Factorio

This is a really good game. Good game design in many aspects. But starting with any potential cons, there are some minor problems with not teaching players good habits. You can box yourself in a corner so to speak if you make mistakes early on. If you don't research military packs and make it a focus to push back biters and get the edge up on them, you could lose your save to them (albeit very easy to avoid this if you're paying attention.) If you don't plan ahead and limit your spaghetti and give yourself enough space to expand, you will spend dozens of hours rebuilding. The gameplay loop is fun, and unlocking robots helps with any rebuilding you may have to do, but I think it could respect your time a little better because this game is a huge time sink. That's ok for some but you should know what you're getting into, especially on your first playthrough. It took me about 70 hours to beat the game, but I could've done it under 50 had I not made mistakes early on. All that being said, the game is paced well, the hotkeys once you learn them feel great and efficient. The progression is satisfying but is very open ended and non-linear, meaning you will need to make your own plans/goals for each session you play to progress and stay motivated. However, this is nothing new for the genre, and I think the way that the research tree works specifically with the science packs is genius and provides more structure to your gameplay than other similar games. The tutorials are great and the in-game manual is perfect and has lots of gifs and explanations and even hands on tutorials when needed to make sure you learn something. Trains are TOUGH to learn though, even after beating the game I'm only 85% sure I understand them. Learning AE2 w/ Channels in modded minecraft is a piece of cake compared to learning train signals in this game. But everything you need to know about the game and how to play it is all available inside the actual game and I highly applaud the devs for that. Other minor nitpicks: I wish the production menu had some sort of note explaining how to view electricity production as it not being in the same place as everything else makes it a little unintuitive. Also wish that there were more hotkey hints in the train menus so that players know that they can, for example, press Ctrl to view train paths in order to diagnose pathing problems. To wrap everything up, if you're willing to commit to a 50-100 hour playthrough and lots of learning and possibly rebuilding sections of your base as you go then I highly recommend this game. Calculating ratios themselves can be tedious and kirk's calculator will help greatly with that, but whichever way you choose to play the game I'm sure you will find great enjoyment if you are a fan of factory/automation games and stick with it. 9.5/10.