Factorio Forums

Currently I have 4 copies of Factorio on my computer.....

1 Factorio 15.37 (playing with "GreyGoo" auto expanding factory) (Never gets Updated)
2 Factorio 17.78 (with favorite mods)
3 Factorio 17.78 (With Industrial Revolution Mod Pack)
4 Factorio 17.78 (With Space Exploration Mod Pack)

Works fine. But each version takes up almost 2gig. And I have to do the Auto Update 3 times.

Today I had a thought... Would it be possible to just have 1 version of 17.78 installed, and 3 separate Mod folders that I just swap into the game if I want to play a different mod pack.

i.e.
Factorio 17.78 (no mods)
My Favorite Mods
Industrial Revolution Mod Pack
Space Exploration Mod Pack

So If I want to switch mod packs, I just delete the Mod folder in the Factorio Game folder and just copy another Mod pack in and rename it Mods.

As long as I Name my Save Games sensibly and load the correct one in the game for that mod pack, It should be ok. Right? Are there any other files that will be affected?

Hmm, just thinking the achievements might get out of wack if for instance I get way advanced in one mod pack, and not another. Same with Blueprints I may end up with blueprints of things that are not compatible with another mod pack.

But maybe again by naming the blueprints sensibly, I can be sure not to confuse them.


What are the rest of you doing who may have different Mod Packs that your are playing simultaneously?

As long as it is all the same game version, all you have to do is hit the Sync with Save button. It will sync all of your mods and settings, restart, and you are good to go.

BlackHat wrote: Sat Nov 16, 2019 4:06 am Today I had a thought... Would it be possible to just have 1 version of 17.78 installed, and 3 separate Mod folders that I just swap into the game if I want to play a different mod pack.

See https://wiki.factorio.com/Command_line_parameters , look at the mod-directory option. (You can use batch file or windows shortcuts to save make using the option more convenient).

This does have the downside, that they all share one factorio install directory, save dir, blueprint library etc, which might be a problem if a factory update breaks one of the modpacks, or you need different factorio versions for multiple multiplayer servers.

BlackHat wrote: Sat Nov 16, 2019 4:06 am Currently I have 4 copies of Factorio on my computer.....

1 Factorio 15.37 (playing with "GreyGoo" auto expanding factory) (Never gets Updated)
2 Factorio 17.78 (with favorite mods)
3 Factorio 17.78 (With Industrial Revolution Mod Pack)
4 Factorio 17.78 (With Space Exploration Mod Pack)

Works fine. But each version takes up almost 2gig. And I have to do the Auto Update 3 times.

I have just two Factorio installations for regular use (plus two under other user accounts when I needed these for testing stuff in multiplayer mode). I only use the auto updater for one installation and copy over these folders to the others: bin, data, doc-html. Saves bandwidth, and doesn't touch the configuration etc.

Same thing with mods: If I need certain mods in multiple installations, I download them once from the mod portal and copy them over to the others. I've even written a small script for this that takes care of copying the files and setting the right owner/permissions.

Kinson25 wrote: Sat Nov 16, 2019 4:15 am As long as it is all the same game version, all you have to do is hit the Sync with Save button. It will sync all of your mods and settings, restart, and you are good to go.
factorioSync.png

Yes they would all be the same version (all the different 17.78 mod pack saves)
Hmm, so it sounds like you could have all the different mod packs contents in the mod folder together, and the "sync with save" will only load the ones it needs. This sound very nice... I am going to have to look into the faq/info on this.

Thanks,

Sounds like a plan, but with the incredibly low price of multi-terabyte hard drives and even SSDs, having multiple entire copies of the same game isn't such a big deal.

Examples:

1TB Crucial M.2 drive $99. This can hold your entire OS and a couple dozen large, modern games easily and will be incredibly fast at booting and loading games due to the M.2 SSD format. This is my current boot drive.

4TB 7200rpm HDD from any major brand, $100-130 depending on consumer or commercial grading. Good luck filling that one up with stuff you actually use unless you are a video editor by profession.

10TB Seagate Ironwolf (professional grade) $300 or so. Cache over 8 solid weeks of 24x7 UHD (3840x2160) streaming.