Complete Vulcanus Guide in Factorio 2.0 | Factorio Space Age

Factorio 2.0, or Factorio’s Space Age DLC, brings 50 or more hours to the game by introducing several planets to conquer. The first big test and your initial introduction to the Space Age is the planet Vulcanus. Most players who go blindly into the fiery hot planet are left scratching their heads on what to do, how to get an item, or how to produce certain products. This complete Vulcanus guide will help any beginner out there trying to venture out to Factorio’s Space Age DLC.

How to Prepare for Vulcanus in Factorio 2.0

There is a long list of things you need to prepare before going to Vulcanus. The list will contain both mandatory products as well as supplementary products that will make your life way easier in Vulcanus.

Mandatory items to bring:

These items are mostly to prepare yourself for some production that cannot be built in Vulcanus unless you have certain tech. So, the purpose of some of these products is to streamline your progress in Vulcanus by having unlimited power, the ability to expand, and the ability to construct your own Rocket Silo to launch items into space platforms, which is crucial to your progress in Vulcanus.

Vulcanus-life-changing items to bring:

While most items can be created in Vulcanus, you want to skip the whole process of being a….caveman. You were already spoiled with all the tech in Nauvis, so why not bring some of those to Vulcanus? You don’t want to start with the slowest belt and go back to burner buildings.

Skip all those and use the power of drones. In fact, it is quite mandatory to set up a drone system in Vulcanus since if you want to go back to Nauvis or other planets, you’ll rely on drones to build for you while you are away.

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Best Power Supply in Vulcanus

If you are skipping the whole burner products and buildings, you are going to want immediate power. Luckily, power is easy in Vulcanus because Solar Panels are 300% more efficient on the planet. Solar Panels are literally a plug-and-play building, and you just need to place them on a power grid and add a few Accumulators to sustain more power during the night.

There are still days and nights in Vulcanus, so you need Accumulators. As you continue to expand your production in Vulcanus, you want a steady supply of Solar Panels and Accumulators. It is either you automate them in Vulcanus or bring your automated ones from Nauvis here.

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Production Line Summary in Vulcanus

Vulcanus doesn’t have Crude Oil and Uranium Ore. While it does say on the briefing that you don’t have Water, you can still generate Water through Steam. What you really don’t have that are important are the following:

• Light Oil
• Plastic
• Petroleum Gas

This is because most of these products come from Crude Oil, and you need to find a way to get some research up to get these products, specifically Coal Liquefaction.

Coal Liquefaction allows you to turn Coal, Heavy Oil, and Steam into Heavy Oil, Light Oil, and Petroleum Gas using an Oil Refinery. However, you’ll only unlock this once you are already sending Metallurgy Science Packs (orange potions) back to Nauvis for research. So, until then, you will be relying on Nauvis to send you anything that requires these products, which is why Rocket Fuel, Processing Circuit, and Low-Density Structures are all on the mandatory products list of things to bring to Vulcanus.

For the basic production lines, Vulcanus relies on new resources such as Calcite and Tungsten. You will also be familiar with some products, such as Coal and Sulfuric Acid. It is a bit easier here since you literally get Sulfuric Acid from a Pumpjack rather than converting it first in a Chemical Plant.

However, the biggest feature or resource in Vulcanus is actually the lava on the planet. You can turn the lava into almost all the basic and intermediate products, such as Iron Plates, Copper Cables, Copper Plates, Steel Beams, and more. The beauty about it is lava is unlimited, and you don’t even have to turn it into ores anymore – you’ll literally get what you ask for from any production line using Molten Iron and Molten Copper.

The only hard part is actually getting Tungsten Ores to Tungsten Carbide to turn into Foundries. Foundry is the main production building in Vulcanus, and you want a lot of them. Initially, you are going to farm Tungsten Ores manually by mining big volcanic rocks around the planet. If you don’t want to manually mine them, use a Roboport and the construction drones to mine them for you. These resources are limited at this point, so you want to turn them into Foundries for now.

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How to Dump Resources – Mostly Stone Byproducts

Once you have some production buildings set up, you’ll notice that most Foundries have a stone byproduct when making Molten Iron and Molten Copper from lava. The best way to deal with them is to bring them all into one belt and have every Foundry dump their stone byproducts into a line that throws them into the lava, as seen in the image above.

While you may need some Stones for other production lines like Concrete, you still want to keep some of them so you can place an inserter somewhere on the belt and place them into a red chest so it is available in the logistics network. If ever you need stones, you can always build a blue chest so stones can get transferred anywhere as long as it is under the logistics network.

At the end of the stone belt, you want a bulk inserter to dump the stones and lots of them. Once you keep expanding your factory, you’ll have more and more Stones, which will need to get thrown faster into the lava to avoid belt traffic.

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How to Kill Demolishers in Vulcanus

The next issue you will need to resolve is how to get Tungsten Ores and how to expand your base. Both these issues will be solved if you kill the Demolishers and gain more territory.

If you open the map or use the remote view, you’ll see areas carved up into different territories indicated by the red lines. Each red line encompasses a big territory and the more red lines there are, the more territories are there to take. You’ll only notice them if you have Radars spread across Vulcanus.

The only thing you need to know is that each territory is protected by a Demolisher. At the start, you’ll only deal with small Demolishers. These are big worm creatures that destroy anything in their path. They are passive creatures, but if you build on their territory, they will attack.

To gain more territory, you’ll need to eliminate these Destroyers, and the best way to do this is to build Gun Turrets that use Uranium Ammo.

This is also why Uranium Ammo is on the mandatory product list as it holds the best damage output against the Demolisher. Other weapons are bad except for electric and physical type damage. You don’t have electric tech yet, so you can ignore that.

You want to build a 5×5 or 3×7 grid of Gun Turrets and place them in the Demolisher’s territory. Put Uranium Ammo into the Gun Turrets, preferably at least 5 pieces for each turret. An easy way to do this is by clicking the Uranium Ammo in your inventory and hovering them over the Gun Turrets. While hovering over the Gun Turrets with the Uranium Ammo in your cursor, press “Z” and spread it as evenly as you can.

The reason you need so many Gun Turrets is that you must eliminate the Demolisher in under 3 seconds, or else it will destroy all the Gun Turrets and regenerate. The Demolisher destroys everything in its path immediately, sending shockwaves once it gets near one. It is either your Gun Turrets all get destroyed in less than 3 seconds, or it is the Demolisher.

Once you have placed the Gun Turrets, just wait until the Demolisher arrives. Once you have killed the Demolisher, a big area will freed up, and you can expand your base again.

Exclusive Vulcanus Resources and Products to Export

Once you have everything set up, the products you want to import are Metallurgy Science Packs first. Get these immediately to Nauvis and start research to unlock a way to get Light Oil and Petroleum Gas..

Once you have those researched, the most important exclusive products from Vulcanus are:

• Cliff Explosives
• Turbo Transport Belts, Underground, and Splitters
• Artillery and Shells

Cliff Explosives allow you to destroy cliffs so you can make even ground on Nauvis or other planets. Turbo Transport Belts is the fastest belt, which should be produced in a high quantity to improve your transportation system. Artillery is the next level of military power, so you would also want to deal with enemies faster.