No trig or calc, every formula is linear. There’s some very non-integer factors in there, but if you take “time” as an input you can do it all with algebra.

There are some geometry and rate problems such as multiplexing resources on a belt.

Honestly, I think the feeling of not wanting to have to bust out a spreadsheet to play a video game is entirely reasonable and shouldn't be downvoted. but this is HN in 2023, so he'll get downvoted, while, who does use a spreadsheet will get downvoted when I admit that the spreadsheet I use is from Microsoft. =)

You don't have to though. Base facrorio does not require any spreadsheets or math (other than production lines for efficiency, but that's kind of the nature of the game.)

It's a mod, and so not required and already something you decided to optionally add to your game.

And for production lines, you have plenty of mods that can do the math for you : Helmod / Factory Planner, Actual Craft Time, Rate Calculator...

Weirdly I actually like games that make me alt-tab and then look up some equations and open excel for a bit.

(No, I will not try EVE)

EVE is bookkeeping disguised as a game.

You don't even have to alt tab out to use Excel, they've added to the game. Seems like it doesn't fit your criteria for games you'd like anymore so there's no reason to try! :P

https://support.eveonline.com/hc/en-us/articles/816520777052...

(I mean this in jest)

Amazing, but why not something open source like LibreOffice instead ?!

Oh my goodness.

... wait, how hard would it be to do something similar for Factorio?

there are likely mods which already do the calculations for you.

Max Rate Calculator mod

And then there are whole planner mods too.

you no longer have to manually calculate transverse velocity and tracking speeds of turrets in Eve, unfortunately.