جائزے

• gamedeal user

  Nov 22, 2019

  Lots of negative reviews with barely any time played, so let me say from a position of somebody who gave it a solid try before reviewing: I wish steam reviews had a possibility to give a mixed recommendation, but since it doesn't the review must fall on the negative side. I *hope* there is more content planned for this or some kind of dramatic rework, I'd love to change my review score sometime in the future. But for now after 13 hours I have already exhausted the content when I completed the tech tree on the first map. The reason why I say this is that, unlike Factorio, there's actually very little optimisation in this game. You figure out the ratios and then you get to a point where you have a "perfect" build, then you keep replicating it until you get to the tonnage required to win the mission. It seems like the game has a lot of resources for you to offer, but ultimately you will end up using the same build to process all of them because game mechanics are solved actually really quickly. Once you build your first two combiners between two large containers you realise that is the optimal design and there is nothing more to it. No resources ever need more than 2 ingredients anyway so it boils down to balancing ratios, but that too is solved easily. Technically your limiting factor should be money, but once I started exporting gold fuel on trains I was making cash hand over fist and didn't really care about income any more. When you nail down the most "correct" factory set up, you are done, the rest of the game is spent rebuilding the same build over and over again and running mine cart tracks across the whole map. Lack of easy design replication (like in Factorio with bots + blueprints) adds tediousness on top of the boredom. As you unlock the tech tree, you're given clearly superior "options" that you will want to upgrade to straight away: drones are completely pointless once you balance your production and unlock claw loaders for trucks for example, and the only reason to continue using trucks later on into the game is to avoid the strange restriction placed on truck/train entrances where they must be next to each other, otherwise trains are superior in literally every way as a way of exporting your goods. There are a lot of complaints about the lack of a tutorial, but I think the devs made a decision not to include one because the process of learning by trial and error makes the game seem like it offers more than it actually does. This game looks more like an early access proof of concept that will be fleshed out over a number of years, except... it's not early access as the devs keep insisting. The price in UK pounds is £21.41 (during the limited time post-release promotion, which is something that gets AAA studios named and shamed these days, just saying), way too much for the current amount of content that's available in the game. I'm not going to try to refund, but I'm not going to play this game either because there's nothing more to do in it after 13 hours. I guess I will go back to Factorio where it took me 60 hours to launch my first rocket, and then another 600 more playing both modded and unmodded, optimising builds by reducing the space that they take, carefully weighing benefits and drawbacks of all the design possibilities it offers, playing with circuits and digital automation... I could go on. Buy only if you trust the devs will expand this game.
• gamedeal user

  Nov 23, 2019

  [h1]Automation Empire - a very mixed experience...[/h1] This is a 'quite like' review, with a few buts.... What attracted me to this game (and what I DO like about it) is the quality of its graphics. After a pixelish Factorio, I was pretty excited to see another game but using 3D assets. The game looks great, and it IS fun. I just don't know whether it really has the longevity of similar games (Factorio, Factory Town etc). This game's main obstacle is the existence of Factorio, and I think the devs knew this because they DID emphasise quite openly that this game would not have the depth and scale of that game. With these nice graphics, I'm not sure it would even be possible. This game is more a Factorio-LITE. The tech tree is quite shallow and there are only 3-4 levels of equipment you can unlock, limiting the scope of the game considerably and it won't take you all that long to unlock everything there is. Chances of any further content have really slipped away because it appears the devs abandoned the title back in 2020. Camera movement badly needs a way to drag the screen around more quickly (waiting for slow edge-screen panning is frustrating). A map would solve it (clicking on a map to choose that position). Drones aren't coded well at all. Each truck can carry 6 crates. Now you could have 30 trucks waiting for crates, but all 100 of your drones queue for one crate and all try to take it to one truck (the drones should be coded so only 6 aim towards each truck). They could use some zoning control too. Adding drones to a busy delivery point is of no use if they all fly off to another part of your factory. The cost of power (as mentioned by many) becomes too steep too quickly, leading to your factory plummeting into the red without you being able to rescue it. The game does need a difficulty measure, but this power taxation is brutally high. Ideally, there should be a sandbox mode to let people create freely. In and out tunnels have to be built within the vicinity of each other, into a cliff. This causes problems in trying to expand your delivery zones to elsewhere on the map. This seems to be a needlessly frustrating limitation and the in-and-out tunnels would have been better like the surface to below surface tunnels in Surviving Mars. Lastly, there is NO tutorial. This would be okay if there was a little more logic and consistency applied about how things work together. Transfer pipes cannot connect to each other, conveyor belts can't be built through an open door, and moving goods raw or in crates causes logistical headaches. Factorio left most of the game to the player to figure out too, but everything was much more logical in that game. It has taken me the best part of a day to figure out a small part of the game. Now that I have, I'm beginning to enjoy it for what it is. [h1]Summary[/h1] This is no Factorio and it is important to play this game for what it offers rather than how it compares to other games, otherwise you will likely be hitting the refund button very quickly! There are frustrations aplenty and the game could definitely use more content, but what is there offers a lot of promise and I'm enjoying it as a casual game more than anything, hence the tentative recommend. [b]EDIT:[/b] since I first wrote this review, much better contenders have surpassed this game including the exceptional Dyson Sphere Program. If this ever appears on discount and you're a bit of a factory-game addict like me, then still worth it for a bit of factory-lite gameplay, but otherwise, it looks like it's pretty much become abandonware. A missed opportunity sadly.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 1, 2019

  [b] I played two maps so that you don't have to...[/b] TL: DR The game looks good and has potential, but where is the replayability? If you've played one map, you've basically seen all the game has to offer. I gave some comments earlier on how I thought this game could be improved. No doubt the game looks great, and all those mine trucks, conveyors, and claw tracks whizzing about have an almost mesmerising effect at times. Unlike many commentators, I found the tax system a sound mechanic for game balance. In any case, it has now both been made easier, and there is also the option of switching it off altogether. I did however express concerns about replayability. On reflection, I felt this might be unfair to the developers, since I had actually finished only one map. I therefore played another. With 100 hours on the clock overall, I believe I am now qualified to give an informed opinion. The developers describe Ice Edge as a 'difficult' map. It is true that it presents an initial challenge in that the mine sites are locked away on an ice field, separated by water from the initial base. (For some mysterious reason, roads and train tracks can't cross water). There is a better area nearer the mine sites but it would be difficult to set up there with your starting cash. The obvious remedy is to build up some cash and relocate, which is what I did. The next step was to research combiners and trains, to get rid of those accursed claw tracks. While I did so I was trying to puzzle out where the next challenge was. In fact there wasn't one. There were some cliffs cunningly placed just outside the playable area, but surely that couldn't be 'it''? I finished the main objective in June of Year 11 with 11M in cash. I never had to make any upgraded products but steel plates the whole game, except for research which mainly turned out to be irrelevant. After the initial move, I never had to change my feeder tracks, except to add length and storage. I researched water towers, but never had to build one. I didn't even have to upgrade my trains to reach the target: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1925418870 The truth is that Automation Empire is not about efficiency. It's about planned inefficiency. It's not about profits and tax. It's about making as little profit as possible until it can't be avoided. It's about amassing huge inventories and then splurging them to reach the target. Most importantly, Automation Empire is a very, very narrow game. There is a way to build coal and iron factories that is good enough. There is a way to build a steel plate factory that is good enough, and the same design works for every other kind of factory, too. Once you know the method, it's just a matter of duplication and variation of input as required. I have seen complaints about the lack of a tutorial. If there was a tutorial, it would be even more obvious how little content the game has. The developers have announced that they are considering mod support and additional content. Well, the idea of the game has potential for sure, and it looks good, so adding some actual content would be a very sensible step. It's just a pity it wasn't done before release. Though I've never given a negative review before, I'm going to give Automation Empire a thumbs down, at least for the moment. But add a 'follow' for it. Who knows, by this time next year, it might be very good.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 17, 2020

  Abandoned by the developer, don't buy it, it's not a finished game in any shape or form.
• gamedeal user

  Jan 31, 2021

  I wanted to like this game, I really did. I put in a bunch of time so I could experience all versions and content of the game. Here is some of what I noticed: 1: There is no need to progress beyond steel plates and gold, you can win every map by using only those 2 material exports. 2: Every map is absolutely 100% identical when it comes to resources. They all have the same amount of iron, coal, gold and oil nodes. 3: Late game means severe and I do mean severe lag. 1 frame/2 seconds is not out of the ordinary on a game load. 4: loading in a saved game on a huge factory means you will have to wait for 10 to 15 minutes before you can play as all the trains fall from the sky to take up their place on the tracks. 5: cart size/unloader spacing is off. You can not unload 2 carts at the same time. Having 2 unloaders for the same train for the same factory is pointless. They should have a "skip" feature for the unloaders, so that several carts can line up at once and unload 2 or 3 at a time. 6: No key mapping feature, no way to check key bindings. 7: In game options are ridiculous. Sound and music volume is all you get. 8: Game appears to have a bad memory leak in it as the amount of system memory the game uses grows over time to the point it starts trying to use VRAM and slows to a crawl. Reloading the game will fix this lag, but again, late game loads, lag beyond belief when you load a game. 9: The restrictions on building buildings is just lame. All entrances and exits have to be build together, all research buildings have to be in close proximity. What this serves is beyond me, it's a mechanic that just takes away from the gameplay. 10 : Trains can only load one at a time, they too need a skip function so that more than one may be loaded at a time. 11: Robot AI is laughable at best. they will easily cause traffic jams and slow down your shipping lines. Not a big deal, just kind of breaks the whole :automation: thing. 12: Game has glitches that show up at random times, putting down certain buildings in an unpowered factory can and will cause micro freezes that last 1 to 2 seconds. Can be easily avoided by powering the factory first. 13: This is a VERY repetitive game. What works on one map will work on EVERY map, the only thing that needs to be changed are the entrances and exits for the shipping points. I have defeated 10 maps and never gone past steel plate/gold shipping. 14: You can NOT daisy-chain pipes. Pipes will NOT connect to one another, which makes transferring products by pipe exceedingly stupid. Pipe, tank, pipe, tank... etc etc etc. Then you get to the end and discover you are one "block" off lining up with your intended target and you have to go and rip out pipes and try to slip in other tanks to match up the pipes. Just allow folks to connect pipes to pipes. Maybe add in the necessity for a pumping station after 6 blocks. (2 large pipes) 15: Game feels very lacklustre. It starts out fine, is quite enjoyable for what it is, but it leaves you feeling like you just played an app for a smart phone. It feels unfinished and incomplete. 16: Updates are now very rare for a game that is this unstable. Jan 2020 to Nov 2020 for a patch that adds only one new content item is just unacceptable. The lag is still there, the bugs, the glitches and late game lag still persist and have not been addressed. It's like they have given up on trying to fix something they do not know how to fix, or maybe couldn't be bothered to fix. Possibly, as I stated before, it may be the Unity engine at the source of their issues. Now before you go and start blabbing about a lousy system, I play on an Intel I7 8700K, windows 10, 32 GB pc-3200 system ram, 64 GB intel optane disk accelerator, 500 GB SSD, 2 TB data drive, 4 TB secondary Data drive, Twin Nvidia RTX2070 Supers, latest drivers for all sound/video as of Jan 31/2021. This system hauls ass on most games, but over time, AE will drag it to it's knees and it shouldn't. I honestly think that it has something to do with the Unity Engine, as there are other unity games out there that also start good and lag like a mofo the longer you play. (7DTD for ex) I love games like this, factorio, minecraft with IC2 and buildcraft, 7DTD etc etc. But for the price they charge, any one of those other options offer a ton more content for the same price. Would I refund it? Naw, it is what it is, a chopped down memory pig version of factorio, with less content and no optimization. It is still fun if you don't mind the limitations, bugs, or glitches. It is actually quite addicting for what it is. But it is a game you will play in spurts as it gets boring very fast, which will cause a person to lose interest and go play something else. Removing the building limitations would be a huge plus to the game play. Adding interesting power generation such as coal based, oil based, solar based or geothermal could take this game to a whole new level. making unloaders have a skip feature so more than one car can unload at a time, would be a huge asset. Making it so you could load more than one car on a train at a time would be a massive boost to game play ability. The mechanics are already there in the game, they just need to be implemented. Oh, and optimization. There needs to be some serious optimization done to this game, ESPECIALLY on game loads. having to wait for 10 to 15 minutes for the mine carts to float down from the sky to land on their tracks is a REAL PITA. The lag that develops over time needs to be looked into and fixed. The various game bugs, micro freezes, glitches need to be addressed and fixed. As it sits, in the condition the game is at present, I can not in good conscience recommend this title. I wish I could, but it's too much money for the content that is given. It's like buying a Cadillac, (looks good on the outside) Only to discover that someone gutted the engine bay and put in a 4 banger out of a '82 Chevette. It still runs and moves, but pops, farts, spits out oil, rattles, groans and creaks. It's a lot less than what you expect (or a little more if you're into a fixer upper)
• gamedeal user

  May 27, 2020

  [h1]It's Early Access[/h1] Factorio went into early access 4 years ago and has been refining its user interface and content ever since. This "1.0 finished product" released as a full game as soon as there was [i]anything[/i] playable. The most basic usability functions are missing. [list] [*]Want to move or resize a factory? Well f*ck you, tear it down and build it again. [*]Want to delete more than one object at a time? Well f*ck you, I hope you like clicking your mouse 10000 times to delete a rail system. [*]Want to create blueprints for a perfect layout? Well f*ck you, copy it manually piece by piece. [*]Want to connect things with pipes of variable length? Well f*ck you, here are 2 pipes for you to choose from and [b]NO[/b] you can't connect them to each other because f*ck you! [*]Want to run more than one train on a track? Well... ok... I guess we can do... just kidding, f*ck you build an entire rail system for each train! [/list] I was really hoping for a 3D top-down Factorio, but this is an early access V0.2 Factorio that should nehehever been released as a full game.
• gamedeal user

  Jan 13, 2020

  Bought the game and played one complete world. Basically was fun to start but once you have finished one world there is absolutely no reason to start another one. The issue is that once you really get into the game and have researched all of it and you feel like the fun to start, the game is actually over. Each world is exactly the same gameplay with slight changes, no real challenge. The game feels like it is not finished and a bit too easy, completely unbalanced currently. I will have a look at it again maybe once it is being upgraded.
• gamedeal user

  May 14, 2021

  This game has been abandoned for almost a year, after a few months of the release! DO NOT BUY IT!! The developers stole our money and ran off. There Twitter and YouTube page have been dead since the release of this game. What does that tell you?
• gamedeal user

  May 6, 2020

  This is a good puzzle game. Nice graphics, simple mechanics. All the things you see in the videos, you will figure out make stuff like that. There is no tutorial, just a few starter structures and a list of simple tips. That is a feature, not a bug. I think some people just don't get the point of this type of game. It does not tell you how to do things efficiently, or the best or right way to do anything. The point of the game is to figure all that out by trying different things. The game is designed to be forgiving. You do not "lose" if you do the wrong thing. You can build structures that don't work, and get 100% of your money back if you scrap the structure. You can practically start the entire game over at any point by just destroying some or all your structures, and you get your money back. The UI is reasonably intuitive, I started playing the game easily without any videos or anything. Some people say "you'll need to watch videos to learn the game" - I don't agree, and in fact would recommend you don't watch those types of videos, they just take away the fun of figuring things out. If you enjoy experimenting with things like laying out conveyors and claw trains in different ways to see what is most efficient, then this game will appeal to you. If you want to google the "best way" to build a factory before even trying it yourself, this is probably not your type of game. I would call the game "incomplete" in that there's clearly areas they need to expand on, but it is still fairly polished quality-wise compared to most "1.0" releases. The only glitches I've experienced is sometimes deleting a railroad track leaves a visual artifact, and in one game sometimes I got odd behavior for the first few seconds after I loaded a save game. That's all I found after 100+ hours of play. Others are correct in that there is not a ton of replayability, but I got over 100 hours out of it playing only 3 maps. The maps play mostly the same with different graphics, the scenarios aren't that unique. But I am not expecting to spend thousands of hours playing a game I spent $30 for. I had fun with it for a few weeks. Then I got bored and played something else. Some people would compare this game and Factorio. Most prefer Factorio, but I actually prefer this game. Factorio has more depth, but the graphics are too retro for my taste. I hope this game gets updates to that adds depth and complexity. If they never updated the game again, I feel like I got my money's worth. Some people are complaining that the game is "dead" because the developer hasn't updated for a "long time". And by "long time" that is 3 months... in the middle of a global pandemic. Some people are giving negative reviews simply for that reason. Please ignore those reviews, they're unfairly treating a neat little game that has had a lot of care put into it.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 15, 2019

  The question posed was whether I would recommend this game to others. No. Mind you the graphics are nice, but the game play lacks. Is this a Factorio killer. Not even close. was it worth what I paid, meh. here are some of the reason I won't recommend, 1. Absolutely no communication from the Devs what so ever. Nothing. 2. The game is called Automation Empire. Yet I can't just build anything anywhere. You have to stay within very specific boundaries. 3. Most of the items in game are only used for "research" and then there is really no useful purpose for it. 4. The "Tax" system in game is Severely broken. Once you reach a certain point, you go into a death spiral and there is no way out. 5. Look and see just how many YOUTUBERs' actually made any videos past the first mission. None Sorry Devs, The game has some potential, as for playing any more, maybe I might wait and see if the Devs start communicating with their base."hint like the factorio devs do.