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Comment by joshstrange | Hacker News Reader

As happy as I am that FFF's are back I hate that this is going to suck me right back into Factorio (there are much worse things for sure).

It's probably for the best that I can only really play Factorio on my computer and not on my Steam Deck (yes, I _can_ but it's annoying enough to not have a mouse/keyboard that I don't). It's really an amazing game that you can dump literally thousands of hours into, trust me I have. I'm looking forward to new expansion even if it's still ~1 year out.

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On the other hand, rejoice that you won't have to touch Factorio yet for a whole year! Just enjoy the updates and prepare for the inevitable one year from now (say goodbye to friends and family, plan that sabbatical, get rid of the cat, and what have you).

Or… i could try and play through Space Ex since it was mentioned in FFF and I’ve never tried it before.

Space Exploration is frankly a pretty awesome mod, however I think you should only pick it up if you plan to invest atleast ~500 (more) hours into the game. I'm almost halfway through a run and it's been awesome. It gets more fun as it goes on.

Checks play time 2699.8 hours

I’m really glad 2.0 isn’t released yet. I still have time to blacklist the domain so that I don’t get notified when it is released.

Steam shows ~800 hours for me but that's before I went all-in on various mods and just wrote my own launcher for easy switching between mod packs/saves/etc so thankfully I don't have the full numbers (though the vast majority of my playtime happened after that change so I know I'm probably around your number).

The install is completely portable on its own, so my solution is that I just have 10 or so copies of the game installed, with a folder of renamed shortcuts based on the modpack they run.

What does your launcher do?

Nothing special, it’s an Alfred workflow to list my installs which are just folders on the file system. Each folder has its own saves/mods and a link to launch the version of Factorio I want. It calls a script that symlinks the mods/saves to the right place and launches the game.

Do the blueprint stay between each copy?

One of the issues I have is that I have blueprints in every copy of the game now instead of in some central location :(

They are per-install I think. I normally create new blueprints per-run just cause. I have a handful of blueprints I store in notes to easily paste in.

Yeah, I've been getting more and more collecting for stuff I'm doing with the circuit network that I don't want to do again.

Trying to find a clean way to organize them and have it available in all the games, maybe just checking them into github is the way to go.

I'm sure it's great fun but please consider the astoundingly extraordinary privilege of having the skills and resources to invest in learning or creating or solving nearly anything you can imagine... and what it means to choose to spend it on shallow personal entertainment. You're capable of so much more. The world desperately needs you and others just like you to pivot, a hard reset of perspective and values, to put your amazing mind and self to work doing things that are essential and meaningful and helpful to others. Your future self will thank you for breaking the solo gaming habit. Better late than never. You won't get those 2000 hours back, but you just might find your soul by choosing to put your next 2000 hours of free time to a different purpose.

Wow. I was enjoying this thread but you really killed the vibe by thinking you’re a better determiner of people’s free time, not to mention you somehow think you know a stranger on the internet better than themselves?

Please tell me this is a copypasta and was just sarcasm.

Hey d1str0, Sorry (not sorry) to harsh your vibe. It wasn't sarcasm or "copypasta". My longer response to a sibling comment just now explains further. Have a great weekend.

> you just might find your soul by choosing to put your next 2000 hours of free time to a different purpose.

Like mindlessly browsing forums and shitting on things you don’t care about?

Hi oefrha, haha, good one. But for me this isn't about being judgmental or scoring points. You might be right to include time spent on HN in the category of addictive timesinks better spent elsewhere, so yes, maybe there's a touch of hypocrisy in my original comment. But nothing about my engagement with this topic is "mindless". On the contrary, I choose deliberately to do the uncomfortable / unpopular thing and encourage others to try to avoid slipping further into mindless activity, because I'm personally acutely aware of what's at stake. I wasn't "shitting on" nor singling out this game in particular. I don't care if it's Factorio, World of Warcraft, Magic: the Gathering, fantasy football, or anything else that has a strong tendency to become all-consuming. Life is too short as it is. I'm speaking from the heart as a cancer survivor who's had a chance to reflect deeply on nearly 50 years of life, and I'm so glad I quit World of Warcraft cold turkey when I did, when my oldest daughter was still an infant. Please, try to interpret my comments in the spirit they're intended. Thanks.

I know many other people who survived cancer who decided that life was too short to take it too seriously and now they are more care free, play more video games, smoke more pot, etc.

I’m glad you had a personal revelation that works for you (maybe), but being a cancer survivor doesn’t make you a better arbiter of other people’s time and energy.

I didn't say it did! I make no such claims. Rather my experiences (esp. with addictive pasttimes like WoW) led me to a place where I'm confident that encouraging people to consider their choices might help someone learn from my mistakes. YMMV. Each to his/her own. Enjoy your day!

I hate to tell you, but once you sort out a decent control scheme it plays really well on the steam deck. There are enough buttons to cover everything, it's mainly case of working out what is most logical to you personally so that you don't have to think about it. Gyros for the mouse, and a mode switch on soft-pull LMB to increase precision help a lot.

I might just try to ignore this comment... My biggest worry is precision in placing things, I make my own blueprints but I normally trying to start from scratch for each new game (just my playstyle, not saying it's good/smart) and it being fiddly on the deck. I played a few games with only mouse support and quickly abandoned them since it got old fast. I know Factorio has great keyboard support though and they do have a Switch version so maybe I'm worrying about nothing. My other worry would be performance since my older laptop has some trouble when my base got large enough (with mods) but maybe I'm just making excuses.

Using the touchpads as a mouse works really well. I like to set them as trackball, but there are multiple options and configurations that one is going to feel good for you.

Any chance you could post a community control scheme that's pretty close? I love factorio but haven't gotten a good intuitive control scheme set up on my deck

It's called Steamdeck Midnight Special by impish. Mouse+gyro on right pad. Various controls on the buttons, left joystick press to enter/exit vehicles and switch modes. Left mouse on left side (not the default swap) and extra precision on a soft pull. Enjoy

Sorry to tell you brother, but there's an official Steam Deck support with perfectly usable defaults.

I haven't yet installed it on the steam deck, but I've put in around 100 hours on switch, and it was pretty good experience on a gamepad.

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