Field Notes

A (psychological) horror mod for Factorio: Space Age.

Something happened to the engineer who came before you. As your factory grows, you start finding what they left behind: torn pages, scrawled warnings, and worse. Twelve entries surface across a playthrough, each one a step further into what this planet does to the people who try to tame it.

This is slow, introspective horror. The dread builds as your factory grows. And the factory must grow, no matter the cost!

Requires Space Age

Field Notes depends on the Space Age expansion and will not load without it.

Warning

While it did not happen in any of my tests so far, this mod has the potential to break other mods, or their balance due to some mechanics. Make sure to backup your save in case that happens.
For a true story experience, I would suggest starting a new save with it, as existing bases may trigger multiple notes to appear, especially on hard difficulties.

How it works

The mod watches your total pollution. As it climbs, you descend into the fate that befell him. Will you survive, or will you end up the same as your predecessor? Reading the notes is the spine of the story; the things that happen alongside them are the rest of it.

Press Shift+N at any time to reopen the log of notes you have found.

The less you know going in, the better. If you would rather not be spoiled, stop reading here and start a game.

Difficulty

A single startup setting, Difficulty preset, controls how aggressively the
mod escalates:

• None turns the mod off: no notes, no events.
• Mild keeps a light touch, with events spaced far apart. I would be pretty impressed if you reach note 12 on this mode.
• Normal is a balanced experience.
• High and Horror compress the pacing and raise the pressure.
• Custom unlocks the individual settings beneath it: pollution threshold
  scale, phantom alerts, alert frequency, and ambient audio. Without choosing it, other options do not apply.

The four settings under the preset are only used when the preset is set to Custom. Otherwise the preset chooses their values for you.

Audio

All ambient audio is licensed CC0 (public domain). Per-clip sources and credits
are listed in CREDITS.md.

License

The mod is released under the MIT license. See LICENSE.

By Cody T. Newman.