[HN Gopher] Mindustry: Open-source automation tower defense game ___________________________________________________________________ Mindustry: Open-source automation tower defense game Author : 0x000042 Score : 461 points Date : 2023-12-22 09:32 UTC (13 hours ago) (HTM) web link (mindustrygame.github.io) (TXT) w3m dump (mindustrygame.github.io) | fwsgonzo wrote: | Does it make sense to publish Deb packages for this game? | | Also this commit: | https://github.com/Anuken/Mindustry/commit/5548e727501793479... | gbuk2013 wrote: | While I agree that commit message could benefit from | punctuation for readability, the change diff itself seems quite | reasonable. | vultour wrote: | It's 6 words long, there's no point in punctuation. | ta8645 wrote: | why punctuate your nine word post | thejohnconway wrote: | It's 6 words long no punctuation | | It's 6 words long? No, Punctuation! | qwertox wrote: | Mirrors exactly my feelings on Android development. | WA wrote: | Mindustry is fantastic. Played the Erekir campaign twice. I | didn't like the Serpulo campaign. It's almost like two different | games. | | Erekir is automation plus RTS. Serpulo is automation plus tower | defense. | Aeolun wrote: | I think it's nice that you can do both. There's also ways you | can turn Serpulo into RTS if you gather enough guys :) | criley2 wrote: | I'm the opposite. Longtime Serpulo fan who really enjoyed the | game and just can't stand the Erekir RTS style game at all. I | don't want to build or direct troops in a Factorio game. That's | literally the opposite of what I want. | | Bummed at the direction of the game and how they abandoned | Serpulo as they pivoted. Serpulo never got finished/balanced | and likely never will now. | scotty79 wrote: | > I don't want to build or direct troops in a Factorio game. | | You won't like upcoming Industrial Annihilation then | probably. | criley2 wrote: | I enjoyed Planetary Annhilation and this game claims you | can let the AI do all of the RTS and just base build, so I | would enjoy it. | | "Build impressively productive bases as your primary focus | and delegate advanced artificial intelligences to do the | fighting for you. Or, roll up your sleeves, and get hands- | on by leading the real-time strategy action yourself." | | If in Mindustry the AI completely controlled the units, I | would be fine with that. | | I am just long past my 200 action per minute starcraft RTS | clicking days. Hyper-controlling individual units is not a | fun meta. | genewitch wrote: | These days i use wemod or cheatengine to bypass the | challenge in games. I buy games to support the arts, and | play games to see the story or experience the art. But | the second a game has a time sink element, i break out | the cheats to bypass it. I don't mind challenging | content, but i give each game maybe 5-10 "reload from | checkpoint" before i bypass the content with a cheat. | | back when i used to "compete" in starcraft, i don't know | what my action rate was or anything. I didn't micro that | much, either. I never played terran, only protoss and | occasionally zerg if my opponent was a well known zerg- | er. at one point i was top 10 in the world, and i forget | if that excluded or included cheaters. That was something | we used to joke about, me and my competitive gaming | friends, especially the RTS leaderboards - "ranked 23rd, | but everyone above me is an obvious cheater!" After | starcraft and Total Annhilation, went on to getting | ranked top 10 in a few FPS (never counterstrike, barely | played, oddly), and leaderboards on indie games. Having a | newborn took the steam out, no pun intended. | mft_ wrote: | Me too - I've almost finished my second play through Serpulo, | but Erekir didn't click with me at all. | | -- | | My one observation/criticism is that as you progress through | the game, it shifts through different stages, making the game | very different to play: | | Early - essentially start from nothing (or very little) on | each map, balance mining and infrastructure development while | simultaneously protecting yourself | | Mid - usually not feasible to start from nothing, but taking | resources with you to a new map often makes winning very easy | | Late - you absolutely have to rely on massive external | resources to stand a chance, meaning you have to spend a lot | of time developing the infrastructure to ship resources to | wherever you're playing next. (Also, the code that 'ships' | resources between sectors seems unreliable and maybe buggy.) | | I really enjoy the challenge of balancing within 'early'; mid | is a lot duller, as is the infrastructure development. | hutzlibu wrote: | I find the new trend interesting, to sell the game on Steam, but | have a link to Github with the actual source. So free for | developers and people who care to find out. Thats fair, I think, | but I would prefer if the direct donation model would be more | established among the masses. | | But this link points to the general site, with lots of options | and also directly the free version. Kudos. Will try it out later. | Aeolun wrote: | It's because it's sold on Steam mostly for the features that | directly integrate with Steam (like joining friend's games). If | you don't care about that, the game is free :) | WhereIsTheTruth wrote: | That's not because you didn't know about it that it is a "new | trend" | | https://github.com/Poussinou/FLOSS-Games-on-Steam | | https://store.steampowered.com/curator/38475471-Libre-Open-S... | | It's nothing new, and also exist in the tooling side of things | | https://store.steampowered.com/app/431730/Aseprite/ - | https://github.com/aseprite/aseprite | caslon wrote: | Aseprite isn't open source. | imhoguy wrote: | That is actually fair idea. I am going to try it with an | Android app - paid in G Play Store, free in FDroid. | moehm wrote: | DAVx5 operates under the same principle and they seem to have | success with it. | | https://www.davx5.com/ | genewitch wrote: | wow, thanks for that, i didn't know you could build it | yourself. I have a nextcloud and was irked that i had to | shell out cash for something i had considered non- | essential, syncing calendars. | | Now i am going to try it out for free and buy it if it | works without issue, awesome. | mksybr wrote: | It's available on F-Droid. | https://f-droid.org/en/packages/at.bitfire.davdroid/ | axus wrote: | It might have been free on Play Store a few years ago when I | tried it, maybe just very cheap. I was looking for a fun game | on my Amazon tablet after installing Play Store, and Mindustry | delivered. | szundi wrote: | Buying on steam is a donation basically? Why is it not? | tuetuopay wrote: | Because of the cut steam takes I guess. And fixed price, and | a middleman, and depends on a central platform, etc | genewitch wrote: | available (nearly) anywhere, built in support forums, | refund capability, and until a couple of years ago being | able to use bitcoin to pay (buy steam gift cards with | bitcoin). family sharing - where another computer can play | games you've bought if it's on the same network, is also a | nice feature. I know it doesn't matter here because the | game is open source (or whatever), but in the general sense | it's reduced my spending on games. When my kid wants to | play a steam game i either do work or play a game on xbox | for windows, gog, battlenet, whatever. As i type he's | playing BeamNG on his computer via my steam login on my | computer. | | Also, i am a bit biased. I'm part of the steam class | action, and potentially will receive $500 or more from | valve due to their "cut". | hajile wrote: | Mindustry has other ways to donate directly if you choose. | The dev obviously thinks paying steam a cut is still worth | it in increased sales and marketing. | nonethewiser wrote: | Plus developers who want the steam version or just want to | support the makers. | | Aseprite (pixel art editor) has this sort of "if you can build | it you can have it" arrangement. | | I wonder what percentage of would-be-paying users are getting | it for free. I guess it's probably significant but still | nothing close to a majority. | bloopernova wrote: | If someone has played both this and Factorio, could you possibly | compare the 2 games? Thank you! | laserbeam wrote: | In mindustry you build smaller factories, mostly to power | turrets/build units to attack an AI. Focus is on tower defense. | Logistics is cute but minimalistic. Each level takes 30-60 min | on a casual play though. | | Factorio is much more in depth on logistics and is a single | "level". Takes 30-60 hours on a casual first playthrough. | Kiro wrote: | Mindustry is more arcade and tower defense, with scenarios | instead of an infinite map and a meta progression between | scenarios where you unlock tech. | edent wrote: | Mindustry is great on mobile. The resource aspect is quite | simple compared to Factorio - drills never run out of a | resource, for example. But you can make some fairly complex | bases - https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2022/02/mindustry-scrap-to- | everythi... | | Mindustry is more "Tower Defence" focused. Waves of enemies | attack and you have to build turrets to stop them. As the game | progresses, you can build units which can attack the enemy's | base - so it become a bit of an RTS game. | | So there is a superficial similarity to Factorio - discover and | unlock new things, build a base - but it is much more focused | on the attack/defend paradigm. | herpdyderp wrote: | After a combined 1000 hours between the two, I find Factorio | easier and much more satisfying. Factorio's base building is | very explicit, while Mindustry's is very limiting. The main | reason for me saying this is that in Mindustry all production | buildings output their goods in all directions which makes it | really annoying to design efficient layouts. It's also harder | to play co-op in Mindustry because the maps are so small. Maybe | my preference would be swapped if I had played Mindustry first | rather than Factorio, but whenever I play Mindustry I think | "wow I'd rather just play Factorio". | | Mindustry is still awesome though, especially considering that | it's open source. | hajile wrote: | Mindustry encourages compact designs due to limited space in | levels where factorio has infinite space that encourages | sprawling designs. In that context, the all-side output is | critical for Mindustry's compact layouts. | | I find Mindustry layouts a lot less tedious compared to | inserters everywhere and I greatly prefer the Mindustry | conveyor flow controls. | | I do wish Mindustry added another transportation layer where | physical transport between sectors was required rather than | generic space launches. It would give a much more cohesive | feeling to the various levels. | Izkata wrote: | > The main reason for me saying this is that in Mindustry all | production buildings output their goods in all directions | which makes it really annoying to design efficient layouts. | | The armored and plastanium conveyors prevent this. | NineStarPoint wrote: | The difference is what the primary focus of the game is, I | think. | | Mindustry is a tower defense game that uses factory style base | building as added spice. | | Factorio is a base building game that adds some tower defense | elements as added spice. | pjmlp wrote: | Looks quite nice, and brownie points for Java. | dash2 wrote: | I would love to see a video of the game, perhaps that would be a | good idea for the home page. | ptspts wrote: | YouTube has thousands of Mindustry gameplay videos. | janfoeh wrote: | I for one would rather not have to click through heaps of | grimace-faced thumbnails, "heeeyyy guuuys" and the other .. | idiosyncrasies of the content-creator industrial complex just | to get a frickin' glimpse of the gameplay. | | So a short official clip would make a nice amendment to the | homepage. | dash2 wrote: | I just think it's a good idea for a game's website to have a | video of the gameplay. | mdaniel wrote: | You may have missed it since it's midway down the page but it | has a Steam offering and those almost always come with video | (as is the case here, too): | https://store.steampowered.com/app/1127400/Mindustry/ | ritzaco wrote: | Plenty of previous discussion at | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32422522 (Mindustry - Open- | Source Game, 135 comments) | | Great game, though a bit addictive. | _the_inflator wrote: | Thanks for the warning, I suppose it is - and that's why I | stick to my guns and won't play it. Since playing Age of | Empires II online around 2000 took such a heavy toll on my | study habits to achieve a 2000+ rating at the time, my mantra | goes by the saying: "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of | cure". ;) | Weryj wrote: | And here I am, a new player of Factorio and wishing I stuck | to my prevention. On another note my factory is growing! | nikitoci wrote: | Do _not_ install Space Exploration mode! Save yourself 400 | hours. | Cthulhu_ wrote: | Wait for the official Space DLC and all the 2.0 QoL | improvements next year instead! | shzhdbi09gv8ioi wrote: | Hmm, I had to google this mod [1]. Seems really cool, but | it also does sound a whole lot like the factorio | expansion [2], so what is going on here? | | (I been eagerly awaiting the factorio expansion for a | while now!) | | 1: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/space-exploration | | 2: https://techraptor.net/gaming/news/factorio-expansion- | space-... | Brybry wrote: | They hired the mod creator (as an artist) and, from the | Factorio Friday Facts blog posts[1], the expansion has | some inspiration from the space mod but is not the same. | | [1] https://www.factorio.com/blog/ | shzhdbi09gv8ioi wrote: | Oh, that is amazing! Thanks for pointing me to the blog! | bombcar wrote: | If you like Factorio and are at all interested in game | design I can highly recommend every one of those blog | posts. | | It's amazing how time and time again a they describe a | feature and you're like wow this is perfect and then | later they're like "here's how to fix all the problems | you don't even notice". | dalkvist wrote: | The mod is older, and they hired the modder to work on | the expansion. From the blog posts the expansion is a lot | closer to vanilla then the complex mods. | sunbum wrote: | The factorio team hired the person behind the space | exploration mod to integrate it into factorio. | Baldbvrhunter wrote: | Earendel was employed by Wube in February 5, 2021 | | https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-365 | bashinator wrote: | Don't look at Dyson Sphere Program. | mcv wrote: | A very long time ago, my dad prepared me for this risk by | buying Civilization just before my high school final exam. I | graduated with 268% on Emperor. | swyx wrote: | and how were your high school grades? | onionisafruit wrote: | It's funny how saying a game is addictive makes many people | want to try it, but people like you and me take it as a | warning. For me it's because I succumb to addictions more | easily than most. | dvaun wrote: | All through lessons learned. It's difficult to quit playing | in the initial years, but as the time passes it becomes | easier. | polivier wrote: | Mindustry is such a great game. I sunk tons of hours in both | campaigns with a friend of mine. | | For those who come from a Factorio background, Mindustry has less | automation and more combat. Also a Mindustry map does not take 50 | hours to complete; rather it will take a few hours and may | sometimes take several tries as some maps can be fairly hard. | Space is limited as compared to Factorio, so space-efficient | designs _do_ matter, especially for defense (you want to pack | towers tightly, with the constraint that towers must be fed by a | conveyor of ammo or a pipe of liquid, or both). You also need to | consider that you often need different combinations of towers in | order to defeat different types of enemies. | | Overall, a very well-made game and very addictive. | mcv wrote: | Sounds like something I might try. Factorio has a tower defense | element that never really works because the attacks are too | small, my base is too large, and I always just wipe out the | biter camps. That's an aspect of the game that clearly needs a | lot more challenge, but lots of players just ignore it and | build. | | For my first half-dozen tries, I always built may bases far too | compact. I really had to learn to use the space available to | me. A game that rewards compact building might be just for me. | Pay08 wrote: | You have the difficulty sliders and the death world preset | and an entire enemies tag on https://mods.factorio.com. What | more do you want? | CivBase wrote: | Mods are great, but they generally lack cohesion. I agree | with OP. I wish that instead of passive upgrades and only a | couple tower/ammo variants, the game had a deeper tower | defense aspect. | | It'd be nice to have more enemy and tower variants, with | certain types of towers working better against certain | types of enemies - or towers that debuff enemies instead of | hurting them. Maybe there could be structures that attract | nearby enemies so it'd be easier to direct where attacks | hit. | | I think stuff like that would keep the tower defense stuff | from loosing relevancy in the late game while staying fun. | dento wrote: | I should suggest warptorio here: | https://mods.factorio.com/mod/warptorio2 | Filligree wrote: | You should try Warp Drive Machine: | https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Warp-Drive-Machine | matkoniecz wrote: | for me Factorio combat was overall boring and just | drudgery, and just adding unfun pressure. | Filligree wrote: | Some mods change biter behaviour to make them smarter, | such as Rampant. Others change the entire gameplay loop, | like Warp Drive Machine. The mod ecosystem is huge, and | it's far too early to claim you know for sure it'll be | boring. | Tyr42 wrote: | Try Rampant? | ajuc wrote: | It makes you optimize for different things which is why I | prefer it to Factorio even if the tech and crafting tree is | less developed. | simonmysun wrote: | Its PvP mode is also excellent. You can complete both defense and | offense by laying supply lines. It's possible to ambush the | opponent's supply lines as well, gaining a significant advantage | on the front lines before the enemy detects the disruption in the | power facility and logistics system. This is what I consider one | of the most important characteristics of a real-time strategy | (RTS) game. | | It would be better if one could steal expensive components from | the opponent's conveyor belt (like processors in Factorio) | matkoniecz wrote: | Though open servers with team modes had huge griefer problems | when I tried it. | sensanaty wrote: | Had no idea it was OSS! Regardless, I have 0 regrets paying for | the game, absolutely amazing one. | simplify wrote: | Slightly off topic, but does anyone have any resources / tips on | how to build your own tower defense game with multiplayer? Been | deving for a very long time, but game dev feels like a completely | different beast. | KeplerBoy wrote: | I feel like mindustry is a great example of just trying | something. | | If you were to ask this question in a game dev forum, people | probably wouldn't recommend you to look at Java and yet | mindustry uses Java and made it work. | | I guess something along the lines of JavaScript with Websockets | would also work really well and you wouldn't have to worry | about building for different platforms. Research some options | for JS game engines and get cracking (possibly with copilot, | it's not too bad at getting one started). | | I think it's entirely feasible for you to have a working | prototype before the new year rolls around. | andruby wrote: | And mindustry does it really well in Java. The game doesn't | use much cpu, even on large maps and runs on windows, mac | (including apple silicon). Graphics looks good too | adamredwoods wrote: | Game dev options are huge these days, but Java isn't a bad | choice: mature platform, good VM, cross-platform. I would | guess javascript is further behind in performance, but with | Electron/Cordova, it's a valid cross-platform choice as well. | Or one could explore lesser known tools like Haxe. And then | there are monolith dev kits like Godot. Heck, even Lua is | still around thanks to Roblox. There's so many options! | hajile wrote: | Web games used to suck, but wasm + webgpu seems like a | great combination for reasonable performance while also | allowing indie devs a way to avoid forking over 15-30% of | their profits to middlemen. | kybernetikos wrote: | > and yet mindustry uses Java and made it work | | I'm pretty sure the game I've spent the most hours playing | over the last few years is written in java - Slay the spire. | | Minecraft was originally Java too I think. | MaxLeiter wrote: | The Bedrock edition of Minecraft (XBox, Microsoft store) is | in C++. The original is still built with Java and called | the Java Edition (unless I missed some big news the past | few years) | Hortinstein wrote: | I just dove into this the last few months working through a | Udemy course on building a vampire survivors clone in Godot | 4....highly recommend (here is the author talking about it | https://youtu.be/Yd-sndQnWIo?si=yWU9WJ2roSVlMzDE). I was amazed | by the tooling and had a blast doing it. I'm primarily a | backend dev and this scratched a different itch. There appear | to be some RTS courses but I can't vouch for them. I would find | one that looks interesting and dive in. I typed out all the | code and did the steps as he did and feel like I learned a ton. | I am still looking to learn more about multiplayer in Godot 4, | but I found a few YouTube videos and it doesn't look super | complicated, especially if you are not concerned off the bat | about cheaters. Additionally I have been following this project | (Godot 4 MMO), the code is organized pretty well: | https://jdungeon.org/ but very early in development | ctippett wrote: | I'm a game-dev outsider, but I've come to romanticise the idea | of creating a tower defense game myself. Ever since Warcraft | III it's been one of my favourite genres, but everything I've | played in the intervening years seems to fall short of | _something_ that leaves me wanting more. | arkameatys wrote: | This is funny to me and maybe worth mentioning. In prison they | charge inmates for this game on the tablets, is that legal? It's | AccessCorrections or Access something, I know for a fact, I | played it for years and now hate it because of the associations | it draws for my uneuphoric recall of doing time. They also charge | for Andors Trail, another open source project. | dosssman wrote: | Just curious, but was it an US prison ? I have trouble seeing | them allowing the prisoners to play game. Also, how are the | prisoners supposed to make money to pay for the game ? | | Thanks in advance. | jabroni_salad wrote: | There are paid jobs in the prison for the inmates. They are | not very good, but it's a thing. You can also send funds to | an inmate's commissary account, if somebody you care about is | in there. | chromakode wrote: | It's legal to charge for distributions of GPL licensed | projects. The OSI definition [1] specifically notes it's one of | the freedoms in licenses considered open source. | | Back in the mid 2000s I recall seeing drama about projects like | The GIMP being repackaged and sold. While legal, the sellers | exploited information asymmetry to profit from people unaware | the software was available for free. The counterpoint is that | distributors do work packaging the app -- maybe | AccessConnections contributed some value by reviewing the | content as a trusted third party. | | So yeah, it's legal but might not be ethical. Open source | licenses do require the source code and license to be | accessible to the end user. This can be tucked away as a link | in a credits screen. I'm not a lawyer, so I'm curious whether a | link counts as source code distribution if you know your end | users won't have unrestricted access to the Internet. | | [1]: https://opensource.org/osd/ | zachromorp wrote: | they what???? That sounds like legal racket to me. US prison | industry is disgusting. | junon wrote: | Mindustry was a great game prior to the campaign rework, which in | my opinion made things harder to progress and really enjoy. But | if you've never played it, I still really recommend it as it's a | cross between lighter factorio and a tower defense game. | rbosinger wrote: | It's one of the only games I play! I have it on Android and one | thing I like is that it's fast to open up and play a bit, save, | and then quit. No ads or a bunch of intros to try to skip, etc. | grey_earthling wrote: | Also on Flathub: https://flathub.org/en- | GB/apps/com.github.Anuken.Mindustry | majora2007 wrote: | I bought this game after playing the open source variant for some | time. It was just what I wanted, because Factorio isn't focused | so much on defence, but this is. The game underwent a huge | overhaul and is much more fleshed out. I need to get back to it | and try and complete the campaign. | cyanydeez wrote: | Apple and open source are odd bedfellows | dang wrote: | Related: | | _Mindustry - Open-Source Game_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32422522 - Aug 2022 (135 | comments) | | _Mindustry: A open-source sandbox tower defense game_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25626286 - Jan 2021 (6 | comments) ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-12-22 23:00 UTC)