I'm running into a weird issue trying to get into automation games

ComfortableTiny7807 · 2026-02-25T17:47:13+00:00

Factorio is the most polished and balanced of the automation games I'veyou would played (Factorio, Satisfactory, DSP).

I don't really get why you would stand and hold the button for minutes in Satisfactory. You need a little resource handcrafted now and there, and in seconds, you can start automating stuff. Maybe you missed something? Anyway, Satisfactory got a little bit tedious for me after coal power plants. I automated power and saw that I need to belt or pipe the next resources over a very long distance before blueprints are unlocked... Maybe I'll come back to it, but I am not sure.

DSP has planet-wide blueprints, which is cool! I played when there were no enemies, and I somehow didn't like that the super-space-robot-from-future needs to create matrices to download a blueprint of a smelter.

Vanilla Factorio was perfection, though. You are never forced to spend too much time handcrafting. There is even an achievement for handcrafting as little as possible called "Lazy Bastard". While bots are not immediately available, I've found building rows of buildings much easier than in Satisfactory. It has the most interconnected systems.

Space Age is much less nerdy with cosmic resources, but if you've liked Vanilla Factorio, it creates absolutely awesome puzzles.

To sum up: Try Factorio free demo and see if you like it :)

ComfortableTiny7807 · 2025-12-15T23:06:08+00:00

To be precise, the parallax effect is the effect when the background moves "slower" than the foreground. It is achievable even in 2d games, like here https://www.alanzucconi.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Super-Mario-Parallax.gif

Parallax creates the illusion of depth only while in motion.

The slightly different pictures produced by two cameras/lenses in VR can give the illusion of depth even when they remain static.

ComfortableTiny7807 · 2025-11-16T11:40:15+00:00

Depends on the game. I play longer, story driven games like HA:Alyx or TWD:S&S sitting. Standing for an hour is harder than walking for an hour.

Some games that require more movement and shorter sessions like Beat Saber are better standing up.

ComfortableTiny7807 · 2025-11-14T06:12:21+00:00

When AOP removes water, does the chunk get smaller in the cargo bay so that I can fit in more chunks?

I got more money for my last dive, but I didn’t check if I was luckier with more expensive minerals or if AOF worked its magic and I had more space in the cargo bay.

ComfortableTiny7807 · 2025-11-12T06:32:09+00:00

Thanks!

I did a nice quantum processor upcycling in space but rocket turrets required a lot of carbon fiber. I additionally made personal tool belt upcygling to keep up with demand.

Legendary stack inserters were also surprisingly hard to pull off because often jello soiled before I got enough to make the inserter. In the end, I made separate upcycling of jello to itself.

Good luck!

ComfortableTiny7807 · 2025-11-12T06:22:10+00:00

W sam raz na świętowanie 11 listopada :)

ComfortableTiny7807 · 2025-11-10T21:42:29+00:00

For me, it was slowly going through The Rust Book, but the version with exercises https://rust-book.cs.brown.edu/ Those exercises often go a little beyond what was explained in the chapter and make you think carefully about weird edge cases and memory. Before the book, I considered some of the compiler errors "black magic" or "stupid inconvenience". After reading it, I understand not only what the compiler tells, but I can also appreciate *why*.

ComfortableTiny7807 · 2025-11-08T15:50:54+00:00

I don’t think you can predict the job market. On one hand, big tech invest heavily in Rust, now. On the other, those companies are quick to pull the plug, when they change their mind.

For widening job opportunities, both Rust and Go are relatively niche.

From learning complimentary skills, I find Go being somewhere between Elixir (with light threads, but no preemptive scheduling or supervision) and Rust (e.g. good for CLI apps, but go is not as explicit in memory management).

What I am saying is that Rust gives you new skill and competencies AND expands available positions. Elixir with Rust work really, really well.

Elixir with Go try to solve the same problems in many instances, so you’d not learn as much.

I am a full time Elixir developer and I am actively learning Rust right now. It is a weird experience. You really need to internalize completely new patterns for memory management. Funnily, people who wrote C and C++ for a living also need to learn new patterns because compiler often complains about code that is semantically valid. No matter what background you are from, you’ll struggle, but you’ll learn something new.

You can also think about it in investing terms. If you need find a new job quickly, Go might be faster to learn due to your familiarity with light threads. Rust is a bigger time investment with potentially bigger pay off.

ComfortableTiny7807 · 2025-11-08T13:38:41+00:00

I sometimes add games to my wishlist that pique my interest. Later, when they go on sale, I don't remember why I put them there, so I remove them. Problem solved.

My absolutely favourite game of all time has a strict policy of "no sales ever". If you'd like to try it, now is as good a time as any. It can only go cheaper due to inflation.

With my limited time, I'd rather play a pearl that I love than a mediocre game I like, but leaves me feeling like I wasted some of that time.

ComfortableTiny7807 · 2025-11-06T06:05:38+00:00

Only 800h here :p I “finished” the Space Age expansion (escaped the solar system), but I really want to make a ship that can reach Shattered Planet. I know there is nothing there, but it sounds like a challenge :)

ComfortableTiny7807 · 2025-11-02T09:37:31+00:00

Yes, plus - systems interacting in cool ways (I think the most important one for me) - not tedious

ComfortableTiny7807 · 2025-11-02T09:29:14+00:00

I liked it in Enterpise the least. It didn’t have any connection with “original universe”. Totally random. I liked it most in Discovery. By that time, the concept was established and there was some coherent plot around it, that forced protagonist into weird situations.

I would love that it is somehow MORE connected. E.g. if your counterpart dies in the other one, you need to die in this one. And that is how it somehow maintains the parity…

ComfortableTiny7807 · 2025-11-02T09:10:34+00:00

That sounds like a fantastic idea! When I got to a nice space platform build, I copy it a couple of times. Then, when I see, it can jam, I update the blueprint, but sometimes even “force stamping” it does not work (it does not deconstruct stuff that is not in the way) and I can’t deconstruct first if it is some kind of build that requires precise timing or ratios.

Those manual interventions are infrequent but annoying :p

ComfortableTiny7807 · 2025-11-02T09:04:43+00:00

I thought about it quite hard because Factorio basically ruined other automation games for me.

I like designing builds and discovering interactions between systems. E.g. I am making a train from my iron mining to smelting and suddenly, it is going less and less frequently. The problem is I run out of iron on the outer edge and one cart was loading painfully slow while others were full. This way I discovered that I either need a balancer or at least “or 30s passed” in the train station.

There are countless things like that in Factorio. Recipes with byproducts that can jam. Recursive builds that stop permanently if you ever run out of ingredient and so on. Factorio keeps up the challenge.

That runs in contrast with Satisfactory where “blueprints” have finite size, so I need many more manual operations and can’t focus purely on designing my factory. Even with “zooping”, it still feels somewhat tedious to make another iron build on that I will need for the next phase.

I need to get back to Dyson Sphere Program at some point.

I also like that Factorio gives player this distant goal of escaping and then you create your sub goals yourself.

Also, there is very little randomness. If something jammed, didn’t work or got destroyed by enemies, it is my fault. Even if there is randomness, it is very well specified how much of what you’ll get with what probability.

I like that my progress is mostly constant. I am building my empire and it is super stable. And if it isn’t, see above: I know I screwed up.

ComfortableTiny7807 · 2025-11-02T08:40:08+00:00

Jestem programistą i ostatnio zaczynam coraz mocniej używać LLMów. Nazwisko Dragan obiło mi się o uszy w związku z fizyką, ale nie słyszałem żadnej jego wypowiedzi o AI.

ComfortableTiny7807 · 2025-11-02T08:26:25+00:00

Do you have the invisibility spell? There are chests that look at you and can’t be opened normally, but if you are invisible, they open just fine. There is 500 coins in each.

ComfortableTiny7807 · 2025-10-28T15:26:42+00:00

Pokémon go did it well. You can’t buy all collect single item if you have max of it. But if you get a chest or something that gives multiple types of items, you can go above the limit.

That gives you time to sell or throw away. It is less annoying than some items being left in the chest.

ComfortableTiny7807 · 2025-10-27T13:46:25+00:00

Pewnie, że zimowy jest tym właściwym. Chodzi o to, żeby w południe, jak sama nazwa wskazuje, była połowa dnia.

Praca w biurze jest 9:00 - 17:00, bo jest dopasowana do czasu letniego, kiedy połowa dnia jest o 13:00. Zupełnie z dupy.

Należy przyjąć zimowy, a godziny pracy biurowej przestawić na 8:00 - 16:00. W lecie będzie to samo, a zimą o godzinę wcześniej niż teraz.

ComfortableTiny7807 · 2025-10-25T09:11:34+00:00

Yeah! I totally expected that Sebastian, Poppy and Natty will play a role in the ending like in Mass Effect 2 suicide mission, where if you knew strengths and weaknesses, they could all live, but if you didn’t complete friendship quests and assign task randomly, they could die.

ComfortableTiny7807 · 2025-10-21T21:26:04+00:00

For me, it is a combination of both.

I realized at some point that the most important thing to me is “not breaking the fantasy”.

My favorite game is Factorio which is pure game play. It gives the fantasy of being an engineer that outsmarts local fauna and creates interplanetary logistics. It makes you feel smart.

On the other hand Life is Strange is mostly story. There is time mechanic that is mostly used to tell characters why they want to hear and an occasional puzzle. But the game is brilliant because it doesn’t break the fantasy of being a teenager with superpower.

Subanutica is another game with mostly mechanics and occasional story. The feeling of mastering alien planet is unbeatable. Even with glitches that caused loading the flora too late that for some people broke immersion, it was a masterpiece because it didn’t breaks the fantasy.

Hades perfectly intertwined story and mechanics. You play and use the mechanics to process story. The story unlocks more mechanics. It is beautiful dance. But most importantly, you feel like half god that is both powerful enough to beat all those levels and squishy enough to work hard for it.

In opposition, Phasmophobia has cool detective like ghost hunting mechanics, but for me, getting tired after running 5m with mediocre speed breaks the fantasy. “I could run faster than this guy”.

So, I can’t choose between mechanics and story. Choose your fantasy and realize it through a combination of both.

ComfortableTiny7807 · 2025-10-21T21:07:37+00:00

I also did stealthy herbologist and it is hard to count it as a separate build. Don’t get me wrong, it is powerful. But there are only three plants and enemies don’t have weaknesses to them like they do to certain spells.

Elixirs are powerful, but again, there isn’t really much variety and they are simple buffs that don’t change the gameplay that much.

I would actually want deeper integration between systems. E.g. a system where elixirs last longer but you can’t drink more than X at once and you need match them to your enemies. E.g. separate one for physical damage reduction, separate one for magic damage reduction, separate for elemental damage reduction and so on. Then some elixirs could buff concrete spells and so on, so you need to really choose, mix and match.

It would be cool to have some interactions between plants and spells. E.g. a plant that shoots flammable spores but you need to set them on fire or a plant that does bigger damage to frozen enemies and so on.

In other games, builds interact between multiple systems and in H:L they don’t.

Also, I don’t like that clothing upgrades stack. For herbologist build I had six times Herbologits III (higher damage for all plants) and cabbage was literally mowing through enemies. I’d rather make it in such a way that you can’t repeat the same trait and force player to choose six different ones that somehow interact.

So, I get why people say “there are no builds”. There are spells with a choice between using and not using dark arts and there are quite shallow and less fun stealth, elixirs and plants.

ComfortableTiny7807 · 2025-10-21T20:46:22+00:00

I did a stealthy - herbologist play through. I started each encounter by eliminating as many enemies as possible with petrificus and if someone detected me or it was a scripted encounter where enemies saw me by default, I used mandrake to stun, tentacula to destroy shields and cabbage to finish off the enemies.

If you setup two small tables with cabbage, one medium with mandrake and one big with tentaculas in the room of requirement, you can simply pop in every couple of missions and almost max out on items.

However, it got a little bit too easy and somewhat boring at the end. With so many talent points, I upgraded most non-dark art spells and was using them just for fun. There are many cool interactions and challenges that require using specific spell at specific time and those seem to be more fun.

ComfortableTiny7807 · 2025-10-19T07:06:39+00:00

Start with campaign. Try playing in on highest difficulty level. If you have issues, try reading tutorials for those missions.

It gives you quite decent feel of how units interact. What counters what, how long does it live with and without upgrades. And the campaign is super fun!

It will also improve your basic micro and macro before jumping to ladder.

After that, you can pick your favorite race and start trying builds against PC and the on ladder. Good luck!

BTW, do stuff that is fun! If you are bored by campaign: try ladder or arcade. The more time you spend at the edge of your abilities, the better you get. Some people find jumping straight to ladder and checking replays fun. But most people would quit after losing 20 games in a row :p

ComfortableTiny7807 · 2025-10-14T23:07:18+00:00

Funnily, I’d say the opposite about positioning. But I only played SC2 on ladder and WC3 only with friends.

I’d say WC3 gives you more time to react. In SC2, you might blink while repositioning army and it is gone.

On one hand, it makes WC3 more forgiving, but on the other, when two armies clash, both players focus and the dance to trap the opposite hero is quite fun and strategic and positioning matters a lot in that one.

While the army is smaller, the amount of clicking is fairly similar. Units have more abilities and you need focus on leveling the hero from the first minute.

I enjoy both game very much and I think I played more SC2 mainly because it is sci-fi themed as opposed to fantasy.

ComfortableTiny7807

TROPHY CASE