Version 2.0.45

[DerekMac]

Hey,
I wanted to give some proper context on why the recent achievement checks are a real problem for the speedrun community, especially for the 100% (All Achievements) category.

Fixed that the achievements checks of map startup difficulty settings didn't check for pollution, expansion settings, starting area and trees.

With this change, achievements now get disabled if you change any of those settings. While I get that this makes things more strict and consistent overall, it causes a big issue for us in speedrunning.
The 100% speedrun category, where players get all achievements in one save file, has been around for about 8 years. The current leaderboard (base game 1.1) has 36 runners and many more submitted runs. It’s a stable and active category.
It’s the most watched speedrun category on Twitch. It’s the category the biggest streamers play, and the one most viewers enjoy. That makes it very important for visibility — a lot of people discover Factorio or speedrunning in general through this category.

In this run, we’ve always used slightly modified map settings to make it doable:
- Pollution spreading was turned off, to avoid waking up biters, but still trigger their achievements.
- Enemy expansion was disabled.
- Starting area was increased, to allow more fun factory expansion early on.

These settings were chosen because otherwise the run becomes unstable or way too punishing. The category is already 4+ hours long, and the goal is to complete everything in one go, without any failed achievements. If you mess up once, the run is over. So those changes to make it consistent and runnable were important.
These settings have always been known and accepted in the community. They were not used to “cheat achievements” casually — I don’t think people outside the speedrunning scene knew about this and changed them for that reason. In fact casual players who pick obvious presets like “rail world” now get achievements disabled due to this change for no good reason.

With this new achievement check, all those settings now break the run. So:
- All existing runs may now be subject to invalidation. This is because we usually disallow the usage of bugs fixed in future versions.
- The run gets much longer. Base game 100% will probably go from 4–5 hours to 7+ hours. For Space Age, from 6h to 9h or more. That is too long for most people to attempt, specifically as all the Space age Categories already are very long and people that cannot commit for so long currently fall back to this 100% category for that reason
- The run changes completely. Biters can no longer be avoided, expansion happens mid-run, layout space is limited. That turns the run into something very close to the Default Settings category, which already exists and make 100% less unique.

Currently, some runners have switched back to the last stable version where achievements still work with the old settings. But that’s not a long-term solution — we’re not really supposed to stay on outdated versions, and it also means missing out on bugfixes and improvements.

This change has no real effect for casual players, but for speedrunning, it breaks one of the most established and widely watched categories. The 100% run has had years of development and active competition, and while we’ve always adapted to gameplay changes (like new map generation), this one removes the basis of the category entirely.
We would probably have to split the leaderboard now, and it's unlikely that anyone will continue running the new version. We'd really prefer to avoid that if possible.

So I’d like to ask:
Please reconsider these specific achievement checks. Reverting it would let us continue running this category without splitting the community or falling back to outdated versions.

Thanks,
AntiElitz (Speedrun.com/Factorio mod)

I agree with everything here.

I don't really see who this benefits honestly - casual players either won't care, or won't be happy. Speedrunners generally won't be happy. This is an everyone loses change.

[LCStark]

If the new achievement requirements are here to stay, they should be better marked. "No enemies" and "Peaceful mode" have a note in the tooltip: "Enabling this will disable some achievements", but there is no note like that for the new setting checks.

I started a new game with my last game's settings and noticed the speed achievements disabled, because of "easier pollution settings". So, I copied map string, changed pollution to standard and started again. And the achievements were still disabled, this time because of non-standard starting area. That process repeated itself for evolution and expansion. Having to restart the game multiple times to figure out which settings can or can't be changed isn't the best experience.

[Dictator]

Fixed that the achievements checks of map startup difficulty settings didn't check for pollution, expansion settings, starting area and trees.

I guess reducing or disabling evolution also should disable some achievements for completeness sake.

[LCStark]

I guess reducing or disabling evolution also should disable some achievements for completeness sake.

It does. At least when I totally disabled it, the achievements were marked as disabled. I haven't checked if it does that for lower values, but I assume it does that for all "easier" settings of evolution.

[Dictator]

I guess reducing or disabling evolution also should disable some achievements for completeness sake.

It does. At least when I totally disabled it, the achievements were marked as disabled. I haven't checked if it does that for lower values, but I assume it does that for all "easier" settings of evolution.

On stable version around 2.40 or so reducing all evolution factors to "1" didn't disable achievements - evolution was active, just at snail pace.
So turning off evolution disables it, but reducing it to minimum doesn't.
Not sure if its changed on this experimental version.

[LCStark]

On stable version around 2.40 or so reducing all evolution factors to "1" didn't disable achievements - evolution was active, just at snail pace.
So turning off evolution disables it, but reducing it to minimum doesn't.
Not sure if its changed on this experimental version.

Alright, checked it with values set to 1.

04-15-2025, 18-42-07.png (111.37 KiB) Viewed 977 times

[Dictator]

On stable version around 2.40 or so reducing all evolution factors to "1" didn't disable achievements - evolution was active, just at snail pace.
So turning off evolution disables it, but reducing it to minimum doesn't.
Not sure if its changed on this experimental version.

Alright, checked it with values set to 1.

04-15-2025, 18-42-07.png

This is on 2.0.45?

[LCStark]

This is on 2.0.45?

04-15-2025, 18-44-12.png (2.7 KiB) Viewed 965 times

[Dictator]

This is on 2.0.45?

04-15-2025, 18-44-12.png

Ah so they forgot to list it in changelog.

[Zaspar]

As a casual player who enjoys watching speedruns, here's my two cents on the achievement disabling changes:

First of all I think it's totally unnecessary to punish players for choosing how they wish to play the game. I understand the thought process behind wanting to keep achievements as, well, "achievements", but I personally disagree with it. The Factorio community, from what I've seen, has been very welcoming to people playing how they want, and I've never once seen somebody say "oh you beat the game but it doesn't count because you had biters disabled," and so it makes little sense to me for the game itself to say that. I dare say it feels elitist.

Secondly, the settings that disable achievements seem pretty arbitrary. Nearly every world generation setting can be tweaked to give players an advantage over default settings. Larger, more frequent, and/or richer resource patches makes the game easier. Slower spoilage makes the same easier. Disabling cliffs can make the game easier. So while again I do see the reasoning behind the choice of settings that do disable certain achievements, I again disagree.

Thirdly, the point where disabling achievements can make sense - if you disable enemies entirely, certain achievements are literally impossible to obtain. If you enable Peaceful Mode, you can't get It Stinks and They Don't Like It. But these aren't arbitrary restrictions, these are simply the fundamental consequences of changing the gameplay in certain ways. The difference is between "You don't get the achievement because it isn't possible to do the thing" versus "You don't get the achievement even though you did do the thing because I, the game, said so."

I'm not a game designer, so I'm not recommending a certain course of action because I genuinely don't know what would be best. I'm just writing this post to provide some additional perspective that can be taken into consideration.

I think @Nataly171 makes very good points. Who is benefiting from the fact that you can't get achievements when disabling or modifying biters? Playing with no threats is a 100% valid way to play the game and players who choose that shouldn't have otherwise unrelated parts of the gameplay experience taken away from them. I would carefully consider - what is the real purpose of these changes? Is it to align with an arbitrary decision made about which achievements are supposed to be enabled under which circumstances, or is there a proper reason for it?

[meganothing]

I think @Nataly171 makes very good points. Who is benefiting from the fact that you can't get achievements when disabling or modifying biters? Playing with no threats is a 100% valid way to play the game and players who choose that shouldn't have otherwise unrelated parts of the gameplay experience taken away from them. I would carefully consider - what is the real purpose of these changes? Is it to align with an arbitrary decision made about which achievements are supposed to be enabled under which circumstances, or is there a proper reason for it?

Just a guess: The reason is probably to make an achievement something that was achieved at a specific minimum "difficulty". To make it comparable.
The default settings are sort of a common ground at which many players play. Their achievements would seem worthless if they could also be achieved much easier by simply changing options.

[thedoh]

I think @Nataly171 makes very good points. Who is benefiting from the fact that you can't get achievements when disabling or modifying biters? Playing with no threats is a 100% valid way to play the game and players who choose that shouldn't have otherwise unrelated parts of the gameplay experience taken away from them. I would carefully consider - what is the real purpose of these changes? Is it to align with an arbitrary decision made about which achievements are supposed to be enabled under which circumstances, or is there a proper reason for it?

Just a guess: The reason is probably to make an achievement something that was achieved at a specific minimum "difficulty". To make it comparable.
The default settings are sort of a common ground at which many players play. Their achievements would seem worthless if they could also be achieved much easier by simply changing options.

I think there may be merit to this line of thinking, but I do think there's a flaw with it: players can jack up all the resource patch stuff to maximum (or to a minimum, for Mining with determination concerns). If the idea is to have the achievements be obtained on an equal footing for all players, then the changes announced in this version's release notes will not achieve it (no pun intended).

[Chindraba]

I am not a speedrunner. I am not a Youtuber with a large following. I'm not even a streamer. I'm not on any 'leaderboard' anywhere for anything. I have, however, done one, and only one, complete game earning all the achievements. I did it in Vanilla with full Steam achievements available. I also did this in 1.1, and ended up with my 100% "Perfect" game becoming a 'nothing' game when 2.0 added many more achievements. I was, to say the least, quite unhappy when I realized my perfect game was not perfect any longer. I earned that 'achievement' when it was valid, yet a change the list wiped out my 'reward' as if I'd done nothing. It seems even worse now. Not only is the list new - erasing what I'd accomplished, even the very rules have changed. I can no longer earn the bulk of the achievements unless I play the game exactly the way someone else declares as 'the right way to play.'

I see posts in the Steam forums where "It's a sandbox. There is no 'right way' to play. Make the game the way you want and how you enjoy it." is stated so many times, by so many users when giving advice to new players. That concept is, quite frankly, one of the touchstones for many new players. Changing the rules, and enforcing some elitist view on what a 'real' game looks like, is such a fundamental shift that WUBE might as well start offering sales every quarter. Yes, I consider it that much of a course change in the game.

I've just got to yell at someone, anyone.

This is a "bug fix"?!? For real!?!

This is no bug fix! It is a change in the design, a change in the rules, and a reversal of a long-term course.
Factorio is less a sandbox and now more of story-based quest. There is only one way to play the game. Of, as the WOPR put it "The only winning move is not to play."

If you must keep this change, please at least label it a "change", preferably a major change. It sure ain't no 'bug fix'.

What on Earth or Nauvis, in Vanilla or not, on Steam or not, is so important about achievements that it requires any attempts at making things equal? There are several ways to install mods and still earn Steam achievements as if it was done in Vanilla. There are ways to 'use' mods to get something done and then toss the mods out like they never happened, and get every single achievement anyway. Factorio's achievements, even in the Steam listing, are completely worthless as a means of comparison or competition. They only mean something to the one earning them - who also knows what the changed, and where they did, or did not, 'cheat' to get them. The premise I recall about achievements, including expanding the base game's list as well as adding new ones for SA, was to offer incentives for progress and targets to shoot for. If I want to increase the water's scale by 25% because it makes a map 'pretty' I no longer have some of those incentives? If I like forests and 'mountains' so I bump the trees and cliffs to 200% I am now unworthy of some achievements? Just simply "WHY?"

Lastly, compare this change, to fix some "bug" nobody's ever heard of, with what's acceptable for a star in the Galaxy of Fame. I've heard that there are several stars there earned in the editor, and that this was presented to WUBE. The answer was something along the lines of "oh well". Yet small changes to the map gen settings kills even some basic achievements. Again, 'why?'.

I don't like it. I think it's not needed. I think it was a bad choice. I hope 2.0.46 has a 'bug fix' to remove this bug 2.0.45 created.

[RealK]

I am not a speedrunner. I am not a Youtuber with a large following. I'm not even a streamer. I'm not on any 'leaderboard' anywhere for anything. I have, however, done one, and only one, complete game earning all the achievements. I did it in Vanilla with full Steam achievements available. I also did this in 1.1, and ended up with my 100% "Perfect" game becoming a 'nothing' game when 2.0 added many more achievements. I was, to say the least, quite unhappy when I realized my perfect game was not perfect any longer. I earned that 'achievement' when it was valid, yet a change the list wiped out my 'reward' as if I'd done nothing. It seems even worse now. Not only is the list new - erasing what I'd accomplished, even the very rules have changed. I can no longer earn the bulk of the achievements unless I play the game exactly the way someone else declares as 'the right way to play.'

I see posts in the Steam forums where "It's a sandbox. There is no 'right way' to play. Make the game the way you want and how you enjoy it." is stated so many times, by so many users when giving advice to new players. That concept is, quite frankly, one of the touchstones for many new players. Changing the rules, and enforcing some elitist view on what a 'real' game looks like, is such a fundamental shift that WUBE might as well start offering sales every quarter. Yes, I consider it that much of a course change in the game.

I've just got to yell at someone, anyone.

This is a "bug fix"?!? For real!?!

This is no bug fix! It is a change in the design, a change in the rules, and a reversal of a long-term course.
Factorio is less a sandbox and now more of story-based quest. There is only one way to play the game. Of, as the WOPR put it "The only winning move is not to play."

If you must keep this change, please at least label it a "change", preferably a major change. It sure ain't no 'bug fix'.

What on Earth or Nauvis, in Vanilla or not, on Steam or not, is so important about achievements that it requires any attempts at making things equal? There are several ways to install mods and still earn Steam achievements as if it was done in Vanilla. There are ways to 'use' mods to get something done and then toss the mods out like they never happened, and get every single achievement anyway. Factorio's achievements, even in the Steam listing, are completely worthless as a means of comparison or competition. They only mean something to the one earning them - who also knows what the changed, and where they did, or did not, 'cheat' to get them. The premise I recall about achievements, including expanding the base game's list as well as adding new ones for SA, was to offer incentives for progress and targets to shoot for. If I want to increase the water's scale by 25% because it makes a map 'pretty' I no longer have some of those incentives? If I like forests and 'mountains' so I bump the trees and cliffs to 200% I am now unworthy of some achievements? Just simply "WHY?"

Lastly, compare this change, to fix some "bug" nobody's ever heard of, with what's acceptable for a star in the Galaxy of Fame. I've heard that there are several stars there earned in the editor, and that this was presented to WUBE. The answer was something along the lines of "oh well". Yet small changes to the map gen settings kills even some basic achievements. Again, 'why?'.

I don't like it. I think it's not needed. I think it was a bad choice. I hope 2.0.46 has a 'bug fix' to remove this bug 2.0.45 created.

Very well said. I have the same feeling now. I just feel "unworthy" by having the achievements on steam since I modified some of those settings to get them.

I can't see no one really happy with those changes.

I would prefer this change to be implemented in 2.1, but with new things concerning the achievements like having new achievements, so I could challenge myself to get 100% achievents again using the new rules.

[NineNine]

I'd just like to add that since these "achievements" are both arbitrary and imaginary, I'm happy to send out "achievements" to anybody requesting them. Just tell me which one you'd like, and I'll send you the little image. You can frame it and put it on your wall and tell all of your visitors how impressed they should be.

[vark111]

We can discuss and have valid opinions one way or the other all day long on the effect the achievement change has for speed runners.

My bigger concern is this change breaks Railworld.

[Traveller304]

I'd just like to add that since these "achievements" are both arbitrary and imaginary, I'm happy to send out "achievements" to anybody requesting them. Just tell me which one you'd like, and I'll send you the little image. You can frame it and put it on your wall and tell all of your visitors how impressed they should be.

The achievements aren't arbitrary though. The devs specifically created the achievements to show different playstyles (no logistics, no handcrafting, legendary grinding), and now the devs are changing the rules. Lots of people use the achievements as a guide or even as a motivator to play and pretending like they don't (or worse shouldn't) matter does nothing but drag others down. Try telling the guy who completed all fromsoft game hitless that his hours meant nothing and you could just have printed an image instead...

[AntiElitz]

Hey,
I’d really like this thread to stay respectful and focused. It’s totally okay to care about the topic and to show emotion, but let’s keep things constructive so it stays possible to actually talk about it.
I brought this up because I think it matters for the speedrun community, and I hope the discussion can continue in a way where everyone feels okay contributing.

[naahuc]

This got more controversial than I thought, personally I'd just be interested in a think on the default railworld preset, as it ships out of the box and we do recommend it to people new to the game since they won't have to care about biters as much if that is their main complaint.

For the speedrunners, there could be a hypothetical option to add a "legacy achievements" to The Rest that skips the new verifications, or just overrides allowed_without_fight with true, and toggles modded achievement rules, as in disables Steam sync. That would resolve their specific issues without removing the intended floor for everyone else, and it's not something that would accidentally get toggled by normal people.

[Nataly171]

I think something worth thinking about also is how mods are handled. With mods enabled, you can still get achievements in the game, but they won't count for steam achievements. I don't really ever see any controversy around that, so I'm thinking maybe changing world settings could be handled similarly to playing with mods? Just food for thought.