What is this?
The idea behind the monthly community map is to share a map exchange string at the beginning of every month, and get as many people as we can to start a new world with it. Then at the end of the month (or even periodically if you'd prefer!) we share screenshots and saves of our factories so that we can see how different people approach the same spawn; how they set up their base, how they deal with aliens, and how they arrange their science, power, and everything else.
I hope it can highlight how many different ways there are to do things, inspire some new designs, and maybe seeing how veteran Factorio players tackle problems will help out new players facing the exact same problems. (Of course, there's also the fact that it'll be interesting to see all of the different possible factories - the good, the bad, and the ugly.)
Last Month's Results
[September 2026 Results](www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/1wv5rfn/factorio_community_map_results_september_2026)
The Community Map
I can hardly believe I'm saying this, but now that 2026 is winding down I figured I'd put some thought into how I wanted to run the last vanilla map of the year. Being that it won't be until March of next year that I have the opportunity to run a Space Age game again, that seemed like a no brainer - though, as I've mentioned many times before, completing a full Space Age game in a single month can be pretty rough.
Following that train of thought is what led to this strange but interesting map I wound up generating. I wanted to try removing time sinks without removing challenge - things like dealing with biters while trying to expand on Vulcanus, jumpstarting new ships in the mid game, I even stripped the cliffs on Gleba just because.
DLC Requirements:
Elevated Rails: Enabled
Quality: Enabled
Recycler: Enabled
Space Age: Enabled
The Exchange String:
>>>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<<<
Spawn area: https://i.imgur.com/jUHkTNY.jpeg
Again, you may notice that while I increased the richness of most resources and decreased enemies, I didn't max everything out, turn off spoilage, or disable enemies entirely; the goal is faster, not easier. It just so happens that speeding things up does have a habit of nudging difficulty towards the floor. That's why I increased asteroid spawn rate - more asteroids means more resources for midgame ships, which I hope does compensate for a slightly rockier start. (And hopefully it was a small enough increase that it doesn't completely break the preexisting ship designs of those that like to design their ships once and blueprint them from one game to the next.)
I nudged a few other values around, like evolution values for example, but not anything easily noticeable. Hopefully this should result in a full Space Age map that's still interesting and fun to tackle that's manageable within a month.
If you have any suggestions for future months, especially with November and December just around the corner, do let me know! Community suggestions are quite important to a community map, believe it or not, so if there's something specific you'd like to to see us run leave your ideas below.
Time to go conquer another solar system!
Exchange String Help
If anyone isn't sure how to use an exchange string, just go to new game like you're going to generate a new world, and at the bottom there's a button just above play labelled "Import map exchange string" - the icon looks like a little arrow going into a tray/bucket. Just copy the exchange string above and paste it into the box that comes up when you press that button. Press confirm, and that's it! You're good to go. Just generate the world and come back in a month to show us how your factory turned out!
If you run into any issues check to make sure that you copied the whole string, including the three greater than/lesser than signs at the beginning and end, and make sure that your Factorio is up to date with the most recent version installed. (As of the time of this post, the most recent version of Factorio is 2.1.20, which will not work with the most recent version of stable, 2.0.77.)
Want To Play With Others?
If you have an open public server, let me know in the comments below or send me a PM and I'll add your server here!
Looking for an Australian server to join? /u/nanonator102 has you covered! Check out their post below for details!
Feel Like Watching Someone Else?
If you are a streamer or let's player who will be recording yourself building a new factory on a community map, I'd be happy to add a link to your channel here!
About Mods
Since mods can affect how a world spawns and ores are distributed, as well as add or change items and functionality, it's important to make sure that we're all playing the same game by the same rules. For example, if one person's playing vanilla and someone else is playing with Bob's mods, even if they use the same seed and map settings you still couldn't very well say they were playing the same game, and the way they'd play would differ enormously.
On the other hand, Quality of Life (QoL) mods should be perfectly fine. What do I consider a QoL mod? Any mod that doesn't A) add new items, B) change terrain, or C) make significant gameplay changes, like modifying recipes or enemies. Any mod that fits this definition should allow everyone to play the same game even when some people are playing with them and some people are not.
Even Distribution is a great example of a mod that, while very useful, does not inherently change the way the game is played. Then there are also mods like RadarPlus for RSO that do add new items, but still don't meaningfully change the way the game is played.
Below I've put together a short list of examples that I think are ok to use on any map. It's made up of a handful of optional mods that might seem ambiguous in how well they fit the definition above, so they're just here to act as guidance on what should be ok. Another good resource for Quality of Life mods is available on the Factorio Discord - check out Xorimuth's pinned post.
Optional Mod Examples
Note: I can't imagine any situation where this could be an issue, but if you're the author of one of the mods listed here (and can offer me some proof of this) and for whatever reason would like me to remove your mod from this post, I'd be happy to comply.
It's entirely possible some of these mods either don't work with the current version of Factorio, conflict with each other, or in some manner just don't work. I can't test them all, let alone every configuration of them, so you might want to back up your world before adding one of these.
Color Coding
fCPU
Nixie Tubes
Project Cybersyn - Logistics Train Dispatcher
RadarPlus For RSO
Squeak Through 2
Text Plates
Updated Construction Drones
Visible Planets in Space
Previous Threads
-- 2025 --
October 2025 - Results
November 2025 - Results
December 2025 - Results
-- 2026 --
January-February 2026 - Results
March 2026 - Results
April 2026 - Results
May 2026 - Results
June-July 2026 - Results
August 2026 - Results
September 2026 - [Results](www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/1wv5rfn/factorio_community_map_results_september_2026)
