A comprehensive balancing and progression overhaul for modded vehicles, aircraft, and maritime transport.
Reworks vehicles from several popular mods to create a more cohesive transportation and combat experience. Vehicles are given more distinct roles, fuel consumption becomes a meaningful logistical consideration, military progression via aircraft and navy is expanded, and previously underutilized vehicles gain new purposes.
The intent is not simply to make vehicles stronger or weaker, but to make choosing, producing, operating, and maintaining them an important part of your factory.
Bigger vehicles offer bigger capabilities, but also come with bigger costs and tradeoffs so that smaller vehicles still stay relevant throughout progression.
Vehicle Fuel Consumption & Logistics
Fuel consumption has been extensively rebalanced across land, sea, and air vehicles.
In vanilla Factorio and many vehicle mods, fuel is often a relatively minor consideration. A small amount of fuel can keep even the largest vehicles operating for surprisingly long periods, reducing the importance of fuel infrastructure and transportation efficiency.
This overhaul takes a different approach.
Large vehicles consume substantially more fuel, making their operation an ongoing logistical expense rather than a negligible cost.
Fuel consumption is individually configurable for:
- Locomotives
- Cargo ship engines
- Boat engines
- Independent boats
- Ironclads
- Ironclad gunboats
- Battleships
- Aircraft carriers
- AAI Haulers
- Heavy Trucks
- Cargo Planes
- Gunships
- Jets
- Flying Fortresses
The default settings establish a hierarchy of operating costs, with larger and more powerful vehicles generally requiring more energy but may be challenging for newer players therefore configuration is available.
For example, cargo ships and locomotives now both consume 2.4MW, while battleships consume 24MW and boats consume 800kW on waterways; Jets consume 120MW while gunships consume 15MW.
Vehicle Pollution
Fuel consumption is not the only cost of operating heavy machinery.
Selected vehicles now produce pollution while being driven, introducing an environmental cost to transportation and exploration.
Configurable driving pollution is supported for the AAI Hauler and cargo ship engine.
The Hauler also has substantially increased pollution output, making heavy road transportation more consequential in hostile environments.
Oil extraction has also been adjusted:
- Pumpjack pollution increased from 10 to 50 per minute
- Oil rig pollution increased from 50 to 250 per minute
These changes make oil extraction and heavy transportation more significant contributors to pollution, particularly when operating near hostile territory.
Inventory Changes
Vehicle storage capacities have been adjusted to establish clearer distinctions between personal transportation, military vehicles, and dedicated cargo haulers.
- Car: 20 inventory slots
- Tank: 60 inventory slots
- Hovercraft: 40 inventory slots
Cars remain useful for personal transportation and exploration, while tanks prioritize durability and combat capabilities.
Hovercrafts retain their amphibious mobility without replacing dedicated cargo vehicles.
Inventory sizes for various supported vehicles are now configurable.
AAI Hauler
The Hauler is now a genuine heavy transportation vehicle rather than an oversized personal car.
Its inventory has been adjusted to 160 slots, while its fuel consumption, pollution, movement characteristics, and crafting requirements have been extensively reworked.
The Hauler now requires:
- 24 engine units
- 40 steel plates
- 12 iron gears
- 5 iron chests
Its technology progression has also been adjusted to require engine technology.
With increased fuel consumption, slower movement, and substantial pollution generation, the Hauler is intended for transporting large quantities of materials rather than serving as a universal exploration vehicle.
Heavy Trucks
Trucks from the Heavy Trucks mod now have configurable fuel consumption and a reduced base maximum speed of 45 km/h instead of 90 km/h.
The Heavy Truck's inventory has also been reduced from 160 to 120 slots.
These changes encourage using trucks as dedicated cargo transportation rather than personal transportation while still keeping the AAI Hauler competitive.
AAI Warden
The Warden has been reworked into a durable support vehicle with a more specialized role.
Its characteristics include:
- 1,000 maximum health
- 80 inventory slots
- 150 kW fuel consumption
- 35 km/h maximum speed
- 50% acid resistance
AAI Chaingunner & Missile Hovercraft
The Chaingunner and Missile Hovercraft have revised recipes to better reflect their progression.
The Chaingunner now requires engine units to reflect AAI making engine units obtainable pre-logistic science.
The Missile Hovercraft requires less rocket launchers to craft to reflect its firing speed compared to other rocket launcher-equipped vehicles.
Maritime Transportation & Naval Combat
Water transportation has received extensive changes to fuel consumption, cargo capacity, recipes, technology progression, and combat characteristics.
The intention is to make maritime transportation a powerful alternative to railways without making it an effortless replacement.
Cargo Ships & Oil Tankers
Cargo ships retain their exceptional transportation density, but their fuel requirements have been substantially increased.
With a default engine consumption of 2.4 MW, large-scale shipping now requires more deliberate fuel production and distribution.
Cargo ship construction has also been adjusted to require 180 steel plates and 10 steel chests.
Oil tankers now require five storage tanks, making their construction costs better reflect their role in bulk fluid transportation.
Boats
Smaller boats provide an economical alternative to large cargo ships.
Boat engines have been increased from approximately 334 kW to 600 kW maximum power (almost twice as fast to accelerate), while fuel consumption remains independently configurable.
Independent boats also have their own configurable fuel consumption settings.
Smaller vessels are intended to remain practical for personal transportation, exploration, and supplying isolated outposts without requiring the infrastructure of a full cargo shipping network.
Ironclad & Gunboats
Ironclads and gunboats have been rebalanced to make early naval combat more dangerous and equipment choices more meaningful.
Both vehicles now have:
- Reduced ramming damage
The gunboat has a -50% acid resistance modifier, while the ironclad has -25%.
These vulnerabilities are intended to make encounters with worms, spitters, and other acid-based enemies more threatening.
Rather than relying exclusively on their durability, players must consider positioning, range, and enemy composition.
Inventory capacities have also been adjusted:
- Gunboat: 40 slots
- Ironclad: 80 slots
Construction costs have been revised to emphasize their respective armaments.
- The gunboat requires 30 engine units, 60 steel plates, 30 gears, and a gun turret.
- The ironclad requires 40 engine units, 120 steel plates, 30 gears, and a mortar turret.
The ironclad mortar recipe is also correctly unlocked by its corresponding technology.
Patrol Boats, Battleships, & Aircraft Carriers
Larger military vessels have been rebalanced around their distinct roles.
Patrol Boats
Patrol boats provide a lighter military option with independent technology progression.
The Waterway Patrol Boat now weighs 20,000, approximately doubling the time required to accelerate to its maximum speed compared to the boat.
The Independent Patrol Boat has configurable fuel consumption, and its technology no longer requires battleship research.
Battleships
Battleships are powerful but extremely expensive to operate.
Their default fuel consumption is 24 MW, making sustained operation a serious logistical undertaking. Their waterway fuel consumption is the same as the cargo ship in order to reward proper waterway logistics.
Battleships have 240 inventory slots and require utility science for their technology progression.
Their enormous fuel requirements are intended to offset their substantial firepower and make deployment decisions more consequential.
Aircraft Carriers
Aircraft carriers emphasize logistics and mobile support rather than direct firepower.
Their default fuel consumption is 12 MW, and their inventory has been expanded to 480 slots.
They no longer require battleship technology and instead use production science in their research progression.
This establishes a clearer distinction between battleships as heavily armed combat vessels and aircraft carriers as high-capacity support platforms.
Aircraft Overhaul
Aircraft have received some of the most extensive changes in the mod.
Their weapons, equipment grids, research requirements, fuel consumption, and progression have been reworked to establish distinct roles for each aircraft.
Rather than simply offering progressively faster transportation, aircraft now provide increasingly specialized military and logistical capabilities.
Cargo Plane
The Cargo Plane is no longer merely a flying storage container.
It now carries four mortar turrets, allowing it to perform light bombing runs and provide aerial fire support relatively early in the game.
Its machine gun range has been increased from 15 to 30.
The Cargo Plane also supports aircraft equipment and features an expanded 12 × 6 equipment grid.
Its technology requires Military 3, Mortar Turret, and military science, with space science being required for research when Space Age is enabled.
The Cargo Plane is intended to serve as a versatile logistical aircraft capable of defending itself and providing limited ground support without replacing dedicated combat aircraft.
Gunship
The Gunship has been upgraded into a more capable combat aircraft.
It now carries a cannon that fires at half the rate of the Flying Fortress cannon, providing additional firepower against armored targets.
Its machine gun range has been increased from 30 to 40.
Its equipment grid has also been expanded to 13 × 4, providing additional flexibility for equipment configurations.
Gunship technology now requires Military 4 and utility science, placing it later in the military progression.
With Space Age enabled, Gunship technology is associated with Vulcanus and requires Speed Module 3.
Jet
The Jet remains an exceptionally fast aircraft, but its speed now comes with meaningful drawbacks.
Its default fuel consumption is 120 MW, making it one of the most fuel-intensive vehicles in the overhaul.
Jet technology also requires Speed Module 3.
With Space Age enabled, the Jet is associated with Fulgora and requires electromagnetic resources instead of Speed Module 3.
The Jet is intended to reward players who invest in high-speed transportation infrastructure while discouraging its use as an effortless replacement for every other vehicle.
Flying Fortress
The Flying Fortress has been transformed into a heavily armed aerial weapons platform.
Its arsenal now includes:
- Its existing armaments
- An additional rocket launcher
- Two mortar cannons for long-range bombardment
- An additional magazine-fed autocannon firing twice as fast as the stock autocannon
- A napalm launcher
- A close-range laser cannon for concentrated bursts of damage
Its machine gun range has also been doubled from 40 to 80.
The Flying Fortress is intended to provide an enormous variety of offensive capabilities, allowing it to engage different target types with specialized weapons.
Its technology requires a broad selection of military armaments, reflecting the complexity of constructing such an advanced aircraft.
With Space Age enabled, the Flying Fortress becomes a late-game technology available pre-Aquilo.
Despite its formidable arsenal, the Flying Fortress still requires substantial fuel and supporting infrastructure.
Afterburner
Afterburner technology has been moved later into progression.
It requires Space Science and Productivity Module 3, and with Space Age enabled it is associated with Gleba.
This makes extreme aircraft performance a more advanced capability rather than an early upgrade.
High-Speed Stress
A new configurable speed stress mechanic introduces consequences for traveling at extreme speeds while personally occupying a vehicle.
When a vehicle exceeds a configurable speed threshold, the character begins taking damage.
By default, this threshold is 250 km/h.
Damage increases logarithmically with speed, and both the damage curve and maximum damage per second can be configured.
The mechanic is primarily intended to discourage high-speed coasting in Jets and other exceptionally fast aircraft.
Instead of personally piloting aircraft at extreme speeds with little risk, players are encouraged to use remote control for high-speed operations.
This creates an additional distinction between conventional piloted transportation and automated high-speed aircraft.
Players who prefer unrestricted high-speed travel can adjust the settings to suit their preferences.
Military Equipment & Weapon Balancing
Nuclear Weapons
Nuclear bombs now have an increased shooting speed modifier of 50% (from vanilla's 10%) and a configurable reload time, defaulting to 10 seconds. This change can be reverted by setting reload time to 0 in mod settings. This is intended to prevent nuke-spamming in aircraft with very fast rocket launcher firing speeds.
Light nuclear mortars no longer suffer a separate reload time penalty, while their shooting speed modifier has increased from 40% to 50%. This is intended to make them actually useful since the cluster mortar is far more powerful in the base mod.
High-Explosive Cannon Shells
High-explosive cannon shells now stack to 100 instead of 200; Intended to make magazine cannon shells more useful for increased ammo capacity.
With Space Age enabled, their recipes incorporate tungsten plates and calcite while requiring fewer explosive cannon shells.
This connects advanced explosive ammunition more closely to off-world resource production.
Radar Equipment
Radar equipment now consumes 120 kW instead of 30 kW.
Its recipe requires advanced circuits rather than electronic circuits.
Radar equipment technology requires radar technology rather than explosives.
Spidertron construction now requires radar equipment instead of ordinary radars, and artillery shells also use radar equipment in place of radars.
These changes give radar equipment a broader role in advanced military production while increasing the cost of operating equipment-dependent vehicles.
Inventory & Crafting Organization
The crafting interface has been reorganized to make large modded vehicle collections easier to navigate.
Vehicles and railway/waterway transportation now have their own dedicated crafting tab.
AAI vehicles remain separately organized via the AAI vehicles tab mod, preserving a distinction between AAI's programmable vehicles and other transportation systems.
Additional organizational changes include:
- Equipment moved into its own tab, separate from Combat.
- Fluid pipe distribution moved into a dedicated Logistics subgroup.
- AAI boats organized within the AAI tab.
- Boats ordered according to research progression.
- Floating power infrastructure reorganized.
- Spidertron positioned after hovercrafts to better reflect progression.
- ICBM Payload vehicles grouped with other payload-related items.
- Additional Space Age items and recipes reordered for consistency.
These changes are particularly useful in heavily modded games where the crafting menu can become increasingly cluttered.
A separate Cargo Ships crafting tab mod is no longer expected to be necessary alongside this overhaul.
Shallow-Water Landfill
Landfill placement has been restricted to shallow water by default.
This changes how players approach water reclamation and encourages the use of existing shallow-water areas rather than allowing unrestricted filling of deep water without using refined concrete from the Dredgeworks mod.
The restriction can be disabled through startup settings.
Landfill mining time is also configurable.
This feature is intended to make water geography more meaningful and preserve the importance of waterways, bridges, boats, and maritime infrastructure.
Configuration
Many of the overhaul's major balancing changes are configurable through mod settings.
Configurable options include:
- Fuel consumption for numerous land, sea, and air vehicles
- Driving pollution for supported vehicles
- Vehicle pollution update interval
- High-speed stress threshold
- High-speed damage curve
- Maximum speed stress damage per second
- Nuclear bomb reload time
- Shallow-water-only landfill placement
- Landfill mining time
These settings allow players to tailor the experience to their own modpacks, preferred difficulty, and transportation requirements.
The default values are designed around a more demanding logistics and military progression experience, but players are free to adjust them.
Any suggestions for features that deserve configuration are welcome.
Compatibility & Intended Experience
This mod is designed as a balancing and compatibility overhaul for a collection of existing vehicle, transportation, military, and equipment mods.
It does not aim to replace those mods. Instead, it modifies and integrates their content into a more consistent gameplay experience.
Changes are applied to supported vehicles and prototypes when present, allowing the overhaul to accommodate different combinations of supported mods.
Space Age-specific changes are applied when the expansion is enabled.
The intended experience is a medium-modded Factorio game where land vehicles, maritime transportation, aircraft, and military equipment all contribute to a larger logistical system with a focus on mostly vanilla progression otherwise.