Friday Facts #449 – Version 2.1 Stable Release

Hello, and welcome to another Friday.

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

2.1 Is Now Stable

After a long summer in the experimental branch, version 2.1 has officially been promoted to stable. Our heartfelt thanks go to everyone who played the experimental builds, reported bugs, and shared feedback. Many of the adjustments and refinements made since the first 2.1 release came straight from your reports.

We also used the occasion to refresh our classic Factorio trailer one final time.

As we explained in FFF-440, version 2.1 isn’t about new planets, enemies, or research trees. It is a sizable collection of quality-of-life improvements, small features, and polish, along with the things we wanted to tackle for 2.0 but ran out of time for. If you’ve stayed on 2.0 stable, here is a brief tour of what awaits you.

Space Logistics – FFF-441

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

• Mixed rockets: A single rocket can now carry several different items, so you no longer have to launch a full stack of everything just to build a small platform.
• Import from Any: Leave the “Import from” slot empty to pull items from every location. It’s ideal for fuel, ammo, and repair packs.
• Platform-to-platform transfers: Platforms can request items from, and supply items to, other platforms in orbit.
• Hub set requests: The space platform hub’s requests can now be managed through the circuit network.
• Radar Universe mode: Circuit signals can be sent and received between planets and platforms over a shared channel.

Space Platform Balance – FFF-448

We’ve revised how platforms travel and how they take damage.

• Asteroid damage now depends on the asteroid’s remaining health rather than its speed, which makes it far more predictable.
• Stationary platforms take much less damage, so parking in Vulcanus orbit is no longer a death sentence.
• Platform drag is now determined by mass rather than width, so the “pencil ship” is no longer the only route to high speed.

Landing Pad Unloading Bay – FFF-443

This special cargo bay lets inserters take items out of it. You can unload your landing pad straight into trains, chests, belts, or anything else inserters can interact with.

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

Circuit Network – FFF-443

There are more things to wire up, and a clearer way to wire them.

• Input/Output split: Circuit reads and writes can be routed to different wire colors, replacing the old “magic” self-subtraction.
• Labs can choose the current research based on circuit conditions.
• Boilers and heat exchangers can join the circuit network, making backup power setups simple.
• Land mines can serve as tripwires and enemy detectors.
• Pipes can connect to the circuit network, and they come with a new pipe GUI (FFF-442).

Quality – FFF-442

There are changes here for both fans and critics of Quality.

• Space Age can now be played without Quality. The Recycler has moved into its own mod, and Quality is a “Recommended” dependency that is enabled by default.
• Quality locomotives and wagons: These bring faster trains, plus larger 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

We’ve fixed several long-standing annoyances.

• Pumpjacks and burner mining drills can now be flipped.
• A drop arrow shows which belt lane a machine will drop onto in ambiguous situations, and flipping a blueprint won’t alter that behavior.
• Inserters now always drop onto the input side of splitters.
• Fluid mixing prevention is back: pipelines carrying different fluids won’t merge, and you’ll see a warning instead.
• Fluid flow now scales correctly at high throughput (we’re looking at you, Legendary machines).

Enemy Expansions – FFF-445

We took a comprehensive look at how the biters expand.

• Expansion groups scale with evolution, so they pose a real challenge instead of producing swarms of tiny, irritating nests.
• Exploring the map early no longer reduces expansion near your base.
• Biters pick more natural locations for their new bases.

New Graphics – FFF-441, FFF-442, FFF-443

This is our final major pass over the game’s visuals.

• 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.
• A diagonal flamethrower turret.
• Planets visible in the background of space platforms.

ARM64 Linux – FFF-446

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

Before You Update

• Saves from 2.0 will load, but some changes (such as the circuit Input/Output split) may break your existing factory designs.
• After updating, blueprints and saves cannot be downgraded to 2.0.
• We recommend backing up any saves and blueprints you care about.
• Most popular mods were updated during the experimental period, but some you depend on may not be ready yet.

As always, tell us what you think in the usual places.

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