Factorio Forums

Most mods focus on delivering new content, but I've always been a fan of vanilla gameplay in any game. But with Factorio, there are many changes I sometimes feel are necessary just to make the game worth playing. I had a decent mod list going in 0.14 but I'm tired of some of those mods and several others still aren't updated for 0.15 or no longer have any development support.

So I've come here to ask you guys for suggestions on mods that don't add new content for the purpose of delivering new content, but rather focus on filling in the holes in existing content and altering the balance to make the game more fun, challenging, immersive, or just to keep me busy for longer. I also like being driven to build and explore in order to get new things that I need or want, but I don't like having lofty goals with no really good reason to pursue them. For instance I don't bother building modules very often because I can just make a bigger factory for cheaper. I also don't feel like I have a really good reason to build rockets because the space science just gives me infinite upgrades on stuff that's already overpowered. But I'll happily play with resources spread far apart and made rare because then there's both a drive to explore and to build logistics systems to deliver resources. And those factories and logistics systems eat more resources.

I'm looking for mods that re-balance inventory and storage space because it's too easy and cheap to transport very large amounts of stuff. I also want mods that add new vehicles. And it's currently too easy to tear apart biter bases so maybe spawners could use more hit points or something. I don't want mods that are unbalanced. I'm not looking for mods that add new and unnecessary gameplay elements but if they are well implemented I am willing to give them a shot. I don't want shortcuts that make it easier to get the things I want, and I am interested in any mods that make it more difficult to get things. I especially like the expensive recipe setting in 0.15. I'm not looking for a game in which it's difficult to stay alive, rather I just want a challenge that keeps me busy and makes me think, so stronger biters can be fun as long as they aren't too aggressive, or maybe I'm given expensive ways to build defenses to protect me from them. Finally, I like building new factories to add to what I have, but I don't like having to rebuild my factories. I dislike electric furnaces because they don't fit over my steel furnaces, and I dislike switching from small to medium electric poles. Also steel furnaces are OP.

So I'm very open to suggestions, please tell me what mods you like, why you like them, and why you think I might like them! If it's unbalanced but I can edit the numbers to fix it, I'm down with that! I am currently using Day/Night Extender, Alien Biomes, and Warehousing. I kind of miss Hard Storage, but I think the expensive recipes setting is in some ways even better. Now if I had some reason to make a really long train...


This post on Reddit accurately describes how I feel about biters and combat. I agree with pretty much every response as well. I want a mod or two that make combat and exploration a lot more fun.

1. Mods that fill in holes in vanilla (I always use these): Autofill, Side Inserters, More Toolbelts, Even Distribution, AutoDeconstruct, Angels Infinite Ores, Big Wooden Power Pole, Picker Extended, RSO, Reverse Factory, and Stone Water Well, in somewhat alphabetical order. Most of these are self-explanatory, but I can go in-depth if there's a mod you don't recognize.

2. Mods that make enemies harder and add "better" combat/vehicles (my personal preferences): Swarm, Rampant, DayNightExtender + ScaryNights, Bob Enemies, Bob Warfare, Bob Vehicle Equipment.
Basically more enemies; smarter enemies; solar power nerf w/biter buff; more diverse and stronger enemies/bases; more tools to combat the aforementioned stronger enemies; balanced equipment grids and vehicle-exclusive equipments.

3. If you want to throw everything completely out the window, there's an Ore Chaos mod that shuffles ores, making it so that there's copper, coal, and stone in your iron patch; the amount and percentage of which are all configurable. I can vouch that it is compatible with RSO by default. This would force extra logistics sorting process, and especially complicate the train network from vanilla.

Kryzeth wrote: 3. If you want to throw everything completely out the window, there's an Ore Chaos mod that shuffles ores, making it so that there's copper, coal, and stone in your iron patch; the amount and percentage of which are all configurable. I can vouch that it is compatible with RSO by default. This would force extra logistics sorting process, and especially complicate the train network from vanilla.

Side note - RSO does some things that will make mod like this only partially functional with it. But I didn't check so I'm guessing a bit. There might be issues on bigger ore patches that are larger then a chunk.

orzelek wrote:

Kryzeth wrote: 3. If you want to throw everything completely out the window, there's an Ore Chaos mod that shuffles ores, making it so that there's copper, coal, and stone in your iron patch; the amount and percentage of which are all configurable. I can vouch that it is compatible with RSO by default. This would force extra logistics sorting process, and especially complicate the train network from vanilla.

Side note - RSO does some things that will make mod like this only partially functional with it. But I didn't check so I'm guessing a bit. There might be issues on bigger ore patches that are larger then a chunk.

Hmmm, I won't comment on any of the internals of that mod, but from my experience with it, it worked fine with RSO, properly mixing. In one of the older versions, it didn't play well, but the mod author fixed it specifically so that it would work with RSO. If I remember, he mentioned something about leaving ore patches un-chaos'd until it was completely explored, and it would then apply the ore chaos mixing. It had problems when I used Creative Mode radar (in testing) to search a huge area in a short time, but when walking up to it or exploring by vanilla radar, the mod worked just fine.