THE MULTIPLAYER UPDATE

Hello engineers,

Playing Final Factory with friends has been my dream since before the game came out. Today that dream finally comes true.

It took a lot longer than I wanted. I've been through a lot in my life since Final Factory launched in EA, and there were times I wasn't sure this update would ever happen. What kept me going was this community.

You kept playing, kept reporting bugs, kept showing up in Discord, and a bunch of you spent the last week in the open beta breaking multiplayer in every way possible so I could fix it. I can't thank you enough.

This update is for you. Grab some friends and go build something ridiculous.

See you in the factory!

/Slims

Just a reminder: if you're enjoying Final Factory, steam reviews help a bunch!

Discord | Vote on features

Patch notes

This covers everything since 0.21.0.35, the last version on the default branch.

The short version

• Online co-op. Host a new game or one of your saves, and friends join through Steam. Everyone shares one factory.

• A new look for space. Black holes, stars, planets, neutron stars, Dyson spheres, explosions, engine flames and lighting are all redone.

• Batteries. A new building and tech, and stored power is now shown in kWh.

• Enemy camps reworked. Camps come with the world and get tougher the farther out you go. Attack waves are capped at 300 ships.

• A much bigger map. It zooms out five times farther and is sharp at any resolution.

• Old saves load. Enemy ships are cleared once on the first load. Camps stay.

Multiplayer

• Online co-op through Steam. Building, research, logistics, fleets and combat are shared by everyone in the game.

• To host: open Multiplayer on the main menu and host a new game or a saved game. Any single-player save can be hosted.

• Hosting a new game gives you every normal New Game option: mode, seed, tutorial, enemies and the rest.

• The host sets a game name, an optional password, and a player limit from 2 to 32 (default 4). We've only tested small groups so far.

• Games are public by default and show up in the lobby browser. Untick Public and only Steam friends and invites can join.

• To join: pick a game in the lobby browser, accept a Steam invite, or use Join Game on a friend in your Steam friends list.

• A joining screen shows what's happening, with a download bar for the world and a Cancel button.

• Leave and come back whenever you like. Your ship and inventory are parked and safe while you're away.

• Anyone can save, not only the host, and saving doesn't pause the others.

• Research is shared. Research rewards like fleet size apply to every player.

• Lumin Orbs: each orb anyone picks up gives every player one. You spend your own at the Oracle, and Oracle upgrades are yours alone.

• Chat with Enter. /help lists the commands, including whispers, /players and /color.

• Ping the map with G, or Ctrl+G for a danger ping. Map markers are shared.

• Other players have name tags, their own colour, and an outline you can see through buildings.

• The host can /kick, /ban and /unban.

• A player on a slow PC no longer holds everyone back. Their game catches up on its own.

• If your connection drops, the game tries to reconnect by itself. If your game drifts out of sync, it resyncs from the host.

• Opening a menu doesn't pause a multiplayer game.

• Achievements unlock only for the player who earned them.

• Mods are off in multiplayer for now. The game offers to disable them and restart.

• Everyone needs the same version of the game.

• Demo: the demo has multiplayer too. Demo players can only play with other demo players, and the demo's research limits still apply.

New content and features

• Battery (2x2) and the Power Storage tech, after Capacitors. A battery holds 5 kWh and keeps the factory running when generation falls short.

• Capacitors now hold real stored energy, shown in Wh and kWh. Laser turrets and mass drivers pay for each shot from it.

• Mass drivers on a weak grid take turns instead of all browning out. The power panel shows peak demand against what the grid can deliver.

• Enemy camps reworked. Camps are part of the world from the start: none near your starting area, stronger ones farther out. Cleared areas stay cleared. Camps soak up your factory's signal and spend it on attack waves.

• A separate Heat Damage warning. Map pins and arrows show only when a building is actually losing health.

• Shots in flight are saved and come back on load.

• A failed load takes you back to the main menu and tells you why.

Visual overhaul

• The black hole is drawn from scratch. It pulls from the edge you see and destroys at the black disc.

• New games open with a white hole.

• New stars with coronas, new planets with atmospheres and rings, and a new starfield.

• Neutron stars spin and bend the starlight around them.

• Dyson bots form a slowly turning shell, with the star glowing through the gaps.

• New death explosions, sized to the ship, with smoke that hangs around.

• New engine flames, rocket plumes and afterburner. New beams, shots, impacts and mining lasers.

• New comets with proper tails.

• New lighting. Glowing machines light the floor and their neighbours.

• The Knights' Guardian shield grows in and shrinks away instead of popping.

• Flying stations show a hover field.

• The map zooms out five times farther, draws at your screen's resolution, and has bigger icons and star icons.

• The minimap shows more of the world.

• Fog of war opens and closes smoothly.

• Ships, belts, arms and progress bars are drawn smoothly every frame.

Quality of life

• "Inventory full" tells you when crafting or mining has nowhere to go.

• Crafter tooltips show the real rate, with power, overdrive and bonuses counted.

• Cores, cargo holds and mass drivers show which side they output to first.

• Hovering a mass driver highlights its links.

• Ctrl+click on a belt also picks up the items at its ends.

• A blueprint's icon shows on the cursor while placing.

• Cargo barges are placed at the start of their route.

• When a loot or inventory transfer is refused, you see why.

• Only the newest research popup is shown.

• Station Move and Land answer the click straight away, with a marker on the target.

• You can board a flying station and put items into it.

• Belt items stay on the belts of a flying station.

• Items go round curved belts at an even pace.

• Idle fleets hold a formation instead of jostling.

• The exploration centre's range ring matches what it reveals.

• The Save and Load panels open fast with lots of saves.

• New descriptions for the power buildings. The power panel flags a grid wired in a loop.

• Bug report and diagnostics upload is on by default. You can turn it off in Settings, under Privacy.

Balance changes

• Enemy attack waves are capped at 300 ships, whatever your settings.

• Wave size follows your factory's signal: about 3 ships early on, 32 at 2,000 signal, 100 at the very top of the curve, before your attacker setting.

• The Ancient Guardian heals 3% of its health per minute.

• The black hole's pull starts closer in (300, was 400) and it destroys at the disc (86, was 200).

• Station Movement Programming now needs Planetary Science.

• The Afterburner starts with a full charge.

• Ships and turrets give up on a target they can't damage and pick another.

• Low power slows research bots instead of shrinking what they deliver.

• Enemy shots hit the nearest fleet ship in range, not the farthest.

• Lumin Orbs from obelisks appear within reach.

• Removing a frame that was never built no longer gives a free item.

Performance

• The game now simulates 16 times a second and draws smoothly in between, in single-player too. It keeps real time on PCs that can't hold 60 fps.

• Belts with items at rest cost far less (about 77% less belt time in our big test).

• Cheaper lighting and shaders, with a lighter Low quality setting.

• Less work each frame once your map is explored.

Notable fixes

• Bats and other fleet ships could sit idle and never fire until you used Frenzy.

• Idle fleet ships didn't wake up when enemies came close.

• After alt-tabbing you could be stuck unable to move, most often on a Steam Deck.

• Stop Inserters and Stop Construction Bots reset every time you loaded.

• A cargo hold with every slot disabled blocked its belt.

• Upgrading or pasting onto a cargo hold scrambled its disabled slots.

• The asteroid "low on resources" warning never cleared.

• Leaving a game with the map open gave a white screen in the next one.

• Q could pick up an enemy building as a blueprint.

• Crafting more than you could afford threw an error. It now queues what you can afford.

• Hovering a fleet ship with the mouse did nothing.

• The ride prompt picked the last vehicle in range instead of the nearest.

• Wandering enemies jittered when they bumped into each other.

• The selection panel could show the previous building's details.

• The craft queue spilled over two rows.

• Tutorial text said "silica asteroid" where it meant bauxite.

Known issues

• Multiplayer is new. Desyncs can still happen. The game resyncs you by itself, and if that fails twice you're dropped and can rejoin.

• We've tested small groups. Big lobbies are uncharted.

• No mods in multiplayer yet.

• Demo and full version players can't play together.

• Saving in multiplayer gives the player who saves a short hitch on a big base.

• If you get a desync, a report is saved. Sending it from the in-game bug reporter helps a lot.

Old saves

• Saves from 0.17 onward load, including everything from 0.21.

• Enemy ships and attack waves on their way are removed once on the first load. Camps, spawners and the Ancient Guardian stay, and camps rebuild their ships.

• Capacitor charge is converted to the new stored energy.

• Oracle levels above an upgrade's maximum are brought back to it, and the Lumin Orbs are refunded.

• Connector filters you opened up are kept as "All" so landing doesn't reset them.

• A save made in this version won't load in the old one. Keep a copy if you plan to go back.