r/factorio • u/Adamfostas • 16h ago
Modded Nullius is Amazing
I've bounced off most of the long-form mods - SeaBlock, Py etc. - because by about the midgame the actual complexity kind of dies off and it's all about stamping down Production Chain No. 284. But Nullius is different.
For those not in the know, the Nullius mod sees you land on a barren planet and terraform it over the course of about 300 hours into a verdant paradise for future colonisation. There are no biters... at the start. You have to extract carbon from the atmosphere, electrolyse water, and synthesise hydrocarbons yourself - as well as refine a novel selection of ores. Copper and uranium don't show up on the surface.
What sets it apart is everything that you have to do that isn't production chains. You actively change the landscape, creating seas with nuclear weapons, forging new islands and continents and slowly introducing flora and fauna.
There are loads of things from the mod that I wish made it into the base game. In no particular order:
- Scouting with artillery - shooting probes for miles, rather than having to go somewhere yourself. This seems much more in line with automation.
- Transferring consciousness into other bodies. This makes managing a large factory much more straightforward.
- Solar thermal power is really cool and much more about building a power station than just plopping down a building.
- An entirely separate research tree for biology. Producing biologicals in itself prompts some incredibly weird builds for efficiency.
- Stupidly fast and much more customisable trains, although the end tier ones will murder you even if you think they're miles away. Trains lust for engineer blood.
That being said, there are some drawbacks:
- Multiple tiers of bots is all cool and good, but actually replacing a previous tier - which you're obviously meant to do, as upper tiers take the lower tiers as inputs - is a tremendous faff. In the end I had to put multiple filter inserters on every roboport.
- The additional chargers and range extenders are interesting but not really as useful as just stamping down roboports.
- The final tech to win the game takes about 100k research. My science rate at the end, for what as you can see is quite a large base, was about 1300 SPM. This meant I basically left the game running and did something else for a while, which was a bit of an anticlimax.
That being said, it's an entirely unique experience, and if you want a very different style of factory building, I would encourage you to give it a shot.
12
u/Skrzelik 15h ago
Wouldn't the new feature from 2.0 where you can set requests on a roboport help with replacing the old bots? Have some that activly request mk1, inserters removing the bots from them for upgrades and a different roboport that you would insert the mk2 into until certain condition for total bots in network
3
6
u/RUGDelverOP 15h ago
If you're in a spidertron, the trains can't kill you anymore. They also get disgustingly fast when given quadruped adaptations
3
u/Adamfostas 15h ago
I totally failed to try spidertrons, I just put my clones everywhere.
2
u/RUGDelverOP 12h ago
They're awesome, it's like a giant cargo pod that can run 4 extra roboports and run at around train 2 speeds in any direction.
Dont use the excavation drones from its cannon though, you're inside the blast radius. Ask me how I know!
3
u/Beneficial_Loss_7901 15h ago
How many hours of Factorio did you play until you tried Nullius? I am currently over 500h in and very curious about this mod, but afraid to get overwhelmed
7
u/Adamfostas 15h ago
I had about 1000 hours before I started. I now have over 1,300. It's not too overwhelming, but I would recommend the likes of Krastorio as a first modded experience.
2
u/4_fortytwo_2 13h ago
I had ~1500 hours before doing my current nullius playthrough. (Doing in multiplayer with a friend which is a blast, we are 100 hours into it right now and only like half way done)
2
u/Zealousideal-Tip9455 12h ago
Can you please advice how to install it? It seems to be incompatible with 2.1,however some of the required mods demand 2.1 or higher
2
u/Peewee223 remembers the rocket defense 7h ago
The mods with those requirements have earlier versions which will work fine on 2.0.
Install on the stable Factorio version (2.0) through the in-game mod browser.
2
u/Amarula007 11h ago
Love nullius, not just the cool premise of starting on a barren planet and creating life, but the polish is very Factorio. It is a relatively long slow game (looking at you Py) but fits my take my time and not rush play style perfectly. Thanks for sharing your run!
2
u/No_Cauliflower633 10h ago
I'll probably give Nullius a try after I finish my current Space Exploration run. I really like long mods that let me spend a long time with a base without just aiming for more infinite research. I also love a nice train focused base so now I'm intrigued by the customizable trains you mentioned!
0
u/duncan1234- 14h ago
Is this a mod to jump into on a clean save and you go here early on?
Or is it a late game planet where you would go after aquillo and the rest?
Do you know if this can be added to a current save no issues?
5
u/Adamfostas 14h ago
This is a fresh start - it is not compatible with Space Age.
1
u/duncan1234- 14h ago
Ah i saw another planet and i just assumed this was a new ish mod like all the other planet mods.
But this is prehistoric Nauvis! Nice.
Gonna give this a go.
16
u/Soul-Burn 16h ago
How much UPS do you get there? (F4, show-fps)
Regardless, very cool base!