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arXiv:2102.04871cs.AI

The Factory Must Grow: Automation in Factorio

Kenneth N. Reid, Iliya Miralavy, Stephen Kelly, Wolfgang Banzhaf, Cedric Gondro

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Abstract

Efficient optimization of resources is paramount to success in many problems faced today. In the field of operational research the efficient scheduling of employees; packing of vans; routing of vehicles; logistics of airlines and transport of materials can be the difference between emission reduction or excess, profits or losses and feasibility or unworkable solutions. The video game Factorio, by Wube Software, has a myriad of problems which are analogous to such real-world problems, and is a useful simulator for developing solutions for these problems. In this paper we define the logistic transport belt problem and define mathematical integer programming model of it. We developed an interface to allow optimizers in any programming language to interact with Factorio, and we provide an initial benchmark of logistic transport belt problems. We present results for Simulated Annealing, quick Genetic Programming and Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning, three different meta-heuristic techniques to optimize this novel problem.

arXiv comments
Submitted to GECCO 2021
Journal reference
DOI
Subjects
cs.AIArtificial Intelligence cs.NENeural and Evolutionary Computing

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Linked by 1 identifiable commenter in 1 comment across 1 thread, from Mar 2025 to Mar 2025. Found in 1 HN submission from Feb 2021 to Feb 2021. Open submission discussions.

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Discussed in comments1 thread

    • I definitely agree that planning is essential to perform well in Factorio - my hope is that we can create agents in FLE that can better front-load the planning part, as well as create utility functions for future use - such that as the agent progresses, it can do more and more…

      noddybearView on HNParent context

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