Official Factorio Wiki - User contributions [en]

Glossary

2017-12-20T13:04:03Z

Lusankya: /* L */

{{Languages}}
__NOTOC__

This page acts as a general glossary of all terms used in Factorio and its community. We recommend searching the page with {{keybinding|CTRL|F}} to find specific terms. The page is also organized alphabetically.

Additionally, you can click a letter below to be taken to that letter in the list, if you wish to search manually.

[[##|#]] [[#A|A]] [[#B|B]] [[#C|C]] [[#D|D]] [[#E|E]] [[#F|F]] [[#G|G]] [[#H|H]] [[#I|I]] [[#J|J]] [[#K|K]] [[#L|L]] [[#M|M]] [[#N|N]] [[#O|O]] [[#P|P]] [[#Q|Q]] [[#R|R]] [[#S|S]] [[#T|T]] [[#U|U]] [[#V|V]] [[#W|W]] [[#X|X]] [[#Y|Y]] [[#Z|Z]]

== # ==

;1-1, 1-2-1, 2-4, 4-8-4 and similar : A somewhat ambiguous shorthand notation for train configurations. The first number is usually the number of locomotives at the head of the train, followed by the number of cargo wagons or fluid wagons, and optionally followed by the number of tail locomotives if it's a double-headed train. In general, the smaller numbers are the number of locomotives.

== A ==

; AP : Armor piercing, refers to [[Piercing rounds magazine]].
;Ammo : Ammunition, used for guns/rocket launchers/turrets, etc.
;Angel's mods : A term referring to the mods made by user ''Arch666Angel'', a popular modder who makes extremely popular difficulty/complexity mods that complement bob's mods.
;Angelbobs : A community term that means a game with both Angel's mods and Bob's mods installed.
;Assembly : Another word for an [[Assembling machine]].

== B ==

;BP : Short for [[Blueprint]].
;Backed-up : Refers to a machine having no output, and so the input channel fills up. Can also refer to belts being backlogged due to low consumption. This is not necessarily a bad thing.
;Belt balancer : This is a belt setup that balances multiple belts to contain the same amount of resources, to maximize throughput. See [[Balancers]].
;Belt compression : This term refers to ensuring that all items on a belt are right after each other, to ensure no space is wasted and highest throughput.
;Blackout : When your factory completely loses power. This typically happens at night when relying on solar+accumulator power, enemies destroying vital electric poles, or after a prolonged brownout when using electric mining drills and/or electric inserters (instead of their burner variants).
;Bob's mods : A term referring to the mods made by user ''bobingabout'', a popular modder who makes extremely popular difficulty/complexity mods that complement Angel's mods.
;Bootstrap factory : A factory that's made at the start of a new game in order to jump-start automation of basic equipment, climb the tech tree, and ultimately produce construction materials for a bigger, more organized factory, such as a megabase. The purpose of this factory is to allow you to grow your production to a decent size and then have a fresh start with all of the tech at your disposal, rather than building a giant factory from the ground up and then having to refactor parts of it.
;Bots : Shorthand version for [[Construction robot]] or [[Logistic robot]]. Sometimes also refers to the combat robots created from capsules (unlocked by researching Combat robotics 1–3).
;Bottleneck : A term that means a single point where resources are constrained, such as a slow part of a belt that slows down everything.
;Braiding : The space-saving technique of alternating between two or more different underground belt types (basic, fast and express) in a straight line, one tile wide. The different types of underground belts don't interfere with each other, and inserters can interact with the belt entrance and exit entities.
;Brownout : When your factory's machines are running slower than normal because you're not generating enough electricity.
;Buffer: A place where a stockpile of items is stored to be available when the production stops. Typically a chest.
;Bus : Short for [[#M|Main bus]].

== C ==

;Capacity : Maximum amount of items/fluid that can exist within something.
;Catchup : Period where a player joining a game is required to replay recent changes quickly, so they can be merged into the running game smoothly. Often happens on slow connections, or on servers with a lot going on.
;Chokepoint : Artificial or natural geography that funnels attackers into a narrow, movement-constricting area, making it more difficult for them to breach fortifications. Examples: peninsulas with narrow connections to the mainland, artificial land bridges to islands, nearby lakes, corridors through thick forests.
;Coin : An item used in the Tight Spot campaign.
;Compression : Like Capacity but applies to belts only.
;Computer : An item used in the New Hope campaign. (No further spoilers.)
;Contaminated : A belt with incorrect items on it (such as coal on an iron belt). Can also refer to pipes with mixed liquids.
;Cracktorio : A community term referring to the addictive qualities of Factorio, jokingly comparing the game to crack cocaine.

== D ==

;Daisy chaining : Some entities allow inserters to insert and remove items from the same slots, including fuel in boilers, ammo in gun turrets, science packs in labs, modules in beacons, robots in roboports, and any items in chests. 'Daisy chaining' is a technique that makes use of this mechanic in order to supply some machines with consumables (i.e. fuel, ammo or science packs) without having to use belts. You simply chain multiple machines together with inserters that take the items out of the previous machine and insert them directly into the next. It's sometimes referred to as 'stealing', as in 'coal stealing' or 'ammo stealing'.
;Death world : A world generation configuration that results in a large quantity of [[Enemies]], to increase the game's difficulty.
;Double header : This is a term that refers to a train with [[Diesel locomotive]]s on both ends, making the train capable of driving in both directions. Opposite of a single header, or standard train.
;Dragon's teeth : A series of alternating stone wall pillars outiside the main wall fortification with the purpose of delaying the biters from reaching the wall.

== E ==

;Entity : Anything that can be manipulated in-game. Nearly everything in factorio is an entity. Any device, items, trees... Even the player is just an entity.
;Evolution : The development and growth of the native population. Over the course of a game, biters and spitters become bigger and more powerful. See [[Enemies#Evolution]].

== F ==

;FFF : The weekly blog that the developers make to talk about the development of Factorio. Expanded, it is Factorio Friday Facts, posted every Friday.
;FPS : Visual rendering speed, "Frames per second". When this is reduced beneath 60, the game may stutter visually, jitter, or otherwise appear unstable. Low FPS will not necessarily result in low UPS, but they are loosely tied together.
;Factorissimo : A popular mod that allows for factories to be built within buildings added by the mod.
;Fuel : Refers to any burnable item that can be used to fuel burner devices, such as [[wood]], [[coal]], etc.

== G ==

; GJ : Giga joule, a measurement of energy.
;Ghost : A translucent preview image that designates a position for the construction of an entity. Ghosts are created when you shift+click with an entity under your cursor, when you use the [[Rail_planner#Ghost_Planner|ghost rail planner]], when an entity is destroyed after you've researched construction robotics, and when you place a blueprint. Construction robots automatically attempt to construct ghosts within their logistic or personal roboport network, and if unable will create an alert for missing construction materials.
;Gigabase : An even larger megabase, typically has RPM counts > 10.

== I ==

;Inventory : The ability for an entity to hold items within it. Almost all entities have inventories.
;Item : An item is another form of entity, representing the un-built version of a machine, tools, etc. Typically, items are found on belts, in the player's inventory, and inside machines. Items can be provided to recipes to create other items.
;Item Explosion : A phenomenon when a lot of items are spilled on the ground in a square-like fashion. Usually due to accidentally removing power armor when having a full inventory.
;Item request slot : A special request slot for machines with module slots that allows them to request the modules in the blueprint from which they were constructed. The deconstruction planner has a filter for canceling these requests.

== K ==

; kJ : Kilojoule, a measurement of energy.
;Kovarex : The founding father of Factorio and where [[Kovarex enrichment process]] gets its name from.

== L ==
;Lane : One side of a transport belt. Each belt has two lanes.
;Lane balancer : This is a belt setup that balances the two lanes on a belt to be equal, to maximize throughput. See [[Balancers]].
;Legs : [[Exoskeleton]]
;Loader : An abandoned concept for a belt-based mechanism that continuously loads and unloads machines, as an alternative to inserters. Functional loader entities can still be found in the editor, and some mods give them a proper texture and make them available in regular games. Loaders are used in the official Team Production scenario.

== M ==

; MW : Mega watt, a measurement of power.
;Main bus : The opposite of spaghetti, this refers to placing multiple belts side by side containing one resource, and branching off of it in order to create setups. Allows for organized layout of resource transportation.
;Mall: Also known as store. A location in a factory that produces many types of different items that the player needs but in relatively small amounts.
;Map exchange string : A long piece of text that encodes the settings used to generate a map. See [[World generator#Map Exchange String]].
;Market : A building where you can buy items using coins. It's available in the editor and used in the Tight Spot campaign.
;Mats : Shorthand for materials.
;Megabase : A community term referring to a significantly large base that has been built over a significant time/effort. Often, these bases are quantified in terms of rockets per minute, or "RPM". A base typically is considered a megabase when it can maintain 1 RPM.
;Mod : This term refers to a script or collection of scripts that change how the game acts, adds new items/entities, etc.
;Modpack : A community term referring to a collection of mods that work well together.

== N ==

;Night steam : The strategy of relying on solar panels to generate electricity during the day and steam engines during the night.
;No path : A common error that means that a train cannot find a valid route to a train stop. See [[Railway#No_path]].

== O ==

; Outpost : A small base created far away from a [[#B|Bootstrap base]], usually to serve a single purpose like mining or production of a specific resource.

== P ==

;Priority splitter : A splitter design that directs as many resources as possible from a bus to an offshoot before letting excess items flow past. This is in contrast to a splitter that always distributes some percentage of items to both sides (depending on the particular arrangement of splitters).
;PAX (train) : Short for passenger train or player access station, another name for the [[Glossary#S|Shuttle]].

== Q ==
;QOL : Quality of life, often refers to mods that increase ease of play.

== R ==

;RORO : Abbreviation for "Roll on, roll off" in the context of train station design. It means that trains arrive at the station at one end and leave the station at the other end (driving past the train stop), as opposed to terminus stations.
;RPM : Shorthand for rockets per minute, usually used to meassure the size of very big bases, see [[#M|Megabase]] and [[#G|Gigabase]].
;Rainbow belt : A transport belt with many different types of items on it, rather than the easier-to-manage one or two types of items. See [[#S|Sushi belt]].
;Ribbon world : A world which has been set up to have limited space in one dimension (width or height), adding a new challenge. The smallest ribbon world in which you can launch a rocket is a map limited to a width of 9 tiles, the width of the rocket silo.
;Roundabout : This term refers to a type of path for trains, to allow the trains to enter the circle, and exit onto the exit rail that they path to. Generally recommended against, due to throughput and self collision issues.

== S ==

;Scenario : A map that has been saved via the [[Map editor]]. Special scripting can be added to make simple "events".
;Seed : A number associated with each map that determines the outcome of certain pseudo-random processes, like terrain generation. All other settings being equal, different seeds result in vastly different terrain features. The seed is included in [[#M|Map exchange strings]].
;Shuttle : A train for personal transportation around the factory. Sometimes called a taxi.
;Sideloading : This is a commonly used term that refers to running the end of a [[Transport belt]] into the side of another, so that only the lane on the side of the belt that the other belt is on is filled. This is typically done to create a belt that carries two different resources side-by-side on the same belt.
;Small plane : An item from the New Hope campaign. (No further spoilers.)
;Smart furnace : A smelting setup that can process multiple materials (e.g. iron ore, copper ore, iron plates, stone).
;Spaghetti : A community term referring to the "spaghetti" look of many belts/entities placed in a disorganized fashion. Typically created by new players to Factorio. Generally, it will be moved away from as soon as the player realizes the logistical problems it causes. Note that not all "spaghetti" factories are necessarily inefficient.
;Speedrun : A term referring to attempting to quickly finish the game as soon as possible. At the time of this writing, the record is just over an hour.
;Stacker : Also known as '''Parking lot'''. A waiting bay for trains, allowing them to wait on different parallel tracks and not block each other until their destination becomes free. Recommended in front of large, multi-platform stations.
;Supply train: A train that usually for personal use that is used to carry mostly building materials like rails, conveyor belts, inserters, assembly machines etc..
;Sushi belt : The strategy of mixing many different types of items on transport belts to supply machines that need some or all of those items. It sacrifices throughput for compactness (and beauty). It looks colorful and diverse like a tray of sushi. Its perhaps most popular application is supplying labs with science packs. Sometimes called sushi bar or rainbow belt.

== T ==

;TINS : Abbreviation of "There Is No Spoon", the name of the in-game achievement.
;Terminus : A train station design where trains come in and leave from the same side, thus requiring double-headed trains, unlike RORO stations.
;Throughput : A term that refers to the maximum amount of resources that can travel through something (such as a belt) in a certain amount of time. Usually quantified in items per second.
;Tick : The smallest measurable amount of time in Factorio. There are 60 ticks per second (when running at 60 UPS), and 3600 ticks in a minute.
;Tile : A piece of map. It is not really known how big it is, but for simplifying things we can assume that a tile is a quadratic with side of 1 meter.
;Time : Game time is normally identical with real time, one second in the game is one second in reality, but it can be faster or slower. For example, when the calculations for an update takes longer than a tick, the game slows down (aka UPS). Alternatively, a mod can provide ways to let the game run faster.
;Train bus : A popular alternative to the [[#M|main bus]] pattern. Instead of using a belt bus to provide materials for various production cells, a large rail system allows many trains to route materials between more distant cells, sometimes called subfactories. It's a UPS-friendlier strategy for large factories such as megabases.
;Trash can : A simple 'public utility' of sorts, which is an active provider that players can dump unwanted items into. Logistic robots pick them up and store them away. It's useful if you need to get rid of large quantities of items (such as wood or landfill) and your logistic trash slots are full.
;Turret : Stationary defense weapon. There are three types of turrets in Factorio, the [[Laser turret]], [[Gun turret]], and [[Flamethrower turret]].
;Turret creep : The tactic of leap-frogging with turrets into hostile territory. It's very effective due to the strength and range of turrets. Typically done with laser turrets, blueprints and personal roboports, but can also be done by manually placing gun turrets and inserting ammo.

== U ==

;UPS : Internal clock speed, "Updates Per Second". The game tries its best to maintain the ideal 60 UPS, but it is affected by the size and complexity of the game world and your computer hardware. A lower UPS means that the simulation runs slower. At 30 UPS everything would take twice as long as under ideal conditions. This is a common concern on megabases or when playing with many mods active. It can be set to more than 60 UPS by changing the game speed via script, processing power permitting. The Transport Belt Madness and Tight Spot campaigns are examples where the game speed can be increased.

== V ==
;Vanilla : Regular version of the game with no mods.

== W ==

;Wube : The company based in the Czech Republic that develops Factorio.

== Z ==

;Zoo : A group of biter or spitter nests around which the player has built a safe containment zone, i.e. a circle of turrets. Reasons for doing this include exploiting the nests' pollution absorption and automating the destruction of items (using requester chests near the nests).

Pollution

2017-11-19T23:37:47Z

Lusankya: /* Native life */ Re-wording/clarification of spawner pollution absorption.

{{languages}}
[[File:Pollution.png|400px|thumb|Example of in-game pollution (red squares) in the map]]

Pollution is represented as an abstract "cloud", updated [[Chunk|per chunk]] every game second (60 ticks) and visible on the minimap and Map, when Alternative view is on (default [[Keyboard bindings|Alt-Key]]). It appears as a red colored blocky cloud.

It is produced by many buildings involved in processing items and spreads outwards at a steady rate.

The [[Enemies#Evolution|evolution factor]] is not increased by the spreading/absorbed pollution, but by the pollution produced by all the Player's [[Pollution_Production#Polluters|machinery]] at every tick. This means that no matter how hard the player tries to contain the pollution, [[enemies]] will still evolve at the same rate. They just won't attack the player as frequently. The pollution cloud is used to trigger biter attacks and determines the size of the attacks.

== Pollution spread ==

As soon as a chunk has reached 15.0 pollution it starts spreading in all four cardinal directions at a rate of 2% per [[game-second]] (60 ticks).

For example, a chunk with 400.0 pollution and 4 adjacent chunks with 100.0 pollution each, raises the pollution in all adjacent chunks by 8.0 while reducing its own pollution by 32.0. But everyone of the 4 surrounding spreads 2.0 pollution "back" to the center chunk, so it only loses 24.0 + [[Pollution_Production#De-polluters|absorbed value]].

== Pollution dissipation==

* Every [[Chunk]] (32x32) of map slowly reduces the pollution it covers (See [[Pollution Production#Chunks]]). So the more the pollution spreads, the more is absorbed.
* [[Tree|Trees]] also absorb some pollution (See [[Pollution Production#Trees]]).
* [[Enemies#Spawner|Spawners]] absorb a great amount of pollution, and use this to produce enemies.
* In certain [[Mods]] it is possible to build devices or trees which reduce pollution.

== Native life ==
Pollution attracts [[Enemies|biters]] to the Player's factory. [[Enemies|Biters]] who find themselves in a polluted area will attempt to reach the source of pollution and destroy it.

Each [[Enemies|spawner]] absorbs 20 + 0.01 * [chunk's pollution] every game second (60 ticks) if the chunk's pollution is greater than 20. If there is 20 or less pollution in the chunk, the spawner absorbs all the pollution.

Higher pollution values decrease the time it takes for biters to join the attack force. After a certain amount of pollution is absorbed the spawner sends one of its biters/spitters to a rendezvous point. Every 1 to 10 minutes (random) the mustered biters launch an attack. If not all biters have arrived at the rendezvous point by that time, they will wait up to an additional 2 minutes for stragglers.

Required pollution to add an additional biter/spitter to the attack wave:
{| class="wikitable"
! Pollution !! Type
|-
|200 || Small biter
|-
|1000 || Medium biter
|-
|4000 || Big biter
|-
|20000 || Behemoth biter
|-
|200 || Small spitter
|-
|600 || Medium spitter
|-
|1500 || Big spitter
|-
|10000 || Behemoth spitter
|-
|}

With 1350 absorbed pollution at the time of attack the following wave consists of 6 small biters and 1 medium biter OR 6 small spitters and 2 medium spitters depending on the spawner's type and [[Enemies#Spawn_chances_by_evolution_factor|evolution factor]].

== Modules ==
[[Module|Modules]] that list "+x% pollution" increase pollution multiplier, not a flat pollution rate. Final pollution value is (pollution multiplier * energy usage multiplier * base pollution), meaning heavily boosted buildings are likely to account for most of the pollution produced in a factory.

== Production ==

{{Languages}}
These tables contain information about the levels of pollution produced/absorbed by items in the game.
=== Polluters ===
{| class="wikitable"
| '''Object''' || '''Pollution per KW per game second (60 ticks)''' || '''Pollution per game second at full power'''
|-
| {{Imagelink|Stone furnace|Stone furnace}} || 0.01/KW || 1.8
|-
| {{Imagelink|Steel furnace|Steel furnace}} || 0.02/KW || 3.6
|-
| {{Imagelink|Electric furnace|Electric furnace}} || 0.005/KW || 0.9
|-
| {{Imagelink|Burner mining drill|Burner mining drill}} || 0.03333/KW || 9.999
|-
| {{Imagelink|Electric mining drill|Electric mining drill}} || 0.1/KW || 9
|-
| {{imagelink|pumpjack|Pumpjack}} || 0.1/KW || 9
|-
| {{Imagelink|Assembling machine 1|Assembling machine}} || 0.03333/KW || 2.9997
|-
| {{Imagelink|Assembling machine 2|Assembling machine 2}} || 0.016/KW || 2.4
|-
| {{Imagelink|Assembling machine 3|Assembling machine 3}} || 0.00857/KW || 1.7997
|-
| {{Imagelink|Pump|Pump}} || 0.004/KW || 0.12
|-
| {{imagelink|boiler|Boiler}} || 0.01538/KW || 27.6923
|-
| {{Imagelink|Oil refinery|Oil refinery}} || 0.00857/KW || 3.5994
|-
| {{Imagelink|Chemical plant|Chemical plant}} || 0.00857/KW || 1.7997
|-
|}

=== De-polluters ===

==== Spawner ====
If a chunk's pollution is greater than 20, each [[Pollution#Native_Life|enemy spawner]] absorbs 20 + 0.01 * [chunk's pollution] every game second (60 ticks), otherwise it absorbs the chunk's total pollution.

==== Chunks ====
Every chunk has a natural absorption rate per tick which is determined by the weighted average of its floor tiles.

Following numbers are the pollution reduction for a full chunk (32x32 tiles) composed of the same floor tiles per tick.
{| class="wikitable"
! Tile !! Pollution per tick !! Pollution per second
|-
|Dark sand || -0.0033 || -0.2
|-
|Sand || -0.0042 || -0.25
|-
|dry grass || -0.0066 || -0.4
|-
|medium dry grass || -0.0075 || -0.45
|-
|grass || -0.0075 || -0.45
|-
|dirt || -0.0075 || -0.45
|-
|dry dirt || -0.0075 || -0.45
|-
|Green water || -0.0083 || -0.5
|-
|Deep green water || -0.0083 || -0.5
|-
|Water || -0.0100 || -0.6
|-
|Deep water || -0.0100 || -0.6
|-
|Stone floor || 0.0 || 0.0
|-
|Concrete || 0.0 || 0.0
|-
|}

Pollution per tick resembles the third number in the pollution debug information (which is missing the 5th digit)

==== Trees ====
Every single tree absorbs a small amount of pollution in its chunk per tick.

{| class="wikitable"
! Object !! Pollution per tick !! Pollution per second
|-
| {{icon|dead-tree||}} || -0.0001 || -0.006
|-
| {{icon|dark-thin-tree||}} || -0.0001 || -0.006
|-
| {{icon|dry-tree||}} || -0.0001 || -0.006
|-
| {{icon|root-tree||}} || -0.0001 || -0.006
|-
| {{icon|green-thin-tree||}} || -0.0005 || -0.03
|-
| {{icon|dark-green-thin-tree||}} || -0.0005 || -0.03
|-
| {{icon|red-thin-tree||}} || -0.0005 || -0.03
|-
| {{icon|green-tree||}} || -0.0005 || -0.03
|-
| {{icon|dark-green-tree||}} || -0.0005 || -0.03
|-
| {{icon|red-tree||}} || -0.0005 || -0.03
|-
| {{icon|green-coral||}} || 0 || 0
|-
|}

== Achievements ==
Pollution is directly connected to the following achievement:
{{Achievement|it-stinks-and-they-dont-like-it}}

== History ==

{{history|0.13.2|
* Optimized rendering of huge pollution clouds on the map.}}

{{history|0.13.0|
* Large amounts of pollution is created when burning fires.
* Pollution creation of the productivity module was reduced drastically.
* Optimized pollution rendering on map and minimap.
}}

{{history|0.12.0|
* [[Tree]]s degenerate slowly when exposed to pollution at high levels. }}

{{history|0.8.0|
* Added option to turn off pollution visibility even when detailed info is on. }}

{{history|0.7.1|
* Speed modules no longer produce extra pollution.
* Added missing pollution descriptions.
* Pollution is only shown on the minimap with alt mode on.
}}

{{history|0.7.0|
* Introduced concept of pollution.}}

== See also ==
* [[Crafting]]
* [[Module|Modules]]
* [[Enemies]]

Tutorial:Quick start guide

2017-08-12T01:06:24Z

Lusankya: Added cleanup banner, disclaimers to new players.

{{cleanup|Page screenshots and ratios need updating to 0.15}}

{{Languages}}
== Getting Started ==
If you're still lost after playing through the tutorial levels, this guide is here to help.

'''This guide was written for Factorio 0.14.''' Differences in Factorio 0.15 are noted, and will be rewritten soon.

=== Starting Your Game ===
To begin from the Main Menu, you need to select "Play", then "New Game". This will lead you to a menu allowing the [[Game/World generator|customization of your world]]. If this is your first time, you won't need to tinker with these.

==== World Generator ====

You can change these options to make the map generate in different ways. Changes to world generation can greatly affect the difficulty of the game.

[[Resources]] and enemy bases are controlled by 3 values: frequency, size, and richness.
* Frequency determines how often you'll see ore veins or enemy bases within the game world
* Size determines how large these veins or bases are
* Richness determines how many resources ore tiles will produce before running dry, and the density of enemy bases

If you would like an easier time to begin with, consider increasing the frequency, size, and richness of the resources while decreasing the same for enemy bases.

More information about world generation can be found in the [[World generator|World generator article]].

==== Peaceful Mode ====

If you want to enjoy building without enemies attacking, enable the [[Peaceful mode]] option. Enemy bases will still be created, but the enemies will not attack you without being provoked. This allows gathering materials the alien bases drop, but they will not destroy player buildings.

===Key Bindings===

Please refer to [[Keyboard bindings]] to learn more about key bindings and how to configure them.

== The very first moments ==

=== Resources ===

Make sure that you have the four solid resources close to your spawn location; [[Coal]], [[Copper ore]], [[Iron ore]], and [[Stone]]. These should be found within a reasonable proximity to each other; the farther apart they are the harder it will be to route them for combined use.

It's also advisable to have a source of [[Water]] in your starting area, as it is required for [[Steam engine|Steam Engines]].

If your spawn area doesn't have one of these resources, or they are too scarce or too far apart, simply hit the Escape key and choose "Restart." This will re-generate the game world and you will spawn in a new starting location. This may need to be done several times until a passable world is created.

Later we will also need [[Crude Oil]]. However, being a liquid, it is much easier to transport over distance than the four solid resources. It's okay if your starting area doesn't have immediate access to oil, as you won't need it until later in game when long distance liquid transfer is possible.

Everything in Factorio is made from these six basic resources, and you will need all of them if you intend to finish the game.

=== Acquiring tools ===

You will likely have noticed that, without tools, you can't harvest resources or demolish placed entities with any sort of speed. You will have some [[Iron plate|Iron plates]] in your inventory upon spawning, which is enough to make an [[Iron axe]]. To do so, go to the "Production" tab of the crafting menu(the second), and click on the Iron axe icon.

=== Placing mines and furnaces ===

You begin your journey with a [[Stone Furnace]] and a [[Burner Mining Drill]]. This means you only have to harvest a limited number of resources by hand.
First of all, you should place your drill on the edge of an iron deposit, facing towards the furnace.

You can change the direction of the Drill by either pressing "R" before you place it, or after placing it by hovering over it with the mouse and pressing "R". The little yellow arrow shows where the mined iron ore will come out. You want the Furnace to be in front of that arrow, so that the drill automatically inserts the ore into the furnace. It should look something like this:
:[[File:SimpleOre.PNG|center|thumb]]

'''Remember you can press "ALT" to activate the detailed view.''' This makes it easier to see what's happening.

=== Feeding with fuel ===
Now that you've placed the drill and furnace, they need '''[[Fuel]]'''.

You can power them with either [[Wood]] or [[Coal]]. To collect them, you'll need to cut trees or mine coal; this can be accomplished by holding right click over trees or coal deposits, respectively.

Once you have some fuel in your inventory, left click on the furnace or drill to open the interface.
:[[File:Interface.PNG|center|thumb|upright=4]]
To place your fuel into the machine, simply left click it to pick it up and left click again to put it into the fuel slot.

If you want to split a '''[[Storage/Stack|stack]]''' in half, right click the stack in your inventory and then place it in the fuel slot.
Now both of your machines should be running and automatically making you some iron plates!

'''You can also CTRL-Right Click to directly insert half of the stack'''

You can use an identical setup for copper ore to get copper plates.

== Production upgrade! ==

What's better than iron plates? ''More'' iron plates!

You'll need to craft some extra drills. If you hover over drill in the crafting menu, you'll see two lists of materials. The first list shows the components needed to make the drill; the second one at the very bottom of the tooltip window shows the raw resources needed to craft it.
Unlike other games, you do not need to create the pre-requisite items before you select the item you want to make. All required items are crafted for you.
You can see this process happening on the bottom left of the screen, where your Crafting Queue is.
You can also queue up more crafting orders, as long as you have the necessary materials on you, and they'll get carried out one after the other.
:[[File:Recipe.PNG|center|upright=2|thumb]]
Now that you can afford some extra drill and furnaces, you should automate the acquisition of both coal and stone.
These are easy to set up and work essentially the same as the iron setup.
For Coal, you can have two drills facing each other: they'll run on the coal they get fed by their partner and you can collect the surplus.

Don't forget that you can collect resources from machines without opening their inventories, with CTRL-LMB.
You might also want to activate the detailed view, by pressing the ALT key once. You can deactivate it by pressing ALT again.

[[File:SimpleCoal.PNG|center|thumb]]

And for stone you can have the drill output directly into a chest.

Once this is all setup up, you will probably want to make it go faster. Set up more drills with furnaces for the iron, setup some for copper and maybe lay more drills on the coal to cover for the extra coal production.
In the early game, the most used resource is iron, so you'll probably need twice as many miners on iron than copper, if not more. But expect copper to become more and more important the more you mess with electricity and electronics!

=== More automation ===

Great! So now you have four or so furnaces making iron, a couple making copper, some stone production and a good amount of coal production.
But you know what really sucks? Having to run the coal around to all your other machines, right? Well let's automate that too!
Conveyor belts and inserters are the way of the future! The output slots on the drill can also output onto conveyor belts to be transported to your other machines.

[[File:CoalConveyor.PNG|center|upright=2|thumb]]

Now that we can take our coal to other places with no effort, we just need a way to input the coal into those machines.
This is where [[Inserters]] step in. In the first few stages of the game, you can use [[Burner_Inserter|Burner Inserters]] as a cheap way to move items from anything to anything. You can move objects from the ground, chests, machines and put them wherever you want.
Burner Inserters themselves require coal to run though, which makes this a little counter intuitive to have to fuel them instead of the machines you are trying to fuel anyway.
Here is a small example of inserters working. Notice that the flat line is where the inserters will pick up from, and the arrow is where they will place the item.

[[File:SimpleOreProcessing.PNG|center|upright=2|thumb]]

Okay, so now we know how to automatically mine things and then how to automatically move things from one place to another, and then to place said items into machine or out of machines.

Next up we want to get some [[electric network|electricity]] so that we can have inserters that run off that instead of fuel.

== Electrical power ==

[[Boiler]]s and [[Steam]] changed in Factorio 0.15. '''This section was written for Factorio 0.14.''' Please refer to [[Power production]] until we get this section updated.

Electricity. This is where things start to get interesting. We're going to need a single [[Offshore pump|Offshore Pump]], some boilers and a [[Steam engine|Steam Engine]]. These are really simple to set up, they just require twenty-some iron plates and 5 stone per boiler. The offshore pump goes in the water and needs no power to run. From there, you can either use pipes to transport the water to boilers, or you can run boilers straight from the pump. Boilers allow water to flow through them just like pipes do, except they also heat the water along the way and cannot be used as corners. The pipes or the boilers then connect to the middle of the short side of the steam engine. Make sure you connect it in the right place or it won't work. Moreover, steam engines allow water to run through them just like boilers, so you can have as many engine as you want connected in a row. Here is a small example.

[[File:SimpleGeneratorSetup.png|center|600px|thumb]]

Now you need to use power poles to carry power to your machines. Place some down so that their coverage area (the blue square) overlaps each steam engine in at least one square. If they are going to connect, the machines that use power will be shown with a blue outline around their edges.

If the steam engine is producing power but nothing is using it, it'll show a yellow flashing icon: right now it's showing because we don't have electric machines yet!

[[File:LonelyTurbine.PNG|center|upright=1|thumb]]

Your power setup can look however you want it to look.
A great method is to have a line of boilers that supply a certain amount of steam engines with hot water, and then you can use transport belts to bring coal to them for inserters to place inside them so that your electricity is always running.

The most often used setup is 1 offshore pump, 14 boilers and 10 steam engines. This is due to this being the best ratio between the 3 of them. 1 pump produces enough water for 10 engine, and the 14 boilers is sufficient to heat the water for that many. The example above is easily expanded into this efficient design. But hey, this game is all about experimentation and for you to be able to find ways to do your own things! So get to it, and show off your own unique designs!

[[File:steamSetupExample.png|center|upright=4|thumb|Here's my personal favorite setup. Even easier to power when medium powerpoles are available.]]

Using this power is as simple as creating a machine that runs on electricity and placing a power pole close enough to it that the blue square touches the machine, just like you have to do at the power plant with the engines. Make sure that there is a line of power poles that actually connect to your power plant.

Now that power is explained, we need to increase our resource production.

However, if you want detailed info on your power production/consumption, you can check the [[Power Production#What_can_be_seen_from_the_electric_network_info.3F|Detailed Electric Network Info]], opened by clicking on any powerpole.

== Re-thinking our resources and research ==

Next we really want to get onto automation of items, not just the smelting of ores.

Before we can get to that though, we're going to have increase our production of ores. This is where things start becoming a little tricky and there are few things you want to do at once.
We really want to be able to set the factory to make things and let it go. But for that we need some extra utilities which we don't have and need to get through [[research]].

We haven't even touched on that yet! lets start by cranking up our resource production. Now that we have electricity, we can use [[Mining Drill|Electric Mining Drills]]. These are much better than those scummy Burner ones. They work exactly the same except they are twice as fast and they don't rely on fuel, as you could guess by the names. You can have them to output your raw resources onto belts and get them to a place where you can mass process the ores into plates. Here is a small example of what you could do, but let your imagination and your calculating logic figure out other, maybe even better ways of doing it! You want ore to be split more or less evenly on each side of the belts. This helps with the amount of resources that can be carried to your base of operations on a single belt.

[[File:BasicElectricMiners.PNG|center|upright=1.5|thumb]]

This is once again easily expandable all over an iron deposit. This conveyor belt can then take all of the ore to some sort of processing area. The processing area needs some machines that we currently don't have due to limitations in our research.

Most importantly, we want the [[long handed inserter]]. This inserter is able to reach twice as far as a normal inserter! It is very useful for bringing or placing items to or from conveyor belts that are one extra tile away. So what we need to do is to make some science labs. They don't cost too many resources, but take a little while to make. Craft one or two of them and connect them to power. When you first place one, you are going to get a popup asking you want you want to research. We really want automation right now. This gives us our inserters and the Assembling machine 1, which is going to be very useful in the near future.

You'll notice that the cost for this is 10 Science Pack 1's, or "red potions" or "flasks" as some people like to call them. These are simply another crafted item, which you should craft 10 of now and place them in your labs to begin researching. While you are waiting for your flasks to craft or your research to complete, lets continue building an ore processing center. We want a line of copper, iron and coal to be available for this area. Despite being in the electric era, our furnaces still need coal until a little further down the line.

Below is another sample of how you ''could'' set up your area. There are efficient ways of making them that you might see on the forum, but if you want to learn about what they are and how they work, you can either experiment yourself or search the wiki/forum for some better designs.

[[File:OreProcessingArea.PNG|center|upright=2|thumb]]

As per usual, I leave this area with plenty of room to expand later on when demands become higher. The important parts about this is that you need the red, long handed inserters to be able to reach the coal in the middle to fuel your furnaces. You need seperate belts for your incoming raw materials to be able to be processed, and then another belt outside of them to handle the output after they have been smelted. These materials can then go straight into your base to be made into a myriad of other things. Finally, we have a steady and upgradeable supply of copper and iron plates, and we can get into further automation with the assembling machines so we can automate creation of things like Science Packs, Ammunition and every other item that the player themselves can craft, but without you involved at all!

== Automating that research ==

Ok, so a fair amount has happened. Now, to be able to progress into later parts of the game with better research we are going to want automate the process of making science packs and putting them into the labs. This way we won't have to worry about research any longer.

There are many designs that you can find on the forums, but I'll show you something simple, letting you find what works for you. I would highly recommend that you research Logistics as your next research, and in fact manually craft the science required for this. The logistic research gives you some important things: the [[splitters|splitter]], the [[underground belts|underground belt]] and the [[fast inserter]]. The splitter and underground belts are some of the most important items you'll get at this stage. They do pretty much what their names imply.

So what do science packs require? We need copper plates and iron gears. So far we have only dealt with raw resources, how do we make craftable things? The Assembler answers your prayers! If you place an assembler down and open its interface, it asks you what you would like it to craft. Once you select one, if you put the ingredients in that it requires it will craft the item and you can pull out the finished product. In the case of red science packs, we will need an assembler making iron gears, and an assembler making the actual packs. A nice way of doing this is to have a conveyor belt with 1 side containing the copper plates and the other side taking the gears from another assembler like below.

[[File:RedScienceProduction.PNG|center|thumb|upright=3]]

Now this picture uses a few neat little tricks that I will explain in detail. If you have your plate belts seperate, and you want them running side by side there can be issues with trying to grab one or the other resources from the far belt. Yes, you could use a long inserter, but in some cases you don't want this (e.g. you need a fast inserter to get resources quickly into your assemblers).

The area in red is a good way to get around this. By having a splitter, you can move the far belt from your production in close while also allowing it to continue down the line for later use. For the copper, we use an underground belt to go underneath the area that is now taken by the far line which also allows the copper to continue on. Once again, this is only one possible method of doing things and you are in no way obligated to follow it.

The area in blue is a quick way to allow copper to continue down the main line, while also splitting some off for our red science assemblers. Notice how when it joins the line that the gears are on, they only join the bottom side of the belt. The little extra belt that I added to the left stops the belt from becoming a turn, and therefore makes the items only join the side I want them to. The rest is simple: the gears and copper get pulled into the assemblers, they make the science and then it gets pulled out again on the other side. These flasks can then be transported to some labs to automatically do your research for you, for example like this:

[[File:SmallScience.PNG|center|thumb|upright=3]]

== See also ==

* [http://www.factorioforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7765 Newbie Tips?]
[[Category:Tutorial]]