Factorio Forums

TL;DR

Lamp research should be done without any science packs, available after surviving the night while having done Electronics (research).
Good QoL for 2.1?

What?

Lamp (research)
If player (or rather faction) have already acquired Electronics (research), then after (at least 1) player survived the night without dying, Lamp research should be acquired for free. Possibly there also should be around stack of Lamps inside the crashed ship, that becomes available at the moment of unlocking this tech.

Why?

It seems like too basic tech to be researched and while watching some YouTube videos I also noticed that a lot of players skip it (at least for some time) to not waste limited resources. It makes watching videos harder, especially of speed runners that optimize for time and IMO it also makes factory a bit uglier, especially at the beginning.

There is also a small chance that newbie players will notice the need to leave a bit of free space right away to avoid having to remodel factory, but this is rather secondary effect.

skyman wrote: Wed Sep 09, 2026 3:44 am It makes watching videos harder, especially of speed runners that optimize for time and IMO it also makes factory a bit uglier, especially at the beginning.

Speed-runners aren't going to take the time to place lights just because the research is free. And something similar goes for non-speed-running cases. If the player doesn't want to use them, they won't. If they do want to use them, they're not going to let 10 red science packs get in their way.

That being said, having a couple of lamps in the inventory or on the crashed ship wouldn't be a bad idea.

I agree speed-runners won't prioritize it and specifically plan for it as it wastes precious run-time, but spamming few free lamps would probably still happen and that is preferable to the current situation. Even if the research won't be free, I think there should be at least 1 or 2 stacks of lamps inside of the ship.

Anyway, I hope combination of free lamp stacks and free research would make it viable for other people to live past medieval times in terms of lighting even since the beginning.