Golden Age: Skybound
Build the sky into your factory.
Fly a personal shuttle and grow it into an autonomous aviation network of
Docks, Airports, cargo drones, Skyways, modular carriers, and explainable
industrial zones. Standalone with optional Golden Age integration.
Golden Age: Skybound is a Factorio 2.0 logistics and autonomous-expansion mod
built around visible aircraft, regional freight, mobile carrier networks, and
player-directed industrial development.
Begin with a worn Survey Shuttle. Repair it, fly it across the real map, and
turn scattered landing sites into a continent-spanning aviation network.
Begin with personal flight
The Worn Survey Shuttle gives the engineer an early personal aircraft and a
reason to establish the first aerial infrastructure.
Progress through:
- Survey Shuttle repair and flight
- Shuttle Docks
- Landing Beacons
- Engine and navigation upgrades
- Remote shuttle summoning and return commands
Aircraft remain visually present while moving through the world.
Build local and regional freight
Medium Drones handle local heavy logistics. Large Cargo Drones connect distant
production sites through scheduled regional routes.
Use:
- Cargo Hangars
- Provider and Requester Caches
- Flight Beacons
- Airports
- Capacity-limited Skyways
- Train-like freight schedules
- Regional route and performance overlays
Commission Mega Drones and modular carriers
Late-game aircraft become mobile logistics platforms rather than simple cargo
vehicles.
Construct and configure:
- Mega Freight Drones
- Modular Mega Drone chassis
- Carrier engine clusters
- Field roboports
- Cargo modules
- Repair workshops
- Navigation cores
- Deployable mobile construction networks
Design autonomous industrial zones
Use the Build Zone Designator to mark a purpose instead of manually placing
every machine.
Available zone roles include:
- Mining
- Defense
- Smelting
- Transport
Skybound surveys the area, generates an explainable plan, lists required
materials, constructs the project through drones, and commissions the finished
zone. The system exposes errors and blockers rather than silently hiding them.
Command one connected fleet
The Fleet Console brings aircraft, routes, Airports, carriers, freight,
construction plans, industrial zones, alerts, and performance information into
one coordinated interface.
Contextual guidance teaches one relevant action at a time and can be set to:
- Full
- Contextual
- Minimal
- Off
Standalone or Golden Age integrated
Skybound is fully playable without another Golden Age mod.
When a compatible Golden Age installation is present, optional integrations
add:
- Royal Aviation Standing
- Grand Exchange aviation contracts
- Bounded Treasury procurement
- Quartermaster aviation templates
- Gemstone-powered Gilded Avionics
Ordinary Skybound progression is never locked behind Golden Age.
Compatibility
- Factorio 2.0
- Base game supported
- Space Age optional
- Golden Age optional
- Existing saves supported through bounded migrations
- Multiplayer architecture included; broader public-beta soak feedback is welcome
Public beta status
Version 0.22.7 is the first public-beta package. Core progression, original
art, guidance, package structure, static validation, and compatibility
architecture are included.
The mod remains below 1.0.0 while the published release checklist collects
broader live migration, benchmark, GUI-scale, Golden Age integration, and
dedicated multiplayer acceptance evidence.