Last week I did a music thread.
This time I thought it was time for a gaming thread. What's everyone playing?
I've been playing Dungeon Deathball, a fun little indie roguelike sports/puzzle/tactics game. That in turn makes me want to get back into Blood Bowl 2. Also played a little bit of Slay the Spire, recently.
I think the one reason I don't play more Factorio is that you (at least at the start) have to control a single unit to do all your construction, and that really slows a lot of the gameplay down in a way I don't find fun. I wish I could figure out how to get myself (mentally) past this because otherwise I really like the game. There any mods or tricks you know of that would help?
My advice would be to make blueprints of the basic stuff; anything like a steel furnace array or a set of electric miners etc., figure out once, and then make a blueprint of it. It's way easier to place stuff down to fit a blueprint than it is to just place things down off memory, even for obvious or simple things, and that gets you to the point of automating construction bots that much faster.
I'd say it's entirely reasonable to have bots within four hours of starting the game, even if you don't really know what you're doing. And the bots of course solve the 'single unit' problem.
Basically automate everything.. you should be past the early game after about 30 minutes and have construction robots around the 1.5hr - 2hr mark. I like the early game because for me it's more of a speed run, how fast can I get to construction bots and I create blueprints to optimise for this. Making blueprints that are simple and quick to hand build makes a ton of difference early game. Once I unlock both I move to my more complex and efficient blueprints. Though a lot of this I need to optimise now for Space Age.
Best tips I can give for early game is automate your assemblers, inverters, belts (plan this for red belts as you want to move to them asap) and then miners to start. That way you can just focus on building and expanding and exploring. I don't bother much with defence until I unlock bots but that is only because I rush to get to them before the natives get angry.
Hope this helps in any way