Mod History

Factorio Access has grown from a personal accessibility experiment into a polished community-driven project over the years.

Alpha Phase (Crimso's Repository)

Development during the alpha phase began with Crimso who established the core architecture of the mod in the summer of 2022. Versions progressed from 0.0.2 through the early 0.x series, introducing foundational features such as the mod cursor and the scanner tool. Several contributors assisted during the early weeks of rapid development, such as Eph assisting very substantially with the launcher.

The original repository eventually went on pause, but the work done there became the foundation for everything that followed.

Beta Phase (SirFendi's Repository, Switch to Organization)

In the summer of 2023, a new repository managed by SirFendi was created to continue development under the Beta label. This phase saw substantial expansion of the mod's feature set across versions 0.4.x through 0.15.x, including improvements to trains, combat, logistics, circuit networks, Kruise Kontrol integration, and much more. At one point the project was re-organized to belong to the Factorio Access organization on GitHub, which better reflected how the project was the work of several contributors.

A landmark moment came in January 2024, when dzsoker023 became the first blind player to launch a rocket using the mod, doing so on version 0.6. This was a significant milestone that demonstrated the mod had reached a level of partial completeness sufficient for the full base game experience.

Factorio 2.0 Migration (camlorn (ahicks) and v0.16)

When Factorio 2.0 was released in late 2024, it introduced breaking changes that required significant mod rework. Developer and longtime player camlorn (ahicks) took on the lead role in the effort to bring Factorio Access up to compatibility, beginning work on version 0.16. Beyond compatibility fixes, this phase included major code quality overhauls and experience improvements across the board. Development during this phase also became heavily assisted by Claude Code starting in the summer of 2025.

The Factorio 2.0 compatible version of Factorio Access was officially released in early 2026.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Crimso and the early contributors for starting the project and proving it was possible. Thanks to SirFendi for shepherding the beta through years of development up to broad feature completeness. Thanks to camlorn (ahicks) for carrying the project over the hill to reach 2.0 support, and also for polishing the experience into its fully complete modern form. Thanks to Eph for contributing in a myriad of ways, and to ohylli for assisting with community support consistently throughout the years — both have been around ever since the early days of the project, even during the quieter months.

Beyond the core team, many thanks go to the Discord community, both new and returning members who have been helpful and friendly throughout. Valuable contributions have come from playtesters, help and support regulars, feedback providers, and generally enthusiastic members who motivated us in our work. Special thanks to the earliest playtesters who stuck with the mod when it was barely functional.

Thanks to SightlessKombat on YouTube who reviewed and presented the mod in its early days, helping greatly to kindle the community.

Thanks to our contributors over the years as listed in our main repo insights and launcher repo insights, including ParadoxiKat, dzsoker023, alex19EP, MyNameisTrez, BlindGuyNW, ctoth, danielw97, ip3rfra, and mzanm.

Thanks to Factorio developers Bilka and co. who not only accommodated our API requests but have actively asked how they can further assist. And of course, thanks to Wube Software for building Factorio with its extensive modding API in mind, which made all of this possible.

This mod also builds on work by other modders and creators whom we want to thank. Kruise Kontrol was originally created by Factorio developer Klonan. Stop on Red was created by DaveMcW. Vehicle Snap was created by Zaflis. Pavement Driving Assist Continued was created by azaghal. The mod uses freely licensed audio from Zapsplat.

Thanks also to Claude AI for being a meaningful multiplier in our later efforts.

See also: