The official Factorio Space Age expansion has been announced! This is the first and last planned major content addition to the game. There is a lot to unpack here, so we’ll go over the details including what it is, when it will be released, and more.

The Announcement

On August 25th of 2023, the Factorio blog made this post announcing the new “Space Age” expansion. They detail the rough structure of the new content, which I’ll touch on later. They also mention that the creator of the popular mod “Space Exploration” is also the one who spearheaded the Space Age project, creating the initial prototypes and being involved in most of the gameplay discussion since then.

This update is not a copy of or even based on that mod as it is actually a completely separate update. The original blog post goes over a few things that differentiate the two, but the one that piqued my interest was that there are engine-related restrictions that Factorio mod developers need to contend with. However, with official content, the game’s developers can implement more unique gameplay mechanics that aren’t possible with mods alone.

That post was made about a year ago, but just this month, on July 5th of 2024, there was another blog post with an official release date for the Space Age update: October 21st 2024. They also announced that the expansion will be available for $35 on Steam, the same price as the base game. This is further confirmed by the official Space Age Steam page that went up shortly after the blog post, which you can find here. Both the blog post and the Steam page say more or less the same thing. It goes over the release date, as well as many of the individual features that were teased in previous blog posts.

The Content

The main content, of course, is going to space where you can now explore 3 new planets, which brings the total number of celestial bodies to explore up to 4 in total. While the base game’s goal was to build a rocket to win, you now can (and should) build multiple rockets to start exploring space. You will use those to build massive space platforms, which can travel to other planets to create automation systems, do cool space science, and facilitate advanced logistics in space. Each planet leads to production of specific science and technology types and resources. You can tackle these planets in any order depending on your specific goals.

Between the initial blog post announcing the expansion and the announcement of the release date, there were numerous smaller blog posts, detailing or teasing individual features. These are somewhat summarized in the release date blog post. We’ll go over their 3 main features here.

3 New Planets - Vulcanus, Fulgora, and Gleba

Vulcanus, as its name might imply, is described as having volcanic mountains, imposing geological landforms, plains covered in ash, and a dangerous sulfuric fog. Here you can obtain tungsten for various uses, extract copper and iron from lava, and gain access to advanced metallurgic tech. I assume you can also experience a horrific death to fire and lava rather than bugs.

Is there a new air conditioning facility that you can build?

Fulgora is described as a “lifeless and desolate place.” Cold and harsh, the wind may be an environmental hazard. You will be able to collect energy from the frequent lightning storms, find and salvage the ruins of an ancient civilization, and use “Holmium” for energy-related purposes. I’m personally interested in learning more lore about this universe. Perhaps we can uncover something interesting in the ruins, such as a reason why the planet is so destitute.

Make sure to keep your space suit’s visor shut.

Lastly, Gleba is a swamp planet filled with life, surely hiding dangerous creatures or plants. Agriculture will be a main point here, and you will be able to research new biochemical engineering-related technologies. Perhaps instead of fighting off the great fauna of a remote, alien planet, we can harness their resources for our own purposes.

Does it smell bad here?

Elevated rails

This has been one of the most requested features for Factorio, and it’s finally here. The additions to the rail system are quite complex, and you can read more about them in this blog article here. To keep it short, elevated rails will have ramps and supports, and should have all functions a normal rail has. (Signals, junctions, etc) You can make elevated rails over water as well. The difference in throughput between a single level rail junction and a multi-level one is massive, so this is going to be a nice improvement for crowded and high traffic areas. During many of my playthroughs, designing a rail system for a new section of my base has been daunting as I may not have the space on a 2d surface to account for it.

Breathtaking, beautiful, boundless – 3D RAILS

Item qualities

Each item, entity, or piece of equipment has 5 possible qualities, from normal to legendary. You can craft higher qualities with some research and quality modules. Each level of quality gives a bigger bonus to all sorts of stats. Normal quality obviously has no bonus. Uncommon has a 30% bonus, rare is 60%, epic is 90% and legendary is 150%. There are too many items to go over many specific examples, but these bonuses add to the main function of that item. Turrets do more damage, solar panels generate more power, machines process faster, some things simply have lower power consumption, etc. The “Quality Module” is what you need to use in crafting to improve chances of crafting a higher tier item. These qualities apply to other modules as well. For example 4 legendary productivity modules in an assembling machine 3 gives +100% productivity bonus. I particularly like this feature. Even if it is just an increase in numbers that results in marginal differences, adding and compounding all the improvements makes a huge difference.

Monkey brain like number go up.

In addition to those features, the game’s engine is undergoing a major upgrade. There are many small improvements to the game code including the ability to control train systems better, better blueprint building, better flying robot behavior ,and more. Because these changes are to the engine itself, they will affect all players even those who don’t own Space Age. That also means that mod authors will also see improvements that you will get to experience when you want to add more content to your game.

Conclusion

Blasting off on October 21st, the Factorio: Space Age expansion will be available for $35 on Steam. The update includes tons of space-related gameplay and features exclusive to Factorio: Space Age, plus many improvements for the base game that will be available to all users, whether or not they own the expansion.

Factorio has been a juggernaut of the indie scene since its debut in 2013, when it was crowdfunded. It looks like it will keep that status and stand among games like Stardew Valley and Terraria as long-standing, solid indie games with continuous updates over the years. The developers recommend starting a new save for this update, since much of the vanilla tech has been rebalanced to have a better progression flow with the content. When it comes out is the best time to dive into Factorio, even if you are new! And if you want a server to play it with your friends, you can get one right here. And we’ll definitely have a game night or two when this releases, so head on over to our Discord server to join in!

Oooh look! A gif!