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Welcome to the Factorio Access wiki! This wiki is being written by the mod developers to introduce the game in the context of the mod. Like the mod, the wiki is a work in progress but we aim to include pages for everything supported in the game.
This wiki home page offers an overview about the game, the mod, and the wiki. You can navigate between wiki entries by jumping between headings on the pages, and you can navigate between pages using the links on page or from the contents table on the right hand sidebar. The first twelve wiki chapters are written in the order of encountering their topics in the game, while later chapters are a little more mixed because the game progression becomes less linear and we have been adding new pages as we bring support to new features our of order.
Factorio is a game where you build your own factory piece by piece. You assume the role of an engineer whose spaceship has crashlanded onto an alien planet called Nauvis. There are various natural resources like ores, trees, rocks, and lakes around you. In addition, sometimes there are dispersed communities of large alien ground insects collectively known as “biters”.
Your ultimate goal is to build yourself a new rocket so that you can leave the planet. However, your engineering database is missing the technology available for building a rocket. In fact, you have hardly any technologies available to you at all! Therefore, you will first have to set up some self-sufficient research labs and unlock all the technologies you need, while you gather and process the resources you need for that.
The good news is that you are a very skilled engineer who can craft a lot of things quickly by hand, and you also know enough basic crafting recipes to get your first few machines up and running. The first thing you will need to do is to mine some resources by hand and start smelting up some metals. You can have coal-burning machines that you can use to acquire more coal in a self-sufficient way. Later you can build your first electric power system, which will support your first research labs. As you do research, you will unlock new technologies that will help you branch out your production abilities and automate further research.
Factorio is played from a top-down perspective on a mostly flat two dimensional world. Especially when enemies are in peaceful mode or are turned off, you can play the game at your own pace, and gradually you put together sprawling systems that do tons of cool things all by themselves. The game has very good sound design, but it also has a lot of features that rely on vision, which is where the Factorio Access mod comes in.
Factorio Access is a free and open source modification that reads the world and behavior inside Factorio so that it can be played without needing any sight at all. The mod is written using the official Factorio modding API, which allows us to access most of its features with ease. The mod follows a philosophy of keeping the original experience of the game as much as possible, and so the focus primarily is to give information that would usually be provided visually, while you do the building and planning as usual. The mod also has some unique features, but they are meant to be alternatives to the vanilla features that are dependent on vision. You can read more about these in the Unique Features page (click here).
The mod is also steadily developing its support for multiplayer and it is being designed to be versatile so that players with different levels of vision can enjoy playing together seamlessly.
The mod has the main version that has development on pause and the beta version that has ongoing development.
In the beta release of version 0.4, all of the gameplay basics are accessible and you are able to complete the main objective of launching rockets. Work still needs to be done in order to include some optional but iconic features of the game as well as increasing quality of life. Here are more details:
- All basic gameplay features are supported. Examples: navigation, crafting, building, and research.
- Most features work the same way they do in Vanilla Factorio while the mod simply assists by providing contextual information.
- Some features are well-supported via tools unique to the mod that are alternatives to vision-based interfaces. Examples: Scanner tool, transport belt analyzer. See the Wiki page for Unique Features for more information (click here).
- Some features are technically playable or partially supported but they need more work: Examples: Combat, train scheduling, multiplayer mode.
- Some features are not yet playable but we are planning/working to add support for them. Examples: Flying robots, achievements, circuit networks, blueprints.
- In terms of compatibility with other mods, most mods require additional work to make compatible and accessible, but we have started a list of compatible mods that were tested and working with little or no preparation (click here.
Overall, updates happen a bit irregularly because the development team is a handful of volunteers contributing in our free time. We work in parallel on improving the core gameplay, adding support for new features, and fixing bugs.
The Beta branch is currently the leading branch for ongoing development. The beta state is because we are releasing the mod without all key developers reviewing it due to time constraints, but this branch has now matured enough to function as the new main branch.
In the mod development process, player feedback is highly appreciated so that we can steer the development accordingly. You can discuss the game with us on the Factorio Access Discord server.
In game, you can get description information about most items and entities by selecting them with the cursor and pressing L (by default). In addition, the default save games list includes demo maps that show various systems in action.
For information about how to install the mod and a summary of the controls, read the readme page. To learn about updates and changes, read the change log. Note that the beta version has its own readme page and changes page.
For information about the game itself and mod features, this wiki is a source written specifically for players without sight. As an alternate information source, you can use the official Factorio wiki. For live help and discussion, you can join us on the Factorio Access Discord server to ask questions. Furthermore, Factorio's official forums, official discord server, and official subreddit are all good places for discussing the game.
Chapters 1 and 2 introduce the basics of the game such as how inventories work, controls, how progress in the game is measured, what resources exist, and how to gather them. Chapters 3 to 6 cover the machines and systems of the very early game known as the "burner era". Chapter 7 introduces electric power and Chapter 8 explains research and technology, which is the main form of progression in the game. Chapters 9 to 12 cover the tools and concepts of automation, which lie at the heart of the game. Chapters 13 and onward cover later systems and concepts that get unlocked as technology progresses. Note that these later chapters are in the order of when features get introduced to the mod rather than order of technology progression. Therefore you might want to check out the later chapters out of order.
In addition, we have some non-chapter pages that cover other information about the mod, such as our recommended map called Conpass Valley, or pages that discuss early game milestones, example maps, and unique features of the mod.
The mod is and always will be free. The game itself costs $35 on Factorio.com. The game is also sold on Steam and on GOG and on Humble Bundle. You are able to use your steam account to login at Factorio.com and download the standalone version of the game.
The mod works only for the Windows version of Factorio. It supports the latest update of Factorio 1.1.
See the instructions on the readme page, here.
We recommend playing on the standalone version but we have added support for the Steam version recently. You need to modify the Steam settings in order to run the game.
To do this, first you need to install the mod release contents into the Steam-installed Factorio version's folder (%AppData%/Factorio). Next, run the mod's own launcher exe application to get a configuration text string that you need to copy. You then go to the properties menu for Factorio in the Steam Library. Under the general section there is the text field for Launch Options. You paste the string here and the game should then be ready for playing.
No, in fact no mods work with the demo. On the other hand, Steam has a refund policy where you can get a refund for the game for any reason, with the conditions that you play for less than two hours in total and apply within two weeks of purchasing the game. Read more about it on Steam's info page.
The minimum system requirements is a 64-bit system with 4GB of RAM, DirectX 10.1 capable GPU with 512MB VRAM, dual core 3GHz processor, and at least 3GB of disk space. Generally speaking, Factorio is a very optimized game and it runs very decently on a medium grade PC, especially with the lowered graphics settings.
To run the mod after you install it, launch it using the launcher exe file. This will open the launcher menu, which opens by saying "Hello Factorio". You can navigate the launcher menu by entering the line number you want to go to for each menu page. Depending on your choices in the launcher menu, the game will begin to run. After you exit the game, the launcher remains open and is exited separately.
All basic features of the game are supported and you currently can complete the main objective of building and launching a rocket. However, some iconic optional features have partial or incomplete support. See the relevant section on this page for more details.
The mod follows a philosophy of preserving the vanilla experience as much as possible. Therefore in general its role is to simply provide information about the world the same way visual cues and menus do. The mod also offers some unique features of its own. For more about this see the unique features page..
Because the game is focused on building machines across the world according to specific rules, players have noted that the game requires keeping mental maps or using other techniques to remember what you have built where. In addition, some patience is needed with bugs or underdeveloped features, but we have been steadily improving things thanks to feedback and continuous efforts.
For sighted players who prefer the vanilla experience, we have added Vanilla Mode (toggled using CONTROL + ALT + V by default). This mode is almost the same as the vanilla experience. The main difference is that many keyboard shortcuts do not work because they are still reserved for the mod functions. The other big difference is that you are restricted to rotating items in hand using SHIFT + R.
No, but the mod offers its own type of tutorial content. For example, we have the demo maps, which show systems at work that you can examine. We also added in-game descriptions to most items and entities that you can check by pressing L (by default).
This wiki is a source written by the mod team specifically for the mod players. For other options, check this page's section above called "Information sources overview".
In general, working alongside other mods requires the other mods to be both compatible with our mod's code and accessible for the players. For most mods, we prefer to work on supporting them after we have finished adding support for the main game. However, some mods are found to be compatible and accessible with little or no effort required. We are adding such mods to our page for compatible other mods
Multiplayer gameplay is supported if all players install the same mods including this one. The Vanilla Mode setting allows for players with different levels of vision to play together with more ease. Connecting via LAN is well supported for players within the same LAN, such as the same building. Connecting via the internet is possible but difficult to setup due to matchmaking server issues: You either have to use the original graphical interface or set up port forwarding.
Factorio itself supports several languages but the mod's language is mostly hardcoded in English. We are adding early-stage basic support for localization. Later on we will make localization more extensive and ask for help from volunteer translators.
We appreciate bug reports from players, especially if you can reproduce the bug. Please get in contact on the Discord server, ideally on the channel for issues.
Some bugs will make the game crash, which can be identified by all sound cutting out. We are doing our best to keep these to a minimum by testing before releases. Autosave should generally prevent you from losing too much progress. Please get in contact on the Discord server to report the crash, ideally on the channel for issues. We also appreciate receiving a screenshot of the crash screen to help us with locating the error.
Thanks for asking. Please check this page's section above titled "mod development overview".
The wiki content follows the Beta version, which has all the new content. SirFendi is working hard to keep the wiki updated along with the new additions and changes to the mod, but there may be gaps. Feel free to make suggestions about this, and note that the change log is usually the most reliable source for up-to-date information despite being not as convenient to read as the wiki.
We aim to have at least basic support for all main features before the middle of 2024. We have the following goals listed, but success will depend on time and the limitations of the API. This list is not in any order:
- Extensive support for logistics robots and logistics chests.
- Decent support for building with blueprints.
- Extensive support for combat features.
- Basic or decent support for circuit networks.
- Improved flexibility when building train schedules.
- Support for rail forks and better train detection, in order to build more complex railway systems.
- Easier multiplayer set up.
- Adding the mod to the official mod portal.
- Automatic mod updating.
- Extensive localization support and actual extensive localization via volunteer translators.
- Support for requested other mods.
We are not sure about this because the 2.0 version and the expansion are both several months away and we need their API content to be released along with them to even start working on making them accessible.
You can get in touch on our discord server about helping. There are several ways that you can help out:
- Playtesting and feedback from players is always welcome, especially in terms of feature discussions and bug reports.
- We also appreciate experienced players helping new players with questions they ask on our Discord server.
- We also welcome suggestions and contributions for our wiki pages.
- Later we will also be looking for volunteer translators as we add localization support for the mod.
- You can also contribute to the coding, especially if you are experienced with coding. Feel free to get in touch about how.