Straight to it then, this is a good, if not great game in the tactics space. It is not a strategic game, which is what differentiates it from XCOM2 or Phoenix Point. What I mean by this is that the game is driven by story rather than choice, which will reduce it’s replay value a decent chunk. So in that way, it’s a whole lot closer to Mario + Rabbids, which is also great. Noting immediately that 100% hit chance exists here, and always works, no rounding errors. That is a crazy good feeling!

The game gives you a decent amount of control in combat, rewards aggressive play, and even more team dynamics. With the right roster, you can clear out a ton of enemies quickly. Overall difficulty is low compared to other games, so unless you’re playing on a higher difficulty, you won’t need to heal or replace roster. In fact, in most cases it’s cheaper to fire & hire a new person than to heal them (main roster aside).

Which brings me to general balance bits. Tactics games are about maximizing the math. Characters that can replenish their action points are deadly. Characters that can quickly move around are essential. Any character that struggles to use their action points is a hindrance. The good news here is that for almost every character, you can swap their weapon AND their class, so if you like the look, you have a ton of flexibility. The less good news is that a lot of the math is not explained, requiring experimentation to figure out. For example, at no time should you ever use a pistol.

Bonds are a prime example of this. Use characters in a mission, increase their relationship, and get the opportunity to add stat boosts to both. In nearly every case you’ll select +1 damage or +movement, as this continually adds to your power. It’s easy to see how you can end up with +20 damage on your main character as a result, and you can see some of those stats in one specific area in the main base. Not all of it though.

In terms of classes and characters, this is where things get spicy. Some classes just plain suck because the game drastically rewards damage-per-action-point. The heavy is meant to taunt and attract damage, but that’s a defensive move that is only of value against 1 target per mission. Medics are there to heal, not damage. There are many such cases. A repeater blaster uses all your action points, which is wildly inefficient! Pay attention to the skill descriptions.

Eventually you get to unlock a second class, and I would recommend you look at the passives (either ignore 4 defence or add 2 damage) as the first option, and maybe invest in move distance if you need it (assault).

In terms of the main roster:

• Hawks – You always have to use them, they can be any class. Their unique ability increases assist and defence, super useful at the start, much less at the end.
• Kabb. Their uppercut, if it executes and enemy, restores AP, but can’t be reused that turn. You can change their class.
• Trick. Auto-revives in combat, and at max level (21 points!) won’t require healing after battle. You can change their class. Trick as a character is amazing. As a combatant, ugh.
• Jae. Right, OP much here. They automatically execute, and 100% hit chance, a target below a certain HP, up to twice per round. Pretty much mandatory in every battle.
• Droid. This is all about utility, not about damage. I can think of no case where you would want to use this character, which is unfortunate.
• Tel-Rea. The only Jedi character, and with a completely unique kit. Extremely weak until you max their Padawan Training, and then they start to shine. Their second class is wildly strong. They do not shoot, they are a strong melee character and can push enemies from a distance… this means their boost from bonds are often less useful.
• Cly. A unique kit as well, though the wild thing here is Combat Jump. It’s dirt cheap to use, can cross half the map, knocks back enemies (often 1 shotting them into an open pit), and has an AE damage attack too. You can clear out fields of enemies with her. Her second class should be Gunslinger, trust me.
• Luco. Their unique is practically identical to a regular sniper skill, but feels worse as you lose the buff when you hit targets, and can’t re-apply it. You gain this character later in your playthrough.

If you recruit someone, you can customize their talent + class, so there’s a ton of flexibility here if you want it – making them arguably better than Trick and Luco right out of the gate. That said, Jae and Cly are so incredibly useful that it’s hard to not use them. Tel-Rea starts very weak, so you’re likely to avoid her, but I will say by her 2nd class unlock she is a damn monster – just remember to invest in movement speed.

Which brings me to the final early thought here and that it relates more to balance. Tactics games are notoriously hard to balance, impressively so when you think of all the possible combinations there are! XCOM2 was a buggy unbalanced mess at launch, we only really remember War of the Chosen being the real masterpiece. Pheonix Point took nearly 2 years of patching to get to a decent place. Zero Company starts off in a much, much better place than either of those but there are still some significant tuning pieces to go. There are a few bugs, sure, but nothing game breaking I’ve seen. But balance… there are some rather wild swings here if you’re not paying attention – like Coil Upgrades (resonance chains are death).

With that, my initial thoughts are very positive. The tactics portion works quite well. The story is a solid Star Wars romp. The art and characters are very well done. And you always want to take on another mission (or another turn), which is truly the right spot for praise.

This is an odd topic, so bear with me.

Logistic games function on the premise of making a factory grow. You generally start off hand mining some metal ore, and eventually build spaceships that shoot laser beams and ponies. There are steps to get from start to finish, and typically that comes through researching the next batch of things you can build. Conceptually, they all work the same way: construct a lot of basic things, put them in a kajigger, now you can make more complicated things.

The practical application differs between games though. Some games create intermediary products that are then processed, while others simply take the base items themselves. The former takes more planning as you need to build these products, especially if you need those intermediary products all the way to the end of the game. A key balancing piece is the ratio in that construction as well, some products are much more complicated than others. Some future research products need the first intermediary as well, creating exponential needs for products. Satisfactory has a system I personally don’t enjoy, as all research builds are temporary (best to put it in a box). Factorio and Dyson Sphere Program have a better system that scales to mega factories.

The next piece is the actual items that get unlocked, and their dependency. The worst case here is that you somehow research an item you can’t actually craft because you need to research something else first. Most games offset this risk by grouping unlocks, ensuring that if you unlock it, you have all the pieces available to craft it.

Factorio absolutely rocks this one, where if you unlock oil processing, you get everything you need to process oil. While I’m sure it’s possible, I have not ever found a situation where I unlocked a piece of research and was not in a situation to use it.

Satisfactory is middle ground of sorts, as the research packages unlock multiple items at once, and generally there are few of them. It’s generally well thought out so that you’ll only need to unlock one extra bit, reducing thumb twiddling time.

DSP is the worst case – you’ll have a dozen+ examples where you won’t have the dependency unlocked as typically you get one item per research. As a result, you get research paralysis, where you need to research a dozen items in order to get the actual product you want. Warpers a good example, where Particle Colliders are a pre-req. To build those, you need space structures, which are a completely different part of the tree with 4 extra steps of research. From yellow research to purple, the entire tree is filled with these cases, a balancing pass that hasn’t been done in years. This compounds if you have Dark Fog enabled, as the military buildings have their own dependencies. I get the design principle that each research step is unique and meaningful, but the fact remains that there are simply so many intermediary products and steps that it greatly diminishes the joy of meaningful progress.

The main issue with balancing the DSP tech tree is that you are limited in levers. If you group things together, you need to add the costs together, or you’ll just get them too fast. And let me tell you, when you get to green science, balancing research and productivity is not super simple. If you restructure the tree itself and build new (and proper) dependencies, you’ll end up with tiers, rather than a tree (closer to Satisfactory). If you truly wanted to balance it, you’d actually end up removing a ton of intermediary items, which means a near total re-balancing of all logistics, pretty much a new game at that point. And that’s without addressing the 6 super-not-obvious degree upgrades to even build a Dyson Sphere.

This is more a gripe about general game design than specific to DSP, and the concept of gradual reward for effort, while staying busy. I am fairly decent at logistics game, with a general eye for optimization. The ‘lulls’ in action felt here are more a result of smart early decisions by me, where instead of finding issues in hour 4, I solved them in minute 30. It’s a very weird balance where if you’re good at the game, there’s way less to do. If you’re so-so, then the time you’re spending fixing things is the time research ticks away. I’ll get into the reason why you can’t do much about this in a future post.

To sum, progress in these types of factory games is primarily gated through research. That system has it’s own balance of investment (resources & time) to feel meaningful. How you manage resources and time… well the factory must grow after all.

I’m giving a new playthrough with the experimental build of 2.1. There are things that work well, others are more frustrating. Quick thoughts…

• Mods: None work, which is less. I really miss having the Burn Stack mod which allows burning gas/fluids.
• Mod Toggles: You can disable quality, if you want. I opted not to, though didn’t invest in quality until I was heading to Aquilo
• Blueprints: 98% of them work as expected. 2% seems small, but there are issues you will need to troubleshoot. Chasing gremlins.
• Fluids: Measuring volume in pipes is great! Being able to flip Pumpjacks is also a very nice QoL bit, allowing much tighter builds.
• Landing Pads (extract directly from them): For regular builds, no real impact. For Aquilo, or massive SPM builds, this is a fairly significant change that speeds up a LOT of activities.
• Radar: Scanning the entire galaxy is possible now. I’ve yet to find a practical use for it, in fact, turning it on in my blueprints caused issues in reading too much stuff I didn’t actually have. What really sucks is that you can’t change a radar setting while on another planet (yet).
• Labs/Biolabs: You can set research based on available research packs, based on priority. Primarily useful for Gleba, as you waste time when that material isn’t available. It does help with Aquilo research later on. By the time you reach Prometheum, this doesn’t mean as much as you’re effectively always researching with every component.
• Rocket Logistics: The game will automatically distribute the amount of items based on weight to meet demand. So if you need like 2 collectors and 8 crushers, that will come in 1 rocket instead of 2 with a ton of excess. This is an absolutely massive QoL change for the mid-game… I figure it’s cut the distribution load in half, at least. Any ‘first landing’ logistics request is going to be super fast, and shipping stuff to Aquilo long-term becomes ridiculously efficient.
• Space Logistics: You can now request items from ANY planet or from another platform. Shipping from any planet rarely makes sense, as rarely are you producing an item at volume across all planets, so that’s actually caused way more issues. Shipping between platforms, that has extremely niche use cases – like having a space platform above Aquilo making extra rockets for another transport ship. There are many odd behaviours here though.
• Visual Uplifts: I do like this. Assembler and Rocket Silos look a whole lot better.

Space Casinos

Bye Bye Space Casinos. Important to note that a major piece of Space Age is that all materials are either infinite in harvesting, or infinite through alternative means, your challenge is in the design to get infinite output. Space Casinos leverage the infinite material nature of asteroids, along with quality modules that result in legendary base material (iron ore, coal, or calcite).

So let’s math this out a bit.

• Asteroid Reprocessing has an 80% output chance, with 2 mod slots (12.2% chance). Rough math, 9.76% chance per event to move up a piece. When you get a legendary asteroid, you can then process it for up to 300% output. At legendary levels, this thing spits out material.
• Recyclers have a 25% output chance and you can add 4 modules to these (24.8% chance). Rough math is 6.2% output from harvest to end. Same end result of 300% productivity. The net effect is 50% as efficient as crushers, per step. This part is important!

The good news is that recyclers are significantly faster than crushers, so you should need much less of them (rough math is less than 10% of the previous crushers), which is good as each recycler takes 100% more quality modules to work. The footprint is tiny.

This means that existing Space Casinos can be repurposed using recyclers instead of crushers, needing only a fraction of the modules to function. New Space Casinos can theoretically be built with a much smaller footprint – the tradeoff being less collectors and less input of asteroids… so it may end up being a horizontal line as a result.

I’ve built a few processing plants for legendary material. The math here per step is substantial. To get to legendary material, on average, you need to run through 4 upgrades (uncommon, rare, epic, legendary). With each step being 50% less efficient, that 0.5^4 which ends up being around 3% of the prior model. I ran a test, with legendary modules (25% total per recycle) between Gleba and Vulcanus four times. Zero legendary. In fact, it took 10 trips to get 1 legendary item. So this model doesn’t work anywhere close to prior.

I also tried to pre-process the items in crushers and then recycle, for higher volumes. Legendary productivity modules means you need 3 recyclers for 2 crushers (yay!), and you need stack inserters too, or the belts stop working. Reprocessing asteroids is an option if you’re overweight on any given type.

And to clarify, you don’t need more crushers, you can see that even just having 6 is enough to saturate a belt. I guess you could build another first recycling line, but the results remain very similar. The output is simply atrocious. Maybe 2 legendary items per run.

So seems pretty clear. The previous space casino model is broken. Getting iron, calcite and coal… the volumes are cut tremendously. Iron has other options. Coal and Calcite, you may just need to manage expectations for a bit and run multiple versions of these space harvesters. More investigation required!

This is more of an expansion pack than a DLC, surreal amount of content here and strongly recommended if you have the base game.

Dave the Diver has a solid gameplay loop. Dive, find fish (or fish like), farm, run a sushi restaurant, and embark on a zany quest with bosses. I spent many an hour exploring the depths. In the Jungle takes that model and then goes ‘watch me’.

The core loop of diving + restaurant still exists. You still have weapons (though the interface is much improved). But now you play in semi-real time, need to manage friendships, collect and battle bugs (ala pokemon), explore with a turn-based RPG, actual fishing (!), Duck Hunt, and decorate a tiny shack. The whole game takes place in a different area, so aside from your diving gear items, nothing else transfers here. There’s a solid 10 hours of extra content though, which puts this in expansion territory.

The new stuff:

• Friendships: You need to feed them certain meals or give certain gifts. They end up coming to the restaurant and at max friendship, give you some rather useful item. I like that there are more than 6 characters this time, makes the world seem much more alive.
• Bug Battles: Rock / Paper / Scissors with a stupid amount of RNG. This is the only part of the game that is not fun as the random is too random for my tastes.
• RPG: This is very weird. Super Mario RPG like actually. I mean it sort of works, but it has no real long-term value.
• Fishing: Basic enough and provides some fish you can’t get elsewhere. About time I say! (Also, don’t bother upgrading your rod, trust me).
• Duck Hunt: Pretty much exactly what you think it is. Gives bird meat, which is a mid-tier ingredient.
• Decoration: No in-game value other than looking neat.

The old (but improved) stuff:

• Diving: You still have the RNG of the map but the fish themselves are always present. You want a caiman, it’s going to be top right 100% of the time.
• Gear: You start with a purifier for the dirty water and the minute you upgrade it, you no longer need it. If you’ve maxed it all in the base game, then this seems very strange.
• Weapons: Ahh, this is so much better. You get access to all 4 weapon types from the start now, at the same time! Upgrading them is the same structure as before. The large area wave gun is life, prioritize that if you can!
• Restaurant: Some minor tweaks here and there. You need to shoo monkeys away from time to time, making one of 2 servers mandatory. Cooking skewers has replaced the Wasabi mini-game where you are needed. Recipe ingredients are harder to come by as dispatching gives less and there’s no real farm this time. From a practical perspective this only means upgrading recipes takes a lot longer.

The way some systems are presented, this seems like the foundation for more content. The ‘bones’ here are generally improved from the base game, so I’d certainly welcome it. Give it a shot!

I like puzzle games, particular those focused on deduction. Return of the Obra Dinn remains top of list for me. A recent addition to the genre is The Incident at Galley House, which is a remake of a text only gamed called Type Help.

The challenge with describing any of these games is that the plot and the mechanisms to uncover the plot are so intertwined that they can’t really be talked about without spoiling the other. Going in blind is all but required to fully appreciate the art. In that respect, I’ll try to avoid as much as I can.

The GODOT engine can do a lot of things, and puzzle games is one that it really does well. Voice acting, interactive buttons, simple animations. Puzzles are about how your brain perceives data, so generally less is more from a visual aid perspective. Well… more is more I suppose as if the effort was made to visually present something, there’s a reason for it. That is certainly the case here, as the presentation is extremely well done.

The game starts off simple enough, you’re sent to investigate a slew of deaths at Galley House and through various presentations of key data, you piece together a timeline of characters, locations, and events. A few times I thought I was playing ‘And Then There Were None’, as it feels as though the characters all have something to hide, yet have a common thread. The act of discovering a name, or an avatar to show the character is as much fun as figuring out how they all interact within the timeline.

This timeline acts as a branching spiderweb of sorts, and some are hubs connecting to a half dozen threads, while others are simply dead ends. The good news is that you don’t have to discover all the threads, just piece enough of them together to get the major beats from start to finish. My obsessive part wanted to find all the bits though, and there are handy indicators when a thread is left to be found. In fact, the UI itself is a really an amazing tool as compared to the text only version. The visual aids are a tremendous help when you’re trying to keep track of key bits of data – it even comes with a search feature! I wouldn’t consider it difficult in any way, and if you do get stuck on any bit there’s a free hint system too.

By the time I closed the book on the mysteries of Galley House, I was somewhat amazed at how the story itself was constructed. All the logical breaks actually made sense, and seeming dead ends turned into new roads. Time, memory, and perspective are all key pieces of any puzzle, and they are wonderfully done here. It’s good to have closure.

Also worth noting, it plays great on the Steam Deck. Strong recommendation!

Do I need to explain this game? It’s from 1999, so I guess there are folks that don’t recall it. I picked it up again on a Steam Sale, like less than $10 type of deal. Nostalgia I guess.

It’s a sort of Chrono Trigger in 3D, a spiritual successor with next to no thought on the lore conflicts between both games. In order to collect all the possible characters, you need a minimum of 3 playthroughs. The difficulty level isn’t really there (aside from 2 specific fights), making it a rather weird game in the SQUENIX repertoire of JRPGs.

There are 40 characters to start, which is an absurd number with very little meaningful purpose. Feels like every NPC with more than 2 lines becomes someone you can recruit. Each character’s set of abilities is determined by their elemental grid. Some have a lot of low level slots, some more near the end. You can more as you level, which is realistically only occurring when you defeat bosses… so no point in grinding for levels! Combat is a mix of melee + magic. The first playthrough favors magic, in fact the ‘perfect’ ending requires it. Eventually you become so strong that a small knife attack is enough (the final boss is balanced for level 48, you can max at 99). This could have been a rock/paper/scissors type of system, but it lacks the mechanical depth to do so. I mean, how could you with 40 characters and find any semblance of balance, right?

The story is convoluted and hard to follow, especially with the final twists and turns. In fact, I’d argue you are better off not having played Chrono Trigger to make sense of it all as there are too many conflicting plot items as a result. Time traveling, fate, destiny, and warring reptiles all play a big part. There are some interesting, though short, side quests throughout. That part is actually a lot of fun to run through! The thing about RPGs is that the plot needs to have some sense… but this feels more like ideas were thrown on the wall without any thought. Which is a real shame.

The good here, is that it plays really well on the Steam Deck and is bite-sized enough to playthrough in small sittings. My 3rd replay was maybe 20% of the time of the first one, just because I knew what I was doing and there was no real combat challenge.

The less good is that the plot makes little sense, the meaningful moments are hidden in a diluted cast, and that we’re unlikely to ever see a Chrono Trigger 3.

Rose-colored glasses were certainly part of the purchasing decision. I have spent more on a bad coffee, so no real complaints here. In fact, it’s a great marker in the SQUENIX journey of RPGs. This experimental game worked in some areas, didn’t in others, and the next game out learned a ton of lessons.

This will seem like a weird comparison, but functionally it’s the 2 big hitters in the ARPG space. The deeper I get into PoE2 the more dramatic the differences between Diablo 4.

The design concepts are really the big deal here, in the macro and micro space.

• Importantly, Diablo 4 has an overworld that is interspersed with timed events (Helltides), PoE2 doesn’t have anything like that as everything is instanced. Helltides are about the closest thing D4 has to PoE2 in construct, which is wild when you think about it.
• Diablo 4 has its end game activities wrapped up in War Plans, a meta progression that covers all end-game activities
  • Tree of Whispers: Meta achievements for loot boxes
  • Dungeons: A large pool of maps with bosses
  • Lair Bosses: Harder enemies with targeted loot
  • Infernal Hordes: Wave based single arenas
  • Undercity: Time-based dungeons with the ability to target types of loot
  • The Pit: Time-based dungeons meant to progress skill gems
• PoE2 has the end-game wrapped up in maps, which are procedurally generated and have one or more of the following events within:
  • Towers: A massive meta progression tree that modifies all other map conditions for better loot and harder difficulty
  • Breach: An expanding circle of enemy spawns that also gives currency for crafting rings/amulets
  • Rituals: Small arena-based events that give access to crating materials + uniques
  • Delirium: Map-based timed runs that increase difficulty over the run and duplicate bosses
  • Vaal: From the last league, a rogue-like dungeon creator.
  • Abyss: Chained enemy spawns that provide piles of loot and access to a cavern with more loot
  • Expeditions: Use explosives to uncover loot boxes or rune events
  • Exiles: Player-like enemies with loot drops based on their class
  • Summoning Circles: Summon bosses
  • Strongboxes: Kill enemies to open a chest
  • Runes: Wave-based events that provide runes + crafting mats
  • Summons: Unfreeze enemy groups.
  • Wisps: Follow them around and they will eventually upgrade an enemy to a harder version
  • Trials: Small rogue-like events that add difficulty markers during progression. Die and restart if you have the rare currency to do so. (Concepts are sound, but the execution is atrocious. These are worse than Infernal Hordes in nearly every conceivable way.)

Diablo 4 has a mechanic where each specific event cannot overlap with another. It is not possible to have Lair Bosses show up in the Pit, for example. If you want to do an activity, you are only doing that activity. This is why Helltides are my favorite content as the random events add some variety. Dungeons are not fun as they all play near identical – rush to the end and kill the boss. Infernal Hordes are likely the worst as they are time-based and unless the RNG gods are on your side, provide next to no loot.

PoE2 is way different. Every map contains 1 or more of any given event. Sometimes all of them (except trials). The meta progression changes some of the mechanics so that they can overlap in even more interesting ways. I’ve had multiple maps where I had bosses on the map, with a pair of Exiles, tripped a Breach and had an Abyss fight at the same time. There’s something to be said about the pure chaos of having 5+ mechanics all going at the same time, surviving it, and then being showered, absolutely showered, with loot drops. And that’s just a random map! The planned events alter some component of the map for pinnacle bosses (think ultra hard bosses). Rituals are something else, where you progress through 5 maps and the boss of each map follows you to the next one. The last boss fight has you fighting at least 5 versions.

It’s like the difference between going to Dairy Queen and then going to a real Ice Cream bar. DQ gives you a limited set of pretty decent options. Hard to get confused there. An Ice Cream bar has hundreds of permutations and options for you, and no two orders are the same.

The net effect is that every PoE2 map has something different to offer, and that something is going to reward you in some fashion. This design principle for end-game activity is focused on always providing more things to do rather than limiting your choice. The main challenge (and 0.5 does a great job of addressing this) is that having too much is about as appealing as having none. You need some guardrails of sorts to get kick started, learn the systems, and then choose to tailor what you want from it.

Which is going to be the last meaningful patch for Factorio, ending a 10 year dev cycle. And well, hundreds of thousands of engineer (player) hours. 2.1 is going to bring a lot of QoL bits but no actual content… fine, there are seemingly infinite mods for that!

Most of the design concepts of Vanilla were thrown out with Space Age, as production chains dramatically changed and ‘free’ material was the new foundation. No longer did you need to mine iron patches, you simply used free molten lava and had infinite amounts. The mechanical transport mechanisms of vanilla were sort of cut and pasted to the space versions, specifically relating to rockets.

Trains used to be required on Nauvis, not a little required, like a LOT required. They generally operated on a single concept of maximum efficiency of moving 1 type of material from one place to another. Need another type of material? Build another train. The investment cost of trains is exceptionally low, and they are mostly sunk costs. The ‘challenge’ with trains was making sure that railways didn’t conflict. Blueprints solved this.

Rockets in Space Age are treated as disposable, and somewhat expensive, trains. You load them up, shoot them up, and move on. The ‘challenge’ here is on the actual platforms and landing pads, a give an take of requests and availability. If you need 15 of something, the rocket will generally only send you a full stack of 100. If you don’t have a stack of 100, you won’t get any items. You can certainly manually change this, but it’s painful. And in the early stages of Space Age, this is very costly. Even late game, the method of delivery of parts means that you can only effectively build platforms around Nauvis, as all other planets will have asteroids attacking you and no real way to defend them.

2.1 is going to modify the logic on the pile of this. Rockets will be able to ship partial stacks, based on requests. You’ll be able to ship between platforms. You’ll be able to apply better logic on requests so that you can pick up a material from any planet, rather than just one. Very useful QoL bits here and will certainly smooth out some rough spots. For those struggling to ‘kick start’ Space Age, this is a welcome change.

Of all the items, I have only seen one mechanical item of note. What 2.1 is also bringing is the death of space casinos but for some reason keeping the LDS shuffle. Space Casinos are space platforms that upcycle material to legendary, notably iron and coal using rarity mods. In 2.1 rarity mods will be removed from space platforms. This is odd since casinos are actually a pain to build, while the LDS shuffle remains (recycling legendary low-density structures give MORE material than you invested, meaning free LDS, copper, and steel.) It is entirely possible to get legendary iron and coal from other means, though admittedly scaling those is it’s own challenge. To me though, this doesn’t address the core issue – that legendary items exist in the first place. I like the benefits legendary items provide, it’s just the mechanisms to get them that are broken and burdensome. But hey, there are mods that just permanently unlock legendary once researched, and I would think that is the likely end-scenario here.

Given 2.1 is just around the corner, and marking the end of an era, it’s bittersweet to see it come to a close. Factorio isn’t just a great game, it’s honestly a gold standard for the genre where there are dozens and dozens of imitators. What was achieved with an insanely small team of absolutely dedicated developers is beyond impressive. Now for the modding community to figure out what’s next…

It’s been nearly a year since patch 1.1, which was mostly QoL stuff as a result of the massive 1.0 launch. Well, 1.2 is here and there are a few notable changes.

• Rain is back, which was removed to do occlusion issues (it rained indoors).
• Additional game mode where you can set the resource costs and node richness values. This is a sort of middle ground to ‘build for free’ mode. Tweaking power consumption is a nice option.
  • Related, Space Elevator costs can be tweaked if you want to turn on ‘hard mode’
• Vehicle pathing and reworks. This is more like trains now. I’ve always thought the concept of vehicles was good, but the execution was really quite random. Trains are almost always a better option, and at the end game, drones run the show.
• Trucks can now transport fluids. This is good for mid-game options, where for some reason you don’t want trains.
• Daisy Chaining for power connections between buildings. Never really had an issue with this outside of the start of the game, but certainly a ‘cleaner’ view of power poles.
• Pipeline T-Junctions. This one is weird. Fluid dynamics in Satisfactory are physics-based, which really shows up when you make aluminum. Should make for cleaner pipes… should.
• The recipe list also now shows alternative recipes prior to you unlocking them. I really like alternative recipes, as much for efficiency as flexibility. This QoL thing effectively removes the need to alt-tab to a wiki.

In total, the majority of this is also in the QoL space, though vehicles are the bigger piece. Which brings to topic the choice of when to use which vehicle. First, the list:

• Belts & Pipes
  • Belts go from 60 to 1200 items per minute and can span the entire map. These generally make for ugly maps if you rips belts everywhere, but for short distances they absolutely rock.
  • Pipes are 300 or 700 per minute. Liquid piping usually isn’t too bad and due to transport issues, often better than all other options. Gas piping… this actually impacts your factory locations. Very rare to ship liquid in mass quantities for long distances.
• Terrain Vehicle
  • Truck – Unlocked at tier 3. Uses for medium deliveries (25). Uses fuel. Needs a dedicated path.
  • Tractor – Unlocked at tier 5. Used for larger deliveries (48). Uses fuel. Needs a dedicated path.
• Rails
  • Trains. Unlocked at tier 6. Used for long distances and very large deliveries (32 per car). Uses electricity. Needs a rail.
• Air
  • Drones. Unlocked at tier 7. Uses for very large distances and smaller deliveries (9). Can only deliver material, not liquid. Uses fuel. Auto-maps.

The tiers do matter. Tier 3 is Phase 1 of the elevator. Tier 5+6 are Phase 2. Tier 7 is Phase 3. This generally means that Tractors are somewhat irrelevant as Trains are way more effective and unlocked at the same time.

Picking the appropriate delivery model is primarily a math exercise… how many items do you need per minute? You would be surprised at how few items you actually do need near the end game and how many items you need for raw materials. Time to delivery is total (volume per trip * # of trips per minute). The distance and pathing matters. Small trips with Trucks are going to be faster than trains, and way faster than drones. Medium trips for trains work well enough. Long trips, trains and drones are king. Something like 200 items or less per minute across medium/long distances, drones are amazing.

I tend to apply a rule of thumb here. If I can see it, I will belt/pipe it. If I can’t see it, and I only need a few, then I will drop a drone. If I can’t see it and I need a lot, then I’ll add some cars to a rail. Trucks are used for a very niche set of work on micro-factories, which are primarily Sulfur or Carbon related as those recipes aren’t used all that much and the nodes are in weird spaces.

Which gets back to 1.2 and vehicle changes. These are good changes, yet apply to a niche deployment. They don’t move fast enough or transport enough to make them viable alternatives to trains. This patch has a lot of work in it, no question there, but the net effect for a playthrough isn’t actually impactful.

This is certainly different.

There’s an inherent challenge in any long-running series (21 years now since the first God of War) that has wholly been defined by a single character. A character that has been generally consistently portrayed too! Think about it – what other gaming series is so defined by one person? Halo maybe? None of the Nintendo games fit the bill, the characters have all gone through a ton of iterations.

I like the God of War series, but I also know what I’m getting. I am getting a fish our of water experience, with a brute as a protagonist, and some absolutely jaw dropping battles along the way. Kratos is God of War and God of War is Kratos.

That said, I am interested in Laufey as a character. Anyone who can ‘tame the beast’ and act as a peer is certainly full of mystery and potential. The question of how has some value here, but the real story question is why. The beauty of art is that the why is often the one question that isn’t fully answered, and requires the audience to fill in the blank. You embody the art and come up with your own reasons, making the experience unique to yourself as it would be to others.

Which makes the announcement of God of War Laufey all the more confusing. I like the mystery of Laufey. I think that character is best developed in drips rather than gulps, at least in the context of God of War. If this was an act within a larger storyline, like a flashback, then I can see how this would integrate well. Enough little additions to the context without fully pulling back the curtain.

This same argument applies to Atreus, Mimir, and Odin by the way. They are context to the larger storyline, they are not distinct storylines in and of themselves.

Counterpoint here is that the systems the Norse-series God of War have brought certainly have the flexibility to tell another storyline. The game engine and narrative structures can certainly be transposed to something else. That system is portable. The bridge to the next story has a generally logical one, and that is Laufey. In that I mean, if you were to pick any NPC, across the last 20 years, the one most worth exploring is her.

Sum, this is an odd gamble. The floor to entry is relatively low given the systems already exist. It also existed with Ragnarok, but that ended up costing twice as much as the first one. Not sure the market is going to give a return that justifies that type of investment. It’s an interesting pitch, and all interesting pitches come with a ton of attention and opinions. This certainly is one. The net effect is that people are talking about it though, which is generally a good thing.

The only true downside I see here, given current decisions, is that I’ll never have a chance to play it as I have no intention of buying a PlayStation console and Sony has stopped all efforts to port to PC. Likely won’t stop the dev and this will likely still sell like fire. I sure hope so, first-party games here have generally been amazing.