from Hacker News

Seven Years of Factorio Friday Facts (2020)

by destructuredObj on 6/9/21, 12:01 PM with 73 comments

• by spieswl on 6/9/21, 3:39 PM

  Author here. Wow, uh, I definitely did not expect to be featured on HN this morning, but seeing this linked put a massive smile on my face.

  There are just so many examples of captivating writing, innovative problem solving, and candid discussion throughout the FFFs. Taken all together, the Factorio journey is one of my favorite _stories_ to read...and it contributed to becoming a better designer and engineer along the way. I really encourage people to read more of their blog than just what I've linked, since it crosses so many areas of interest.

  To anyone reading that's worked on Factorio, thank you and you all are wonderful people.

• by alexwebb2 on 6/9/21, 1:17 PM

  Quick links to the five "must read" posts that William highlighted:

  > FFF #243 - New GUI tileset: Showing off their GUI design document. A MUST READ, if only for a good example of a comprehensive design style that fits the game theme perfectly. (https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-243)

  > FFF #176 - Belts optimization for 0.15 : Incredible analysis of transport belts and optimizing their performance. A MUST READ. (https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-176)

  > FFF #204 - Another day, another optimisation : Solid technical writeup on how a prefetching optimization patch works across a number of resource-heavy factory builds. A MUST READ. (https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-204)

  > FFF #296 - All kinds of bugs : The snippet at the bottom is a perfect encapsulation of their attitude towards problem solving. It’s such a simple concept, just going a little farther, that can take tremendous discipline and focus. A MUST READ. (https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-296)

  > FFF #356 - Blueprint library for real : Michal “kovarex” Kovařík, one of the two cofounders, talks about falling out of the development process, losing his sense of purpose, and how playing Factorio with his son brought him back. Reading this one, even through the sometimes-broken English, is inspirational and a wonderful look at how things fall apart and come back together. Like I mentioned in the intro, this is one of those rare, special offerings that is technical in nature but deeply personal and human-centric in form. A MUST READ. (https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-356)

• by daolf on 6/9/21, 1:26 PM

  I've been a huge fan of Factorio since 2014.

  A huge fan of the game, the team, and the entrepreneurial adventure.

  Their willingness to share insights, every weeks, for 7 years is quite rare in the industry.

  It was also awesome to read the thought process behind each design decision alongside some nerdy story about C++ optimization.

  Factorio team, if you're ready this, thank you!

• by nindalf on 6/9/21, 2:03 PM

  For those wondering why this game about factory management keeps showing up on the front page of HN, it’s because the gameplay reminds its fans of software engineering in subtle ways. People who are good at one are likely to be good at the other. More about this here - https://blog.nindalf.com/posts/factorio-and-software-enginee...

• by TOGoS on 6/9/21, 2:58 PM

  The Friday Facts were fantastic. I don't know of any other non-open-source project (but counterexamples are of course welcome) that encourages the developers to put that much technical information about what they're up to out on the website. I especially loved the ones about belt optimizations, multi-threading, and the networking model, since those are all interesting problems that any game developer is likely to think about but not necessarily get around to really solving the way that Factorio did. The FFF's inspired me to, on a total lark, send over my resume, which turned out to be good timing.

  I think my "holy crap I'm working on factorio, pinch me" was equivalent to some people's "holy crap I'm working for Microsoft." I still remember the odd smell of the office when I first walked in ("sorry it smells like acid in here", I was told, and was later disappointed to learn that when Europeans say "smells like acid" they just mean it smells bad; there was no open use of entheogens while I was there).

  I'm glad fff-200 made the cut for this guy's list, as that's the one where I announced the new 'programmable noise' terrain generator. More deets in https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-207, https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-258, and https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-282, among others.

• by TheMerovingian on 6/9/21, 1:37 PM

  Probably the best game I have ever played and the only game I bought not once, but thrice (two were gifts).

  As a developer, it allowed me to determine what kind of developer I am, where my interests lie, and how I contribute to code (or a base). The analogue between coding and Factorio is incredible.

• by and0 on 6/9/21, 8:23 PM

  To anyone who loves Factorio as much as I do, I strongly recommend the new game Dyson Sphere Program. I never truly beat Factorio the way I did DSP, so I can't compare them completely, but DSP takes the concept to a 3D planetary scale and is in many ways much friendlier.

  Also no combat/bugs, at least not yet. The dev team is Chinese and are releasing amazing quality-of-life updates at a rapid clip, too. Truly impressive piece of software.

• by stevenpetryk on 6/9/21, 4:50 PM

  This reminds me of a cool article I read about how Kerbal Space Program 2 renders orbits. I love reading things like this:

  https://www.kerbalspaceprogram.com/dev-diaries/6509/

• by FredPret on 6/9/21, 4:08 PM

  My biggest Factorio lesson was this:

  I no longer start a new factory from scratch if I want to do things differently. I use my existing - and now outdated - factory to launch a new one a few minutes run away.

• by DarmokJalad1701 on 6/9/21, 9:33 PM

  I wish they had expanded on the demo/tutorial mode's "story line". I liked how there were these secret half-built/half-destroyed bases waiting to be found.

• by mikewarot on 6/9/21, 4:09 PM

  I find myself playing Rocket Rush, without the rush. This allows access to all the tech without the grind. I've built so many small nuclear plants with a bunch of steam tanks to store the power until needed. I've also built a ton of solar arraignments.

  The constant things I always buy are 4 heavy oil, and 200 plastic. I usually get 10 miners, electric furnaces, and level 2 assemblers. Once I have power, and coal gasification up and running for plastic/explosives/batteries, it's just a grind.

  I've settled on using an Island terrain, to give it an end, rather than just not wanting to keep expanding forever. Once the island is cleared, and has radar, it's time to start again.

• by ddoubleU on 6/9/21, 9:25 PM

  From what I remember from this older interview with the two founders (in Czech) the main inspiration for doing Factorio were Tekkit-like mods for Minecraft.