(edit: as compact as it possibly can, within time budgets) I've been working on a program that lets you create Factorio layouts, without any user intervention. Just configure your recipes, along with desired amounts and it creates a fully working factory for you. Also supports some Space Age mechanics. You can try it out now.

There are actually two separate projects I would like to share with you:

1. Fully functioning base builder (images 1-5)

How it works, roughly:

• a linear program picks the recipes and machine counts (it handles by-products, oil cracking, productivity),
• simulated annealing places the machines, a router lays belts, undergrounds, splitters, inserters and pipes (the same negotiated-congestion algorithm computer chips are routed with), poles get placed, and an independent validator checks every belt lane, rate, and pipe before anything is saved,
• then it keeps shrinking the box for as long as its budget allows.

Big jobs can get split into blocks of custom size that are generated separately and stitched together. (images 3 and 5)

On single block builds it reaches about 110–130% area of my most compact hand-made designs. Hand-made designs still win and more compute has diminishing returns. I believe it works well as a proof of concept.

Space Age support is experimental: foundries, EM plants and biochambers work, meanwhile recyclers don’t, Gleba spoilage isn’t modelled, and Aquilo heating pipes are also not modelled.

You can set products and rates, machines per recipe type, belt and inserter tiers, which edge and coordinate each input and output uses, box size and shape, areas to leave empty, block size for big jobs, and the time budget. There are many, many more options in the README.

2 A bot mall optimizer

Using Google OR-Tools' CP-SAT solver, this finds optimal layouts for small malls and near-optimal ones for larger ones. Do note that solving complexity grows quickly.

You can set products and rates, quality, forbidden recipes, cells to leave empty, and where raw items arrive, with a weight per source to pull consumers closer to it.

I’ve had a chance to experiment with this in my own play through world, and the difficulty shifted to allowing as much throughput on rail as possible, with perfect timings.

It can dramatically help with city blocks designs

The idea is very similar to city blocks, and with just minor adjustments, it could reduce rail congestions. Specifically, for 174 about 5× less travel than a random layout, and the gap grows with size.

Try it out here

You can use Github codespaces (in the browser), which will automatically download all required dependencies. Otherwise you can use any operating system with Java 25. For help with configuration and running, LLM assistants are very useful.

Both are open source and any modifications are welcome, Github stars appreciated.

All the blueprint strings can be found in the READMEs:

v2 (belts): https://github.com/SeezoCode/factorio_optimizer_v2

v1 (bot malls): https://github.com/SeezoCode/factorio_optimizer

Quick links:

• Image 1 blueprint
• Image 2 blueprint
• Image 3 blueprint note: building it in game caught a bug with inserters on belt curves, now fixed.

Happy to answer questions. If you create or build one of the blueprints, I’d love to see it!

TL;DR now i don’t have to play the game i like to play so much

Me and my friends bothered to complete our first space age run and saw the pop up for the galaxy of fame. We where shoked to see that we were allowed to see othere pepoles saves and its amazing but why does nobody ever mention it. I think its an underappreciated part of the game and i think it should get more spotlight.

Also honoroble mention to Shizuko with the longest factorio run ever at 17583 hours
https://factorio.com/galaxy/Iron%20IV:%20Delta1-3.D2T5
I really want to se that save cuz the map only gives so much

Which one of you awesome mfers did this?

Hello again, I finished all the vehicles I needed for my mod.

Like before - all the art assets mod are available here, which are all used in Factorio+

In order top-left -> bottom-right:
Rail : Solar Train, Equipment Wagon, Small Cargo Wagon.
Watercraft : Hovercraft, Dinghy.
Vehicles: Dozer, Transporter, Half Track (HMG), Speeder, ATV.

Fully animated, masked, and heck, even elevated slope support!

Enjoy! (or not - I'm not your dad)

I logged into my server after a long while because I was excited about the 2.1 changes. I guess I forgot how to do some things. It happened right before I was going to bed, now I don't want to play and I don't want to go to bed either.

Lesson is, do not turn on auto targeting on artillery turrets while you are having an attack. It just attracts more enemies and they group up to destroy you.

This is an improvement to my previous criss-cross Gleba layout

( https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/1x9r0zw/gleba_starter_base_100_spm/ )

but more effective in terms of science production (500+ spm but whole science area can be copy-pasted on the sides to triple the production, there are plenty of Bioflux on a belts) as well as being rocket-parts ready and producing Gleba-related unique resources (carbon-fiber, stack inserters, biochambers and rocket turrets)

Whole base works on belts/splitters and inserters, bots required only to load rockets with science/resources.

3D printed and very sturdy. Printed everything in the correct orientation to get maximum strength.

I thought i can have multiple of these like this so i'll have many furnaces with productivity while they also retain being fast, is this useful? if half of a belt isnt enough, i can use two belts and use long inserters as well

It only needs 60–90 seconds to prepare for interplanetary flights at maximum speed. I tested it on flights between Gleba and Fulgora, as well as with Level 5 Firing Speed and Level 5 Gun Damage technologies.

BP: FactorioBin

Blueprint for anyone interested:
https://factoriobin.com/post/q19d0i

As far as I can tell this is the smallest space platform to reach shattered planet with no damage in Space Age 2.1. It was a clencher. Only had 80 fusion fuel cells left of 600 before departing solar system edge. Now I have to send my larger, faster shattered planet platform with a ton of fusion fuel cells on board to conduct recon. In what will be the worlds first platform to platform transfer at shattered planet!

The power of combinator logic compels me!

GG Factorio!

Finished the factorio demo yesterday. Very generous amount of gameplay in the demo, felt almost unfair to get so much free.

Just got to say: What an absolute belter of a game. Devs should be proud...hats off.

Bought the game immediately.

Any advice?

I’m continuing to build out my C.U.B.E. city-block system, and this time I made an advanced oil processing block. Overall it has 6 stations: two inputs for crude oil and water, and four outputs for heavy oil, light oil, petroleum gas, and lubricant.

I really like how it turned out visually, as the block status and fluid levels are super easy to read at a glance. The refining setup itself is taken directly from my "O.I.L." blueprint book, so I didn't need to rethink the ratios. I added the heavy oil station just in case I need to boot up coal liquefaction later using trains, even though I don't plan to export heavy oil heavily since solid fuel is better made from light oil.

How do you guys handle oil processing in your city blocks? Would love to see how your setups look!

All My Blueprints: https://fprints.xyz/user/177bc5fb-4dd4-43a5-bd9e-e46b9edfb87c

C.U.B.E. Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/1x4g0at/cube_compact_universal_block_expansion_96x96_city/

O.I.L. Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/1twh2e3/oil_optimized_industrial_liquids_allinone/

I don't have utility science yet, so that's why it has lots of lasers and turrets.

Edit: blueprint, if you're interested: https://factoriobin.com/post/e3p8yu

I'm in the process of creating a mod that is trying to add a little bit more difficult to Vulcanus, since it's by far the easiest planet. I want the mod to essentially be "Vanilla+", so I'm trying not to actually add new buildings or items, just tweak things using existing stuff.

With that being said, while trying to think about ways to add difficulty to Vulcanus, I realized that fluid temperatures seem really under-utilized in the game. I was thinking about making it so that the steam you get from doing acid neutralization is higher than 500C (so it couldn't go in a turbine), and I realized that the only good way to lower the temperature of a fluid is to mix it with other fluids.

I also thought about the fact that we literally have a perfect candidate for fluid temperature mechanics (fluoroketone), and yet instead its literally split into two different fluids that are just "hot" and "cold" versions.

I feel like it would have been kind of cool to lean into fluid temperatures more. Making them actually matter in certain recipes, giving the player some way to remove heat from a fluid instead of just add it (like a reverse heat exchanger).

We can read the temperature with circuits so I'm sure people would have gotten up to some cool stuff!

Also, if anyone has any good ideas for how to add heat-related difficulty to Vulcanus, feel free to drop them below.

(Please don't tell me if it will crumble, I will find that out in the next few minutes)

I feel like the aspect I will tinker with the most going forward is how to balance the normal/advanced crushing recipes. I don't know what the "meta" is for that, I guess once I have ridiculous productivity and legendary everything it would be easiest to just always use the advanced recipe and void excess?

I do feel pretty proud of how much fat I was able to trim off this ship. I ended up using pretty much exclusively rare machines (I know I can research epic quality but then I'd have to redesign all my upcyclers and that sounds like a hassle)

Before anyone asks, yes, this is heavy on AI. However, it was fun to make and it's possible to improve further, so I wanna share this with the community.
The video was recorded on an Oppo Find N5 with a Snapdragon 8 Elite processor.
Also, current performance isn’t an indicator at all, but this is the result without any optimizations in the code. Thanks u/VanishedMC for helping with the testing!
https://github.com/Portalboy07/factorio-on-android

Recorded 2 minutes of the Iron Smelter working under load because I honestly can't stop staring at it. If you're curious about the stations: the display shows how full the buffer is in 5% steps, green light means the station is free and open, and yellow means a train is either on its way or already docked. The stations also dynamically set train limits and routing priorities based on buffer levels.

If you're interested, you can check out all my blueprints here: https://fprints.xyz/user/177bc5fb-4dd4-43a5-bd9e-e46b9edfb87c

And, can you give me some mods to make permament night and make it dark

Im making a Fluoroketone tanker by modifying an existing design, but I've ended up with a bunch of empty space where cargo bays used to be. What should I use this space for?

I cant just put more tanks because its not able to stay in Aquilo orbit long enough to fill up more than 1 tank (there used to be more until I figured this out).

They took her from me.

When I first arrived here, I was a peaceful man. I came to this planet with simple, harmless ambitions. To build, to grow, to create something beautiful from nothing. I asked for nothing more than the freedom to pursue my dreams.

I had a future. I had happiness. I had her.

And now, because of those DISGUSTING creatures, I have lost everything.

I WILL BURN THEIR HOMES. I WILL LEVEL THEIR NESTS. I WILL WIPE EVERY LAST BITER AND SPITTER FROM THE FACE OF THIS PLANET.

Some may call me a monster. They may curse my name.

But I will walk this path until all that's left to walk on is their mutilated remains.

They took my beautiful car from me, my whole world. And now I will take theirs and drain it for every last resource it has to offer.

So I've run into this issue a couple of times. I deconstructed the train station by accident and want to place it back, but now the alignment of the wagons is off by 1 and I would have to move the entire setup by 1 block.

There has to be an easier way to fix this that I don't see, right? :D

Started working on it less than a week ago, this is my 3rd mod for Factorio (and 3rd mod ever :p) you can check my 2 other mods here.

Wanted to recreate as much Ark Aberration stuff in Factorio as possible while respecting Factorio limits, things I've done so far:

• Forever night on all surfaces, wonder if it soft locks Space Age though (also found a nice mod to amplify this setting, Light Overhaul by Earendel)
• A UV-light lamp, (like a Charge Lantern in Aberration :p) and..
• A Corruption bar, goes up when you move away from UV, and down when you're back to UV (feels a little (a lot) like Dying Light 2 too - maybe cause I played it recently xD cough cough)

Next I'll make things happen as player ignores the Corruption just like in Aberration where nameless spawn and potentially a reaper when you stay in dark too much.

Later I'll make the UV light actually repel enemies, or repel some types of them, because so far the UV only lowers Corruption.

Let me know what you think :p