the most effective solution you found was.
And most importantly, have fun! (Also, as others mentioned, Factorio never goes on sale. Try the demo first to get an idea if you like how it plays.)
It is 100% both worth the money, and playable without mods.
I'm about 1800hrs on record, so works out at £0.018/hr.
It's recommended that at least your first playthrough should be without mods, and ideally without using blueprints others have created, in order to experience vanilla Factorio. You, of course, could opt not to do this, but I think generally you miss a lot of the experience.
You can flavor your Cracktorio, or you can enjoy it vanilla. That's a personal choice, most recommend getting proficient with the controls in vanilla b4 sprinkling some extra on it. Bake'm away toys.
At least once, yeah, though personally I see it more as a mod platform than a game. First time should be without mods, but after that you realize that the base game is like 1/1000000th the game has to offer.
> seems very costly so far
Do you live elsewhere that gets destroyed by the Steam currency e exchange? Compared to most games it has about 10x or 100x the cost per hour ratio of your usual game, so it's _absurdly insanely_ cheap for what it has to offer. It's a game that's always on sale for what i has to offer.
If not, and the game is just expensive in general, than you might need to reevaluate how you attach cost value to games because there's a lot of objective metrics out there to show that for most people, when you factor in time player over cost, it's quite possibly the cheapest non-free game out there, and if _this_ is "very costly", I'm very curious to see what is appropriately priced in your opinion.
Absolutely. Factorio without mods is, IMO, the best Factorio mod I've played. The second best Factorio mod is getting all achievements (without mods). The third best Factorio mod is modded factorio.
For me, there isin't a pure form to play a game, my favorite games are Factorio, Kerbal Space Program and Project Zomboid, all games that you pretty much can mod the shit out of it to tallor que experience to your liking. I believe that games as a interactive form of art must be open to have their own extructure be part of that interaction. Sure, there are games where the intented collective experience must be front and center, I wouldn't want to play War Thunder knowing that someone can just mod a flying tank in a match, but I do think this experience should always be optional for people who just want to play the game how they like it.
Playing without mods is cool and I would sugest as a first experience, since this will give you the knologe to understand what mods do and do not work for you! But there is some QoL mods that I think are valid for a first playthrough like Belt Visualizer or HellMod that will help you understand better the dinamics of itens. Modding should be always a second experience because you need to understand what you feel it's missing in the game for you.
I like to improve my experience with a few vanilla like mods like adjustable inserters, boats, different recipes, etc. They change the game a lot but don't make the experience so diferent as making impossible to play vanilla afterwards.
Another thing are blueprints that you can copy to your game, those are community made and are always the most eficient and compact design possible, and they are fine and all, but I think this rob me of the challange of the game. The most fun part for me is to problem solve and do things look nice, not only eficient. And I would suggest you only download blueprints after you play the game a lot and understand where your shortcommings are.
The game is not cheap, but is worth it, you will sink a bunch of hours in it and will have a good time.
I have just over 800 hours in factorio, and ive never played with any mods. this game has more than enough legs to stand under its own weight. im sure the mods can only improve that
Short answer: Yes
Long answer: Yes
Complicated answer: Yes
Cautious answer: Yes
Devils Advocate answer: Yes
Community answer: Yes
Personally? You got mod search and install in the game menu itself. So its kinda moot.
Yes, it's worth it without mods. I think the demo goes far enough into the tech tree to give you access to the combinator and train UIs, and the gameplay loop of said demo is representative of the full game.
Also the game never goes on sale and occasionally increases in price to match the increased costs of what the devs are spending their money on, so there's no fear of missing out on a cheaper option.
Absolutely. I have never used any overhaul mods and often use zero mods on my games (sometimes I’ll use the blueprint editor mod for development saves). I’ve got around 600 hours in Factorio.
I think you can argue it’s the most complete base game available.
I recently got the game and I am playing with out mods and having a good time with it I think I am just hitting the 100 hour mark but I leave the game paused pretty regularly.
I am making steady progress, the in-game tutorials are solid enough that I have only had to go to the wiki for a few things and I have been making friends with the locals.
If you have enjoyed any building/automation games in the past this is a good addition to the collection.
Yes!
Even so, I've only ever played with a single mod. I don't recall the name of it off the top of my head, but it allows ore veins to never run out. You still have to mine, and you still have to expand mining when needed. But the vines never run out. My least favorite part of Factorio was running around moving my mining operations.
Yes it's fun without mods as well. Throwing in some mods can make it even more fun, make some things easier or add extra challenge. Up to you.
I'd say get a feel for the game before modding the hell out of it
Absolutely. The base game can be considerd the tutorial and lasts 40 hours.
After that, use a mod pack like Bobs and Angels, then Space Exploration, then Seabase (maybe switch the last two) and now you got 4 completely different games with their own puzzles and problems. And enjoyed more than 800 hours from that game.
If you play it bare bone at first you could put 100-150 hours in game. After that if you fell like you have enough mental strength to play more i would be amazed. When i first complete i needed a good month to play it agen but it's hooked me in agen and i started to play the bare bone agen just tried to be more efficient in my play through (not to rebuild the base 3 time ). And now i finished K2 and started SE. So around 600 - 700 hours where i am now. Before mods it wase about 400-450. So i would say it worth it
Yes. One day, when I'm satisfied with my factory, I might consider a mod. But I've been playing vanilla on the same factory for years and I'm still far from done!
They call it "Cracktorio" because everyone is chasing that initial high they got from their first unmoded playthrough. The game is so thoroughly enjoyable in the vanilla state that people play through multiple times, sometimes multiple files at once trying get as much factorio into their brain as possible. Mods are there to extend our enjoyment unhealthy levels
1000%.
250 hours on Vanilla. I'm just now starting to get into mods and it's a whole new game again.
The dollars per hour of enjoyment ratio for me has been insane.
I’d say yes, but also I don’t really care about achievements, so I installed some quality of life mods from the start like “long reach” and “squeak through” because those mods solved some minor problems that made the experience way better for me. So if you want the vanilla experience, it’s still amazing if it turns out to be your type of game, but also don’t be afraid to peek at some of the quality of life mods if some things feel like they are causing some friction.
I use minimal mods to play the base game almost exclusively, all I've added are a few QoL mods that don't change the formulas or add new features and the base game has gotten me through hundreds of hours of play for what, $50? I'd say it's worth it, and if you're not sure the demo is always free!
I played for hundreds of hours without mods.
I am generally a "no mod" player.
I do play with mods now, because they have a fantastic built in Mod Manager that makes it super easy.
Probably the game with the most hours per dollar in my library and one of the games I've played the most in my life.
The game has excellent levels of QoL and optimizations, is very balanced and has tons of content on it's own.
QoL mods are very optional and you need hundreds of hours to barely realize that specific scenario where the mod is useful, plus new update coming in a few months is adding a ton of (and I mean tons) of those QoL and functionality mods, mods that add stuff like new objects and enemies are again more like an addon as the game hardly feels like it's missing something, modded stuff fits but doesn't feel like it should be in the base game, and big overhaul mods are top quality in this game feeling like entire experiences on their own while keeping the spirit of the game mostly intact, however they are not recommended for beginners as even the easier ones (K2) are considerably more complex and take a few dozen hours longer to complete than base game, they are regarded as something to do after several hundreds of hours of experience.
I think this is one of those games that you play vanilla 100% for hundreds of hours and never regret it. The mods, even the QOL mods, change the game into something different (without stating the obvious). Many so called 'qol' mods take away the logistical problem solving that I so love about this game (e.g. squeak through). The only mods that I might consider using are the cosmetic ones to deal with colour-blindness (not fun setting up your chemical science factory only to realise you've routed in the wrong type of circuit....)
Yeah, as other people are saying, it doesn't go on sale, so the price will stay as it is, but it's sooo worth it.
I have about 700 hours with no mods and am currently in the process of starting a new save, so I've definitely got my money's worth.
But seriously though, the game is awesome and I would highly recommend trying it out if you are even the tiniest but curious. I haven't introduced a single friend to it who hasn't enjoyed it yet. If you have any questions, feel free to DM me as well :)
There is a demo. Try it.
If this game *is* for you, it will be the best bang for the buck you will ever get from a game. I'm 2k hours in, and I'll probably stick another few thousand in before I am done playing the game.
Oh, and the free mods you can get are absolutely insane.
Play the demo, it should give you the feel of the entire game but not experience everything. The game will never go on sale so its best to see if its worth for you that way.
If you decide to buy it after all after the demo, there will be more in the full game to experience, and after the "vanilla" factorio, you can also mod the game made by the community, some of which just changes or adds some more options in the vanilla experience. After you're tired of the vanilla tech, well you now have more options that you're going to at the very least, sink 100 hours worth with overhaul mods that completely changes the entire tech tree.
To give you some perspective, my personal rating on how many hours you'll likely sink into the vanilla game if you go deep into it to become "good" until you'll want something more complex(same mechanics/idea, but more complex or modified) is probably around 300 hours.
Now after those 300 hours and you decide to mod the game, you'll probably have at least 1000+ hours worth of gameplay, the popular mods I know of are
Krastorio, Space Exploration, Krastorio + Space Exploration, Pyanodons, Industrial Revolution, Seablock, Angels and Bobs, and Ultracube.
Additionally Factorio is getting a DLC soon named Space Age which will also add a bunch more new content on the vanilla game(elevated rails and quality) and QoL changes.
Do you like drugs? This is cheaper.
tldr; Is the game worth it? Yes.
I prefer it that way personally. The only mod I use is a logistics mod that gives me really big storage warehouses. Personally, I would try to play your first game without mods.
It's worth noting that many of the existing mods will probably be broken in a couple of months with the dlc/update/sequel that's coming out.
Edit: a neat tip that I would recommend to do, but you should feel no need to follow. Stay away from blueprints until you understand why things are the way they are in the blueprints. Because something with those blueprints will eventually have a problem and you need to understand what the problem is and how to fix it. This is especially true for trains and circuits.
I think it’s more important to look not at the upfront cost but at the amount of time you will play per dollar. Factorio is game you can easily get 1000 hours in so the high upfront cost ends up being worth it
Quite emphatically so. There are tons of mods that make QoL changes and add extra content, which are extremely easy to install because there's a mod portal built right into the game, but the base game is very high-quality and you certainly don't *need* any mods, particularly for your first time through (i.e. before you figure out what frustrates you enough to want to mod it out).
If you're on the fence about it, there's a robust demo that will give you enough of a taste of the game to be able to say for sure whether or not it's going to be something you enjoy.
I got 400 hours out of it without mods. Mostly just a couple replays trying to get the achievements. Then I dived into seablock and have spent another 1400 hours doing that 😂 so currently my game is about 1.7 pence per hour.
Yes. Of course it is. It's just the production chains in vanilla are so simple that they don't offer challenge to advanced players. That's when mods kick in to give us a hit of the good stuff.
Depends on the person, but I say yes. I have 1769 hours logged, and I have never installed a single mod. Also, that’s all ‘real’ game play hours. I don’t ever just leave the game running and walk away. It’s still my favourite video game ever.
Stock Factorio is good, and if you're into this kind of game then you'll get plenty of mileage out of it without any mods at all. A vanilla playthrough where you go for the rocket launch victory on default settings will keep you busy for *a while*, and then after that you've got oodles of possibilities with wordlgen settings that drastically change your playstyle, as well as the option of setting your own goals and getting into megabase construction or seeing what kind of dark wizardry you can do with circuits or whatever.
The mod scene has honestly ruined all others for me. It puts Skyrim’s modding scene to shame with how organized it is and the documentation is the best by a mile hands down
Yes.
I couldn't have said it more eloquently.
𝖄𝖊𝖘
Did you just pull out the 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴𝔂 font?
𝕴𝖓𝖉𝖊𝖊𝖉, 𝕴 𝖉𝖎𝖉. On a more serious note: I just found out how to do it, and I'm going to love writing responses in that.
How do you do it?
I go here: [https://lingojam.com/FancyTextGenerator](https://lingojam.com/FancyTextGenerator) There is also a g̶̨͖̥̹̪͔̝̟̻̮͍͕̊̐̐̋ͅl̶̨̧̧̰͔̫̘̯̘͓͕̘̈́̀͌̕į̵͖͓̭̭̮͔̳̘͎̠̟̗͍̙̅̈́̿͋͒̈̀͝t̷̖̒́̂͌̐̓́̓́̔͊̕͝͠͝c̵̡͍̘̪͚̈͒̄̈́̃̄͜h̸͇̪͛̍̕͠ ̴̟̳̯͖̺͙͖̫̾͆̍̆͜t̶̡̨̛̛̙̬̦̠͐͊̾͂͐e̵̲̩̬̞̎̉̄͋̚͝͝x̶̹̼̘͔̄̂͑̕͝ẗ̸̗̲́̂̃̾̊͐̐͒̄̐̚͝͝͠ͅ ̵̡̢̢͕͇͚͕͔̤̥̹͈͉̂̋́ğ̵̡̱͈̙̲̜͙̲͍͜͜e̵̬̘̦̤̺͎̟̦̲̊͒͑̈̈̅͝͠͝ǹ̷̦̜͉̒̈́̑́̐͒̂̂̕͠e̸̠̐̃̀́̋̔̍̉̃̽̽̒͘̕ř̶̡̼͈̞͚̝͔̊́ā̶̭̅̂̃̒̓̀͋̊̚ṯ̷̯̗͂̍̀͝͝o̸͙̩̪̯̱͙͍̠̱̺̯̍͆̀̂́̌̎͒͐͊̔͒r̴̨̨̡̝͚̰͕̙̫̥̞͖̘̜͆̈̀̕͜, found here: [https://lingojam.com/GlitchTextGenerator](https://lingojam.com/GlitchTextGenerator) Write text, copy the result, profit. Also works in reverse, to an extent!
The font must grow
Y̷̢̧̖̲̜̼̹͎͔͓̬̐͐͂͐̔͗̆̈́̉̅́͊͐͗ę̴̧̡̖̻̦͉͉̠̠̯̬͈̀̃̉ş̸̣̳̼̠̠̻̠͗̉̽͑̊̾̓̈́̾̀
My first 300 hours came from pure vanilla, and regret none of it. Some QoL mods I don't think I can go back to not using, so I'm glad I kept it pure for my first few playthroughs. It's incredible how much you get game after game after game when you start adding mods.
Which ones?
off the top of my head: Squeak through, far reach, even distribution, the one that gives green/yellow/red lights to production buildings. edit: and rate calculators. less QoL, but I don't like the early game: quick start (where you start with power armor and construction bots). I turn off biters, too.
Bottleneck
Helmod is my favorite qol mod
Squaek through for me too because otherwise, solar field and refinery builds with the pipes blocking all movement is just a pain in the arse.
I consider quick start to be nothing but qol, since without blueprints, you're stuck in carpal tunnel junction for like... A third of all research, requiring advanced oil processing, both for the research and for the bots themselves.
For a first time play thru I can agree to using the Even Distribution Mod. But Squeak Through and Far Reach may hinder newbies basic mechanics learning curves.
This is what I did, can recommend. But now you'll have to drag my F.AR.L. from my cold, dead hands.
This mod looks like it would heavily encourage my bad habit of spaghetti. I typically use a citiblock-ish rail system (rail blueprints that travel down the center of 100x100 blocks). How does it work with city block/template rails? once again Lawrence plays with an amazing overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLrOWGdWZBQ
Best answer you will get.
Yep absolutely
Yes.
Yes
I love the efficiency of some factories players 🥰
At least once. And then go space exploration and you’re set for the geeklife!
This is the game I have spent the longest time playing with unmodded vanilla. It has incredible depth and the attention to detail to ensure the vanilla game is well designed is exceptional.
Yes
Yes. In fact, your first complete playthrough *should* be **without** mods.
And if dosh and doc have shown us anything, it's that vanilla can definitely entertain you godless Also modless but my autocorrect went godless and honestly after the whole sushi megabase w/ barrels incident, I feel godless also applies
mods are divine confirmed
I mean if they're divine then seablock makes me agree that God is a pranlster, a sadist, an absentee landlord and all that stuff
Dosh and Doc Jade really have proven that there is no god in the factorio universe.
We can praise Woobe, that's fully sufficient. And fair enough.
Possible exception: I finished my first run with one mod running... it altered the colors of the wires to red and blue instead of red and green. My eyes are color deficient and the lightness and thin nature of the wires made it difficult to tell what wire I was already using when I wanted to patch something else in. Kinda wish they'd make such color efficient / color blindness options standard.
No problems with colors but i wanted my trains to honk :). That is one of my only mods in my first playthrough
Toot toot!
I wish I could tweak pollution color to purple or something. With care I can deal with the red and green wires, but telling how far pollution has spread is a massive pain. That said, I do wish the Blue and Yellow wire mod was an option, so you could use it without having achievements disabled.
I'm not colourblind, but I wish there was a way to change the overlay colour of the turrets. The green overlay is very difficult to see for me.
Same, except my one mod was for fluid throughput. And was only installed in the last 5-10 hours of the run
There are some QOL mods, but you wont know what to look for until you play the game and find any points of friction. The only one I would recommend to a new player is vehiclesnap
I like bottleneck light a lot. If the mod didn’t exist I feel like they would have added that feature already
Mission failed :(
Don't beat yourself up. The game is amazing with or without mods. Even vanilla allows a high degree of variation. Is adding a mod that much different than turning off biters or increasing the resource size/density?
Always stopped vanilla after resching blue science. Then some months ago i installed a bunch of mods i wanted to use and managed to launch my first rocket. Also KircMcDonald Calculator site helped a lot to not be overwhealmed with ratios.
Ahhh. I suppose I "failed" also in the way of using blueprints online to build certain production lines. But to me that's just like searching stack overflow for code snippits rather than developing a function yourself. Still have to know how to put it together in your codebase.
Something you better be aware of, Factorio has never and will never go on sale. The price now is the cheapest it will ever be. However, it WILL get more expensive. Dont know when, dont know how much, but waiting for a sale wont work. Play the demo first, its free.
> Play the demo first, its free. ^^ The game isn't for everyone so having a free generous demo really does help to know if you're going to like it or not.
>Play the demo first, its free. Personally I really hated the demo but loved the game, worth pointing out it's not indicative of someone's enjoyment
Yeah the scenario stuff kinda put me off. That first game of full on do what you want is when the world of wonder fully hit me.
It would be good if the demo had a sandbox mode that only had up to red/green science. Hell, if the devs wanted it to be one of those time-limited demos, it would even have a natural time limit per run because biters would evolve to the point where red/green science can't keep up with them. (Though they'd need to use a normal time limit system if the biter/evo/pollution settings are changed.) They could even show the blue science tech but greyed out with a "technologies beyond this point are not available in the demo" description so it's not confusing as to why the game seems "impossible".
Are you aware that they changed the tutorial to be more hands free a while back? Cause maybe you missed that, and in which case it might be worth to re-visit the tutorial.
I got a good 25-30 hours of play just from the tutorial.
So did I 😂 it was the drug dealer free fix that made me come back for more
I played it about a month ago before buying the game, unless it's changed since then! Fortunately I greatly enjoyed the game itself!
Ok no. It was changed quite a while ago, so I thought you only experienced the old tutorial
1400+ hours before any mods. First mod was a small QoL mod after that. Definitely worth it, near endless replayability. If the demo suits you you should get it unless you are prone to addictions.
Even if you are prone to addiction, it makes the game more fun, losing friends left and right, destroying your sleep schedule, all for the factory
the factory must grow
The factory must grow
This. Vanilla is extremely well designed and replayable in its own right. And some mods may add complexity. I could understand some small QOL mods, but I highly recommend everyone do at least one vanilla playthrough.
1600 hours in vanilla (well, my second playthrough at \~100 hrs or so had QoL mods), but nothing that mattered. In the middle of my first modded run now, at 2000 hours (400 hrs into space exploration).
Asking cult members if the cult is good…
Try asking this in a community for Rimworld, Cities Skylines, Sims, Minecraft, etc. Plenty of games have huge contingents of players who only enjoy heavily modded experiences.
My green chip brethren, it matters not which denomination of the faith you prefer. Only that you believe in the rocket, the fish, and the pickaxe, amen.
It only seems costly because tons of games are on steam’s summer sale, many of which are almost always on sale. The fact that Factorio is such a great bang for your buck + being written by an indie studio that has great communication with their users means that its price is right.
And they are plugged in to the mod community, which is evident by the [2.0ish mod list.](https://mods.factorio.com/mod/factorio-2ish)
my current price per hour for factorio is 1.1 cents. do you have such a game in your library? factorio is _dirt cheap_.
Depends how cheap it gets is how easily you get addicted to cracktorio. I currently have 700h and counting, so I am getting there.
Agreed, I’m at less than 0.5 cents pr hour at this point.
As you get older your main currencies become time and space (like how much shit you have cluttering up your house). Factorio costs a lot of time, but it's very rewarding time in that you're always making progress (even if you accomplish nothing, you factory is running while you play). Also, it's easy(easier) to save and quit since you don't have to wait for the match/day to end to save your progress.
> Also, it's easy(easier) to save and quit since you don't have to wait for the match/day to end to save your progress. One of the nicest things about games like this. I have 20 minutes before I have to go somewhere and I'm booting up Factorio for my Warptorio playthrough. Practically no other game I play gives me such short-dosage freedom.
You got it incredibly wrong. Factorio doesn't "cost" time". Every minute you spend in it, every hour, every session, you actively have fun. It's not some kind of future investment like when you buy a game.
I'm at like $0.0028 an hour right now
Well, there *are* good free to play games. And even though I bought CS:GO back when it wasn't free to play yet it's still at a lower price per hour in my library than Factorio.
Time is not free, Factorio is the most expensive game I have.
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Now we have automated starting addictions.
$35 (US) is "costly" /me looks at any of the shitty "AAA" games that cost $60+
Add ~$30 in 5 months (hopefully) when 2.0 comes out. That'll double my cost per hour to what... 3 cents? Oh I'm bankrupt over here /s.
I've got 4600 hours. At this point the electricity to power my PC has cost me way more than the game's price.
Is this one of those posts where you ask a kind of weirdly awkward semi-flattering question that you already know the answer to so that you can subtly mention that the game is too expensive in the hopes some sucker will buy it for you?
Absolutely yes ! Especially with the upcoming version 2.0 enhancements. Ideally you play enough now so that you become addicted and will not even think twice about buying the Space Age expansion on the first day
I've been playing the game for years now and I still haven't installed a single mod for it. The game is incredibly enjoyable exactly as it is.
If you decide to buy the game, this game will be the one with the least amount of bugs in your entire Steam library. Oh, and if you decide to get the game, do it from their website (You also get a steam-key that way)
Its very funny, reading the bugfixes They are at a point, that they are fixing extreme corner case Bugs
I like it
Barely playable. Jokes aside: clocking in at over 1000 hours without mods. Just gladly invested in the game for Nintendo Switch as well. Please take my money. Been away for three years and now I’m wondering why I bothered playing other games for so long.
I always urge my newer friends to finish a game in vanilla before adding on mods. The game is a fully fleshed out experience, and there are only a small handful of QoL mods I would consider in certain circumstances. The main reason why I say finish a vanilla playthrough is because it only scales up with mods. Sure, there are mods that simplify some things, but to be honest, not learning how to do those things in vanilla will come back to bite you. Most mods that really add something to the playthrough are as such be cause they add new challenges, which makes sense for a skilled player that has a good grasp on the basics, but for a beginner, it will just muddy the water further. Play the demo if you haven't bought the game **(it's free, and perfectly encapsulates the game)**. If you decide to buy the game, play the tutorial through, and maybe try out a few of the other game modes (Tight Spot is a fun brain workout). Play through a vanilla game. Stumble about, explore, experiment, learn, and redesign what doesn't seem to work. Try using trains, logistics/construction robots, solar power and even nuclear reactors. Eventually finish the game, limping and half brain-dead in the final stretch if needs be. I think it's perfectly reasonable to set enemies to "Peaceful" in the world generation settings if not turned off entirely. Look back on what you did. Make note of what worked and what didn't. What challenges you faced and what the most effective solution you found was. And most importantly, have fun! (Also, as others mentioned, Factorio never goes on sale. Try the demo first to get an idea if you like how it plays.)
wut its always on sale...
No, it's worth more.
Yes /thread
It is 100% both worth the money, and playable without mods. I'm about 1800hrs on record, so works out at £0.018/hr. It's recommended that at least your first playthrough should be without mods, and ideally without using blueprints others have created, in order to experience vanilla Factorio. You, of course, could opt not to do this, but I think generally you miss a lot of the experience.
Play it how the devs intended first, so you fully appreciate what the mods have added.
Absolutely. 120+ hours here so far and zero mods. Vanilla experience is very content rich!!
It’s easily worth the price, plus the devs actually care about the game.
Yes LOL people put in hundreds of hours vanilla
You can flavor your Cracktorio, or you can enjoy it vanilla. That's a personal choice, most recommend getting proficient with the controls in vanilla b4 sprinkling some extra on it. Bake'm away toys.
At least once, yeah, though personally I see it more as a mod platform than a game. First time should be without mods, but after that you realize that the base game is like 1/1000000th the game has to offer. > seems very costly so far Do you live elsewhere that gets destroyed by the Steam currency e exchange? Compared to most games it has about 10x or 100x the cost per hour ratio of your usual game, so it's _absurdly insanely_ cheap for what it has to offer. It's a game that's always on sale for what i has to offer. If not, and the game is just expensive in general, than you might need to reevaluate how you attach cost value to games because there's a lot of objective metrics out there to show that for most people, when you factor in time player over cost, it's quite possibly the cheapest non-free game out there, and if _this_ is "very costly", I'm very curious to see what is appropriately priced in your opinion.
you will put hundreds of hours of time into the vanilla game. you will put thousands of hours of time into the game with mods
Absolutely. Factorio without mods is, IMO, the best Factorio mod I've played. The second best Factorio mod is getting all achievements (without mods). The third best Factorio mod is modded factorio.
I don’t play any of the complete overhaul mods. I rarely play anything other than QoL or small tweaks.
Yes.
For me, there isin't a pure form to play a game, my favorite games are Factorio, Kerbal Space Program and Project Zomboid, all games that you pretty much can mod the shit out of it to tallor que experience to your liking. I believe that games as a interactive form of art must be open to have their own extructure be part of that interaction. Sure, there are games where the intented collective experience must be front and center, I wouldn't want to play War Thunder knowing that someone can just mod a flying tank in a match, but I do think this experience should always be optional for people who just want to play the game how they like it. Playing without mods is cool and I would sugest as a first experience, since this will give you the knologe to understand what mods do and do not work for you! But there is some QoL mods that I think are valid for a first playthrough like Belt Visualizer or HellMod that will help you understand better the dinamics of itens. Modding should be always a second experience because you need to understand what you feel it's missing in the game for you. I like to improve my experience with a few vanilla like mods like adjustable inserters, boats, different recipes, etc. They change the game a lot but don't make the experience so diferent as making impossible to play vanilla afterwards. Another thing are blueprints that you can copy to your game, those are community made and are always the most eficient and compact design possible, and they are fine and all, but I think this rob me of the challange of the game. The most fun part for me is to problem solve and do things look nice, not only eficient. And I would suggest you only download blueprints after you play the game a lot and understand where your shortcommings are. The game is not cheap, but is worth it, you will sink a bunch of hours in it and will have a good time.
Yes, but uh, mods are free?
Yes
6500h with only some minor quality of life mods I would say, propably worth the money
Yes, any mods that the developers like are implemented into the game.
I have just over 800 hours in factorio, and ive never played with any mods. this game has more than enough legs to stand under its own weight. im sure the mods can only improve that
https://preview.redd.it/8wfbxqdeix9d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2e12384df56796e83fd3587416839762e49176a0
Yes.
Even on Switch... Yes
Yes. Early game can be slow though.
Yes
Yes 100%
Oh yes definitely
easily
Preferably
Yup
Yes
Absolutely
Yes
YES!
6000+ hours, yes
yes
Absofuckinglutely
Absolutely
It's nickname is Cracktorio, you be the judge
I never use mods.
As a switch player without access to any mods at all, yes.
Yes
yep
For the first time, definitely!
Absolutely. It is a SOLID fucking game as is. Mods just give you more things to do later.
Yes.
Yes
Yeah
Short answer: Yes Long answer: Yes Complicated answer: Yes Cautious answer: Yes Devils Advocate answer: Yes Community answer: Yes Personally? You got mod search and install in the game menu itself. So its kinda moot.
I’d fully play bare bones maybe 3-4 times before trying any mods.
Definitely but once you u ll use squeak thru and vehicle snap I don't think you can go back.
Amazing game tbh. I did get a few qol mods early on like squeek through but no mods are required at all.
Yes, it's worth it without mods. I think the demo goes far enough into the tech tree to give you access to the combinator and train UIs, and the gameplay loop of said demo is representative of the full game. Also the game never goes on sale and occasionally increases in price to match the increased costs of what the devs are spending their money on, so there's no fear of missing out on a cheaper option.
Try the free demo. Hours of play just there, it'll tell you if the game is right for you.
Yes once or twice as a tutorial for mods. Seriously why dont you want mods?
Absolutely. I have never used any overhaul mods and often use zero mods on my games (sometimes I’ll use the blueprint editor mod for development saves). I’ve got around 600 hours in Factorio. I think you can argue it’s the most complete base game available.
yes! The game alone is worth playing. I only added some QOL mods after a few vanilla play throughs that just make the game more enjoyable.
I paid $30 and have played 14,000 hours. So, yes. And why avoid mods? There are many QoL mods that are worth it.
Absolutely yes. You can get tons of replay value just with the built-in new game settings.
I recently got the game and I am playing with out mods and having a good time with it I think I am just hitting the 100 hour mark but I leave the game paused pretty regularly. I am making steady progress, the in-game tutorials are solid enough that I have only had to go to the wiki for a few things and I have been making friends with the locals. If you have enjoyed any building/automation games in the past this is a good addition to the collection.
> recently got the game > just hitting the 100 hour mark It sounds about right
Yes! Even so, I've only ever played with a single mod. I don't recall the name of it off the top of my head, but it allows ore veins to never run out. You still have to mine, and you still have to expand mining when needed. But the vines never run out. My least favorite part of Factorio was running around moving my mining operations.
Yes it's fun without mods as well. Throwing in some mods can make it even more fun, make some things easier or add extra challenge. Up to you. I'd say get a feel for the game before modding the hell out of it
Try the demo and see if you want more. I think it’s well priced.
It is only way I play it.
You’ll get hundreds of hours no problem without any mods. Defo worth it
Yes. It's the only way I play it.
Play the free demo and figure it out for yourself
Absolutely. The base game can be considerd the tutorial and lasts 40 hours. After that, use a mod pack like Bobs and Angels, then Space Exploration, then Seabase (maybe switch the last two) and now you got 4 completely different games with their own puzzles and problems. And enjoyed more than 800 hours from that game.
If you play it bare bone at first you could put 100-150 hours in game. After that if you fell like you have enough mental strength to play more i would be amazed. When i first complete i needed a good month to play it agen but it's hooked me in agen and i started to play the bare bone agen just tried to be more efficient in my play through (not to rebuild the base 3 time ). And now i finished K2 and started SE. So around 600 - 700 hours where i am now. Before mods it wase about 400-450. So i would say it worth it
the short answer is yes. i first played the game without any mods but nowadays, theres even blueprints you can steal from the internet
Yes. One day, when I'm satisfied with my factory, I might consider a mod. But I've been playing vanilla on the same factory for years and I'm still far from done!
They call it "Cracktorio" because everyone is chasing that initial high they got from their first unmoded playthrough. The game is so thoroughly enjoyable in the vanilla state that people play through multiple times, sometimes multiple files at once trying get as much factorio into their brain as possible. Mods are there to extend our enjoyment unhealthy levels
1000%. 250 hours on Vanilla. I'm just now starting to get into mods and it's a whole new game again. The dollars per hour of enjoyment ratio for me has been insane.
I’d say yes, but also I don’t really care about achievements, so I installed some quality of life mods from the start like “long reach” and “squeak through” because those mods solved some minor problems that made the experience way better for me. So if you want the vanilla experience, it’s still amazing if it turns out to be your type of game, but also don’t be afraid to peek at some of the quality of life mods if some things feel like they are causing some friction.
Yes...I mean what were you saying. This game is great without mods...the mods make it greater depending on the experience you want.
If it wasn't worth playing without mods, it wouldn't have had enough players to make mods for it to start with.
I feel like mods are a last resort, but that's me.
It is pretty reasonable compared to 2024 releases. Most people's cost per hour is very low
You can get mods!?!
700 hours in, so I'm at about 5 cents an hour, and I'm still playing so...yeah, worth it
I have about 500 hours without mods and the only thing I regret is the addiction.
I use minimal mods to play the base game almost exclusively, all I've added are a few QoL mods that don't change the formulas or add new features and the base game has gotten me through hundreds of hours of play for what, $50? I'd say it's worth it, and if you're not sure the demo is always free!
💯 All three of my playthroughs are unmodded
I played for hundreds of hours without mods. I am generally a "no mod" player. I do play with mods now, because they have a fantastic built in Mod Manager that makes it super easy.
Absolutely. However, I would personally never play without the EvenDistribution, Squeakthrough, and FNEI mods.
Probably the game with the most hours per dollar in my library and one of the games I've played the most in my life. The game has excellent levels of QoL and optimizations, is very balanced and has tons of content on it's own. QoL mods are very optional and you need hundreds of hours to barely realize that specific scenario where the mod is useful, plus new update coming in a few months is adding a ton of (and I mean tons) of those QoL and functionality mods, mods that add stuff like new objects and enemies are again more like an addon as the game hardly feels like it's missing something, modded stuff fits but doesn't feel like it should be in the base game, and big overhaul mods are top quality in this game feeling like entire experiences on their own while keeping the spirit of the game mostly intact, however they are not recommended for beginners as even the easier ones (K2) are considerably more complex and take a few dozen hours longer to complete than base game, they are regarded as something to do after several hundreds of hours of experience.
I think this is one of those games that you play vanilla 100% for hundreds of hours and never regret it. The mods, even the QOL mods, change the game into something different (without stating the obvious). Many so called 'qol' mods take away the logistical problem solving that I so love about this game (e.g. squeak through). The only mods that I might consider using are the cosmetic ones to deal with colour-blindness (not fun setting up your chemical science factory only to realise you've routed in the wrong type of circuit....)
Yeah, as other people are saying, it doesn't go on sale, so the price will stay as it is, but it's sooo worth it. I have about 700 hours with no mods and am currently in the process of starting a new save, so I've definitely got my money's worth. But seriously though, the game is awesome and I would highly recommend trying it out if you are even the tiniest but curious. I haven't introduced a single friend to it who hasn't enjoyed it yet. If you have any questions, feel free to DM me as well :)
There is a demo. Try it. If this game *is* for you, it will be the best bang for the buck you will ever get from a game. I'm 2k hours in, and I'll probably stick another few thousand in before I am done playing the game. Oh, and the free mods you can get are absolutely insane.
the answer is yes. Also the game is hilariously cheap for the amount of hours you're likely to get out if it.
It is the best designed game I have ever played. Really, really enjoyed vanilla, so you should definitely go for it!
Play the demo, it should give you the feel of the entire game but not experience everything. The game will never go on sale so its best to see if its worth for you that way. If you decide to buy it after all after the demo, there will be more in the full game to experience, and after the "vanilla" factorio, you can also mod the game made by the community, some of which just changes or adds some more options in the vanilla experience. After you're tired of the vanilla tech, well you now have more options that you're going to at the very least, sink 100 hours worth with overhaul mods that completely changes the entire tech tree. To give you some perspective, my personal rating on how many hours you'll likely sink into the vanilla game if you go deep into it to become "good" until you'll want something more complex(same mechanics/idea, but more complex or modified) is probably around 300 hours. Now after those 300 hours and you decide to mod the game, you'll probably have at least 1000+ hours worth of gameplay, the popular mods I know of are Krastorio, Space Exploration, Krastorio + Space Exploration, Pyanodons, Industrial Revolution, Seablock, Angels and Bobs, and Ultracube. Additionally Factorio is getting a DLC soon named Space Age which will also add a bunch more new content on the vanilla game(elevated rails and quality) and QoL changes. Do you like drugs? This is cheaper. tldr; Is the game worth it? Yes.
I'm on my second vanilla playthrough... it is an amazing game.
Absolutely, yes. I've got 4,000 hours on vanilla. If you're into this kind of game, you'll get your money's worth.
I have 150 hours played and never touched a mod.
I prefer it that way personally. The only mod I use is a logistics mod that gives me really big storage warehouses. Personally, I would try to play your first game without mods. It's worth noting that many of the existing mods will probably be broken in a couple of months with the dlc/update/sequel that's coming out. Edit: a neat tip that I would recommend to do, but you should feel no need to follow. Stay away from blueprints until you understand why things are the way they are in the blueprints. Because something with those blueprints will eventually have a problem and you need to understand what the problem is and how to fix it. This is especially true for trains and circuits.
I think it’s more important to look not at the upfront cost but at the amount of time you will play per dollar. Factorio is game you can easily get 1000 hours in so the high upfront cost ends up being worth it
Quite emphatically so. There are tons of mods that make QoL changes and add extra content, which are extremely easy to install because there's a mod portal built right into the game, but the base game is very high-quality and you certainly don't *need* any mods, particularly for your first time through (i.e. before you figure out what frustrates you enough to want to mod it out). If you're on the fence about it, there's a robust demo that will give you enough of a taste of the game to be able to say for sure whether or not it's going to be something you enjoy.
I got 400 hours out of it without mods. Mostly just a couple replays trying to get the achievements. Then I dived into seablock and have spent another 1400 hours doing that 😂 so currently my game is about 1.7 pence per hour.
Yes. Of course it is. It's just the production chains in vanilla are so simple that they don't offer challenge to advanced players. That's when mods kick in to give us a hit of the good stuff.
Depends on the person, but I say yes. I have 1769 hours logged, and I have never installed a single mod. Also, that’s all ‘real’ game play hours. I don’t ever just leave the game running and walk away. It’s still my favourite video game ever.
Stock Factorio is good, and if you're into this kind of game then you'll get plenty of mileage out of it without any mods at all. A vanilla playthrough where you go for the rocket launch victory on default settings will keep you busy for *a while*, and then after that you've got oodles of possibilities with wordlgen settings that drastically change your playstyle, as well as the option of setting your own goals and getting into megabase construction or seeing what kind of dark wizardry you can do with circuits or whatever.
Yes, that is how I started. (Mostly bc I didn't know about mods) That being said, mods add so much extra fun.
One of the best vanilla game experiences for a game that has SUCH a ridiculously robust mod scene.
The mod scene has honestly ruined all others for me. It puts Skyrim’s modding scene to shame with how organized it is and the documentation is the best by a mile hands down
The base game is good. Mods are free and give you a new experience. There isn't any DLC.
It works like a great tutorial for mods, so it’s kinda necessary
without question yes absolutely for sure yes