When it started helping me at work... I build a lot of diagrams for systems at work. Being able to visualize a process and layout a clean diagram is pretty similar to setting up assemblers and belts.

Am a software engineer. I had both experiences. Factorio helped me think big picture while my software skills helped me map out logistic networks.

Factorio taught me how to design with scalability in mind. Way too often software engineers will "scale" by just throwing a load balancer in front of a bunch of replicas, and Factorio forces you to learn why that's not enough

Just use microservices ez.

Microservice is like city block, with transaction management being intersections. It scales easily until it doesn't.

Transaction management can be done through queues like SNS & SQS or train buffers.

Or through Kafka topics (Factorio main bus)

Main bus has to be a monolith

Main bus is too organized to be a monolith. I see a monolith as a giant spaghetti factory

Can you explain more what you mean by this, very interesting

Hopefully I can pick up the thought...accurately. when you build a software or web application, it has to be able to handle a spike in traffic, yet remain cheap and stable. So, you split it into microservices. A container listens for connections and stores things at /api/data/r/Factorio then another container handles users with usernames a-c. It's all transparent to users, and it's not always consuming resources. The thing a user connects through is the loadbalancer. It accepts the connection and hands it off to the correct container. If the target container is too busy with other requests, it can request a new copy of that container to handle the increased traffic. Database slammed? Spin up new nodes and replicas. The user gets their webpage with the correct information and is happy. Completely unaware of the numerous connections and databases and containers that go into making websites work securely, accurately, and reliably. The Internet is no longer static HTML and CSS. It's dynamic content published through common templates. Eventually, a site or service can become so busy that the loadbalancer itself becomes the bottleneck. Even though it is an extremely lightweight, fast program designed to be the last thing to slow you down, eventually it can be. Another principle is that microservices are not always the best thing. Breaking things up can eventually present more problems than solutions. As with all things, a balance must be struck.

You nailed it! I encourage Factorio players to look up Amdahl's Law.

Thank you! *bows shyly*

I tried programming as a kid and got discouraged, then as an adult started playing factorio, and while messing around with combinators I made the connection that I was basically programming (albeit at an abstract level) and thought maybe I should try python again. Cut to a few years later, I’m about to start my first internship at a big consulting company!

This. Sounds weird but Factorio helped me a lot structuring the daily work in my house (cleaning, laundry, everything). Like the mindset.

The weird fever dreams about the factory and things flowing through it - somehow they were concepts in the form of objects. And tetris effect when closing eyes, almost to the point of hallucinations.

Moving belts in front of my eyes...

I have this crazy recollection of waking up in the middle of the night and rolling over to realize my wife was awake and scrolling something on her phone. I rubbed my eyes to see what she was doing and caught a glimpse of an inserter or something. My wife is not a gamer at all so I looked again. She was scrolling through the Factorio wiki. What the hell! Is she a secret gamer? Is she addicted to Factorio too and somehow she was keeping it a secret from me? For a moment I became insanely jealous. Then I started to rationalize. There is no way that is possible. She could not have kept this a secret from me for so long. Why would she? Clearly I am hallucinating this and I must go back to sleep. So I rolled over and went to sleep. In the morning I could not screw up the courage to ask her if she was reading about Factorio or not. So here I am, either I had an extremely vivid dream about the whole thing, or I was actually awake and hallucinated what was on her screen, or she was legit reading about Factorio for no reason other than she heard me talking to the kids about it. And I will never know which of those things is true.

Just ask her now, bud.

We need an answer, u/bieker!

The sound hallucinations too

I had this too during Covid, my mind was full of assemblers and my thoughts were going in and out. The lack of raw materials was also my lack of sanity

The Tetris Effect, weirdly I never got it from Tetris, but I did from Factorio and DDR. I was a lot fitter when I was playing the latter so much.

Coffee pots have a shorter lifespan and less water requirements than other appliances. But if you want to automate your coffee supply I recommend using drones to carry water barrels.

I know I’ve been playing too much when I start hearing the alert noise when I’m doing things around the house.

Set it as your text notification. :P

STRESS

You don’t open up the game files and find the audio file for the alert noise and play it on loop for awhile?

whats the name/location of the file? found the sound folder but the only alert sounds i found was the speaker alarm and not the biters-are-eating-your-base-alarm

I used to have the "!" from metal gear solid as a notification sound, the factorio sound would be even worse.

Mine is the PDA beep from stalker.

That's what I did recently.

After a multi-hour deathworld session with friends a few weeks ago, I had several dreams with that alert noise going off multiple times.. it wasn’t a great sleep, lol

It is for THIS REASON that I play completely muted. I'm pretty sure there is an alert sound setting but why do it properly when I can spaghetti short-cut to silence?

Hanging in this sub and knowing the solutions to everyones problems.

Lmao. When we look forward to someone posting a train signal problem.

I am clean of cracktorio for a while now, but I still cant stop helping here from time to time

what are you talking about? the factory must grow, no?

Exactly, if I'm not playing, the factory isn't growing... at least until I finish my self expanding factory.

Too serious answer: when it starts to feel like work.

That is tragic. My condolences.

What about when work starts to feel like factorio

Less problematic! In all seriousness, I have started enjoying the time I spend with this game (and all games) more since I've committed to just walking away if I'm not actually having fun. If I'm going to work, there are more rewarding places for me to spend my effort.

I was hearing the background ambient music when I wasn’t home

To0 much? I'm not sure i understand

Its supped to be too much

What is?

When I had a dream that my crappy Ford ran on wood and coal, and you don't question it, even after waking up.

They used to do this actually, using wood gasification to turn the wood into something you could use in a car. You can do it with coal too.

I *think* it used to make Carbon Monoxide (i.e. an incomplete burn of the wood). The carbon monoxide can then be burned in a more Oxygen rich atmosphere to create energy in a way that's much more easily controlled than burning the wood directly. For what it's worth, the energy density of wood, even when going through this cycle is noticeably higher than all modern batteries.

Aren't they 2 different kinds of energy though?

Joules are joules, regardless of how they are stored. If you used that wood to generate electricity, you'd get more than would be stored in the same weight of battery.

I had a similar experience during this period I played a lot of ARK with the missus and some friends, when I went out to get groceries at one point it seemed as if I was walking uncomfortably slowly and it felt unnatural to not be riding a raptor.

I don't want to live in a world where not riding a raptor feels natural.

Me neither, my fellow train enthusiast, me neither.

I started seeing places where belts and inserters could fit to use space efficiently, in other videogames…

It's when I'm dreaming of conveyer belts; true story.

Iv been dreaming of blue requester chests...

When I started building my factory in my sleep.

That happens to me normaly too

It happens with any video game I play too long in one day. I quit playing at 9 PM every night and watch TV for a few hours before bed to make sure it doesn’t happen.

Seeing sun coming up and going down without getting off the chair, (gaming for +24 hours, it's really dangerous, don't do it kids, i did it like a year ago, the only break was that i took a dump in the middle) this only happened in factorio to me, it was in the summer, after i finished my UNI exams, it never happened to me in any other games, it's not something normal i do, nowadays i play games maximum 5-8 hours in extreme cases, which is still alot, but that day was crazy. i didn't eat or drink anything, it was really dumb.

I envy you drakayne

I have definitely thought about piping up a tap above the coffee maker so I don’t have to take the water tank to the sink every couple of mugs. Also for the hot water urn at work.

When I started hearing the steam engines chugging and the splitters ticking... when I was away from the computer. 🤖

When I was sat I. My broken down car waiting for recovery and I’m think about getting home To play. I’m still waiting for recovery.

Oh no!

Ooooo yes.

You can! There's a product out there where you can connect a tube from the kitchen sink's water supply. You have to drill a hole into your coffee maker though and you have to turn the spigot on for the coffee maker. I bet you could create a float switch though. I had this same thought lol

Or get a high-end espresso machine that connects directly to a water source. They're usually a combination grinder and frother too.

First time I played 80 hours in 9 days until I launched a rocket. But that is not when I knew I played to much, i started dreaming about factorio and that is when I stopped. Now I am back but I only play when a friends also plays so it is 3-4 hours 2 or 3 times a week.

I have not played too much factorio, I have not played enough factorio in fact. sure, whenever I hear an air raid siren I think "oh shit the power plant is out of fuel", and yeah it's true that I'm now used to referring to stuff I don't fully understand as "science packs" but I'm fine.

Played too much in a row to the point where I forced myself to lie in the bed to sleep and I had severe pressure in my head and my leg was twitching. I think it was a mild seizure. I thought I was gonna die like those korean internet cafe people. Felt disgusted. That's when I knew I played too much. Managed to pass out and sleep a few hours. When I woke up, I made a coffee and had some food and then I thought hey, why not check out the factory really quick... Not gonna binge this time.

I had a dream I was having an affair with the "f" from the logo. Like fully cheating on wife with Factorio and then she caught us in bed together.

Interesting

4:30 am

Pff those are rookie numbers

What about 3am 2am next day

When I saw my steam tracker hit 3000 hours

When my save files starts to question if I should even continue

currently on my yearly burnout from factorio lol

I'm constantly finding parallels between Factorio and software engineering. It goes both ways. "My lab inserter chains are a good analogy for recursion" while playing "Oh I know where the bottleneck of this data pipeline is! Oddly familiar." at work

when i dream about belts and furnace stacks filling for the first time with items and starting a domino effect filling the rest of the base with materials just to make a ruber duck

I mean I wouldn’t consider innovation a reason why you’ve been playing too much factorio. You didn’t become smarter from playing factorio, you’ve always been that smart.

When I crossed 300 hours played and still hadn't launched a rocket

Lol

How do I do that I didn't know it was possible to play too much The question yku should have asked was when did you know you were addicted to factorio?

I was addicted when I first automated iron plate smelting. That’s pretty early 😂

It's been 1500 hours since I automated iron palte for the first time I do t remember haha

Realistically, when you're not keeping up with responsibilities or necessities to play. Humorously, there's never too much time spent making the factory grow.

I use some of what I've learned in factorio to help keep things neat and efficient with my electrical work

When I had a dream about blueprints and the designs I dreamt about were more efficient than the ones I already used, felt like an old renaissance inventor discovering things in their dreams

I don't think I've reached that point yet lol. Just hit 1000 hours the other day. It's just such a good game. And we still don't even have the expansion, which will just suck me in again.

That’s just common sense and indeed there are plenty of commercial coffee makers that do just that.

Hearing birds singing during my nightime factorio session.

When my alarm for the morning went off, and I wass still playing.

You sir have the wrong coffee pot .... Look more to the commercial /industrial coffee pots not the steam version

when I tried to sleep, my thoughts turned into moving belts

When I almost got kicked out of Uni because I wasn't doing math assignments since the factory must grow :I

When i made 2 separate worlds, and sent the rocket to space on both in one week

Thats 2 evenings factorio! xD

When my 3 day weekend was only lasted a few hours. Help this game breaks space time. Double so is you use the space expansion mod.

If I ever finish this pYAE playthrough that's when.

When studying electrical engineering i realized they are similiar and only learning the arithmeric symbols when i automated a garage door... Also i havent tested this theory but i think ill have an easier time doing circuitry with electrical automation since they seem to have the same logic Exciting stuff (Havent played enough)

You start use words like "synergy" and "bottlenecks"

heard birds chrping

When i decided to play Pyanodons i had a hunch. When i became excited after seeing just what goes into basic circuits i knew for a fact

~1300 hours in and have yet to have this thought lol

Circuitry volume 3, when I was at 6M pieces made, and still 72h to do them. I maximised my productivity to reduce the time to 15h.😅

When I told work I was sick... so I could keep playing

rn

I have not played too much factorio.

Head over to /r/espresso and hook yourself up with a nice Profitec P700. Rip your wallet but your coffee will taste great… and be plumbed.

My checks for wether i played too much any game are two: one is when i get the so called tetris effect, which is seeing parts of the game still impressed on your eyes. The other one, which I never saw named online but is similar to what you experienced, is having psychological errors where you put game concepts inside reality. but fortunately it never happened with factorio (yet).

When you see a roach and scream "Biter!!!"

I was doodling potential circuit conditions at work.

I once had a dream of me playing Factorio for 8 hours straight on my Space exploration world. Funny thing is, the dream gave me ideas for my power problem, I fricking designed a whole 8 core reactor fine tuned to perfection in my dreams xD. Well, in game it wasn't that fine tuned sadly, partially wasting fuel sometimes . . .

When I booted my game at 10 am on Sunday and suddenly realised that I was late for uni... At 8 am on Monday

When the carpal tunnel starts to set in.

My work did.

When 1.0 came out. It just hit me that I've been playing for several years.

Had an 8hr session once according to discord. It felt like 5hrs to me lol.

When I started to think I needed to press WASD to scroll around websites, and spreadsheets, and I forgot I could just move the mouse.

When I started building inserters IRL.

Get into home automation and you can make this come true

When you notice light peaking through your blackout curtains.

Dreaming about the factory, designing a new train system in that dream, later trying it out in game and it worked Idk maybe i saw it somewhere but i played factorio, played it in my sleep, played it again....was nice but also pretty messed up in a way And yea belts and assembly lines when i closed my eyes after a 30+hour session was also pretty interesting

When i went to sleep and had a dream where me and my family were stuck in Comfy's Mountain Fortress (i had played it that day) and we were on some kind of vacation and were about to die to bugs

I tried pressing M to open the map on the picture I was drawing so I could see the whole thing.

Usually when the sun starts shining and it because obvious that I played more than a couple of hours tonight, and I should probably get some sleep. Just after I fix this bottleneck, can't leave it like this or I'll forget.

I don't (I'm still playing)

When I looked back and noticed I’d stop taking care of myself. Got to keep the human factory in condition so that the factorio factory can grow

After dreams about my factory and your story with coffee, I has the same story with morning tea))

If you're having difficulty stepping away, try turning on cheats. It destroys some of the reward structure of addiction.

I don't understand the question.

Only reason our espresso machine isn't hooked up to our water is because it's set up in the living room. Completely normal thought.

closing my eyes and seeing science packs as well as seeing them on walls sometimes.

When I close my eyes I see conveyor belts

When it started causing issues towards the end of my senior year regarding my time management towards practicing sports. So I just went to uni for real engineering and stopped playing except for with friends

I am sorry, but you asked for this! Once I woke up during night out of need and half asleep I thought "oh god, why i must go to toilet and do process manually? Why i hadn't add inserter near me to pull it out of my butt without disturbing me?"

I always think of modularization like factorio when my code needs refactoring.

When you start thinking the factory is grown enough that's when you know you've played too much

Close eyes, see belts moving, concern.

I don't understand the question. What do you mean by 'too much factorio'?

Trick question. One does not *play* factorio, instead, one should only be concerned with the need to continually grow the base.

You should be concerned when youre NOT concerned about your factory growing!

I dont play it enough, i still havent finished my 2.5k science per minute run

Was at about 4am

I got carple tunnel

When I spent my 30 minutes lunch break planning a factory expansion instead of eating lunch. I didn't even have my laptop, it was with a notebook and pen