About Factorio Access unique features list - Last updated September 8th, 2024

The overall idea of Factorio Access is to translate a smooth visual-heavy experience into a smooth fully-audio experience, while preserving the original experience as much as possible. In this sense, many features are essentially direct translations, such as the audio menus that stand in place for graphical menus. Meanwhile, some audio menus are less direct translations because they combine regular menu interactions along with information that gets visually reported via the tooltip or sprite graphics. Similarly, sometimes mod features are indirect but coherent alternatives to visual features, with the differences being explained on this page.

While preserving the vanilla experience the highest priority, we also recognize that the audio medium has its own strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities. In this sense, the mod also has some unique features that greatly improve the audio game experience while they would not be immediately recognizable to vanilla players, but the mod takes care to add visual elements to these features to make them quickly understandable. Meanwhile, the mod gives great importance to not simplifying the game while making it accessible, and so the impact of each unique feature is weighed and explained on this page so that players may decide what they want to do with them.

Contents

1. [General]
2. [Navigation]
3. [Cursor features, including building and mining]
4. [Menus]
5. [Rails and trains]
6. [Roads and cars]
7. [Combat]

1. General

Custom Factorio launcher

Factorio Access has its own launcher that uses a text-based multiple choice menu system. The launcher menu supports game configuration setup, map setup, savegame loading, toggling mods on or off, and multiplayer setup. It is smoother for Access players to use than the main menu of the game, even with full OCR support, because the vanilla game menus rely on some none-button features such as sliders and text fields. The launcher is also how the game connects with the system vocalizer. Read more about the launcher in its own page here.

Game configuration differences

Some of the game configuration settings need to be overwritten for the mod to work successfully. This mainly includes keybind changes, as described below. Other changes include settings related to updating the game's mods. In addition, the mod turns down the game's graphics settings to enhance the performance, but this can be safely reverted from graphical menus for users who prefer higher graphics settings. Find the full list of config changes on the launcher page here.

Keybind differences

Many keyboard shortcuts for opening graphical menus need to be disabled by the mod so that the keys can be used for mod features. However, the graphical menus opened by these shortcuts can still be opened using graphical buttons on the top right corner of the screen. The mod also uses the keyboard for game inputs that normally depend on the mouse, and so the mouse hardware can be ignored while playing. Find the full list of config changes on the launcher page here.

Mod tutorial

The mod has its own tutorial system, which gradually introduces the game from the mod's context, explaining mod features and game features in an ordered set of steps. The steps are divided into chapters for easy navigation, and the tutorial covers the first few hours of the game up until automating the first two science packs' production. Uniquely, the mod tutorial gives the player some salvaged coal at the start of the game to explain building interactions before moving onto the topic of locating and mining coal.

The mod tutorial also includes tips and tricks sections, similar to the same feature being provided visually by the game.

Demo maps

The mod releases include some demo map scenarios, where already built factory areas can be found. The demo maps allow observing machines in action. This is similar to how official tutorial levels include some partially destroyed factory areas. In addition, this is an alternative to exchanging screenshots to explain basic designs.

Localization

Vanilla Factorio is very extensively localized. The progress in the mod is partial. The launcher and some basic interactions have full localization while other menus are partially or not localized yet. This is being improved gradually, and the actual translations of mod content are being worked on by volunteers in the community.

Extra item info

Pressing the "Y" key when examining an item in the character menu reads a short description of it. Vanilla Factorio has a basic version of this but the mod has it fully, and for every item. The feature is meant to provide the kind of information that is normally obtained through visual observation of the item and its behavior.

Walking over pipes and past small objects

In vanilla, you cannot walk over pipes and you need to navigate around them or move parts of them underground. Since you tend to need a lot of pipes, some popular Factorio mods simply make pipes walkable instead. We believe that this mod greatly benefits from this too. Meanwhile, walking past one-tile electric poles and inserters is already easy in smooth walking mode, and so we wanted to make it easy to do in every walking mode, and so we removed the already-small collision boxes for them. These changes apply when driving cars as well, making driving significantly safer.

Vanilla Mode

This mode exists for sighted players who want to use the mod to play multiplayer with friends, but also want to keep more of the Vanilla Factorio experience. Several mod features are disabled, such as the narrator and the mod cursor.

Automated actions with Kruise Kontrol Mode

Kruise Kontrol is originally a mod by Factorio developer Klonan that allows you to let the character do some basic actions autonomously, such as walking or driving to a specific location or placing buildings into locations that are already marked. Factorio Access uses Kruise Kontrol Remote, a custom version of this mod as a strongly-integrated optional feature. It is included in our GitHub releases. The character in Kruise Kontrol Mode makes low level decisions autonomously, such as path finding or crafting something that needs to built. As this feature is optional and unable to make large decisions, it is regarded as a convenience tool for those who would like to use it.

2. Navigation

Map coordinate tracking

The coordinate grid in Factorio is usually not explained to the player, while players typically use the map tool instead. Factorio Access uses the coordinates extensively, for giving the absolute or relative positions of objects. The origin point of the coordinate grid is the spot by the spaceship crash site where you begin the game.

The scanner tool

The scanner tool is a unique device that scans entities around the player and reads them out in a navigable audio list. The scanner list can be sorted by entity category and it normally lists entities according to their distance from the player character.

The scanner feature is an alternative to viewing surrounding areas by zooming out or using the visual map. Note that selecting an entity with the scanner does not center the camera view onto it but instead the entity is visually highlighted and the virtual cursor is moved over to it.

Access radars

The scanner tool requires distant chunks to be charted for it to be able to scan them. This can be achieved by walking to explore or by using radars. We have added a stronger radar known as the "access radar" that actively reveals less of the nearby areas but is much faster at charting distant areas and has a larger charting radius.

Saved map locations

The mod has a unique menu where any number of points on the map can be saved. You can add a name and description to each point. The menu is known as the fast travel menu but it can be generally used to mark and describe all points of interest. This feature is an alternative to using map pins and sign posts (or other in-game means to create such points, such as explanatory blueprints placed inside chests).

Travel points are normally kept separately by each player, but you have the option to broadcast a point so that everyone in your team can have it as well.

Telestep walking

One of the walking modes in the mod is telestep mode, where tapping a direction key moves the character precisely one tile in the selected direction. This keeps the character and the cursor aligned to the grid. In addition, in this mode the terrain type of an empty tile being checked is read out. This mode is an alternative to the default walking setting of smooth walking, which is also available in the mod.

Player bump and stuck alerts

In smooth walking mode, the mod gives sound cues when a running player is laterally shifted or gets stuck due to running into an entity. This information is already available visually.

Universal belt immunity

This feature make players not get moved by transport belts by default, instead of achieving this using special in game equipment. This change is needed because the mod relies on the player location being constant for some of its features. Also, this feature prevents the unnecessary confusion related to being moved by a belt that you did not notice.

Autonomous walking or driving

Using the integrated Kruise Kontrol Remote mod, the player is able to specify a point and the character runs or drives to it themselves. The character will sometimes clear trees and other expendable obstacles in their path.

Teleportation

The player is able to teleport to the cursor's location, which might be a couple tiles away, or far away off screen. Teleportation includes a sound effect and a basic animation of jumping through portals in the ground. It is an optional feature, except when used to move the player to the side when a building being placed down.

Teleportation is the alternative to visually checking your path or map in order to run between locations and it was the only such alternative before Kruise Kontrol was integrated. Navigation assistance is important in a crowded factory, when you are unable to squeeze between machines when playing in Telestep walking mode or you keep running into objects in smooth walking mode.

Teleporting has some game-changing advantages such as jumping over barriers and lakes or outrunning enemies. Players are encouraged to use autonomous walking instead but this option remains for those who prefer the convenience of it.

3. Cursor features, including building and mining

The mod cursor

The mod uses its own keyboard-based cursor, which can move to any tile including off-screen tiles. It substitutes every mouse-based action including entity selection in the world and creating building previews. The mouse pointer is locked by the mod to follow the mod cursor so that it displays building previews correctly. This arrangement allows selecting entities correctly, even when the selected location is not on the screen. If desired, the mouse pointer can be unlocked and used for selection either in Vanilla Mode or temporarily by middle clicking the mouse.

The cursor represents the player's attention and so it is moved to an indexed scanner location or travel location when it is selected from a list. Also, like the mouse pointer, the cursor holds what the player has in hand.

Cursor resizing and area scanning

The cursor can be resized so that it covers not a single tile but the center of a larger square. The enlarged cursor can conduct local scans to summarize what can be found within a specific area. It is also used when paving the ground with a large brush.

Cursor skipping

While the cursor can be moved by a single tile or by its own size, the mod also supports smart movement via different types of cursor skipping.

The general form of cursor skipping continues along the same line until it finds something different. It is used to skip over empty areas, water bodies, ore patches, and across large buildings.

The skip-by-preview mode shifts the cursor by the exact length or width of the object in hand so that it can be quickly placed in a repeating pattern.

Remote View

The mod's version of Map View is remote view, which simply locks the camera (and microphone) to the cursor instead of the character. It can be used for remote interactions such as placing blueprints or examining distant areas.

Audio Rulers

As a recently added feature, the player is able to specify a point as the center of an audio ruler, which then extends out four ruler lines into the cardinal directions. Whenever the cursor is next to or on top of a ruler line, the game plays a note. The ruler line are hit also during cursor skipping. This feature allows players to move with respect to points they defined without needing to count or check coordinates. They are alternatives to visual markers in the world or on the map.

Note: Visual drawings of audio rulers is a planned feature.

Building previews

In the mod, a building can either be dropped directly in front of the character, or it can be precisely placed using the mod cursor. When the building is held by the mod cursor, it is always held by its north west corner, for ease of use. The vanilla game holds buildings from the center, and so the mod forces the mouse pointer to offset itself to correctly follow the mod cursor while drawing building previews.

Note: If the mod cursor and mouse pointer are ever out of sync, the mod cursor is the one applied by the mod.

Rotating previews and buildings

Cursor rotation behavior cannot be directly read by the mod. Therefore the mod predicts the rotation behavior and acts accordingly. The mod is always consistent with the building rotation information that it reads out, but it can sometimes lose synchronization with the mouse pointer previews. This can be restored by using Factorio's own pipette tool, which guarantees synchronization.

Build area clearing

When a previewed building is going to be placed, the mod automatically mines up expendable obstacles in the build preview area for you. These obstacles include trees, rocks, items on the ground, and remnants, but not built structures or structures that need to be removed using special tools. This clearing feature is used a little more aggressively when building rail structures because of their complex shapes.

Building nudging

The mod offers the option to nudge placed buildings to the side by 1 tile at a time, if the new spot is a valid building location. This is essentially the same as rapidly picking up and putting down a building one tile to the side.

Build lock mode

In this mode, items are placed down behind the player as they walk or as they move the cursor. This is the alternative to building by dragging the cursor using the mouse. The building previews are adjusted to match this.

Build lock mode can be combined with the large cursor to pave roads around the player as they run outside of cursor mode.

Area mining and obstacle clearing

When you press SHIFT + X on an empty tile, this feature lets you instantly mine up obstacles like trees, rocks, and ground items within a 10 tile radius. It also clears away tree stumps and similar remnants. Hunting down the precise locations of these objects is time consuming without visual assistance and so this feature provides a shortcut for that.

This feature also exists for clearing away ghosts, with also a stronger version that clears ghosts in a 100 tiles radius.

Instant mining with the cut-paste tool

In vanilla mode you are able to rapidly pick up buildings using the mouse cursor when you hold down the mining button. This feature follows the same logic by having the player instantly pickup any buildings touched by the cursor while they have the instant mining (cut-paste) tool in hand.

Planner tool support

The mod allows using planner tools such as the copy-paste tool and the blueprint planner using the mod cursor for area selection. This makes using the tools in the mod very similar to how they are in vanilla.

Underground belt building assistance

The mod allows building underground belt chutes without having to rotate the cursor. This clarifies the building process significantly because normally visual observation is used to build these structures easily.

Offshore pump building assistance

In the mod, when you try to place an offshore pump near water, the game automatically find and lists valid locations, starting from those nearest to you. Upon selecting an option, the pump is automatically placed. This feature is an alternative to to the visual overlay that shows which pump placements are valid.

Steam engine building assistance

Steam engine placement is very precise in a way that is not required from mod players until much later in the game. Therefore we added the optional shortcut to press a keybind and make the mod place a steam engine by itself in front of an available boiler.

Autonomous building and mining with Kruise Kontrol integration

Using Kruise Kontrol Mode, simple bulk actions such as building over ghost markers, removing marked buildings, chopping nearby trees, and mining ores by hand, can all be done autonomously. These are convenience actions. If the character does not have items on hand for filling in a ghost, they try to collect materials from nearby belts and craft the buildings autonomously.

4. Menus

The mod uses several audio menus as direct alternatives to the graphical menus that open alongside them. Some audio menus have extra information such as those from the vanilla graphical tooltips or sprite animations. Some audio menus provide alternate ways to give vanilla inputs, like train stop menus being used to set train schedules. All audio menus have icons drawn on screen and over the player's head on the map to indicate when they are open. This makes it easier to follow the mod gameplay.

Note: Graphical menus sometimes do not update live while audio menus apply changes to the properties of relevant buildings.

The character menu

The inventory screen is structured the same in both Vanilla and Access, but in the mod its slots are navigated using arrow keys instead of the mouse. The same applies for interacting with slots of building inventories.

The mod switches from the inventory to the crafting menu when you press TAB while the graphical interface for both menus are always shown side by side. Players of the mod can cycle through the crafting recipe lists and the tabs of the audio menu using the keyboard. The selections made are not reflected by the graphical menu (it is not supported by the API). The situation is similar for the crafting queue.

The technology menu

The technology menu is also accessed from the character menu, although the graphical interface for the vanilla tech tree is not shown. Therefore a player may be browsing technologies while the screen shows only the character inventory. The current technology menu in the mod simply lists which technologies are available, locked, or completed. For each technology in the three lists, information such as the cost, the prerequisite technologies, and the description can be learned. Players can check ongoing research progress at any time by pressing "T". Meanwhile, the visual technology tree can be accessed and navigated using the graphical buttons as usual.

Support for the research queue has been added using independent keybinds that work on all menus.

Chest inventory rows

Currently, chests in the mod have inventory row lengths of 8 so that they can be navigated easily, due to having capacities that are multiples of 8. This does not match with the vanilla chest GUI inventory rows that have a length of 10. Chest inventory slots can be locked in the mod using keybinds instead of the mouse.

Warnings menu

The warnings menu opens when you press "P". The menu allows navigating between buildings that are giving warnings using a list like the scanner results list. Many of the warnings match the warnings made by the game using flashing visual icons.

Electric network menu

The mod includes tools that point to the nearest electric pole for you. These features work as the alternative to visually searching for nearby electric poles. The mod also reads electric network data from electric poles. This data is normally given in a graphical menu that opens when you click on an electric pole.

Transport belt analyzer menu

This tool allows reading the contents of an entire transport belt by interfacing with a single tile of it. It is able to read what items are on a transport belt's lanes, both upstream and downstream from the selected location. This feature is an alternative to visually observing the transport belt contents.

Logistic menus

In the mod, logistic requests are managed via keyboard shortcuts per item rather than a character menu with an item selector, but we plan to add that too later on. In addition, logistic networks can be named so that they can be distinguished easily.

Production statistics

The production menu itself is no accessible but players are able to generate a summary of recent production and consumption statistics for an item selected in the inventory or the crafting menu.

Pollution info

The pollution menu itself is no accessible but players are able to read the pollution level at the cursor by pressing a keybind.

Menu search

Most audio menus support searching for single keywords to find matching items or menu entries.

5. Rails and trains

Train menu

The train menu of the mod gives information about the structure and contents and schedule of a train. In vanilla, this information can be obtained from visual observation and sidebar menus and the graphical train menu. Similarly, the train menu allows examining and editing train schedules like in the vanilla menu.

Instant train scheduler

The mod currently allows you to build a basic train schedule in one click. It makes the train add all reachable train stations to its schedule with a predetermined waiting time. This is a simplified alternative to building complex train schedules with the vanilla graphical menu.

Train stop menu

In vanilla mode, you can rename train stops from the graphical menu. The mod menu for them allows this tool.

In addition, the mod has advanced train schedule building features to the train stop menu. This is instead of the train schedule building options in the vanilla train menu. The idea is that you reach a train stop with a train and then at the stop you set its wait conditions.

Rail analyzer

This feature reads the next entity ahead along a rail. It is a simple alternative to visually observing what is ahead on the rail. The tool also gives precise distance information so that trains can be manually aligned with stations.

Rail building tools

The vanilla rail planner tool is mouse-based and not accessible via scripts. Therefore the mod has its own rail building tools. You can place vertical or horizontal rail pieces freely, and then there are building menus to add curved rails, rail signals, train stops, rail forks, and the like. There is also the rail appender tool to simply extend forward an end rail.

Rail signal placement

In the mod, pairs of rail chain signals can be placed on straight rails. Signal blocks can be designed accordingly. Single units of chain signals or any number of regular rail signals cannot be placed freely. This means that one-way rails cannot be set freely, but the systems designed in the mod have a minimal likelihood for deadlocks. This is desirable because sorting through deadlocks requires visual problem solving and we do not yet have tools that would be alternatives to this.

Meanwhile, we have recently added rail bypasses as structures that can be built. The bypasses include one-way regular rail signals, and so the benefits of one-way rails can be accessed in a limited but deadlock-free manner.

Train naming

The mod allows you to name every train so that you can easily tell them apart. This is the alternative to changing the color of a train in vanilla gameplay. It works by renaming every locomotive of a train to save the train name.

Rail crossing alerts

When you stand on or by a rail tile, this feature gives audio cues when trains are moving around you, towards you, or towards the rail near you. The audio alerts let you know that you should get off the rails. They work as an alternative to checking the map or observing the surroundings in order to see if a rail is safe for crossing.

Train honking

The mod makes trains honk when you are manually driving towards a closed rail signal or when you are on a train that has other trains in its rail signal block. This serves as audio warning about possible train collisions, as an alternative to visual observation of trains and signals.

Stop on Red mod integration

The mod release packages now include the mod Stop on Red by DaveMcW. The mod makes manually driven trains brake when approaching closed rail signals. This serves as a safety feature, as an alternative to visual observation of signals.

6. Roads and cars

Car collision alerts

The mod has a driving system where the object ahead of you beeps at a frequency that explains how close it is. You are able to press a key to read out its name and distance from you.

Vehicle Snap mod integration

This mod by Zaflis comes packaged with Factorio Access GitHub releases. When manually driving and enabled, the mod helps by snapping the car rotation to a cardinal or diagonal direction with precision.

Pavement Driving Assist Continued mod integration

This mod by azaghal comes packaged with Factorio Access GitHub releases. When manually driving and enabled, this mod makes the vehicle steer itself to stay on paved roads. The mod also adds various paved traffic signs to allow autonomous road driving. It also includes a constant speed driving mode that works off road as well.

Kruise Kontrol driving integration

Selecting a point with Kruise Kontrol will make the player autonomously drive to the point. Warning: The initial turn the car makes does not avoid obstacles within 10 tiles, so it is important to engage this mode while in a relatively open area or while facing the correct exit from the start area.

Car honking

This feature has been added for cars and tanks for an enhanced audio experience.

7. Combat

Enemy proximity alerts

Depending on how close a player is to the nearest enemy, an alert sound plays. This is an alternative to visually tracking enemies.

Gun aim lock assist tool

Some guns in the game automatically aim at enemies for you. Others allowed only shooting freely at the cursor. We have added automatic aiming assistance for all guns, and we added a sound cue to indicate when the aim has locked.

Grenade aiming assist

When a grenade or similar thrown weapon is used in the mod, it is automatically aimed at enemies within range while also maintaining a minimum safe distance from the throwing player, but not other players.

Autonomous combat with Kruise Kontrol integration

Using the integrated Kruise Kontrol mod, the player is able to specify an enemy and the character fights enemies in that area by themselves. The autonomous fighting is fairly efficient.

Building damaged or destroyed alert sounds

These audio alerts read out damaged or destroyed building locations, as an alternative to the visually drawn arrows and icons used to show damaged or destroyed buildings in the vanilla game.

Teleporting to alert locations

This is an optional feature that allows rapidly reaching alert locations. It is an alternative to running straight to a location shown by visual maps.

Area repair

This tool allows repairing all damaged structures within a certain radius in one action. It is an alternative to walking around and individually checking every structure for whether it needs repairs. Repair packs are consumed as usual, except for tiny repairs being made for free.

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