Best Factorio feature

[zOldBulldog]

This is a bit of a "thank you" thread. Post here whichever single feature of Factorio you find the most valuable, or is your favorite.

For me, it is the auto-save. For example, today after playing for a couple hours I picked up my laptop, the mouse slipped... and I have no idea how (probably a poorly time click as the mouse was falling) and the game closed. Luckily, the game had just auto-saved so getting my work back was trivial.

[steinio]

Ore patch highlighting with amount on map view ... Best feature ever.

[WIZ4]

The use of sulfur for uranium mining.This way of resource extraction looks interesting.

[4xel]

For me, it's construction bot (along blueprint).

[Gergely]

TRAINS!!!

However, if quality of life features also count then...

The simple fact that you can copy/paste literally everything!

[Rizzano]

I love trains, and personal bots, but for me, just like the OP, I love auto-save the most. It has helped me before on a few occasions.

[Kyralessa]

Fast replace:

- Replace an inserter with a compatible one, even facing a different way.
- Replace a belt with a different color belt, or the same color facing a different way.
- Replace a furnace with another (same size) furnace.
- Replace an assembly machine with another type of assembly machine.

And so forth. It saves a ton of time and prevents you from digging up a bunch of belt, then forgetting exactly where it was when you go to replace it.

[imperiumgraecum]

This game has by far the highest degree of configurability through mods I 've ever seen in a game, which, hopefully, will become the norm in other games i nthe industry.

Pretty much every factorio player has either tried or become a regular user of a certain mod(bob's modpack is my personal favorite).

[Quazar]

Roboports + Construction Bots Radar + logisics depot = remote building, so cool.

[disentius]

Ultimate Sandbox. Set your own goals, and have infinite ways to reach it.
Also, no crashes

[dog80]

tbh research queue is the thing

[purdueme91]

Blueprints+personal robo port

Close second is the mods.

First one lets me not reinvent the wheel every single game and I can look at optimizing and making things better/bigger than I had before.

Second one lets me ramp the difficulty up or down and just completely change the game play (seablock, anyone?).

Just one gripe right now is the overwriting of undergrounds and splitters with belt. I hate placing a new belt and getting shifted and blowing away something and mixing stuff up on multiple belts.

[TRUEpicness]

Totally agree with the belt thing. You should be able to ONLY replace with splitters and undergrounds only, not regular belts

[zOldBulldog]

Totally agree with the belt thing. You should be able to ONLY replace with splitters and undergrounds only, not regular belts

Yep, it is so common to accidentally step on a moving belt while replacing belt and boom!!! all kinds of stuff gets destroyed.

[adam_bise]

Generally, the freedom to come up with your own clever solutions. Specifically, the circuit network it tops in my book.

[epr]

The pipette function when pressing "q" on an entity.
Best sandbox tool ever.