Factorio for education - Licensing and all the Rest

[Cisz]

Hey there.

I have plans to use Factorio as the main tool in a group childrens or adolescents in an educational setting.

I imagine weekly meetings and individual playing at home, on a peaceful mod version of the game, maybe some sort of LAN megabase.

How does the licensing work? If I have like 8 machines in the local youthclub or school, do I need 8 full keys? How about personal versions for participants. Those are individual licenses as well?

I saw that other people are allready doing this. Please do tell what's the official method.

[DaveMcW]

If I have like 8 machines in the local youthclub or school, do I need 8 full keys?

Yes.

How about personal versions for participants. Those are individual licenses as well?

There is no extra charge for having multiple students use the same computer. You could even make multiple copies of the standalone zip version to give each student their own folder.

However, if you give them a copy to take home, you need a license for each participant.

[Koub]

You should contact Wube staff directly, and explain what you're planning to do, and I'm sure they'll tell you the right way to do it.
https://factorio.com/contact

[Cisz]

If I have like 8 machines in the local youthclub or school, do I need 8 full keys?

Yes.

How about personal versions for participants. Those are individual licenses as well?

There is no extra charge for having multiple students use the same computer. You could even make multiple copies of the standalone zip version to give each student their own folder.

However, if you give them a copy to take home, you need a license for each participant.

I really hope that you are wrong. This would prevent my (and many other) educational projects.

[Cisz]

You should contact Wube staff directly, and explain what you're planning to do, and I'm sure they'll tell you the right way to do it.
https://factorio.com/contact

Done, thank you.

[CLion]

pls write if there are news , im interested in how the devs handle this =)

[Cisz]

@CLion: And there is news. I contacted the team, and they are helpful. I am not sure if the deal they offered me is fit for public, so I will not tell the details here, but it is fair.

And luckily DaveMcW was wrong.

If you want to do a project like this as well, just contact them, and maybe ask if we should or should not post their "educational support special supreme extravaganza" offer here.

Now I need a current peace mod, some papercraft belt, and an educational organisation that will have us.

[torne]

You don't need a peace mod any more as the alien artifacts have been removed from the game. You can simply set the enemy spawners to "none" during map generation and they won't appear, and unlike in previous versions you can still progress through the entire rest of the game just fine as artifacts are no longer required for research.

[Knould]

thank you guys very much for explaining it all, i was having some similar questions and i got the answers here. thanks for all the explanation but i was wondering - if i am going to have other questions, can i ask them here or ask you in PM? I see you know these things much better and I thought that i could get some help from you guys!

[Klonan]

All educational licensing it arranged through email directly with us at factorio[at]factorio.com

[Cisz]

You don't need a peace mod any more as the alien artifacts have been removed from the game. You can simply set the enemy spawners to "none" during map generation and they won't appear, and unlike in previous versions you can still progress through the entire rest of the game just fine as artifacts are no longer required for research.

Sadly it's not that easy. In reality it goes a little bit more like this:

Future employer: "The game has tanks? And flamethrowers?" End of project.

I need a peace mod to be kid-friendly about the content, so that the higher ups will believe it's a valuable experience..

My first attempts at searching came up with no current peace mod. Dang.

[Adeon Hawkwood]

Unfortunately I doubt you'll find a pre-made mod along the lines you're asking for. If you want to completely remove all mention of weapons you'd need a mod that removes all recipes for weapons, ammo, turrets and the tank (you can probably get away with leaving the car in) as well as some of the power armor modules plus either removes military science pack or gives it a completely different recipe and redoes the research tree to remove the techs related to weapons.

That's a pretty substantial mod that is of pretty limited utility since most people who don't want combat just turn off biters and call it a day.

[Cisz]

@Adeon Hawkwood - Yep, you summed it up nicely.

I think that Factorio could benefit, on the whole, by a kids friendly mod. Imo dealing smartly with age restriction and enabeling educational use of games can be a benefit. I have enough game design experience to plan a nice compromise between not changing a lot and removing all the problematic stuff. Now I just need to find an easy to persuade educator that is well versed in Lua..

[Neemys]

You don't need a peace mod any more as the alien artifacts have been removed from the game. You can simply set the enemy spawners to "none" during map generation and they won't appear, and unlike in previous versions you can still progress through the entire rest of the game just fine as artifacts are no longer required for research.

Sadly it's not that easy. In reality it goes a little bit more like this:

Future employer: "The game has tanks? And flamethrowers?" End of project.

I need a peace mod to be kid-friendly about the content, so that the higher ups will believe it's a valuable experience..

My first attempts at searching came up with no current peace mod. Dang.

If you can make a list of all entity/recipe/research that you want removed, I can make the mod and upload it to the mod portal.

[Cisz]

If you can make a list of all entity/recipe/research that you want removed, I can make the mod and upload it to the mod portal.

Thank you so much for the offer. Asap I will do just that, which will be in a few weeks, when i return from the 34c3.

"Factorio Educational Mod" - Let's see if we can make this happen.

[Jap2.0]

You don't need a peace mod any more as the alien artifacts have been removed from the game. You can simply set the enemy spawners to "none" during map generation and they won't appear, and unlike in previous versions you can still progress through the entire rest of the game just fine as artifacts are no longer required for research.

Sadly it's not that easy. In reality it goes a little bit more like this:

Future employer: "The game has tanks? And flamethrowers?" End of project.

I need a peace mod to be kid-friendly about the content, so that the higher ups will believe it's a valuable experience..

My first attempts at searching came up with no current peace mod. Dang.

If you can make a list of all entity/recipe/research that you want removed, I can make the mod and upload it to the mod portal.

Personally, I think it's fairly kid-friendly compared to many games today, but I can see the whole "it has guns=it's violent and bad for kids" argument coming from someone who doesn't have any experience with the game, along with the added distraction.

I'm not the poster, but I assume a list of removed stuff would go something like this:

Remove the following items:

• Military Science Pack
• Tank
• Everything in the military tab (and the tab itself if possible, probably), except rocket silo
• Possibly:
  • Car
  • Repair pack
  • Fish
• Possibly not:
  • Power armor (modular, mk. 1, mk. 2), along with exoskeleton, personal roboports, portable solar panels and fusion reactor, and nightvision
  • Radar

Remove all technologies with milityary science while:

Definately excluding rocket silo (probably simply removing milirtary science from the recipie). Note that rocket silo requires explosives, flammables, rocketry, and rocket shooting speed 1-5. Perhaps change the dependencies so that it retains the speed and productivity module research requirement and the advanced electronics 2 requirement, but remove the requirement for everything else (which is technically only rocket shooting speed 5) and replace it with a new version of rocketry with no military science requirement, but perhaps other increased science requirements, with the prerequisite sulfer processing. Alternatively simply make rocket silo require sulfer processing or don't add any other requirements.

Possibly excluding some power armor stuff, I don't feel like looking at all the prerequisites for that so maybe just remove that entirely, or don't remove any of the armor stuff to make it easier.

Also remove military and military 2, lasers, flammables and all the weapon and ammo damages.

Possibly also remove cars, armor, and power armor equipment.

Again, I'm not the person using this, that's just a rough list I came up with.

[Neemys]

You don't need a peace mod any more as the alien artifacts have been removed from the game. You can simply set the enemy spawners to "none" during map generation and they won't appear, and unlike in previous versions you can still progress through the entire rest of the game just fine as artifacts are no longer required for research.

Sadly it's not that easy. In reality it goes a little bit more like this:

Future employer: "The game has tanks? And flamethrowers?" End of project.

I need a peace mod to be kid-friendly about the content, so that the higher ups will believe it's a valuable experience..

My first attempts at searching came up with no current peace mod. Dang.

If you can make a list of all entity/recipe/research that you want removed, I can make the mod and upload it to the mod portal.

Personally, I think it's fairly kid-friendly compared to many games today, but I can see the whole "it has guns=it's violent and bad for kids" argument coming from someone who doesn't have any experience with the game, along with the added distraction.

I'm not the poster, but I assume a list of removed stuff would go something like this:

Remove the following items:

• Military Science Pack
• Tank
• Everything in the military tab (and the tab itself if possible, probably), except rocket silo
• Possibly:
  • Car
  • Repair pack
  • Fish
• Possibly not:
  • Power armor (modular, mk. 1, mk. 2), along with exoskeleton, personal roboports, portable solar panels and fusion reactor, and nightvision
  • Radar

Remove all technologies with milityary science while:

Definately excluding rocket silo (probably simply removing milirtary science from the recipie). Note that rocket silo requires explosives, flammables, rocketry, and rocket shooting speed 1-5. Perhaps change the dependencies so that it retains the speed and productivity module research requirement and the advanced electronics 2 requirement, but remove the requirement for everything else (which is technically only rocket shooting speed 5) and replace it with a new version of rocketry with no military science requirement, but perhaps other increased science requirements, with the prerequisite sulfer processing. Alternatively simply make rocket silo require sulfer processing or don't add any other requirements.

Possibly excluding some power armor stuff, I don't feel like looking at all the prerequisites for that so maybe just remove that entirely, or don't remove any of the armor stuff to make it easier.

Also remove military and military 2, lasers, flammables and all the weapon and ammo damages.

Possibly also remove cars, armor, and power armor equipment.

Again, I'm not the person using this, that's just a rough list I came up with.

Yeah I thougth the same, but when it come to research, removing a science pack altogether will simplify the game as it is the only pack that use coal, so it will be one less resource to bring in pack making. I think it will be better to rename the military science pack and change the recipe to have different element, but retain the same amount of resources needed. Since I don't see anything in vanilla that need coal and is not military, we migth need to add a new intermediate that could be made with coal.
I will wait to know what Cisz need exactly.

[aober93]

How licensing works greatly depends on the laws in your country. Especially if the license partner is not specific. In germany i would be able to use factorio in school, be educated, teach with it whatever ,by their license, but not be able to copy it to 8 workplaces (copyright law). So i buy 8 pieces .lol

[Cisz]

About the military science pack - I would prefer to rename it, but the ingredients are ammo, grenades, and turrets, which are all "problematic".. Ammo w/o weapons could remain, with a new name, but there are the turrets, and then grenades?

Dang.

I think it would be best to leave as much of the costs and receipes intact, so instead of a grenade, it would be great to have some token item that does not explode. But this sounds more complicated than just removing some items, we are renaming and replacing with tokens now, even gfx changes could come up this way.. O_o

I was thinking along the lines of Military Science = Rocket Science. So the grenade could be something like a "small rocket engine" or "toy rocket booster". Turret = "Starting Ramp", ammo = "Tiny Rocket". Building "Rocket Science Packs" would indicate experimental test launches then. This would require at least nerfing the dmg of the grenades to 0, making turrets no longer placeble and changing the image for grenades and ammo, and probably the turret as well.

This sounds like a mid-size mod now.

And now I am fantasizing about a small structure, looking a bit like a burner mining drill, that launches a tiny rocket, which goes sideways into a parabola after half the screen, and then returns on a tiny parachute..


Also, to make the whole project even more complicated, I'm in germany and foresee problems with the USK rating (which is legally binding here), which Factorio as an alpha naturally does not have, so it is "unrated" = "only for adults". Realistically the game will be USK 12, and then I would have to find a way to get below that for an edu version.. Maybe I'll try to ask the USK about this situation. Edu versions are on the rise, and this might come up more than once with them. A quick glance at threir price list indicates, that I should expect a 300 bucks fee (for a "Produkterweiterung", an expansion or add-on), assuming that Factorio is allready rated. That sounds doable, especially if I can convince some larger organisation (like the churches or AWO or the bpb) to endorse the game and sponsor the fee. I'll have to check about updating and versioning if that ever happens, not to end up with recurring fees..

Edit: I renamed this thread, as it is clearly not only about licensing at this point.

[Jap2.0]

I'd say remove military science entirely - it has literally no use with all your removals. Also, plastic and coal liqification use coal, so with advanced circuits it is required in some upper-level science.