Factorio DLC Guide – Since I had trouble trying to find a few answers to my questions, after spending some time and finding a solution on my own, I wanted to share with you some tips and tricks that can help you.
Factorio DLC Guide
Note: I transferred my old save into the new game version, so if anything I mentioned is inaccurate, let me know! Converting a save works well, but a few processes/technologies can be used before they are researched (e.g., coal liquefaction).
New planets are generated using a new algorithm, however, Nauvis remains the same.
You should ensure the ability to construct remotely on each planet—this is crucial for dealing with unplanned situations. Make sure to bring solar panels and batteries, even if they aren’t the most efficient on the designated planet.
They provide a reliable, albeit intermittent, power source. Always set up robots with construction robots for remote buildings.
After deploying to a planet, you’ll need to build a rocket silo to leave, so be prepared. Everything will have to be provided by Nauvis.
Craft and transport Spidertron to Gleba, Aquilo, and Vulcanus, it is a great backup plan and it can do many things remotely.
Connect your rocket silo to all planetary resources for backup support.
Ensure your Nauvis base is self-sustaining, as you won’t be able to assist it for extended periods.
Make sure to enable “Automatic Requests from Space Platforms” in the rocket silo for easier resource access.
Power armor with roboports, shields, and lasers is crucial for your survivability and easier base building.
Radar coverage is extremely useful on all planets.
Elevated rails and mech armor are valuable, especially on Fulgora and Aquillo.
Building a cargo landing pad is for drops from the orbital platform, it allows you to request resources from the platform (another step into automation), but also your drops will always land in this building. It has limited space but it can be expanded by “Cargo Bay”.
Vulcanus
Vulcanus offers unlimited lava, some coal, calcite, tungsten, and liquid sulfuric acid.
Lava Gathering: You can gather lava using a standard offshore pump!
Foundry Production: The Foundry is your friend. With it, you can produce Iron, Copper, Steel, and Low-Density Structures.
Big Mining Drill: Vulcanus has new miners called the “Big Mining Drill,” which must be manufactured there but can be sent to other planets later.
Metal and Circuit Production: With easy access to metal and copper, you can produce basic items like green circuits.
Tungsten Processing: Tungsten ore can be smelted into tungsten plates or tungsten carbide—both very useful later, so it’s wise to increase production.
Solar Power Bonus: This planet has a +300% solar power bonus due to its proximity to the sun, so solar panels and accumulators should support a medium-sized base.
Acid Neutralization: Later, you’ll unlock “acid neutralization,” which combines acid and calcite to produce steam, which can be converted into water (useful for concrete production and if needed power generation).
Circuit Production: You can easily make green circuit boards and, using simple coal liquefaction, produce heavy oil, light oil, gas, plastic, red circuits, and blue circuits. Now, 1/3 of the rocket parts are automated!
New Enemy – Demolisher: This enemy defends its territory. If tungsten is within its area, well… it has a problem. Uranium ammo, lasers, or robots don’t deal much damage. The easiest way to defeat it is by transporting a tank and using uranium tank ammo. Alternatively, you can craft an atomic bomb on Vulcanus, which will take down the Demolisher in one hit.
The red boxes you see on the map are the territories of each demolisher. Once the demolisher is defeated, this territory is yours.
This is what a demolisher territory looks like.
What to bring on your first launch to Vulcanus:
100x Assembling Machines
500x Solar Panels and 500x Accumulators
100x Substations
300x Bulk Inserters (or any inserters)
50x of each type of Logistics Chest
500x Pipes and 100x Underground Pipes
100x Electric Mining Drills (optional)
500x Logistics Drones
200x Construction Drones
50x Roboports
To prepare for a return rocket:
1000x Steel Plates
200x Processing Units
200x Electric Engine Units
100x Pipes
1000x Concrete
300x Rocket Fuel,
300x Blue Circuit Boards,
300x Low-Density Structures (these can be crafted on the planet if researched)
With tungsten plates and tungsten carbide, you can make Metallurgic Science Packs—useful for late-game research. Transport belt crafting has changed, so now you can make all transport belts here, including the new Turbo belt!
My complete base:
Fulgora
Fulgora has oceans of heavy oil and frequent thunderstorms, which can damage or destroy your base but also generate power with lightning rods/collectors.
Power: The best way to generate power is by using lightning rods/collectors with many accumulators. One setup of 1x Substation, 1x Lightning Rod/Collector, and 79 accumulators works well—duplicate as needed.
Starting: You can’t build over oil oceans, so look for a large landmass with scrap nearby.
Recycling Scrap: On Nauvis, you crafted items from raw materials; here, you’ll recycle scrap to reverse the process. Blue circuits to red circuits, red circuits to green circuits, and so on. Note: Recycling only returns 25% of the original materials.
Rocket Fuel: Blue circuits and Low-Density Structures can be made from scrap, so you’ll only need to produce rocket fuel, which is easy due to the heavy oil ocean. Water can be produced by processing ice.
Holmium Solution: Produce plenty of this for holmium plates and electrolytes, essential for crafting superconductors and supercapacitors.
What to bring on your first launch to Fulgora:50–100x Lightning Rods (later upgraded to Collectors)
500x Transport Belts (useful for transporting scrap on islands)
100x Underground Transport Belts
100x Balancers
100x Assembling Machines and 50x Roboports for the main base
1000x Robots (both construction and logistics) to ensure recyclers run smoothly
50x of each type of Logistics Chest
50x Substations (can be crafted locally)
Since you can easily access blue circuits, Low-Density Structures, and rocket fuel here, bring materials only for the rocket silo.
I’ve divided my base into 3 smaller ones.
The main one is for rockets, science packs, supercapacitors, and superconductors production.
Second base is just big recycler
The third one is just miners.
Gleba
Gleba offers iron and copper from bacteria and new ingredients, but you will encounter enemies here. Laser turrets are highly recommended in large quantities.
Power: Solar panels only work at 50% efficiency here, so it’s better to use nuclear reactors and transport fuel. But you must start with solar panels.
Spoilage: Almost everything here spoils (typically within 3–5 minutes), after which it becomes “spoilage.”
Biofuel: Convert spoilage into nutrients (used as fuel here) in a bio chamber. Assembling machines can perform this for free.
Agriculture: Build bases in bright green and violet biomes, using Agricultural Towers to produce plants for bioflux.
Iron and Copper Production: Iron and copper are obtained from bacteria, which can be cultivated using bioflux.
Aquillo
Aquillo is challenging, with limited resources and extreme conditions.
Power: Solar panels work at only 1% efficiency, so bring them just to start. A nuclear plant with heat pipes is essential to provide power and heat for your base.
Heat Pipes: Heat pipes require concrete on ice, which must be transported from other planets.
Ice Storage: Ice can accumulate and fill your storage quickly. Use recyclers from Fulgora to discard excess ice.
Cryogenic Science Packs: Produce at least 2500 Cryogenic Science Packs and research the fusion reactor.
Logistics Drones: Drones consume 5x more power than on Nauvis, but transport belts must be heated.
My Aquillo base:
Final Journey
For the Solar System edge and Shattered Planet, you’ll need a self-sustaining ship with a fusion reactor, multiple turrets, and resources for asteroid defense.
Endgame platform – I’m still in the process of testing a few things, but it is possible to build self almost sustaining platform.
Resources: use advanced asteroid crushing to get metal, copper, sulfur, carbon, calcite, and ice. That’s almost everything you need.
Fuel: advanced thruster processing – water, iron ore/carbon and calcite.
Ammo:
Piercing rounds – Steel + Copper + metal
Rockets – Metal + dynamite
Railgun ammo(for huge asteroids) – Steel + copper cables + dynamite
Power: Bring fluoroketone (cold) and fusion cells. This is the only thing you need to bring with you.
Quality
This is a new mechanic you can explore or ignore entirely. Here’s how to check the bonuses associated with higher-quality items:
View Bonuses on Items: Look at an item’s attributes. Those with a blue square indicate attributes that will improve.
Assembling Machine View: In an assembling machine, select the item you want to check, choose the quality level (at the bottom), and see the outcome.
Pros:All items can have Normal, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, and Legendary quality.
Legendary quality items can offer impressive bonuses.
Quality modules increase the chance of crafting higher-quality items. Using uncommon ingredients increases the chance of producing uncommon items, but can also yield rare items and so on.
Modules themselves can be legendary to provide even greater bonuses. For example, a Level 3 Normal Quality Module increases quality by 2.5%, whereas a Legendary Module increases it by 6.5%.
Legendary speed modules offer additional speed boosts to machines.
Cons:Speed modules decrease quality!
Consider a setup where a miner has two Level 3 Normal Quality Modules (+5% quality).
This setup will mostly produce normal quality items, with some uncommon and rare items.
If you refine uncommon ore in a furnace with two Level 3 Normal Quality Modules (+5% quality), you’ll likely produce uncommon iron plates, with a small chance of rare iron plates.
However, processing higher-quality items can be challenging. For example, if you’re crafting with iron and copper, an assembler set to produce normal items won’t accept higher-quality materials. An assembler set to rare will only accept rare ingredients.
Is it Worth Playing with Quality? Definitely, yes!
Is it Worth Rebuilding Your Base for Highest Quality? Not necessarily.
Having legendary items like Legendary Armor (more inventory, module space), Spidertron, or Lasers (increased range) is highly beneficial. Legendary furnaces, for example, are 2.5 times faster than normal ones, and legendary radars have a larger range. However, not every building benefits as much—some items like transport belts (which only gain more HP), chests, trains, and pipes are unaffected.
Automation
Our job is to make our life easier so let’s automate moving stuff from one planet to another.
1. Build a dedicated platform, for example small platform with lasers, solar, and accumulators to get tungsten from Vulcanus.
2. Enter planets that this platform would have to visit and set the condition “All Requests Satisfied”
3. So our request is to get ammo and repair packs from Nauvis
4. And tungsten from Vulcanus
Note that you can request here anything and select the planet from which platform should request it.
5. Make sure your planet is producing stuff you need, so in our case, Vulcanus – tungsten. And make sure to check the box “Automatic request from space platforms. Once the platform is in Vulcano orbit, it will request tungsten from the planet, rocket silo will request it from the logistics network.
6. On the second planet, in our case Nauvis inside the Cargo landing pad, on the right side add the request:
And that’s it! You have automated the transfer process of tungsten from Vulcano to Nauvis.
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Factorio DLC Guide, make sure always to
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470MW power is just enough for small/medium base
Be ready to defend yourself