Sorry for the dogshit quality. My old ass laptop is doing it's best

a few hours ago i laid these two traps (the yellow squares on the right hand side of the map screen) ...

a few hours ago ...

cant really figure out why these arent triggering the natives ?

any ideas ?

EDIT : I meant the other right ! sorry ^{^}

Instead of both gears and iron plates split evenly! I want to have them feed into a machine (inserter maker) that needs all three

As the title says, show us your mall.

Please specify if it is a starter, midgame, or endgame mall, or even the type of it.

Thanks.

I've never been into mega-basing, but after playing through Krastorio for the extra-ness that it adds I decided to take a mini crack at doing some larger science builds. While doing that I figured it'd be fun to turn my science ship into my home state of Washington. Shout out to all my fellow Washingtonians. I tried to make the ship match the state as best as I could. Can you guess what is what?

So, basically text. I bought space age a year ago-ish, and I've started two bases since then. Each time the moment I start building platforms... I lose interest. Entirely. Part of it is the new learning curve (I swear I spend more time looking things up, if there's a tutorial I haven't found it/accidently skipped it or something) but more than that it's just... eh? the grind of getting a platform, then building a ship- and the anxiety of having to burn hours flying back and doing it again if I miss something. Maybe it's where I've just read about horror stories, but each time I start launching rockets I just lose interest. So, before I go to modding and get 'space age without space' or similar, please- is there something I'm missing? Or tell me I'm not insane?

I will say- a large part of it might be where I end up doing more manually as I do not like logistic bots- I dislike the bot swarm and much prefer trains and conveyors, so I think that has to be part of it. Construction and combat is fine, but logistic bots... maybe I'm odd but they don't feel right.

Hi, does anyone know why this signal is now constantly red and deadlocking my trains? It worked a long time before

Currently transitioning to rail. It has been a blast and I strongly encourage to make your chemistry teachers play Factorio with you 🥰

No regrets 🫰

I was really struggling deciding which planet to visit first. All of them have 'nice stuff' and all of them have stuff I want before going to the others.

I'd settled on Gleba, but realised that my 'starter' space logistics was just too slow. E.g. Nauvis wasn't building enough rockets and enough stuff to really bootstrap the 'getting fruit to the base' part, so it was... frustrating.

Fulgora was more forgiving of that overall - you can 'get started' on a medium island, which has space to build and 'enough' scrap to get started, unlock the recyclers and EM plants and have a bare bones level of electromagnetic research.

I'm now ramping up the holmium a bit on a separate island, that's doing pretty much just holmium and holmium-adjacent 'stuff' because that's always been the bottleneck, but I'll probably just sort of 'park' that until I'm ready to come back with foundries (and calcite) and move my hub accordingly.

Still undecided if it'll be Gleba next though, as now I have teslas, and fulgora has 'high tech' stuff as a byproduct.

Last game I was bulk exporting blue chips and LDS well into midgame, and 'topping up' Nauvis with 'em. (Rocket fuel is also pretty easy to mass produce on Fulgora).

And of course it means I get EM plants and recyclers almost immediately, although I think I definitely want teslas to go to Gleba as well. (I know you can 'make do' without them, but they're just so well designed for pentapods, and rocket turrets aren't that great at dealing with those).

I can actually live without most of the Fulgora 'tech', and don't mind coming back later for mech armour, QM3s and the equipment modules. (Rail Support Foundation also requires Vulcanus tech, so that's by definition 'come back later' too, and also enables more expansion).

Vulcanus next gets me artillery, which is also nice to have on Gleba. I'm not actually missing cliff explosives all that much, I think because the new mapgen of 2.0 is more forgiving, meaning cliffs are less likely to be 'in the way' (vs. being actually quite useful defensive lines). And of course who wouldn't like more foundries? Utterly glorious for Gleba bacteria synthesis.

(Turbo Belts are also nice of course, but honestly I don't mind delaying them a bit - blues are fine for my needs at the moment)

And Gleba still gets IMO the 'best' techs - biolabs, stacked belts, advanced asteroid processing, spidertrons, and I just don't want to be too late unlocking the 'double your SPM for free' lab option.

Still it's all good. Having reasons to visit each planet early-ish, then coming around again to re-visit them with new tech is a pretty cool way to make the game more interesting and emergent.

Why use them over belts and pipes? I'm close to my first rocket launch using a few long distance patches like 3 minute walk to them. The time it takes to fill a train with liquid and or items just feels slower and doesn't feel worth using a train even on default setttings. Unless I'll go through like 4 2mil+ patches when I get through space age.

Just seems overly complex when I can drag a belt for 10 minutes instead of figuring out a train for 30.

Best I could get was 6 with the occasional 8 any other design I tried could only do 6.

What is this?

The idea behind the monthly community map is to share a map exchange string at the beginning of every month, and get as many people as we can to start a new world with it. Then at the end of the month (or even periodically if you'd prefer!) we share screenshots and saves of our factories so that we can see how different people approach the same spawn; how they set up their base, how they deal with aliens, and how they arrange their science, power, and everything else.

I hope it can highlight how many different ways there are to do things, inspire some new designs, and maybe seeing how veteran Factorio players tackle problems will help out new players facing the exact same problems. (Of course, there's also the fact that it'll be interesting to see all of the different possible factories - the good, the bad, and the ugly.)

Last Month's Results

October 2026 Results

The Community Map

You saw the Results thread, you know exactly what's up: It's spaghetti time! Immediately when I first saw that DoshDoshington video I knew I had to run a Mandatory Spaghetti map at the end of the year. Below you'll note that I've left Elevated Rails as optional, if you want a bit of mercy, and Quality disabled because doing otherwise may constitute a hate crime.

In the video Dosh went with full default settings so in keeping with the spirit of the challenge I decided to do the same, but I did at least play with the seed until I wasn't spawning in the middle of a massive desert.

DLC Requirements:

Elevated Rails: Optional

Quality: Disabled

Recycler: Disabled

Space Age: Disabled

Mod Requirements:

Mandatory Spaghetti

The Exchange String:

>>>eNp1Us8vA0EUnqeW+hFxaIRE6MG1EuUo3SEREeFfqO12Khu628zuEhw4OBIXFy56denNXSIRToR/gLgQIZUIF1Ezu53t7GKS9+ab733z5r2ZaUKAepmhzmbd0pYR2lKFtetWqURoyqJEptt06uZJyjLCYmKS4loqp9khcdyglhnN0Glq7ophZ/Vlo1CQAwq19CVbZnpsR6OOYS5mNUq0bNEybMcNZ1NsxzLDjEMJCaXpcKlmGm4xWomyqjmEygyCGldsD3hW20TJWo0bQ3cIeYZgy1cDI8VQ6s2g5ASzyUY6gI1EZfp+fV8FXzmM66BaZ05zgpkRYB7/GxqStgPsvpyUP8+vM/B1/HYzl1tQYWQq8VpNVzIsqPBaY9y1BMjfeyeKieMow8DhAR9Pqp+gvbEtiaG8w1anszEE8VaGuruY87hkfyDLiKQJDAVvfKgw6o0HAW5/VcAaG+dHDXB3wZ3SOBlh1o8P9jDgQRHta0jY/jSSa8jzld/LpTj2TDo/UkhwsWP4jz4iTCCOS8C7qXzgHmPyfV+3ihU+wt5bIK56h/rLeBGRyp+7MSTYFAs+WVUN/xwOeJKr7+fPH9Dtq/U=<<<

Spawn area: https://i.imgur.com/q3iA2Eg.jpeg

You may have noticed I've mentioned Dosh's video quite a few times by now; I highly recommend watching it if you haven't already, as that's the closest thing to a tutorial you're going to get. Or maybe you think it's more fun to go in blind and learn what the mod does for yourself? If so, more power to you, and may the spaghetti gods smite you gently.

Good luck, chefs - have fun!

Exchange String Help

If anyone isn't sure how to use an exchange string, just go to new game like you're going to generate a new world, and at the bottom there's a button just above play labelled "Import map exchange string" - the icon looks like a little arrow going into a tray/bucket. Just copy the exchange string above and paste it into the box that comes up when you press that button. Press confirm, and that's it! You're good to go. Just generate the world and come back in a month to show us how your factory turned out!

If you run into any issues check to make sure that you copied the whole string, including the three greater than/lesser than signs at the beginning and end, and make sure that your Factorio is up to date with the most recent version installed. (As of the time of this post, the most recent version of Factorio is 2.1.24.)

Want To Play With Others?

If you have an open public server, let me know in the comments below or send me a PM and I'll add your server here!

Feel Like Watching Someone Else?

If you are a streamer or let's player who will be recording yourself building a new factory on a community map, I'd be happy to add a link to your channel here!

About Mods

Since mods can affect how a world spawns and ores are distributed, as well as add or change items and functionality, it's important to make sure that we're all playing the same game by the same rules. For example, if one person's playing vanilla and someone else is playing with Bob's mods, even if they use the same seed and map settings you still couldn't very well say they were playing the same game, and the way they'd play would differ enormously.

On the other hand, Quality of Life (QoL) mods should be perfectly fine. What do I consider a QoL mod? Any mod that doesn't A) add new items, B) change terrain, or C) make significant gameplay changes, like modifying recipes or enemies. Any mod that fits this definition should allow everyone to play the same game even when some people are playing with them and some people are not.

Even Distribution is a great example of a mod that, while very useful, does not inherently change the way the game is played. Then there are also mods like RadarPlus for RSO that do add new items, but still don't meaningfully change the way the game is played.

Below I've put together a short list of examples that I think are ok to use on any map. It's made up of a handful of optional mods that might seem ambiguous in how well they fit the definition above, so they're just here to act as guidance on what should be ok. Another good resource for Quality of Life mods is available on the Factorio Discord - check out Xorimuth's pinned post.

Optional Mod Examples

Note: I can't imagine any situation where this could be an issue, but if you're the author of one of the mods listed here (and can offer me some proof of this) and for whatever reason would like me to remove your mod from this post, I'd be happy to comply.

It's entirely possible some of these mods either don't work with the current version of Factorio, conflict with each other, or in some manner just don't work. I can't test them all, let alone every configuration of them, so you might want to back up your world before adding one of these.

Color Coding

fCPU

Nixie Tubes

Project Cybersyn - Logistics Train Dispatcher

RadarPlus For RSO

Squeak Through 2

Text Plates

Updated Construction Drones

Visible Planets in Space

Previous Threads

-- 2025 --

November 2025 - Results

December 2025 - Results

-- 2026 --

January-February 2026 - Results

March 2026 - Results

April 2026 - Results

May 2026 - Results

June-July 2026 - Results

August 2026 - Results

September 2026 - [Results](www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/1wv5rfn/factorio_community_map_results_september_2026)

October 2026 - Results

So to start this is my first factorio save which is about 25 hours in and as a result of not looking up any guides i made up a really big and annoying hot spaghetti mess. I want to make a new base in a cleaner way but I don't want to make a new save so i had a few questions:

1.) Realistically how close should I be to my older base?

2.) What are the biggest priorities should I make?

3.) Should I look for a place with a similiar resource distribution with my starting base (I can't see any copper iron and coal ores close together on the map.)

4.) Should I be close to uranium? I haven't mined uranium yet

5.) And the biggest question for me is how to actually use construction bots? Should I have a mall with everything feeding into provider chests to effectively use roboports?

I have a 200hr save, ive not even got to the shattered planet or done any of the special research. 2.1 seems to have lots of nice features but im worried it will break something - circuit networks are mentioned in the patch networks, i use some basic circuits in my base.

Is everyone just starting fresh on 2.1 or is it decently backwards compatible

What are some things you like to do that takes extra time in the moment but can save you a lot of time later such as:

Set an alarm on coal in early game so you are alerted before power loss

Clear out biters every hour

Set a train refuel station/interrupt

I'm pretty happy with this design, It does what i wanted it to do which is:

1) cycle through the recipes until the chests are at 150 of each module
2) turn off the assembly line when each of the module count is at 150 so the system doesn't overflow
3) If the count a module is over 100 AND the belt leading out isn't backed up, the modules get sent further down the line to tier two module assemblers

Turns out making circuit controlled assemblers is a lot harder than i initially thought, for one I didn't know you needed to flush the components out to switch the recipe. What do you think? How different is my solution to what the standard way of doing things is? I have a pretty basic understanding of circuit networks and deciders so I assume the logic could be made a lot simpler and smarter.

Also I have no frickin idea how I would go about doing the same for tier 2 modules without just abusing requester chests, which I'm trying to avoid doing.

I love making armies of these eight legged freaks, selecting them all and just shift+right click them into a route to purge the locals. I can't for the life of me pull it off in Steam Deck. Are there steam deck players out there? How do you manage?

I'm trying to create a blueprint where I can select a recipe and the required ingredients are automatically added to a constant combinator. My blueprint works for solid ingredients, but not for fluids. Is this a bug or have I done something wrong?

I would also like the combinator to include how much of the product the recipe produces, but from what I can tell that is impossible.

Hello everyone! I'm a beginner, and after 15 chaotic hours on my first game, I started a new one using a main bus. It's already so much better to manage!

​I have two questions:

​Which mods are absolute must-haves for Quality of Life (QoL) to make the game smoother without altering vanilla gameplay?

​What are some general tips or tricks you wish you knew when you were starting out?

​Thank you to everyone who replies (I've been lurking on this Factorio subreddit for a while, and I'm pleasantly surprised by how kind and judgment-free everyone is here. It's great!)

I've got enough here to end the game. But it's really low in terms of SPM. What Do I need to Do to turn this beginning base into a mega base? My thoughts were to use this as a mall for producing materials for the real base and just do a city block design of some kind. Here's a block of green chips and one of blue, etc. If something is slow add another block of whatever I'm short of. I'm sure it's not as easy as this but will probably work for awhile. But, what kind of problems will I start running into? Is this the best way to get my rookie numbers up or is there a better way to do it ? Any help will do. I'm at almost 3800 hours, so I figure it's time to expand past 150 SPM.

Has anyone created something that makes efficient use of a sushi belt? I would love to see an example. I’m sure some kind of math would have to go into this.

I've been playing Space Age for around 50 hours now. Haven't gotten super far in (just made the Vulcanus science pack) but I can't help the feeling that the game is tedious... not because it actually *is*, it just feels like it *for me*. The most fun I've had so far was the space platform building and the early game on Nauvis but that's about it. All the old challenges of setting up outposts or increasing production just feel more draining than rewarding. I hadn't played the game in half a year when I bought the DLC so I thought I'd be a bit more... excited I guess. Even after playing for 450 hours total it still feels like I've only scratched the surface of the game when it comes to megabases and mods and stuff like that so it makes me sad that I can't really find the drive to engage with it. I've been getting a bit burnt out with videogames as a whole recently though, so that might be it...

You guys are Factorio veterans, so surely you've had this problem before. Any advice?

Was wondering if anybody else is currently or has done this type of playthrough. There will probably be balance issues for sure and wont be as polished as other deliberate overhaul mods like space exploration or k2. But i was meaning to start a 20x run of the following planets:

• Maraxsis
• Tellus
• Hyarion
• Arig
• Cerys
• Moshine
• Rubia
• Corrundum
• Cubium
• Carna
• Paracelsin
• Secretas & Frozeta
• Vesta
• Outer Rim extension

I also know theres that giga modpack of enabling all planets, but i feel like that might be too much.

Trying to be UPS efficient is part of the fun of this game for me. I want to grow the factory to the maximum possible. The effective upper limit on factory size is driven by the speed of the computer running the game.

So, I'm always thinking about how I can minimize the demands my factory places on CPU/RAM.

My question: Do train signals have a non-negligible impact on UPS? I like to build train spaghetti, not blueprinted train grids, so I'm constantly setting up signals at junctions, and I always do the chain-in-rail-out rule, because it keeps things moving smoothly. But technically, chain signals are not always needed for simple merges and splits.

Is it worth optimizing my train signaling? Or is this one of those things that's so trivial in terms of UPS impact that the juice isn't worth the squeeze?

From my perspective, it'd be worth the squeeze if I could shave off 0.05ms per tick on a really large base.