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Factorio early game walkthrough [1.0]: how to ace your first hourHow to get your first full Iron belt up and running within an hour

How to get your first full Iron belt up and running within an hour

Strugglingto get started inFactorio? Have your friends told you time and time again about the joys of building factories, but you find yourself completely lost when it comes to starting your own? Or perhaps you just want a few pointers on how you can get set up even quicker in your next world?

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Whichever of the above, this Factorio early game walkthrough is here to help. I’ll take you along for the ride as I play through my first hour or so of a new Factorio world; and in that time, I’ll show you how to be productive with your first steps, so you can create a solid foundation which you can then turn into a glorious, pollution-chugging factory.

Factorio early game walkthrough

Skip below if you want to get stuck straight into my Factorio early game walkthrough. But first, a couple of points worth quickly mentioning:

Note: the reason it says “Default [modified]” in the top-left is because I set the Research queue availability to “Always”. The world itself has not been altered in any way.

This is the world and game setup that I used for this Factorio walkthrough.

Starting a new game of Factorio

First step is setting up your new world. If you’re the type to leave your world up to chance, then skip this section. Otherwise, there are a few things you might want to look for when picking your world:

I’d also recommend that Factorio beginners enable Peaceful Mode before they begin, as this will prevent Biters from attacking you until you attack them for the first time.

Once you’re happy with your world and game settings, let’s get started.

Get your priorities straight when starting a new Factorio game. Large Rocks first, then iron and coal, then copper and stone.

Step 1: Iron, Coal, Copper, and Stone

Your first steps should involve getting the absolute basic resources up and running. Here’s what I do:

Mine coal while waiting for your furnace to smelt Iron Plates.

Getting a basic mining setup on each starting ore patch is your first big goal in Factorio.

The beginnings of Steam Power and Science

After you’ve got the basics set up on each of your four ore patches (which should only take about 5-10 minutes), you’ll need to get power up and running so you can start researching new technologies. Here’s what to do:

Fill in the very start of your Steam Power module, so you can start researching technologies.

The start of your research journey in Factorio doesn’t have to be elegant, it just has to work.

First steps towards automation

Want to know what “making life easier” looks like? Check the screenshot below.

A rough but working automation of Red Science.

It may look complex, but it’s dead easy to set up, and it means you’ll never have to manually construct Red Science ever again. In a nutshell, this tiny module turns iron plates into gears, and then turns those gears (along with copper plates) into Red Science, which are then fed into your Labs. Automatically. This is when you start truly playing Factorio.

You can link Labs together with Inserters in Factorio, and the inserters will take surplus Science from one Lab and drop it into the next Lab.

Your first project: Full Steam Power Module

So far you have hopefully been filling up gaps in your time topping up your mining areas with coal, and collecting iron and copper plates from your furnaces. But once Logistics is researched you can start to busy yourself with your first major project: expanding your Steam Power module.

A full Steam Power module takes up a lot of space, so make sure you place your Offshore Pump somewhere with enough free space behind it.

Preparing for the Biters

If you decided to enable Peaceful Mode, then setting up defences won’t be as pressing a matter. But if you didn’t, then you’ll want to start constructing basic turret defences the moment you unlock Turrets.

The red circles indicate where I decided to place my first few Turrets in order to protect my fledgling factory.

An extremely basic ammo production module. Two Assemblers turn Iron Plates into Ammo and place it into a chest for you to pick up.

Keeping things running smoothly

At this point, there are a few things that you can be getting on with, so it’s worth just quickly outlining them here:

You can see in this screenshot that I’ve placed my first few Electric Mining Drills over coal and hooked it up to my Steam Power module.

Your first full belt of Iron Plates

A basic Green Circuit factory module, useful for the early game of Factorio.

My preferred Electric Mining Drill layout in Factorio.

This is what my Factorio game looks like after an hour of playtime.

Next steps - from early game to mid-game Factorio

This is as far as I’ve taken my walkthrough world, but I’ll end this guide with several next steps to help pave the way for you to exit the early game and enter the mid-game.

Of course, while you’re doing all of this you should be expanding your steam power module to accommodate for your growing power demand, and keeping your factory well-defended against Biter attacks. If any Biters expand to a new nest that’s too close to your factory, take your car out and destroy it before it gets to deal any damage. Use Piercing Rounds and Grenades to destroy enemies quickly.