Learn to master Factorio's early game with this comprehensive walkthrough covering resource gathering, steam power, and automation using blueprints and ghosting.
Struggling to get started in Factorio? This early game walkthrough will guide you through your first hour, showing you how to be productive and create a solid foundation for your factory.
Walkthrough
- 1Starting a new game: Look for worlds with plenty of nearby iron, copper, and coal, space between ore patches, green areas to absorb pollution, and natural chokepoints. Beginners can enable Peaceful Mode to prevent Biter attacks until provoked.
- 2Step 1: Iron, Coal, Copper, and Stone: Mine large rocks first for coal and stone. Set up a drill on iron feeding into a furnace with coal. Manually mine coal while the furnace smelts iron. Create more drills for coal, feeding into each other for an endless supply. Increase iron plate production by adding more drills and furnaces. Set up drills for copper and stone. Aim for 8-16 pairs of miners/furnaces on iron, 4-10 on coal, 1-3 on copper, and 1-3 on stone. Chop trees and mine rocks in the vicinity.
- 3The beginnings of Steam Power and Science: After basic mining is set up, build an Offshore Pump, Boiler, two Steam Engines, and Pipes. Place the pump near water with adjacent empty land. Connect the Boiler to the pump, and Steam Engines to the Boiler. Place Small Wooden Poles extending to a free space. Place two Labs near the final pole and research Automation. Craft 10 Red Science packs and place them in the Labs to complete the research.
- 4First steps towards automation: Once Automation is researched, you can build Assembling Machines. Set up a module using 3 Assembling Machines, 7 Inserters, 2 Iron Chests, and Small Electric Poles. This module turns iron plates into gears, and gears with copper plates into Red Science, feeding automatically into your Labs. Queue the following techs: Logistics, Military, Turrets, Electronics, Fast Inserter, Logistic Science Pack, and Weapon Shooting Speed 1. If Labs fill up too quickly, add more Labs and daisy-chain them with Inserters.
- 5Your first project: Full Steam Power Module: Once Logistics is researched, expand your Steam Power module. A single Offshore Pump supports 20 Boilers and 40 Steam Engines. Prepare the infrastructure for this expansion, adding Engines as needed. The blueprint for this module includes Boilers fed by a coal belt, with burner inserters placing coal into chests, and more inserters feeding the Boilers.
Tips:
- Consider using non-game-changing mods like Bottleneck, Even Distribution, EvoGUI, and Squeak Through.
- The world seed used in this walkthrough is 759782236.
- Minimise manual crafting by researching Automation to unlock Assembling Machines.
- Use
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