Command line parameters

Command line parameters can be used to set settings in the command line before the game launches, this is useful mainly for advanced users or server hosts.

General options

-h, --help		display help
--version		show version information
-v, --verbose		enable verbose logging
-c, --config	PATH	config file to use
--no-log-rotation		don't rotate log file
--mod-directory	PATH	Mod directory to use
--check-unused-prototype-data		Print a warning for all prototype values that were not accessed. Note for mod authors: If an entry is unused and is a table that contains the key/value pair 'ignore' with the value 'true' then the entire entry is ignored.
--executable-path	PATH	Override autodetected __PATH__executable. Usually not needed except on very weird systems.

Running options

-s, --map2scenario	arg	map to scenario conversion
-m, --scenario2map	arg	scenario to map conversion
--apply-update	arg	immediately apply update package
--create	FILE	create a new map
--map-gen-settings	FILE	Map generation settings for use with --create, --start-server-load-scenario or --generate-map-preview. See data/map-gen-settings.example.json
--map-gen-seed	SEED	Map generation seed for use with --create, --start-server-load-scenario or --generate-map-preview. Will override seed specified in map gen settings
--map-gen-seed-max	SEED	Map generation seed for use with --generate-map-preview to generate multiple previews using every second seed in the interval from map-gen-seed to map-gen-seed-max.
--map-settings	FILE	Map settings for use with --create or --start-server-load-scenario. See data/base/prototypes/map-settings.lua
--preset	arg	Name of the map generation preset to be used.
--generate-map-preview	PATH	Generate preview images of the map; PATH should name a PNG file or end with a '/' or '\' to indicate a directory.
--generate-map-preview-random	COUNT	Number of maps to generate with a random seed using --generate-map-preview.
--map-preview-size	SIZE	Size (in pixels) of map preview (default: 1024)
--map-preview-offset	X,Y	Offset of the center of the map, in meters (default: 0,0)
--map-preview-planet	PLANET	Planet to generate the preview for (default: nauvis)
--report-quantities	PROTOTYPE,...	When generating map preview, report approximate quantities of the named entity prototypes
--threads	THREADCOUNT	Number of threads to use when generating map previews
--disable-migration-window		Disables the gui that is shown when opening a save with migrated content
--instrument-mod	arg	Name of a mod to enable Instrument Mode
--sync-mods	FILE	Sync mods with save. Note for headless servers: requires service-username and service-token to be set in the player-data.json file.
--enable-unsafe-lua-debug-api		Enables unsafe functions in the Lua debug library.
--host	FILE	Start hosting a multiplayer game
--host-interactive	FILE	Open multiplayer server settings for hosting the selecting save
--start-server	FILE	start a multiplayer server
--start-server-load-scenario	[MOD/]NAME	start a multiplayer server and load the specified scenario. The scenario is looked for inside the given mod. If no mod is given, it is looked for in the top-level scenarios directory.
--start-server-load-latest		start a multiplayer server and load the latest available save
--until-tick	TICK	run a save until given map tick
--benchmark	FILE	load save and run benchmark
--benchmark-ticks	N	number of ticks for benchmarking. Default is 1000
--benchmark-runs	N	how often the number of ticks will be run, map will reload after each run. Default is 1
--benchmark-verbose	timings	comma separated list of timings to output each tick. "all", "timestamp" as well as all other values seen in the debug view are allowed here. An empty string disabled verbose benchmarking.
--benchmark-sanitize		only output the final benchmark results
--benchmark-ignore-paused		leaves the game paused if it was paused when saved. By default the game is unpaused when a benchmark starts.
--output-perf-stats	FILE	path of file to which rendering performance statistics measurements should be saved. Special tags {api}, {hw}, {time} and {tag} will be replaced.
--dump-data		dumps data.raw as JSON to the script output folder and exits.
--dump-icon-sprites		dumps all icon sprites as png files to the script output folder and exits.
--dump-prototype-locale		dumps all prototypes name and description (if they have a valid value) to the script output folder and exits.
--report-autogenerated-icon-mipmaps		Report which icons will have generated mipmaps.
--log-shared-tile-layers		After loading prototypes logs which tile layers are shared by multiple prototypes and lists the prototypes that share them.
--log-spritesheets-to-optimize	N	Logs N spritesheets that seem to have some nearly transparent noise, and could be made much smaller if the noise was cleaned up.
--mp-connect	ADDRESS	start factorio and connect to address
--password	PASSWORD	the password to use when using mp-connect (if any)
--heavy		run the game in heavy mode if singleplayer with graphics. (heavy mode is related to investigating desyncs, see Desynchronization#Using_heavy_mode_command)
--load-game	FILE	start Factorio and load a game in singleplayer
--load-scenario	[MOD/]NAME	start Factorio and load the specified scenario in singleplayer. The scenario is looked for inside the given mod. If no mod is given, it is looked for in the top-level scenarios directory.
--benchmark-graphics	FILE	load save and run it with graphics for benchmark-ticks number of ticks as normal game would
--benchmark-frame	FILE	load save and benchmark graphics rendering of single frame (prepare + render) without updating the game
--debug-graphics		enables debugging layer for graphics API. If DirectX is used DirectX SDK needs to be installed for this to work.
--fullscreen		start game in windowed mode (saved to configuration)
--max-texture-size	N	maximal size of texture that the game can use (saved to configuration). Should be power of two greater than 2048
--graphics-quality	arg	accepted values: high, medium
--video-memory-usage	arg	accepted values: all, high, medium, low
--force-graphics-preset	arg	accepted values: very-low, low, mac-with-low-ram, medium-with-low-vram, medium, high, very-high, extreme
--gfx-safe-mode		resets some graphics settings to values that should work on most configurations
--low-vram		sprites that are not put into sprite atlases won't be allocated as texture objects
--shader	arg	enable/disable shader postprocessing (saved to configuration)
--disable-audio		Disable audio. Mainly for faster startup during development.
--window-size	arg	Desired window resolution. For example "1680x1050". Or "maximized"
--single-thread-loading		Disables loading of sprites in multiple threads.
--cache-sprite-atlas		Enable/disable sprite atlas cache.
--nogamepad		Disable gamepad(controller) support

Server options

--port	N	network port to use
--bind	ADDRESS[:PORT]	IP address (and optionally port) to bind to
--rcon-port	N	Port to use for RCON
--rcon-bind	ADDRESS:PORT	IP address and port to use for RCON
--rcon-password	PASSWORD	Password for RCON
--server-settings	FILE	Path to file with server settings. See data/server-settings.example.json
--use-server-whitelist		If the whitelist should be used.
--use-authserver-bans		Verify that connecting players are not banned from multiplayer and inform Factorio.com about ban/unban commands.
--server-whitelist	FILE	Path to file with server whitelist.
--server-banlist	FILE	Path to file with server banlist.
--server-adminlist	FILE	Path to file with server adminlist.
--console-log	FILE	Path to file where a copy of the server's log will be stored
--server-id	FILE	Path where server ID will be stored or read from

Boolean options

Parameters shown above with a BOOL option must be formatted as [parameter]=true or [parameter]=false. For example,

 --fullscreen=false

will start the game in windowed (not fullscreen) mode.

Multiplayer

 --start-server SAVE

Will start a Headless (Dedicated) server, with no GUI.

 --mp-connect ADDRESS

ADDRESS is the IP:port of the remote host. Port is optional. Examples:

 ./factorio --mp-connect 192.168.1.101
 ./factorio --mp-connect 192.168.1.101:2345

As above, port can be specified by placing the port number after a colon in the address.

Creating a map from custom settings

Sometimes it's useful to create a new game with map and/or map generator settings stored in a JSON file rather than going through the in-game map settings screen. One reason is that by editing the settings directly it is possible to set settings outside the range normally available from the GUI.

To do this, Factorio is run from the command-line, and a JSON file containing the map generator settings and a JSON file containing map settings (if customizing them) are needed.

Example for custom generator settings:

{
    "terrain_segmentation": 0.5,
    "water": "2",
    "width": 0,
    "height": 0,
    "starting_area": "normal",
    "peaceful_mode": false,
    "autoplace_controls":
    {
        "coal": {"frequency": 1, "size": 2, "richness": 0.5},
        "copper-ore": {"frequency": "low", "size": "normal", "richness": "high"},
        "crude-oil": {"frequency": "normal", "size": "normal", "richness": "normal"},
        "enemy-base": {"frequency": "normal", "size": "normal", "richness": "normal"},
        "iron-ore": {"frequency": "normal", "size": "normal", "richness": "normal"},
        "stone": {"frequency": "normal", "size": 0, "richness": "normal"},
        "uranium-ore": {"frequency": "normal", "size": "none", "richness": "normal"}
    },

    "cliff_settings":
    {
        "name": "cliff",                
        "cliff_elevation_0": 30,        
        "cliff_elevation_interval": 20, 
        "richness": 1                   
    },

    "property_expression_names":
    {
        "elevation": "0_16-elevation",
        "temperature": "35"
    },
    
    "seed": null
}

Note that this is the same format as MapGenSettings that are modifiable from Lua. Everything in the file is optional.

Creating a custom save:

"C:\Program Files\Factorio\bin\x64\Factorio.exe" --create stuff-seed123.zip --map-gen-settings map-gen-settings.json --map-gen-seed 123

Generating a map preview:

"C:\Program Files\Factorio\bin\x64\Factorio.exe" --generate-map-preview preview-seed123.png --map-gen-settings map-gen-settings.json --map-gen-seed 123

Creating the JSON files from a map exchange string

It can be useful to create the initial JSON files from a known map exchange string instead of creating them from scratch. To convert the map exchange string to JSON, open the game and run the following command with your map exchange string:

/c helpers.write_file('map.txt', helpers.table_to_json(helpers.parse_map_exchange_string("<your exchange string here>")))

Then open the script_output folder in the user data directory and open map.txt - it will look like this:

{"map_settings":{ ...<MAP_SETTINGS> ... },"map_gen_settings":{ ...<MAP_GEN_SETTINGS>... }}

Copy the { ...<MAP_SETTINGS> ... } section into a new file called 'map-settings.json' in the desired location. Copy the { ...<MAP_GEN_SETTINGS> ... } section section into a new file called 'map-gen-settings.json' in the desired location.

See also

• Console