Just bought the game; What were Your first impressions?

[EmyJ]

My first impression?
This is so much wow! especially for a 2D game. I love 2D games in general, but this! There's so many arms and belts everywhere! Makes me feel smart.
Also, I need sooo much iron!

True. I agree with you. Complexity within an infinite 2D world

[danielrs]

> Played the demo last night and uninstalled it unimpressed; today I woke up thinking about Factorio with an itching to play some more, so I bought it in GOG.
> Created an account, contacted support to solve a problem with my username and they replied within an hour. Total respect.
> I still think the game needs a better UI, feels rushed and uninspired. I guess this will be fixed in future versions.

Overall I like the game a lot, the gameplay feels super responsive, which is important. Despite all the details, you can tell the developers care about the game. A lot.

[featherwinglove]

> I still think the game needs a better UI, feels rushed and uninspired. I guess this will be fixed in future versions.

You have no idea

[dognosh]

Bought yesterday 10:30 AM, played non-stop till 5 AM(am in UK).
So what you say ?
I am in my 50s and OLD !!! I have responsibilities which I neglected, and the last time I pulled an all nighter I was probably disco dancing

Well done on a fantastic polished game with brilliant graphics for all the elements ! First time I played a game for hours and did not think of it as a grind
(I play Elite & Guild Wars 2, but passed on super grindy Albion)
$20 is a steal

[Koub]

[Koub] Merged into the "first impressions" sticky

[ManaUser]

The demo sucks. It was enough to get me intrigued, but to be honest I probably never would have bought the game, had I not resorted to less savory "try before you buy" methods first. Scenario mode in general sucks. It's just one arbitrary crafting assignment after another, and you don't know what it's going to ask for next, so you can't plan ahead. More frustrating than fun really. And one of the few places where it really should be holding your hand, getting the first steam engine up and running, it doesn't give very good instructions.

To really show the game in the best light, the demo should give people a taste of freeplay mode. Maybe include all content requiring only red or green science packs. And provide something like building the plane (from scenario mode) as a "win" condition in lieu of the rocket.

For the actual game, I'm enjoying it greatly, wasting a huge amount of my time on it. Although I do find the cost of research kind of a drag, I can't imagine why anyone would want to make it even more expensive. Pack 3 and Productivity are particularly annoying. And the logistics network comes way too late. I don't get why there's a huge jump in cost (two new science packs) from Logistic Robots, to Logistic System which you need before the robots are really good for much. With the buffer chest being adding, I hope they take a second look at this while they're at it.

[featherwinglove]

Pro tip for a taste of free play in the demo: Never build a radar. Without a radar to scan sectors and meet the victory condition, the final mission will not end. See what else you can do. It's not much of a taste of the free play mode, but I was surprised how much I could do by setting aside the victory condition.

[Jap2.0]

Pro tip for a taste of free play in the demo: Never build a radar. Without a radar to scan sectors and meet the victory condition, the final mission will not end. See what else you can do. It's not much of a taste of the free play mode, but I was surprised how much I could do by setting aside the victory condition.

This. I had watched a bit of YouTube before getting the demo and was unable to get the game at the time so I simply didn't put the radar down and probably put at least 15 hours in the demo. It was an interesting challenge because I had very large scale production without underground belts and splitters.

[SuicideJunkie]

The biggest thing IMO: The demo should be updated to a more recent build.

My initial contact was through youtube videos.
I was playing around with the demo and trying to tweak graphics settings to get it to run well without the terrain and random textures vanishing.
Tweaked enough to play the demo scenario, I did the radar trick to freeplay it a bit, and trooped off to kill all the biter nests for an extended win.

Although I've decided to go ahead and get a new PC to make things work, I was sure enough about it to purchase now with a tip.
And to my surprise, the full version runs quick and easy on my old machine!
Where the demo struggled hard, I've now spent a solid 3 day long weekend playing around on my first run and have a rocket silo passing 60% completion as I type this. Also doing the lazy bastard achievement since I was made aware of it by youtube.

Also cool is looking back on my initial starter base and seeing how horrible it was laid out, and the rapid improvements as I expanded and learned.
I'm using the trains-something-or-other map type, so with no biter expansion I can bunker down and hide all my smog in the ring of forests to avoid attacks while I learn. Haven't actually placed any guns yet, since I want to use lasers but also want the no laser achievement. All of that is keeping me really paranoid but I've snuck out some lines to mine ore from distant patches with max efficiency modules and solar power to minimize the risks.

[coinarus]

Still playing demo.

Maybe 15 mins into game.

* So i try to put say a box. Ok, click on it. Put a box, done - but my cursor is still showing that i have a second box selected. How do i cancel that with keyboard? Esc - nope, opens menu. 'e' - nope, opens character menu. F c d ? x ? did that just delete my burning drill? meh..
Suggestion - maybe esc could be a good enough option - esc would make the cursor back into select mode.

Will post more as i go along.
P.s. huge fan of CW3, OpenTdd, i hope i'll love this game.

[Loewchen]

Suggestion - maybe esc could be a good enough option - esc would make the cursor back into select mode.

You need that key way too often for it to be esc, it is Q by default, check out the control section in the options for it.

[coinarus]

Briliant, thanks, q dues work. How i would know..

Now, the other thing i'm stuck with - have burner miner drill, 1 conveyer belt outgoing, and 2 stone furnaces.. how can i feed both stone furnaces from 1 conveyer belt? i was expecting that i'd be able to built a split conveyer, where it would be fork into 2 sections. But not - it just routes either to one branch, or the other, but not both.

[coinarus]

Another thing - putting transport belts manually seems tudious. OpenTdd have a nice auto-tool,which automatically builds tracks correctly oriented. Possibly this could be done here too.

[Loewchen]

Now, the other thing i'm stuck with - have burner miner drill, 1 conveyer belt outgoing, and 2 stone furnaces.. how can i feed both stone furnaces from 1 conveyer belt? i was expecting that i'd be able to built a split conveyer, where it would be fork into 2 sections. But not - it just routes either to one branch, or the other, but not both.

This is not the place for an Q&A, I suggest you complete the tutorial, check out the Gameplay Help sub-forum and wiki.

[SuicideJunkie]

Ok, I've got another thing
I only discovered the blueprints button after launching my first rocket.
I'd scoured the tech tree looking for blueprints, possibly relating to the robots, and given up to assume it was a mod thing.

Only now I found the button that means I've had them all along when I expected to have to craft a blueprint.
Life just got easier. Maybe blueprints should be a research item so that it is more obvious a benefit and can be pointed out when you get it?

[Jap2.0]

I'm not sure if you know about the mini-tutorials, but I posted it as a suggestion for one here because that seemed like a pretty good solution to me.

[SuicideJunkie]

I did see those.
I'll play around with the train parts first, but if I can't figure out why it isn't working, then I'll hit those tutorials.

[Nmayeski]

Ok, I've got another thing
I only discovered the blueprints button after launching my first rocket.
I'd scoured the tech tree looking for blueprints, possibly relating to the robots, and given up to assume it was a mod thing.

Only now I found the button that means I've had them all along when I expected to have to craft a blueprint.
Life just got easier. Maybe blueprints should be a research item so that it is more obvious a benefit and can be pointed out when you get it?

It used to be a researched thing, now it's been enabled from game start since 0.15. As I don't really enjoy figuring out schematics, but love the logistics of putting together a full factory using blueprints, I don't think I would have played this game as much while not having blueprints available from the start. I've only had the game for about 3 weeks now, just shy of 200 hours.

[featherwinglove]

Briliant, thanks, q dues work. How i would know..

Oh, contraire, mon Kapitan, he's back! I'm forgiven! My brothers and sisters have taken me back. I'm immortal again! Omnipotent again!

Control options panel is general rule of thumb for all games. It's often the first place I go when booting up a game for the first time just to see what's there. I did this with Kerbal Space Program and almost immediately remapped them to the defaults of what I had learned on. (I had that URL memorized seven years before KSP even came out.) You might want to switch your change weapons key over to Tab, assuming they haven't fixed that already. Or you might end up with moments like- ...um... how shall I put this? Witchcraft. <--- Thumbs up if you know where that goes without having to click on it

Now, the other thing i'm stuck with - have burner miner drill, 1 conveyer belt outgoing, and 2 stone furnaces.. how can i feed both stone furnaces from 1 conveyer belt? i was expecting that i'd be able to built a split conveyer, where it would be fork into 2 sections. But not - it just routes either to one branch, or the other, but not both.

Pro-tip: the burner drill doesn't need an inserter if you just aim it at what you want to put the stuff into. A chest. A furnace (and burner drills and furnaces run at the same speed in vanilla.) Another burner drill. Do the last on coal patches in the early game for- ...well... coal in the early game.

[c0bRa]

Well my first impression was:

Okay, it's like Anno... Get some items and make some other items...

After a few hours:
"Yeah i get iron automatically, i am the king, that will last for a looooooooooooong time" (I got about 5 furnaces feeded at that time, so no)

After ~2000h gaming:
"You can't think too big in that game..."

And... It steals your time... Let's just fix the defense before midnight... Ah, why I miss Turrets? - Ah I'm missing Iron - Why do I miss Iron ore? - Ah... Power runs out... - Where's the coal? - Ah... power...
Whats that red blinking Symbol there?

FUCK, the Aliens got it through...

BAM...

5:30 AM