Friday Facts #449 - 2.1 Stable

Hello,
Welcome to another Friday.

This week marks exactly 2 years since the Space Age release.

2.1 Stable

After a long summer in experimental, 2.1 is now marked as stable. Thank you to everyone who played the experimental, reported bugs, and gave us feedback. A lot of the changes and tweaks since the first 2.1 release came directly from your reports.

We took this opportunity to update our classic Factorio trailer one last time.

As we said back in FFF-440, 2.1 isn't about new planets, enemies or research trees. Instead, it is a big collection of quality of life, small features, polish, and the things we wanted to do for 2.0 but didn't have time for. For those of you who stuck with 2.0 stable, here is a quick tour of what is waiting for you.

Space logistics - FFF-441

Space platforms are the backbone of Space Age, and in 2.1 they are a lot more capable.

• Mixed rockets: Rockets can now carry multiple different items in one launch, so no more sending a full stack of everything just to build a small platform.
• Import from Any: Leave the 'Import from' slot blank to import items from all locations, perfect for fuel, ammo, and repair packs.
• Platform to platform transfers: Platforms can request items from, and provide items to, other platforms in orbit.
• Hub set requests: Control the space platform hub requests with the circuit network.
• Radar Universe mode: Send and receive circuit signals between planets and platforms on a shared channel.

Space platform balance - FFF-448

A couple of changes to how platforms fly and take damage.

• Asteroid damage now depends on the asteroid's remaining health instead of its speed, so it is much more predictable.
• The space platform hub has more health and resistances, so it will be able to take a few more hits.
• Platform drag is now based on mass instead of width, so the 'pencil ship' is no longer the only way to go fast.

Landing pad unloading bay - FFF-443

A special cargo bay that inserters can take items out of, so you can unload your landing pad directly into trains, chests, belts or anything else inserters can interact with.

• Can be placed in a limited area around the landing pad.
• Elevated rails can now be built over cargo bays.

Circuit network - FFF-443

More things to wire up, and a clearer way to wire them.

• Input/Output split: Circuit reads and writes can be directed to different wire colors, replacing the old 'magic' self-subtraction.
• Labs can set the current research based on circuit conditions.
• Boilers and heat exchangers can be connected to the circuit network, for easy backup power setups.
• Land mines can be used as tripwires and enemy detectors.
• Pipes can be connected to the circuit network, along with a new pipe GUI (FFF-442).

Quality - FFF-442

Some changes for both lovers and haters of Quality.

• Space Age can now be played without Quality. The Recycler has been split into its own mod, and Quality is a 'Recommended' dependency that is enabled by default.
• Quality locomotives and wagons: Faster trains, bigger cargo wagons and fluid wagons.
• The 'Space casino' is closed: Quality modules can no longer be used in asteroid reprocessing.

Flipping and fluids - FFF-442

Fixing a few of the long standing annoyances.

• Pumpjacks and burner miners can now be flipped.
• The drop arrow shows which lane of a belt a machine will drop to in ambiguous situations, and flipping blueprints won't change their behavior.
• Inserters always drop to the input side of splitters.
• Fluid mixing prevention is back: Pipelines with different fluids will not merge, and give a warning instead.
• Fluid flow scales properly with high throughput (looking at you, Legendary machines).

Enemy expansions - FFF-445

A holistic review of how the biters expand.

• Expansion groups scale with evolution, so they are a meaningful challenge rather than lots of tiny annoying nests.
• Exploring the map early no longer reduces the expansions near your base.
• Biters choose more natural locations to build new bases.

New graphics - FFF-441, FFF-442, FFF-443

Our last big pass over the graphics of the game.

• New assembling machines, oil refinery, rocket silo, and heat exchanger.
• A new pump rendering system that can connect to fluid wagons no matter how cursed your station is.
• Diagonal flamethrower turret.
• Planets visible in the background of space platforms.

ARM64 Linux - FFF-446

Factorio now runs natively on ARM64 Linux, which means the game runs on Steam Frame, Raspberry Pi (headless servers), Asahi Linux on Apple Silicon MacBooks, the free VPS you claimed from Oracle that one time, and other assorted hardware.

Before you update

• 2.0 save games will load, but some changes (such as the circuit Input/Output split) may break your existing factory designs.

• Once you've updated, blueprints and save games cannot be downgraded to 2.0.

• We recommend backing up any saves and blueprints you care about.

• Most popular mods have been updated during the experimental period, but some you rely on may not be ready yet.

  As always, let us know your thoughts at the usual places.