Playing A Game Manually

Factoriax has a human playable interface, called the playground. It contains a human playable version of Factoriax and a level editor.

Opening The Playground

To open the playground, run this command:

uv run python -m factoriax.playground

If you installed Factoriax with pip, run this command instead:

python -m factoriax.playground

The launcher shows four entries:

• Play starts a new game. You choose the environment parameters and the seed. The engine generates the world from its general terrain sampler.

• Editor opens the level editor. Use it to author custom maps.

• Settings changes the display, the UI scale, fullscreen mode, and the key and controller bindings. Factoriax writes the changes to player_config.json, in the directory that you started it from.

• Quit closes Factoriax.

Playing The Game

You control a player on a grid. You mine ore, craft machines from that ore, place the machines, and let them run.

Press ? in the game for the full list of control option. This table gives the default bindings.

Group	Key	Action
Movement	WASD or the arrow keys	Move the player
Movement	Ctrl+1 to Ctrl+9	Switch the active player
Actions	Space	Mine the ore under the player
Actions	E	Place a machine, or pick one up
Actions	R	Rotate the machine in front
Actions	1 to 8	Select inventory slot 1 to 8
Actions	Shift+1 to Shift+2	Select inventory slot 9 or 10
Crafting	I	Open the crafting menu
Crafting	W or S	Select a recipe
Crafting	E	Craft the selected recipe
Machines	F	Inspect the machine in front
Machines	W or S	Switch panel
Machines	A or D	Select an item
Machines	E	Transfer items
Other	P	Open the achievements
Other	Escape	Close a menu, or pause the game

You can change every binding, for the keyboard and for a controller. Open the Settings page of the launcher to do this. A standard gamepad works without setup.

The Level Editor

To open the editor, select it in the menu or run this command:

uv run python -m factoriax.playground.editor

Paint terrain with the left mouse button. Erase with the right mouse button. Press ? in the editor for the full list of button options.

Group	Key	Action
Drawing	Left click or drag	Paint a tile or a machine
Drawing	Right click or drag	Erase, one layer at a time
Drawing	X	Eraser tool, which clears both layers
Drawing	B or F	Paint tool, or fill rectangle tool
Drawing	1 to 5	Terrain: dirt, water, iron, copper, coal
Drawing	6 to 0	Select a machine from the palette
Drawing	R	Rotate the machine under the cursor
Drawing	I	Inspect the inventory of a machine
Resources	T	Switch between exact mode and range mode
Resources	V	Turn the resource overlay on or off
Resources	[ and ]	Adjust the resource value
View	Scroll wheel	Zoom
View	Middle drag, or the arrow keys	Pan
Map	Ctrl and an arrow key	Add or remove a row or a column
Map	Ctrl+N, Ctrl+O, Ctrl+S	New map, load a map, save the map
Map	F5	Play-test the current map
Map	Escape	Quit the editor

You can load levels in the level editor, or by using the Python API:

from pathlib import Path

from factoriax.engine.levels import load_level

level = load_level(Path("levels/my_level.json"))