Factorio Forums

Hi

I often find that downloading the ZIP file can take a long time.

My suggestion to the factorio team is to share a torrent file, and using one of the many public trackers.

Maintenance of the files would simply require them to have a small server running with the versions too.*

Advantages:
- Less bandwidth usage on the web server*
- Faster downloads for most people
- People with shabby connections can easily pause the install and resume later

Disadvantages:
- Torrent files have a negative connotation in regards to piracy
- Requires extra software to download

*
Edit, sidepoint: The factorio community is great, im sure many keep will keep seeding, for a long time.

You need an account to download the zip file, which means you have bought the game.
You don't need an account to torrent it.

You could still lock down the torrent download the same way as the zip file, and only allow someone to download it if signed in.

Have you tried using a normal download manger or browser plugin? Most servers (and hopefulle factorio.com too ) support resuming half-finished downloads. So even if you lose connection inbetween it should not be a problem.

I'm not sure if such a thing is needed, since you can get the game on steam now. Steam has all this download management built in.

When an update comes out the download speeds for the installers and tarballs seem to drop dramatically. Making these downloads available over Bittorrent would help alleviate this issue without Wube having to spend money on more expensive bandwidth.
Making a user log in to download a .torrent file or click a magnet link is the same level of anti-piracy protection as making the user log in to download the files themselves, authentication keys embedded in the announce URL's could even be used to keep track of what user account is associated with each peer in the swarm.
Humble Store/Humble Bundle does this with many of the games they sell and many of those torrents have much faster download speed than I have ever experienced through steam or from direct download on the Humble site or the Factorio site.