Factorio is an automation and factory-building game developed and published by Wube Software. It launched out of Early Access in 2020 and earned a reputation as one of the deepest automation games ever made, where you crash-land on an alien planet and build a factory to escape it.
The core loop is a tightening spiral of automation: mine resources, set up production lines, automate those lines, then automate the things that build them. The factory scales from a handful of belts into a sprawling megabase, while waves of biters attack and force you to balance production with defence.
Factorio shines in co-op multiplayer, where a team splits up the work and a single shared factory grows far faster than one player could manage. On a private dedicated server the map keeps running around the clock, so the factory keeps producing and your team can join any time without waiting for a host.
Factorio servers are configured through the server-settings.json file, which controls the map, player slots, autosave timing, and access rules. Mods are managed through the mod-list.json file, and large communities run overhaul packs and the official Space Age expansion content for a far longer progression curve.
On the hardware side, Factorio is heavily single-core CPU bound: the whole factory simulation runs at a fixed update rate, and a large megabase can pull UPS down on weak hardware. NVMe storage keeps autosaves fast so the map does not stutter when it writes. A 2 GB plan handles small co-op maps, while heavily modded megabases run best on the 6 GB plan.
| Server type | RAM needed | Players | Recommended plan |
|---|
| Small co-op map | 2 GB | Up to 4 | 2 GB plan |
| Standard factory team | 4 GB | Up to 8 | 4 GB plan |
| Modded megabase | 6 GB | 8+ | 6 GB plan |
Running Factorio on a dedicated server means the factory keeps producing between sessions, the map is not tied to a single host, and admin tools give you control over autosave timing, mod lists, and player slot caps. No engineer gets a connection advantage because there is no local host holding the map.
PingPlayers pairs dedicated hardware with Ping AI, which handles server setup, mod questions, and troubleshooting so your team spends time scaling the factory rather than editing server files.
