ダブルヘッダー。This is a term that refers to a train with locomotives on both ends, making the train capable of driving in both directions. Opposite of a single header, or standard train. A shorthand example could be: 1-2-1 (locomotive-carriage-carriage-locomotive) or 2-4-2.
Dragon's teeth
A series of alternating stone wall pillars outside the main wall fortification with the purpose of delaying the biters from reaching the wall. Dragon's teeth were first deployed in the Second World War to delay and channel armoured units into minefields and other defenses. Also used in the 1997 game Total Annihilation.
E
Entity
エンティティ。Most things 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
進化。The development and growth of the native population. Over the course of a game, biters and spitters become bigger and more powerful. See 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
燃料。Refers to any burnable item that can be used to fuel burner devices, such as wood, coal, etc.
G
GJ
ギガジュール。エネルギーの単位。
Ghost
ゴースト。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 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
ギガベース。An even larger megabase, typically has SPM counts > 10k.
I
Inventory
インベントリ。The ability for an entity to hold items within it. Almost all entities have inventories.
Item
アイテム。Items represent the un-built version of a machine, tools, intermediate products 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
アイテム要求スロット。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.
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
メガワット。電力の単位。
Main bus
メインバス。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
モール。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 map exchange string.
Market
マーケット。A building where you can buy items using coins. It's available in the editor and used in the Tight Spot campaign.
Mats
マテリアル（素材）の略。
Megabase
メガベース。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 science packs per minute, or "SPM". A base typically is considered a megabase when it can maintain 1k SPM.
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
Nauvis
Factorioのゲームが行われている惑星の名前。ファイル名前のみで、ゲーム中には登場しない。
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 no path.
O
Outpost
A small base created far away from a main 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 shuttle.
Q
QoL
クオリティオブライフ（生活の質）。多くの場合、プレーのしやすさを向上させるMODのことを指す。
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
rockets per minute の略。１分間のロケット打ち上げ回数。
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 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 or height of 9 tiles, the size 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 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.
Smart furnace
A smelting setup that can process multiple materials (e.g. iron ore, copper ore, iron plates, stone).
Spaghetti
An example of a "spaghetti" setup with intertwining belts.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 singleplayer record is just under two hours.
SPM
Shorthand for science packs per minute. Measured per type, so 1k SPM will mean production of 1000 of each science pack type per minute, though military science is often excluded. Usually used to measure the size of very big bases, see megabase and gigabase.
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
ゲーム内の実績である「スプーンなんてない(There Is No Spoon)」の略語。
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 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.
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
バニラ。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).
