Idea is for the red lines to be infinite to both sides, made of water or whatever impassable terrain, so I only need to cover a 100 tile chokepoint or so.

Everything behind it is all free land.

I know I can do an island map with one chokepoint, but that's limited behind me by water.

Like, in terms of actual boosts to your SPM, Vulcanus gives foundries (a bit over 2.25x iron/copper production), Fulgora gives EM plants (bit over 1.5x circuits, which is better than it sounds as it is multiplicative with itself), but... Gleba gives biolabs, which are an over 2x bonus to SPM *for free*, *and* you get prod 3s which are a +8% prod bonus to all electric furnaces, +12% to chem plants, +16% to assemblers, and a net +28% to your labs (resulting in a total of x2.56 science from those, ignoring quality), which very much adds up over time. And you get a bit over x1.5 to rocket fuel, heavy->light cracking, and light->petroleum cracking, if you're willing to import bioflux which you need to do anyway for biter eggs.

(Edit, because I realized this wasn't stated: Vulcanus and to a lesser extent Fulgora's buildings require you to make a way bigger base to actually use all the increased resources you get. To use all the iron and copper foundries give requires a correspondingly bigger everything-else. EM plants only help with circuits, everything else is going to have to scale up to match them. But for Gleba's bonuses? You just rebuild labs and maybe your science builds to use a few more assemblers/a beacon or two to deal with prod 3s reducing machine speed more than prod 2s do, and if you want to, your oil processing to use the better cracking/rocket fuel recipes.)

Sure big mining drills give x2 to ore patches but Gleba lets you get literally free iron/copper/carbon/sulfur/ice/calcite from space with the advanced crushing recipes, meaning you don't even need to mine ore patches (you can easily send lots of ore down from space now in 2.1 with the new unloading bays so that part isn't an issue)

Sure Fulgora gives the recycler for quality upcycling but Gleba gives epic quality in the first place. (Okay admittedly you need both, but.. you can gamble a few epic equipment pieces with just Gleba.)

Sure you get artillery on Vulcanus and sure Fulgora gives mech armour but Gleba gives spidertrons which do the job of both, and lets you have effectively a remote player on every planet.

Sure you get green belts on Vulcanus for x1.33 throughput on belts but you get stack inserters on Gleba which give you x4 throughput for a lower cost.

The only things I really miss from not doing Fulgora and Vulcanus earlier are cliff explosives, the recycler, bot speed research, and a foundry on Fulgora for holmium plates.

(And no Gleba is not that hard if you just make sure to put a spoilage outserter on everything and circuit limit your agri towers to not put too much fruit on the belt. Bots make it trivial if you just set up a spoilage requester somewhere, set all requesters to "trash unrequested", limit all outputs to one stack, and make sure things are close... maybe direct insert a few things like yumako mash/jelly. And the pentapods are a non issue as soon as you get spidertrons researched. I find it easier than Fulgora to build a 120SPM base on, and you have no risk of anything running out of raw materials as everything is literally infinite, not even just figuratively infinite like on Vulcanus, except stone.)

(Also if the devs see this, pretty please make the biochamber actually useful on all four planets like the other main planetary buildings, maybe make it able to make holmium solution?)

Like the titel says: is there a mod to disable pentapods? I know that peacful mode exist but i want the biters and demolishers to remain as they are. I just hate pentapods (and Gleba in general).

Cryogenic plants.

We should be able to cryogenically freeze spoilable products to extend or halt their organic lifespan.

It would be an endgame solution as Aquilo is the last planet so it would challenge the player to solve the spoilage problem prior to receiving the technology to circumvent the issue.

Challenge then reward later in progression.

I’ve got around 50 hours in Factorio but never really made it past trains and blue science solo. Thinking about getting Space Age and starting fresh with biters off solo save.

I mostly just want a game I can sink hundreds of hours into while watching something or listening to music. Is there enough progression and replayability in Space Age to get 500+ hours out of it without biters, or does it get boring after a while?

is this normal for this stuff to spawn this far away??

First time finding a possible bug. Not sure how or where to report it. Latest version 2.1.24

The bug

I Cant shoot on Bitter nest after capturing it and loosing control of it. I lost control of it by not feeding it.

I get the feeling it's a good one, but idk. This is right next to where I spawned in. This was a good one, right? Or are there bigger islands?

I want to make a platform over Nauvis to serve as a hub - to minimize dropping items to planet and getting them back. This works so far until I decided to hold fusion cells there. Point is, this platform requests 5000 cells from other platforms AND has to provide this fuel to other platforms. But it doesn't: on other platforms requesting cells they show as 0 available on other platforms.

To note: yes, both platforms are in orbit, not moving and not intended to move, on a hub platform a checkbox "provide to other platforms" is checked.

What am I missing?

before the update it was manageable and can concentrate on other automation and stuff, but post 2.1 upgrade, enemies are spawning right next to the rails and that too huge patches.
is there a way to reduce enemies expansion?

Hey!

I am planning to play this gem for the first time, I played Satisfactory recently. Any good advices, or must have mods? (only QoL mods)

I run several Factorio servers for friends and got tired of juggling folders, so I reworked the old Factorio Server Manager (OpenFactorioServerManager) into something that handles multiple servers from one web UI. It’s a fork; credit to the original authors is in the README.

What it does

• Multiple servers on one machine, each with its own saves, mods, config and logs
• Mod library: every mod version is stored once, each server has a manifest. “Sync from save” reads the mods a save needs and either enables only those (Match save) or just adds them (Add from save). An Apply preview shows what will be added, removed, enabled or disabled before anything touches the server
• Scheduled save backups with retention, pin, rename, and restore into any server (including a different one)
• Factorio versions are pinned per server, so a new release never silently updates a server. Stable/experimental only change when you pick them
• Watchdog with RCON reconnect, logs, inline server settings
• Built-in Help tab with a quick start, plus a “danger zone” for wiping or deleting a server
• The interface is available in English and Russian, but you can add any other language.

Running it

• Linux: Docker, one command starts a setup wizard (optional macvlan so the container gets its own LAN IP)
• Windows without Docker: unzip, run start.bat. It builds the server from your own Steam client (only factorio.exe is taken) plus the matching headless data downloaded from factorio.com
• Windows with Docker Desktop: compose file generated by the wizard

Honest notes

• Tested: Linux Docker (NAT and macvlan), Windows exe with a Steam install and with a manually entered Factorio path.
• The Windows build needs a copy of the game, because there is no official headless server for Windows
• Part of the old mod code still lives alongside the new system; cleaning it up is on the roadmap
• Early release. Bug reports are welcome

Repo

Im pretty sure i disabled bugs/biters as i was planning this to be a mega base build. but with space age dlc, its kinda required to build stuff like biolabs. gleba and vulc has the pentapods and lavaworm, but only nauvis im unable to find the biters. will i be able to find these? do i need to change something in settings in order to for them to be visible? pls help, i dont worry about defenses as i might have maxed them at this point, i just need to capture the spawners for eggs and faster research.

I've set up an interrupt for my Aquillo freighter. It spends quite some time idling over Aquillo right now and I keep having to babysit it to send it back to Nauvis to get more fuel cells for its reactor. I want it to do this by itself whenever it has less than 3 fuel cells but for some reason it just ignores the interrupt and lets itself run dry and get smashed by asteroids because it has no power to manufacture rockets and ammo for defence.

Wanted to get back in and maybe actually finish a space age playthrough, see some planets I havent yet.

About a week in thinking I really should get a rocket going instead of reinforcing my stance on nauvis.

Just now realized I hadn't turned on the space age mod :(

Let the *new* factory grow!

First time player looking for some help with my trains. I'm doing a run of K2SE, and I've been setting up my base as a series of outposts with specific inputs and outputs.

My unloading stations check to see if the stock in the warehouses is below a set level, and if it is, increases the limit of the station to one, and puts a signal out onto the network of the needed product.

The loading stations check to see if there's at least a train load in the warehouses, and if there's a signal requesting the loading stations product on the network. If both are true, it sets the limit of the station to one. Also it reduces the signal on the network if there's a train at the station.

The trains only have one stop which is to go collect a load. Then with interrupts, if it has a load it will try and drop it off at any station that accepts what's on the train, and if it can't find anywhere else to go, it'll go wait at a depot and get refuelled.

The issue I'm having, is that occasionally trains will go collect a load, when there's no where to drop it off. Which means slowly my depot fills up with trains, with full loads and no where to take them.

Does any one have any idea where I'm going wrong here?

I’ve forever just stuck to the main bus, but I feel like I’m missing out not being able to understand how to city block properly. I swear I’ve looked at maybe a dozen or so blueprint designs just to see where I could take inspiration from or try to understand it and nothing clicks for me. It just hurts my head.

A lot of the comments are asking the same questions so I’ll update it here:

The biggest part I’m not understanding for city blocking is how I’m supposed to organize it and how I’m going to make the trains be able to move around the city blocks without making congestion. Do I make several train networks to separate them? Do I put them all on one? How do I plan for this? I have a lot of choice paralysis.

I've been working towards the legendary fish and my Steamdeck has been offline for a week. The achievement was 0.9% of players when I got it then I turned on wifi and the achievement changed to 3.7% of players. Other things like finishing the game are now 10%.

Seems like a reasonable change but I was bummed to see my <1% turned into a 4% achievement.

Side note: I think 10% of players beating SA is a huge achievement for Wube given the amount of time and dedication it takes to complete. I'm an achievement hunter so I always look and I can't think of any game that has a high completion rate for an achievement that requires that much effort.

My goal for this run was every vanilla achievement. I missed the 8-hour one (There is no spoon), partly due to doing Lazy Bastard where the first few hours weren't quite effective, so that’s for another run, but I’m now at 54/59.

I set the map to islands so natural water barriers let me go for Keeping your hands clean without building a full perimeter, which saved time for No time for chitchat (15-hour rocket). I finished the first rocket at about 11 hours.

I have small local buses on each island instead of one big main bus. When an island’s fast belt was saturated, I moved bottleneck products to another island with its own local train loop. The circuit fabs ("TSMC" for blue, "SMIC" for red, "JLC" for green circuits) are the main examples. I later realized this is basically the idea behind city blocks, except mine are spaghetti blocks.

A nuclear plant with circuit control: steam power only runs when nuclear can’t keep up, which is why the old oil-fired steam plant in the screenshot is sitting idle.

All finite research is done and it runs at about 50 SPM, fully automated with nothing manually transported. But everything was designed for about 60 SPM, so the whole base is at capacity. I could probably sprint for circuit veteran 3 by adding some beacons and crates, but Iron throne 3 (400k plates/hour) needs a major rebuild, unless I produce and run those plates over with trains, which I don’t want to do.

What’s next?

I’ve heard about city blocks, a generic train fleet using interrupts, bot malls and sushi malls, and I’ll probably try some of those when I rebuild. But I’d love to hear ideas I haven’t thought of.

I am also glad to share any details if you are interested!

Boys I'm looking for a set of mods or a modlist thats around the same difficulty as regular space age or a lil harder but mostly looking for more planets with unique mechanics on them. I know theres like individual planet mods i can download but do you guys know if theres planet mods that are kind of integrated into the regular journey of space age? What do y'all recommend?

I’m sure this is a dumb question, but how do you set a speaker to play a continuous note instead of repeatedly pulsing it? I have a speaker hooked up to a clock and plays if the clock’s output is less than 10 (basically play the note for 10 seconds). When I do that though, it plays the note repeatedly instead of holding the not for 10 seconds, which is what I want. I’ve tried enabling polyphony, but that doesn’t seem to help. Any suggestions?

playing on windows pc (not Steam)

Updated recently to 2.1.9.

I was playing Krastorio2 and now my saved games are stripped of the mods [mitigated content window pops up upon loading with a list a mile long] (tech, trees, alien biome etc. all gone).

How can I revert back to whatever version I had until three days ago?

Considering that a single human is capable of conquering multiple planets and extracting every last one of their resources until they are completely depleted, just how destructive would the entirety of humanity in *Factorio* be?

She's ugly but she did it!

Spent a lot of time on this only to be a bit disappointed lmao, the new 2.1 update slowed down to ~220KM/S to 180KM/S and only capable of making 1 round trip before needing to "refill" the thruster fuel etc. Is this normal? Or did you build a ship that can constantly be on the go as long as nuclear fuel is present?

Also main question: What speeds are you guys targeting for Aquilo trips? I have half a mind to completely redesign this to be more compact/faster, but worried about rocket turrets to production ratio.

EDIT: Sorry guys i uploaded the wrong picture - i added nuclear to the ship (shown in the main post pic) because it was needed to make that first round trip which is what made it successful. I added the nuclear update at the end so very ugly implementation lol (see one of the comments below)

Wube just shipped Factorio 2.1, which it calls the game's final major update. From here, the focus shifts to long-term support: bug fixes, platform support, and modding. "Platform support" is the opening, and the iPad is the obvious next platform.

The hardware is ready. Every iPad Air and iPad Pro since 2021 uses an M-series chip, the same silicon that already runs Factorio natively on Macs, now with a Metal graphics backend. The current M4 Air and M5 Pro are more than enough. Requiring M1 or newer gives Wube one architecture, one graphics API, and a proven performance baseline.

Handheld Factorio already works. The Switch 2 version added a Joy-Con mouse mode and support for much larger bases, and it ships Space Age in full, with nothing removed or trimmed down. If a Switch 2 can handle that, an M1 iPad can too.

Input isn't a blocker. iPadOS supports trackpads, mice, and keyboards. Wube's controller work also gives it a tested gamepad UI to start from.

The caveats are manageable. App Store review, Apple's cut, and iOS limits on mods all need solving. A studio that has just finished adding content and is now focused on platforms is well placed to handle them.

The factory must grow. It should grow onto the iPad.

Sources:

• Friday Facts #440 – 2.1 plan
• Friday Facts #371 – Apple Silicon
• Factorio forums – Metal backend
• Which? – The best iPads for 2026
• Factorio – Switch 2 Edition out now
• Friday Facts #439 – Switch 2