Factorio 1.1 allows beautiful blueprint flipping, other quality of life changes

Obviously release hasn't stopped the vast and sprawling beauty of Factorio from growing, and the 1.1 patch just now out is packed with polish that makes the game simpler than ever to play. Among the updates are a feature to flip blueprints, a long-desired fantasy of Factorio fans. You can just... flip em. It's lovely. We've also got neat stuff like smart-building for conveyor belts, multithreading for conveyors, a brand-new interface for trains, and slick control tricks for Spidertron robots.

When Factorio released last year developers Wube software said they wanted to complete the game's feature set so that they could polish everything before adding more, and that's definitely what they've done here. Smart Belt Building is a great
example of some nice changes, letting belts automatically turn to follow the cursor and automatically go underground below obstacles. These kinds of user interface improvements aren't just useful, they're something that makes the game more accessible for casual players to learn.

"Factorio is brilliant. If you're remotely interested in games about management, construction, and above all production chains, then hop aboard the nearest conveyor belt and grab yourself a copy of Factorio this instant," said our review of the game on its launch last year. It's been a fixture of our PC Gamer Top 100 since before it even released.

Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.