About Demo Maps - Last updated early January 2024

The demo maps are savegame files made to demonstrate concepts of the game, such as a steam power system or a main bus design. On these maps, the world size is limited to 200 by 200 tiles, and square resource patches were added by hand. The building groups are made in fairly typical ways that are also described across this wiki. You can download and then walk around on the maps to see the systems in action, especially if a research is ongoing. Autosaving and manual saving are available on the maps and you can modify them if you want to try out stuff. The original map saves can then be downloaded again.

Downloading and Playing on a Map

Demo map saves are now included inside Beta releases. You can open them by choosing to continue an existing game from the launcher.

Alternatively, you can download a demo map savegame zip file from the Google Drive folder shared below. To add it to your savegame list, add the downloaded "zip" file to the "saves" folder under the main folder called "Factorio_1.X" where X is the version number. This will make the demo map appear in the launcher, among the games that you can continue playing. Note that the savegame file should be kept as a "zip" file, and also note that there is a different "saves" folder inside the "bin" folder, which is not accessible via the mod.

Demo Map 0: Compass Valley Fresh

Unlike other demo maps, Map 0 is just a fresh version of Compass Valley freeplay map that makes it easy to share. If you want to play on Compass Valley, you can also just select it from the map creation options when starting a new game at the launcher. Here is the wiki page about Compass Valley

Demo Map 1: Early Systems

This is a custom made square map with a limited size. In terms of geography, this map features all ore types arranged in a row of square patches along the North edge. On the map there are also some trees and rocks. There are oil pools on the west side and a square-ish lake on the east side. There are also ready built structures, include the following:

1. Stone brick paths. A large rectangle of stone brick path defines the main streets of the base. These main streets have small electric poles lining both sides to form the backbone of the electric grid. Other stone brick paths branch from the main rectangle, both along the north edge and at a few points inside the rectangle. See Chapter 19 for more information about paths.
2. Self-refueling coal mining setup. At the coal patch is a couple vertical columns of burner mining drills that output coal onto a collection belt that runs to the south. There are one tile gaps between the drills and the collection belt so that burner inserters placed along the belt can feed the drills back with coal.
3. Steam power setup. South of the coal patch and west of the lake is the steam power area with boilers and steam engines set up in groups with the optimal ratio of 1 boiler for 2 engines. There is also 1 tile of space between each group to make it easier to walk around and add in electric poles. See Chapter 7 for more about setting up electric power.
4. Smelting setups for iron, copper, and stone. South of their respective ore patches, the furnaces are arranged in rows running frpm North to South. The arrangements are as described as "high capacity rows" in Chapter 12. Ore and coal are kept on separate belts and so long handed inserters are used to reach the further belts. Note that these setups might be too small for later stages of the game.
5. South of the boilers is a small row of research labs. They collect science packs that come from the assembly area to the West.
6. West of the labs are assembling machines arranged in a few groups. The area produces automation science packs and logistic science packs, and other basic items along the way. These machine arrangements include examples of directly inserting from one machine to another, or using output chests to collect one stack of an item at a time, or placing different items on different lanes of a transport belt. Small electric poles are placed on both sides of every assembling machine while gaps for easy walking have been left in between machines.
7. Basic oil processing setup. At the west side there are oil pools. The oil is collected via pumpjacks and piped over to a pair of oil refineries that run basic oil processing. Petroleum gas comes out the refineries and is used to make basic oil products like plastic and sulfur and solid fuel.
8. A simple train system for transporting sulfuric acid and uranium ore between two stations. The train, which can be manually driven or set for automation, brings the acid from just next to the refinery area, up to the uranium mine area using its fluid wagon, and then it brings uranium ore back to the refinery area using its cargo wagon.

Note that this base is a little compact and would be difficult (but not impossible) to expand in later stages of the game. Normally it is recommended to leave more space between mines and furnace areas and individual production areas just in case you want to run some new belts through some areas. Meanwhile, the base presents a good example of setting down some main walking paths so that you can align the rest of the base accordingly.

Demo Map 2: Main Bus

This map uses the same geography as Map 1 but a Main Bus base has been built instead of a simpler system. The main bus concept involves large centralized smelting arrays, and the bus itself is made of groups of belts running in parallel. Along the bus, several belts coming out in perpendicular branches and they feed rows of assembling machines, with each role having the same recipe repeated across it.

The building groups of this map are as follows:

1. For this demo map, the large smelting arrays for iron, copper, and stone are south of the ore patches, with a stone brick path in between. South of the smelting arrays is another stone brick path, and South of that, the smelting and mining output belts come together to begin the main bus around the point -50,-30.

2. The first branch from the main bus starts around -50, -20, with an iron belt and a copper belt extending to the east. The north side of this branch is dedicated to producing electronic circuits, but it first produces the copper wire as an intermediate ingredient. The south side of the branch is effectively a different branch that happens to use the same ingredients. It produces automation science packs but it first produces iron gear wheels as an intermediate ingredient.

3. The second branch from the main bus starts around -50, -10. It begins with the electronic circuits from the first branch being fed back in towards the main bus. South of this is a new iron plate branch going out to the east. Along this branch are several different assembling machines. Once again, intermediate ingredient recipes have been packed into the branch in order to avoid making a new branches in and out of the main bus for each recipe. The second branch produces iron gear wheels and transport belts and regular inserters using the iron plates but also by grabbing from the returning electronics circuit belt. It then uses these intermediates to produce logistics science packs at the end of the branch, which is the main goal.

4. The third branch from the main bus is at -50, +12. It is the point where sulfur gets added to the bus from the west side. At this point, the bus continues to get wider as new recipes are added. In preparation for more of this, some empty belts have been added along the east side. The main bus ends shortly after the third branch but future branches for other science packs or intermediate production are meant to follow the same ideas.

5. There is a steam power area at the west side of the lake once again, but this one has two rows of boiler-engine groups instead of one.

6. There is a long horizontal row of labs south of the steam engines.

7. Along the west side of the main bus, separated by a vertical stone brick path, there is the oil processing area. This area demonstrates the concept of a fluid bus, which follows the main bus logic with pipes instead of belts. The fluid bus begins with a horizontal row of oil refineries and pipes collecting from them. Then the pipes turn a corner and form the vertical fluid bus. There are branches of pipes leading out to rows of chemical plants that repeat the same recipe along each row.

Demo Map 3: More Systems

This is an extended version of Map 1 with new systems added. The new building groups begin along the horizontal stone brick path that is south of the railway. The groups are:

1. Solar panels along the horizontal stone brick path south of the railway. More about solar power can be found in Chapter 15.
2. A small nuclear power plant just south of the uranium unloading train station. It includes two centrifuges for uranium processing, a single nuclear reactor, and appropriate numbers of heat exchangers and steam turbines. More about nuclear power can be found in Chapter 21.
3. By the west map border, an oil refinery running advanced oil processing has been added. It comes with a practical and minimal arrangement of chemical plants and assembling machines that produces lubricant, rocket fuel, solid fuel, and extra petroleum gas. This design is "The easy design" explained in Chapter 18.
4. East of the lubricant plant is an assembling machine for electric motors, which is an important ingredient in the second half of the game.
5. Around the electric motor assembler, there are other small assembling machine groups around for making advanced electronic circuits and processing units, which are also important ingredients in the second half of the game.
6. East of the nuclear reactor is an empty rocket silo. More about this can be found in Chapter 20.
7. There are also some roboports around the area. They might not do much right now because support for robots will be added later.

Sandbox Map

This is a map where you can design your factory areas, or just play around, with minimal restrictions. On this map you have all technology unlocked and you can craft almost every recipe by hand without needing any ingredients and with zero time delay. This map also has no enemies or cliffs. The forests spread far apart, and there is just one lake in the middle. The ore patches are extra rich and many more can be found further out.

The starting area of this map has a few special buildings. There an infinite electric energy interface that provides several gigawatts of power for free. There are also infinity pipes to supply endless amounts of fluids. There is also the infinity chest, which will delete anything you put in it. You can use the picker tool to obtain more of these special buildings. You can copy paste building settings onto the newly built ones.

You can save multiple versions of the sandbox map by renaming your save game.

Map download page link (Click here)

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