Freight Forwarding is a small mod for Factorio that reduces stack sizes dramatically, but allows resources to be packed and unpacked into containers for transport. It also provides new logistic options, in particular cargo ships and associated island based play.

To increase complexity the author recommends adding Tungsten, Natural Gas, and Noble Metals from the BZ mods collection. (It includes Lead & Titanium by default). In hindsight I probably didn’t need quite so many additions: the extra complexity exacerbated what otherwise would have been minor issues. The logistics heart of the mod could have been enjoyed more fully with default settings.

Launching an interstellar satellite to win the game took me about 55 hours.

Using default settings, biters were a non-issue. I triggered virtually no pollution based attacks, and never saw any behemoths. This was as expected, the mod documentation suggested biters would be on the easier side. After using Rampant on my last run I enjoyed the change up.

The heart of late science production.

Core Gameplay

For the full logistics experience, I avoided any train logistics mods (like LTN or Cybersyn). You can get a long way with train stop limits these days, and it also meant I could attempt to handle container return in the same train. This was fun until it wasn’t.

Item re-use shows up in two places in the mod: containers can be packed and unpacked, and batteries can be charged and discharged. Both of these processes had a failure rate built into them (1% initially), meaning that systems needed to be continually topped up. I liked this idea but in practice it was frustrating:

Ultimately this was frustrating enough to push me away from regular trains and back to fuel loaded mini-trains. If I were to play this mod again I’d remove the failure rates and reduce the empty container stack size to one to match packed containers.

Highlights

Mini-trains next to their larger counterpart.

Minor Issues

Mistakes and opportunities (minor spoilers):

Mostly just notes and reflections to myself!

Rocket fuel production at the remote titansteel facility.

I created a mapshot of the factory for posterity, where you can scroll and zoom around. I overall enjoyed this mod, though would recommend sticking to default recommendations for a shorter experience.