Factorio Forums

Hi there. I've been playing Factorio on the weekends and I have to say I'm enjoying it to a insane degree.

There is a issue however I would like to resolve if possible. I'm currently at university and I've i'm often lugged with a ton of free time to waste. Problem is, the university computers refuse to allow any form of installation (they used to but this year the restrictions are from the 1990s)

This includes steam... can't even launch the program thanks to that.

I've noticed that when you buy a copy on this website you get a steam key along with it. Is it possible for the reverse to happen? Would like a copy of the game not linked to steam if possible.

Perhaps your university's computers have that restriction in place for a reason?

Imagine if you had a "very important paper" to work on and every machine had some form of game on it, with a user who had no intention of getting off that machine any time soon.

That said, I believe you can purchase the game directly from their main website which would be a DRM/Steam free copy.

( I still wouldn't suggest installing it on your University's Computers. )

Yeah I would advice against installing it on the Uni computers. But to answer your question, yeah if you buy a copy from the website directly you are able to download a copy of the game that doesn't require Steam or anything. It can either be a ZIP file or an installer exe file, it's up to you.

I'm guessing he's asking for a non-steam copy so he can try to install it on a USB drive to plug into the computer and try to play it off that, thus no need to install it on the university computer.

However, the games config and save files are located in the user/appdata/roaming/factorio folder of windows so it would still put stuff on the university computer.
But, it is also possible that the university IT has access to the appdata folder blocked to either you, unapproved applications, or both
If you can't physically access the appdata folder but the game can, you'd have to use the same computer every time and wouldn't be able to take your saves with you when you leave.
If the game is also blocked from accessing the folder, then it still run, but you wouldn't be able to save your games and all config options would get reset to default every time you opened the game.

Then there are other dependencies the game might need.
Such as DirectX and Microsoft .NET Framework which might not be on the university computers.



Better option might be to seek out a Laptop to use to play the game.

Factorio's zip version runs just fine on a USB key, storing all it's files in the unzipped directory. Unfortunately at this time you CANNOT get a copy from the website if you purchased the steam version. They want to fix this in the future though.

See here for more details: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=20646&p=129939#p129939