Factorio E12 - Rocket Man (Patreon)

A satisfying and bittersweet end to an introductory Factorio journey. Feels good to finally beat the tutorial. Here's my overall review of the game:

I'm a goal-oriented person, so it was great to play Factorio with a tangible goal of building the rocket and beating the game. The game provides a ton of organic and interesting short-term goals too, such as producing the next tier of science or fixing a resource shortage. Fixing an iron, copper, or plastic shortage was immensely satisfying, and so was finding a better factory design, though the latter only happened twice. It wasn't great to realize that so many production problems had the exact same solution: just make a column of assemblers. It was organized, it was efficient, and it had zero reason to improve.

I don't enjoy sandbox games whatsoever, and I find no joy from optimizing or expanding my factory for the hell of it. I want to complete the goal in front of me, then move on to the next one. I like when my goals feel official, like 'beat the game' or 'defend yourself from the biters', not arbitrary or self-imposed, unless I'm doing something nobody else in the entire world has done before. I would enjoy a separate scenario where a mega factory would be necessary for solving my problems, but it definitely wasn't necessary here. I definitely wouldn't enjoy using bots unless I was forced to use them.

I wish I had set up a campaign where the biters were a much more intense threat, like in a deathworld. I grew up playing Starcraft: Brood War and grew my channel on Bloons TD Battles, so I'm built for RTS games. Factorio seems like it could have some game mode where it becomes an RTS, which would be extremely exciting to me. If there's some sort of 1v1 Factorio mod where the goal is to destroy the other player's "base crystal" or something would be absolutely awesome. Or a mode where one person tries to speedrun the game and the other person tries to kill them first.

Learning the systems like logistics, oil, trains, and nuclear was a ton of fun. They felt easy to learn, but supported a wealth of ideas and ways to improve my ability to use them. Playing this campaign was necessary so I could learn the ins and outs of the game, and the systems feel intricate enough that they could support a variety of more advanced gameplay loops that I'd be interested in. I'd be down to do some Factorio follow-up in a couple months, especially if I can figure out a way to make Factorio YouTube-viable.

It's too early to rate the game as a whole, but I'd rate my time spent as an 8/10. I hope you all enjoyed watching, can't wait for the next series!

March Bonus Video 3/4