Factorio Forums

New to game and had started playing the default 15.4. I see the newer versions on recent news as well. Should I stick with 15.4 or play the latest .16 experimental? bottom selection of dropdown from beta
Love the game so far.
Thank you for any advice

With the 0.15, you know what you'll get, as it is now stable and doesn't change any more.
The 0.16, on the other hand, will probably still see quite a lot of changes and debugging.
It's up to you which one you prefer.

Just be warned, when you have to inevitably upgrade to 0.16 (the release patch I believe) there may be changes to the game that may break your current 15.4 setups.

Not sure how prevalent this is in changing from 15.4 to .16 but in previous jumps it was quite the hassle to fix all the old things that didn't work anymore.

If you're new to the game I suggest staying on the stable version and if the new patch breaks your setup, it'll be good to start over with your learned knowledge from your first play through anyways

0.16 doesn't break saves too badly - the only issues I recall were fluid wagons now only having one tank and a smaller capacity, barrels being smaller, and a sharp edge with terrain generation. It's definately still playable. Note that the experimental currently has problems with belt compression, which are in the process of being fixed. There may also be other various minor bugs. There's never anything wrong with starting a new save for 0.16 - I have about 5 different maps (two that I'm actively working on currently, which range from 0.14, when I got the game, onwards - and I'm sure some people have a lot more). 0.16 also has some improved graphics, and cliffs (although map generation is a bit weird at the moment, it may not change until 0.17), as well as quite a few minor changes and QoL tweaks. Do whatever you think is best.