Tutorial
The campaign gamemode is Factorio's equivalent of a story mode. Campaigns are pre-generated levels where the player must accomplish some preset task, such as scanning the surroundings, researching a certain technology, or providing a certain amount of resources into a chest. Upon completion, a game finish report is given, similar to freeplay, where kills and completion time are tallied. Completing the campaigns is not necessary to play freeplay.
Playing the campaign
To play a campaign, select Play from the title screen, then Start campaign. Select a campaign, and level, if applicable.
The campaign will load, and instructions will be displayed to the player. Then, the player may complete the task. For an added challenge, attempt to complete the campaign as fast as possible.
Types of campaigns
There are a few different types of campaigns in Factorio. These types include:
First steps
- You have just landed on the surface of an unknown planet. There is no one to help you. You need to learn how to craft your first tools and set up simple machines to ease your work. But beware, you are not alone...
This campaign is included with the demo.
Level 1: The player spawns in a small world, next to a shipwreck that contains 8 iron plates. The player is tasked with using them to craft an iron axe, mining iron ore and stone to craft a stone furnace to smelt the iron ore to iron plates. The player needs to mine some trees or some coal for fuel and later needs to craft a burner mining drill with the smelted iron ore. The level ends with the player wanting to explore their surroundings after automatically smelting some of the iron ore. Level 2: Basic combat is introduced, and small production targets are set in preparation for the journey. Level 3: A larger map with multiple resource patches, biter nests, and more technology is available. Power, assemblers, turrets, and inserters are all available. A shipwreck is discovered the surroundings are mapped by radar. The player then sets off for a survivor base they discovered, presumably that featured in a New Hope.
New hope
- You managed to locate the remains of a fallen ship. Now comes the hard part. In order to get started with any serious colonization of this planet you will need the data from the ship's computer. The computer will allow you to research more advanced technologies, as well as give you a better idea of the surrounding area. The bad news is that there seems to be a large alien base close to the shipwreck...
This campaign was part of the beta. Level 1 involves the reclamation of an intermediate level base that has fallen to biter attacks.
Diffculty
The campaign difficulty affects the enemy attacks in level 3, and level 4. The harder the difficulty, the more often, earlier or stronger the attacks.
| Level 3 | Level 4 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Easy | Normal | Hard | Easy | Normal | Hard | |
| Time between attacks | 50 seconds | 40 seconds | 30 seconds | 15 minutes | 10 minutes | 7.5 minutes |
| First attack at | 52 seconds | 41 seconds | 30 seconds | 20 minutes | 15 minutes | 10 minutes |
| Inital enemies per attack | 3 | 10 | 15 | 20 | ||
| Increase in enemies per attack | 0.7 | 3 | 6 | 10 | ||
| Inital evolution | 0.45 | 0.05 | 0.15 | 0.25 | ||
| Evolution increase per attack | - | 0.01 | 0.02 | 0.05 | ||
| Maximum evolution | 0.45 | 0.85 | ||||
Transport belt madness
So many chests and such a small island. Can you connect the chests without your head spinning?
Tight spot
Little space, limited resources and a fixed amount of time. Buy land and machines and sell your final product.