Freight Forwarding

2.0 Update

Updating Freight Forwarding for compatibility with Factorio 2.0 is in progress, hopefully finishing in August 2025. After that, I will make it compatible with Space Age if it isn't too much work, or I will move straight on to my plan of creating a new planet for SA inspired by FF.

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Freight Forwarding is a small overhaul with a focus on long-distance logistics variety.

Technology progression is carefully balanced around the customised procedural island map generation and resource placement. For effective transport, items must now be loaded into containers before travel, but since items are being transported so compactly, transfer from trains to ships is much more straightforward.

Progression

Start

Use the basic resources (iron, copper, stone, and coal) to produce Automation and Logistics sciences. Unlocks:

• Mini trains
• Container loading
• Lead processing

Transport science

Lead ore is required for Transport science and always spawns at the edge of your starting island, so trains are required to access it. Explore containerization of resources before loading them onto trains. Unlocks:

• Ships
• Basic oil processing

Chemical science

Oil only spawns in large offshore patches at sea, so you'll need to use oil rigs and tanker ships to retrieve it. Unlocks:

• Battery-powered trains
• Hovercrafts
• Deep sea dredging
• Titanium processing
• Uranium processing

Advanced resources

Titanium and Uranium only spawn on other continents, so you will load them into containers at their mines and transport the containers using combinations of ships and trains. Unlocks:

• Spidertron automation

Production / Utility sciences

Expansion onto other continents for larger patches of basic resources will be required. Unlocks:

• Aircraft
• Cobalt processing
• Titansteel processing

Rocket launch

Rocket parts require Titansteel, which can only be forged in naturally-occuring lava pools using steel, titanium, and cobalt for the ultimate logistics challenge! Combat aircraft have a very large radar area, so can be used to explore large areas of the map using remotes. You must launch an interstellar communicator to win the game, which can be researched using space science from 10 launched satellites.

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Other features

Containers

• Stack sizes of all raw and intermediate resources has been halved compared to vanilla
• One container holds 20 stacks (10x density compared to vanilla)
• Inventory sizes have been reduced to compensate, so trains and ships have had their inventory sizes divided by 10
• Other vehicles have had their inventory sizes divided by 2
• Containers are very heavy, so transporting them by logistic robots is prohibited
• Empty containers can be loaded into spidertrons using docks, but spidertrons also cannot carry loaded containers

Landfill

• Landfill and rail bridges cannot be placed on deep water
• Landfill can now be removed by right-clicking on it whilst holding a tile in hand

Map generation

• Custom procedural map generation originally based on Island Start featuring a completely isolated starting island surrounded by larger islands and continents
• Resource patches are larger but further apart
• Resource spawning is based on invisible 'regions' so certain resources will often spawn near each other and even larger continents won't feature too many different resource types
• Oil only spawns in water

Seismic scanner

• Seismic scanner scans a bigger range than radar, but only through connected landmasses
• Ideal for scanning the entirety of a newly discovered island
• Cannot be placed within 16 tiles of water

Deep sea dredging and cobalt

• Seamounts (underwater mountains) spawn in deep water
• Place dredging platforms on them, which are limited in size
• Dredge up ferrous and cupric nodules which can provide infinite supplies of iron, copper, and stone, supplementing your regular resource mines
• Later, unlock cobalt crust, which can be processed into cobalt ingots on land

Titansteel and Lava pools

• Lava pools occur naturally in far-away islands
• Steel, titanium, and cobalt can be inserted into lava pools to create hot titansteel plates (which also produces slag as a byproduct)
• Hot titansteel plates can be cooled into Titansteel plates, which produces lots of steam (so doubles up as a power source)
• Titansteel can be reheated in small lava pools if you want to expand the power production
• Slag requires sulfuric acid to process, which returns small amounts of iron ore and stone
• Titansteel is used in rocket construction

Battery charging

• Battery items can be charged in the charging station
• Energy stored in charged batteries can be used in the discharging station
• Floating power poles (from Cargo Ships) have been removed, so on each island you will have to setup power production or import electricity using containerized charged batteries
• Regular trains require charged batteries for power (mini trains still use burnable fuel)

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Included Mods