Factorio flaws

[Hedning1390]

Disclaimer

First of all I'd like to say I love this game and I have over 500 hours on steam, with a further couple of hundred hours not logged. That said I get a little triggered when everyone on these forums (and the steam forums) praise it as if it's the best game ever with no flaws, so I have compiled a list of some of the flaws. The list is somewhat ordered with the worst flaw first. Please don't take this list as a personal attack.

tl;dr version (please read the full text before getting angry):

1: There's only a handful of buildings, with few or no side-grades.
2: The beacons and requester chests pits creativity against efficiency.
3: The "win" condition is totally misplaced.
4: The biters are confused and almost a scam if considering the promos.
5: The lazy reskins are weird to me.
6: It's basically just a bunch of recipes and adding recipes is not very advanced.

Full version:

1: There's only a handful of buildings, with few or no side-grades. The 3 assemblers and 3 furnaces are straight upgrades, so can be considered as 1 each. The assembler, chemical plant, refinery and furnace while doing the exact same thing doesn't compete with each other because each recipe requires one and exactly one of them. This makes for a rather linear and boring experience. The only side grade in this game is your choice in power. The way solar panels, accumulators, boilers, nuclear reactors and transportable steam work and are balanced against each other is sublime. Imagine if the 3 assemblers and 3 furnaces could be changed in a similar way, from boring straight upgrades to a strategic choice, how much more interesting the game would be.

2: The beacons and requester chests pits creativity against efficiency. Even with the lackluster content you can still make some beautiful and creative designs. However the two mentioned things severely hamper this because the implicit goal of factorio is to be efficient:
-Requester chests kills belt logistics: Every recipe can be created with a requester-asember-provider chain. If you are not using this chain for everything but perfectly straight belt lines you are making your factory less efficient.
-Beacons force perfect grids: The most efficient way to produce things is to have 8 beacons per assembler and 8 assemblers per beacon. This can only be accomplished by placing them in parallel straight lines. Any attempt to use direct insertion breaks the pattern and thus cannot be used. Another design, efficient in another way, is to have the maximum 12 beacons per assembler. This can also only be accomplished one way which is already a boring square. On top of this each square has to be placed in a perfect grid else you pay for more beacons than you have to.

3: The "win" condition is totally misplaced. You win the game so fast that the people who only play to the "win" won't experience much of the game unless they go out of their way to do so. For the rest of us the "win" is totally meaningless, because it is just a science pack among others, not more significant than when you set up purple science. From my perspective it would be better to just remove the "win" prompt and treat it like any other infinite builder game.

The greater point is about pacing, and it ties up all the first 3 points here. While people who play to the "win" miss out on game content, so do those of us who play continuously. The beacon problem (above) is not a problem if you only play to the first rocket, because almost none of your assemblers will have beacons and modules. Neither is the first point a problem, because at least straight upgrades change what you can do in your designs, and the refinery introduces multiple outputs, which is sufficiently different to feel fresh the first time you unlock it.

If the intent is that we should only play to the "win" then I question even more the asking price of €25, because there are few random factors and even fewer branching and exclusionary choices that makes doing the first 6-10 hours over and over interesting. The most common argument I hear in defense of the price is how many hours you can spend, but even though your very first newbie play-through may take more than 10h you really can't spend that many hours in the pre rocket phase unless you are interested in speedrunning. Therefore I conclude that continuous games are essential for the value of the game, and therefore point 1 and 2 are problematic flaws.

4: The biters are confused and almost a scam if considering the promos. It seems to me that the developers have changed their view on what they wanted the biters to be from their original plans, but just left them in limbo. Almost every aspect of this enemy is simple and boring. There is lots of creativity when it comes to weapons, but because the enemy is so boring this is sadly almost wasted effort. I could explain why they are boring, but clearly the direction now is to just reduce their presence in the game, and it makes me wonder why we can't just get a "/c for all revealed chunks if entity=enemy do destroy" bomb.

5: The lazy reskins are weird to me. Compared to the other flaws this is a very minor one. I'm talking about many things only differing in color. The circuits, science packs, inserters, belts, chests, modules, 3 of the ores, etc. All several versions but with only a color differentiating them. The game is so incredibly polished in so many other aspects, so I don't understand why this is.

6: It's basically just a bunch of recipes and adding recipes is not very advanced. I could add hundreds of new recipes in the blink of an eye, and since the game is based almost solely around these recipes I can expand the game massively this way. The only effort is in balancing these recipes to make an interesting experience. This is mostly a problem in relation to the price, as being small and simple isn't a bad thing in and of itself. I'm not saying €25 is too much (although it may be considering the no sales policy), but some people suggest it is worth even more than this, and there is no objective ground for that.

[Bauer]

Re 1: I fully agree.
I used Bio-Industries and sea block (+100 wood by command -- for all know-it-alls) to add multiple ways to reach the same goal. It's exactly what you say: It's intersting to figure out the best way to reach a goal. And this should vary in different phases of the game.

Re 2: I agree, at least when it comes to beacons.
8/8 rows are simply boring. I tried many times to come up with another design to integrate several production steps in one set-up, e.g. engines -> e-engines, but it's so far from ideal that I'm always coming back to the 8/8-pattern. This needs fixing. I can live with only one design being perfect in the end-game. However, it should be different for different receipts.

Re 3: I fully agree.
It's at least irritating to get a win message when you've just started. Make it an achievement.

Re 4: I fully agree.
After the first match, I disabled biters as many do. Later, I started a new game with biters to see if they add something interesting. This is not the case. They just add the bordom of cleaning biters. Trivial job, no reward. They can be switched off. Good enough for me.

Re 5: Come on!
I'm ok the way it is. It makes our lifes easier recognising items quickly.

Re 6: Not sure.
I agree that the game should have more variety when it come to "ways how to accomplish something". This is your point #1. I don't need more receipts. That's a niche for mods. I already find 7 sciences too much. Especially, when you always have to build the same layouts, it's a little tedious.

[Serenity]

Yeah, the way the game forces you to use beacons and modules in the end-game is very boring. Never liked that mechanic. Modules only seem to serve as a resource sink

Vanilla could really do with more production chains. It doesn't have to be Bob/Angels level craziness, but what's there makes the game quite repetitive. Having only iron and copper as base metals is limiting. Just one or two more metals/ores would be enough to introduce some much needed variety with the basic resources.

And yeah alternative paths to the same product would be great. Then you could adjust things depending on your needs. Sometimes a more inefficient process may be better. The only area vanilla has that is with coal liquification. But otherwise it again lacks production chains to really implement that

[Aeternus]

Answering your stuff point by point...
1: There's only a handful of buildings, with few or no side-grades.
Yes, there are only a few building archetypes. In a fully researched, fully evolved factory you will have assembler 3's all the way. Inserters also have only a few real differences, with most being speed upgrades of the former. But the point is not so much that the same buildings are doing the same thing - the same buildings keep doing different things. And this complaint is only valid for vanilla - if you load up a Bobs/Angels modded game the amount of structures and recipes explodes. From experience I can tell you that level of complexity is not for everyone...

2: The beacons and requester chests pits creativity against efficiency.
Depends on how you want to play. The real problem is that if you try a megafactory but not go for fullblown bot/beacon efficiency you run into capacity problems on the belts. Which means serializaing production. Which means your UPS goes down the drain. The game engine simply cannot handle that load - yet. Belts are limited to 40 items per second, a megafactory requires an order of magnitude more at least.

3: The "win" condition is totally misplaced.
Agreed that you could do with some other win conditions rather then "push a rocket into the sky asap". But then again, imho - this sandbox game is best played open-ended. If you want a much longer game there's always the marathon mode, but to me that's just padding... requiring 5x the base resource just makes the same thing take longer.

4: The biters are confused and almost a scam if considering the promos.
If by confused you mean "braindead to the point that they attempt to chew their way to their demise", then yes. But that's their function - force players to not expand agressively and invest in some defenses. Don't like them? Turn them off, they're not required.

5: The lazy reskins are weird to me.
Agreed, and, well, the devs -are- busy with a new GUI. So let's see what they come up with. I think the quick-and-dirty recoloring of various icons are a clear indication this game is still early access. It needs polish, and it's getting it. The focus has been on gameplay and fixing gameplay issues first, which is something I can get behind.

6: It's basically just a bunch of recipes and adding recipes is not very advanced.
It's a logistics sim - especially early on, when it's all belts and no bots. Lateron it's all trains and few belts. But the challence remains finding and resolving bottlenecks, streamlining production as much as possible. The recipes are a means by which the transportation/logistics sim comes to life. It's more simcity then starcraft. If that's not your cup of tea, maybe Factorio just isn't for you. It's not a game for everyone and that's fine

[HurkWurk]

the base game is exactly that. base.
the game is about the community creating content and mods to make things different for those that are bored with the base game or want something with more complexity.

myself, im not yet ready for the massive spaghetti that is the full bobs mods experience, but i use a lot of them, and they do add to the game. also mods like factorissimo make the basic "beacons + bots" not always the best solution, however they too fall into a place where you end up with a "perfect" build, and nothing else matters compared to that.

but that said, try something new! start a base with a small starting area... i recently did... and let me tell you, dealing with biter waves when you dont even have gun turrets... well... it sucks
but, like all things in the game, eventually you get to a point where you are more powerful than the biters... in my current factory, they are waves and damaging the walls every few minutes. they are a constant time and resource sink until later in the game when i get to lasers and deploy robo ports to fix the walls, etc.

to me it sounds like you are spending all your time at the end of the tech tree, instead of working toward it. i would suggest starting over with some different settings.

[bobucles]

A lot of individual items are simple. The remarkable part is how a bunch of simple individual things have made a complex game that sucks away weeks and months of your life. That's called good design.

You win the game so fast that the people who only play to the "win" won't experience much of the game unless they go out of their way to do so.

I've seen typical game times ranging from 10 hours to 60 or more hours for the first rocket. That is hardly a quick game! I think you are confusing "My time is gone so fast" with "it's a short game".

[Hedning1390]

I don't think more production chains is the solution, because there is no fundamental difference between eg red circuit production and engine production. The layout is exactly the same with 3 products turning into 1. All additional production chains would create is new train routes. I also don't think production chains needs to be more advanced (bobs and angels has been mentioned). Both of these (more recipes and more complicated recipe chains) is easy to add yourself, or you can download someone else's recipe book. It expands the game in a way, but doesn't really add anything new.

What would cover flaw #1 are side-grades in the vein of solar vs nuclear where you may want to use a mix of assembler 2 and assembler 3 for the same production, not because assembler 2 can't produce what assembler 3 can, but because they have pros and cons even when producing the exact same recipe. Or go assembler 2 in one base and assembler 3 in another, creating replayability through branching choices.

@Aeternus
Beacons are efficient for more things than ups. If you are not using beacons you will have to build so much more factory for the same production. And if you don't use productivity modules to keep the speed reasonable now your entire factory will pretty much consist of furnaces, which would both look boring and repetitive, and be boring and repetitive to build too.

By confused biters I mean their implementation is confused. It lacks direction.

When your science production dwarfs everything else there are no bottlenecks any more, because you can easily calculate the exact need of every resource and build exactly that production.

@HurkWurk
I have started over several times. I started playing in 0.12 and built my noob base. I started over once I learned the basics, so that's 2. I bought the game in 0.15 and that opened up steam achievements, so I started over and did the lazy bastard. I got the lazy bastard in 10h, so I had to start over again to get the 8h achievement. I also played a continuous game in 0.15. In 0.16 I started over again and have 2 bases. I also did the train achievement in 0.16 but that one wasn't continued to the rocket. That's a total of 7.5 times playing through the start.

[ASDFGerte]

• If you think current power is interesting, ok...
• Yes, the issue is imho that bots outperform belts in mass throughput, but that doesn't appear to be the prevalent opinion.
• It's kind of the deepest research and thing you can build. I don't think it matters much. What i never understood is why there are no funny endgame items though. Most entities in the game cost very little and once you got the setup to make them, you can aswell just make a few hundred, and never need to save up for one.
• What i always say is biters are boring once you reach tank tech, which is quite early. They'd need a global AI that makes them not as braindead as they are now and possibly some way that they do less frequent but stronger attacks that actually do some damage (note: having a nice nice person setting is always easy)
• Lazy reskins are very common practice. For some cases, e.g. modules, they even serve a similar purpose, so having them look similar is not even a bad thing. It's a really minor detail and not worth the effort to talk about - if it was the worst part of the game the devs would take the time to make more intriguing graphics, but that will probably not happen for a long time. Adding such unimportant points to discussions just sidetracks from the important ones and doesn't help imho.
• Based on your hours of gameplay, i'd say 500eur would be cheap. I don't like how this point is formulated at all - I don't think you or 99.999% of humanity would be capable of writing factorio and you are pretending it was small and simple. The engine to manage the amount of items and entities is what you need to look at, and after that indeed comes balance. There are hundreds of games made daily where people just use some game engine and add tons of imbalanced §$%&, then wonder why it is the same as almost everything else, not fun to play and crashes on bad weather.

Vanilla could really do with more production chains. It doesn't have to be Bob/Angels level craziness, but what's there makes the game quite repetitive. Having only iron and copper as base metals is limiting. Just one or two more metals/ores would be enough to introduce some much needed variety with the basic resources.

The whole topic is filled with hints that more of the same doesn't make anything better. You don't need more basic resources and more production chains won't help if they are not fundamentally different from the already existing ones - a pattern with X inputs and Y outputs will always stay that way, no matter how often you rename the in- or outputs.

alternative paths to the same product would be great.

I agree. Not necessarily for all products, but adding alternatives for some would potentially make the game more interesting.

[Koub]

Too bad your compendium has little to no chance to influence the future development of the game, because too many issues are discussed in the same thread.
Most - if not all - the issues you reported have been already pointed out in at least one (and probably many) suggestion topics. It would have been more productive to enrich the debate on these topics instead of creating your own list, like so many people did before you, their "list of things that could be improved" forgotten in the depths of the forum.

Top 10 (or top 6) make good clickbait titles, but are very inefficient to get things changed

[Serenity]

a pattern with X inputs and Y outputs will always stay that way, no matter how often you rename the in- or outputs

Nobody said anything about making them more the same. Things can be more complicated than just taking 2 or 3 things and turning them into 1 other product.

[bobucles]

It is true that there are only so many flavors of "x => y" recipes that you can manage before they all start to feel same-y. Mods take this to the extreme, operating on the idea that quantity is a challenge all its own. It's fun in its own way, but it's not for everyone.

Liquids are a nice way to add another puzzle angle to recipes, as pipe networks behave significantly differently from belts. A decent number of recipes mix liquids and solids in useful ways. Kovarex shows another style of puzzle, where the outputs also get recycled into ingredients. Setting up a belt type of Kovarex used to be a lot more difficult before smart balancers were added. Coal cracking is pretty cool in that it recycles heavy oil back into itself, as well as taking steam energy to work. Unfortunately coal cracking is rarely needed.

Unfortunately factorio doesn't have recipes that generate "Waste" products or some type of "junk" that has to be reprocessed. That would create a new style of puzzle where the recycling has to flow smoothly to avoid clogging at the waste producer.

[Lubricus]

1. After having played with bob's angels mods, it's interesting with more building and complex recipes but somehow it's more of the same type of puzzles compared to vanilla where you encounter knew emergent problems when you try to scale up the factory.
2. Yea the beacon assemblers rows is quite boring. On the other side the high speed can make the logistics between them more demanding and interesting. You can also dwelve into stuff as optimize bot travel...
3. I usually just turn the biters off. The biters is distracting and stressful and don't add anything important.I miss that the pollution mechanic that get's meaningless and that there is no meaning to play with guns...
4. Don't care about the win condition
5. never thought about that, they are working on the visuals though.
6. No I always get problems when trying to scale up and have to come up with new solutions, so it's not that easy. It can get extra interesting with self imposed handicaps, I recently made a 1k science factory with 1:2 trains using same name for stations that do the same thing. I had to learn a lot of train signaling and even use combinators so the trains to hunt a little less in packs and clogging the railroad going to wrong stations.

Saying that it's not a perfect game and can be improved. And having played a game to much all games get's bad and boring in some way.

[Hedning1390]

Too bad your compendium has little to no chance to influence the future development of the game, because too many issues are discussed in the same thread.
Most - if not all - the issues you reported have been already pointed out in at least one (and probably many) suggestion topics. It would have been more productive to enrich the debate on these topics instead of creating your own list, like so many people did before you, their "list of things that could be improved" forgotten in the depths of the forum.

Top 10 (or top 6) make good clickbait titles, but are very inefficient to get things changed

As you may notice there are no suggestions in the post. No ideas on how to make things better, no solutions. I didn't feel it made sense to make such suggestions this late in development. As far as I understand they are pretty much done with the game and are only working on some final UI changes. That's also why I didn't post it in the ideas forum. This was just meant as a discussion topic for players and a response to those who say it's perfect and worth €100. I did make a UI related suggestion which I posted in the ideas subforum: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=59533 It's completely unrelated to anything discussed here though.

[*] If you think current power is interesting, ok...
[*] Based on your hours of gameplay, i'd say 500eur would be cheap. I don't like how this point is formulated at all - I don't think you or 99.999% of humanity would be capable of writing factorio and you are pretending it was small and simple. The engine to manage the amount of items and entities is what you need to look at, and after that indeed comes balance. There are hundreds of games made daily where people just use some game engine and add tons of imbalanced §$%&, then wonder why it is the same as almost everything else, not fun to play and crashes on bad weather.

What is your issue with power?

There are many things I can't make. That doesn't mean I should pay above market rates for all those things. It's called division of labour.

[MeduSalem]

First of all I'd like to say I love this game [...] That said I get a little triggered when everyone on these forums (and the steam forums) praise it as if it's the best game ever with no flaws, so I have compiled a list of some of the flaws. [...] Please don't take this list as a personal attack.

[...] a response to those who say it's perfect and worth €100.

Really? Is that how some people are over-exaggerating the game nowadays? Do people really write stuff like that on Steam Reviews or wherever? Which should always be taken with a grain of salt anyway, no matter what because a lot of people love/hate games for the most subjective and ridiculous reasons as I have noticed while browsing reviews and it changes from one day or patch to the next.

But what is more important... as long as you are having fun do you really care that much about what others think about the game (because I wouldn't) or is it all just a mediocre charade to cover the truth that somewhere deep within you are personally unhappy with the game?

And what is it with accusing everyone of being like that right there at the start of the original post while also pretending not to want to attack anyone personally at the same time? ... Like "I spit in everyones face... but excuuuse me"

Because if I look over the forums here then most people (or at least the Veterans and even the Devs themselves) are aware that the game is NOT without its flaws and on the contrary... actually has a lot of room for improvements hence why the Ideas and Suggestions Board is filled to the brink with threads (also concerning your flaws).

I find the entire "I wrote the list because I am sick of hearing how good the game is"-argument as the main reason for even posting it just... urgh... like a desperate attempt to slag something just for the sake of it, since its absolutely not constructive (and won't lead to anything constructive and only looks upon self-affirmation in rallying like-minded people to start a hate train) and also because you acted like no one ever pointed out all the flaws even though every single one of those flaws has been pointed out multiple times already even with suggestions on how to improve on them, which is already proving the entire point of your thread wrong in the first place.

There is a word for your kind of criticism:

Superfluous

[bman212121]

Rather than just go down the list of random complaints, I'll just address the most obvious one.

2. No, the game doesn't pit efficiency against creativity. You can come up with clever designs to maximize your output without it having to be boring. Just because you feel that you have to use 8 beacons around a factory, definitely doesn't mean it's the right way or the only way. The game does not force you to do that, nor does the game force you to make straight lines. You choose to do this because you feel it is the only way to achieve "perfect" efficiency. You could have a beacon that makes a circle or a triangle pattern, but once you figure out the "perfect" layout, it's just going to be more of the same. You are forcing yourself into a "boring" play style because you can't envision doing it any other way. If you can't get past having to use beacons because they are there, then download a mod to just turn them off. That will force you to actually come up with new and challenging ways to tackle the same problem.

The game gives you the awesome ability to change just about anything to your heart's content. Once you master the base game play, you can start experimenting on your own. Factorio isn't setup to force a player to do anything, nor should it. If you want to make the game crazy and thrown down mountains of ore, you can. If you want to make the game almost impossible to win, you can do that as well. You can decide you only want to use trains, only use belts, or only use robots. Rather than making a list on a forum about things that YOU don't like about how the game plays, go make it your own. Use your creativity to come up with a way so others can benefit. It's obvious that others in this thread share some of the same ideas, so work with someone and actually come up with a mod to address it so that it creates new game play for everyone to enjoy.

[Hedning1390]

You are forcing yourself into a "boring" play style because you can't envision doing it any other way. If you can't get past having to use beacons because they are there, then download a mod to just turn them off. That will force you to actually come up with new and challenging ways to tackle the same problem.

I have already replied to that:

If you are not using beacons you will have to build so much more factory for the same production. And if you don't use productivity modules to keep the speed reasonable now your entire factory will pretty much consist of furnaces, which would both look boring and repetitive, and be boring and repetitive to build too.

If you think creativity is not mutually exclusive with efficiency then what is your definition of efficiency, because it is clearly not the same as mine.

Really? Is that how some people are over-exaggerating the game nowadays?

Yes, I've had people argue to me that since I have played the game 500 hours it should be worth $500 (that's €410).

But what is more important... as long as you are having fun do you really care that much about what others think about the game (because I wouldn't) or is it all just a mediocre charade to cover the truth that somewhere deep within you are personally unhappy with the game?

Of course I am not happy with flaws, and you could say I am a little disappointed that it isn't even better than it is, the same way a silver medalist may be disappointed that they didn't get the win. In any case venting can be good even if it doesn't lead to change.

And what is it with accusing everyone of being like that

Almost nothing ever applies to "everyone". I was using hyperbole. I think most people replying to this thread did not feel that what I said applied to them and understood that it was hyperbole.

[Bauer]

First of all, I said in the first reply in this thread that I (almost) fully agree to Hedning1390's statements.
I also would like to point out that Factorio is an awesome game that gave me many, many hours of joyfull play.
Thanks for that.

2. No, the game doesn't pit efficiency against creativity. You can come up with clever designs to maximize your output without it having to be boring. Just because you feel that you have to use 8 beacons around a factory, definitely doesn't mean it's the right way or the only way. The game does not force you to do that, nor does the game force you to make straight lines. You choose to do this because you feel it is the only way to achieve "perfect" efficiency. You could have a beacon that makes a circle or a triangle pattern, but once you figure out the "perfect" layout, it's just going to be more of the same. You are forcing yourself into a "boring" play style because you can't envision doing it any other way. If you can't get past having to use beacons because they are there, then download a mod to just turn them off. That will force you to actually come up with new and challenging ways to tackle the same problem.

This is IMHO the most important point in this thread. Not only by itself but also because it's highly relevant for the bots-vs-belts discussion.

Last week, I worked for about 6 hours to create a building-block that produces 600 green circuits/s with Cu and Fe plates as input. I was going to multiply this by at least 3, maybe 5-6.
Being bored of the assembler, beacon rows, I tried to create something new. I came up with a belt-based solution, not perfectly efficient, but a design that would make the assemblers work continuously with 6 beacons to allow for belts. My UPS dropped so badly (from 58 to 11 after building 2 of such building blocks, unplayable!!) that I decided to tear everything down. It took me 20 minutes to design and build a bot-based 8/8-type building block. The impact on UPS is negligible. That's a sad story.

This is why I think that I am forced to NOT diversify.

I have a working design, it does what I want it to do, I like watching it, I'd still prefer to watch a belt based setup. But, hey!, I know I cannot have everything.
It would be great to read a FFF about this to see the developers view on things.

[bobucles]

I want to be creative!

> Proceeds to copy the exact same thing they've seen a million times before

This game lacks creativity!

I cry evry tim

[Deadlock989]

1: There's only a handful of buildings, with few or no side-grades.
2: The beacons and requester chests pits creativity against efficiency.
3: The "win" condition is totally misplaced.
4: The biters are confused and almost a scam if considering the promos.
5: The lazy reskins are weird to me.
6: It's basically just a bunch of recipes and adding recipes is not very advanced.

1. There's only a handful of elements on the periodic table. Physics is flawed
2. Your choice, not mine. I hardly ever use beacons.
3. Can't please everyone. People moan that a sandbox game doesn't have a win condition and they can't think of anything to do, win condition is added, people complain about that instead.
4. Really? "Almost a scam"? So, not actually a scam then.
5. Would dearly love to see you do better. I sank about thirty hours into a 1x1 sprite that isn't even that good but just to get it to the point where people stopped complaining.
6. Lol. I would totally buy that T-shirt. "Factorio: it's just a bunch of recipes".

Cheer up mate. You need a hobby. I suggest modding, since apparently it's so trivial.

[ASDFGerte]

What is your issue with power?

For normal maps (there are some specially designed scenarios where this doesn't apply), power is usually just plopping down some steam engines whenever you need more. Then when you reach higher tech, you do the same with reactors. Then in very late game, you either use deactivated nuclear or plop down a million friggin solar panels to save ups. Apart from said specially designed scenarios, i've never had to actually plan fuel use ahead of time or do anything to reduce power usage, let alone using efficiency modules (who the §$%§$ uses efficiency modules, except for building power armor mk2?).

There are many things I can't make. That doesn't mean I should pay above market rates for all those things. It's called division of labour.

If you read the post again, you'll notice the price did not refer to you not being able to make the game. It referred to an euro per hour of fun being on the cheap side, not even counting your "couple of hundred hours not logged". See it this way, whatever the game is doing it's working (people have hundreds and even thousands of hours of fun with it), and there is no other game like it - implying it's not that easy to make even for people who work in the according field. You are vastly underestimating and belittling what is needed to write factorio, and then say the price tag might be too high. This is simply not true from a cost-reward point of view and by technical knowledge and work needed to write the engine.