TIPS AND TRICKS / FAQ / NEWB GUIDE for Comfy Mountain Fortress Factorio Mod Custom [incomplete]

F3ND1MUS
21 min readJul 22, 2022

--

This is write up is for newbs mainly but could be helpful to anyone new to this mod.

***

RULES

The OFFICIAL COMFY GUIDE for Mountain Fortress is here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S46B2g6qHvY-eyJdeWTJue4uytVLC2qbyPpKjAv1_d4/edit

OFFICIAL FACTORIO WIKI

Very good information for factorio

https://wiki.factorio.com/Main_Page

COMFY FACTORY OFFICIAL DISCORD:

getcomfy.eu/discord

Discord Commands

!mtn

After the guide you are going to want to jump straight into the game as a newb this is a bad idea but we all do it anyways, dont be rude and try to learn, its rough going at first, as to be expected but here we go.

JAIL / GRIEFING / IGNORANCE OF THE LAW is not an EXCUSE

WARNING, IF YOU ENTER GAME AND DO DAMAGE TO TRAIN OR OTHER THINGS YOU MAY BE/ WILL BE JAILED,

NOTE Be very careful when first starting off, RIGHT CLICKING removes things that are on the ground, and if you accidently do it let someone know by typing “`" to chat and ctrl + alt + Left click the area that is messed up, or push “E” to open inventory and left click items to select, push “E” to close inventory and hover over the area to put item back and push “R” to rotate item, or just ask for help again push “ ` “ the button above TAB and type help im a newb i messed something up, and you may get help you might not idk, depends, but be super careful, and push ENTER to send message.

this guy was jailed for running through the train and right clicking everything

how to join the server

Start game it will look like this:

from main menu go to multiplayer:

browse public games:

sort by number of players?

click on mountain fortress

click join game bottom right hand side

downloading of map will begin

HOW TO CHAT

PUSH “`" key above tab to open console and chat, type words then press ENTER to send to the server. remember to follow the rules.

How to Cancel Build Que

Must be standing outside train “Aura” then click or shift click as usual on the build icons

Train Aura

The big circle around the train is the “aura” safe mining zone etc, it appears as a circle as seen below, but in reality it is detected in game as a square as seen below pic 2

train aura circle
train aura square detection area

So technically you would be safe to mine inside this square and it wouldnt spawn any biters when mining, although the giant worms can attack into the square aura the act of mining inside the safety of the aura will not spawn any monsters,

highlighted safety area inside the train mining aura

NOTE mining outside the square will spawn monsters that are very dangerous.

How to Change Weapons Slots

Push Tab to switch between the 3 weapons slots on the character, the current weapon is shown in green,

if you dont have a weapon, attacking will use the pickaxe

NOTE: By Default Attacking is done with the SPACEBAR

How to pick up items off the ground

Use the F key to grab items off the ground,

gold will just be picked up by running over it or killing or mining, do not need to push f for gold next to turrets, but if gold is on the conveyor belt it will then not be picked up unless you hold F

grabbing items off the conveyor belt/ ground
example of gold coins not being auto looted after they land on conveyor belt from turrets/lazers/flame throwers

Market

The market as seen above is located in the green “locomotive jecks” train as shown below.

Upgrades

Clicking on the market reveals the following menu:

The first category in the train is for upgrades. Lets go over those.

Items

Next inside the store you will see items for sale costing the gold coins found in the game scenario, usually it is best to craft these items, but if the price is cheap enough or you find yourself in a pinch, there is always the golden option.

items 1
items 2

Mystical Chest

I have no idea what this is or what it does…cause im a newb?

Desync Bro?

This Behemoth Biter inside the train is no threat to anyone, he just wonders around, also can be commanded to move if he is in the way of your in train construction [add command for moving desync bro here]

Fishing inside Market Train?

There is a little area of water in the north of the green loco train, I never noticed it but apparently there are fish in there. I was able to get like 13 fish out of it times 5 is like 65 fish?

JustFarted claims there are 2–5 generated constantly by the train “The Market and the fish wagon”

Red Passive Provider Chests inside train cars

Newb, dont know what these are or how they work…damn my lack of factorio gameplay experience!

Blue Provider Chests inside train cars

Newb, dont know what these are or how they work…damn my lack of factorio gameplay experience!

Map

Push M for map. in the map you can see dead body icons, you can see red biter icons, you can see minerals, and you can mark stuff with custom icons, I believe only the areas that are explored can be seen via the satelite view by zooming in the mouse wheel.

Satelite view example

satelite view of un explored area example

WALLS

use walls to block chokepoints

DECONSTRUCT

use deconstruct to allow you to walk through walls, to find it click the “i” on the bottom box to the right as seen below

deconstruct options is the “i” next to the blueprint icon bottom bar to the right click it

Enable deconstruct planner as seen image below

click deconstruct icon, ie the red box, then click and drag on what you want to deconstruct.

SORTER WAGON, WHERE TO DROP YOUR ORE and other items?

the sorter wagon is the second train cart on the train it is where you can find some armor and other items like guns, you can also throw anything in there and it will be auto sorted and stored for anyone to use by construction robots after it is built, super cool i know.

sorter wagon in red, left click wagon and shift click[one stack] or control click [all stacks of currently clicked item] are sent into the wagon to be auto sorted for the inside train factory. Yes you can build inside the train, its like an entire new world, think fantastic beasts inside the suitcase, only this is a train and its a factory not a zoo/ animal sanctuary.

inside the wagon looks like this, PUSH ENTER TO GO INSIDE THE TRAIN

PUSH ALT TO SHOW ITEMS IN BOXES

example without alt pushed looks like this

and with alt pushed it looks like this

big difference.

HIDE MINI MAP INSIDE TRAIN

to hide there is a button on the top left of the train screen.

HOW TO RPG properly

top left of the screen click the box that says RPG and that is where you can add skill points for the type of character you want to be, MINER, FIGHTER, CRAFTER ETC.

how to destroy box spawns,

use “C” to destroy map spawned objects, carefull no griefing or tking u will be banned

HOW TO CLEAR DEAD BODIES FROM SCREEN

Use the bug icon on the bottom right of the screen to clear dead bodies, may need certain number of hours in the game to unlock permission from the server but eventually you can do it.

BLUE SPADE CHEST

I still remember seeing this as a newb and having no idea what the hell it did.

The blue spade indicates that the steel chest is “linked” to the train cart, meaning anything you put into the blue spade chest will auto move into the inside of the train cart, meanwhile an identical steel chest next to this one with no icon of the blue spade would not be connected / linked and therefore things put inside it would just sit inside it like normal.

Only steel chests can link to train carts, upgrading the amount of chests can allow for more than one steel chest to be linked per cart on the train ie 2,3,4 or more boxes connected per wagon cart, making it faster to upload items like ore into the train.

blue spade chest

TIPS BOX ON SCREEN, HOW TO REMOVE

Type in “/unlock-tips” into the console by pushing “`" key above TAB.

clears the screen of those stupid tips… NEW TIPS BOX BOTTOM LEFT

MAP PING SHORTCUT

CTRL+ ALT+CLICK pings the chat the spot you click helpful if you are being overrun by biters, only use in case of emergency

ARMOR FOR DEFENSE

Armor load-out 1

armor load out 1

6 personal defense lazers

1 exoskeleton

11 portable solar panel

3 personal battery mk2

fancy mk2 power armor

mk2 gsquaredxc

power armor with shields?

FLAMETHROWER/ hand held weapon

Important note: The Flamethrower Damage is modified in this scenario to be -85%, completely reducing this weapons ability to do much damage and not preferred because of the lag caused to others running less powerful computers, also another reason I dont recall right now but it isnt something anyone wants you using in the game and if you use it you may be shot on sight.

but I still think *it just looks badass, and I was shot for using it. :)

Loaders

PERSONAL VEHICLES CAR/TANK/SPIDERTRON

CAR

inside the car

find fish inside the car water top, fish are good for life healing i think?

also fish in the wild

fish in the wild shown here:

RADAR

radar, use F5 to show square lines on screen for exact distance.

Should be placed far apart or they will delete when placed by each other, current testing shows about 85 squares apart will work, not sure the exact number could be anywhere from 70–85, when I get the exact number I will write it here to update it.

Radar reveals area of the map at random for a limited time to explore without having to walk there.

below are examples of radar revealed map areas. if you see an area of the map light up like this you can mouse wheel scroll in to see it, it will become visible for a short time, think 20 seconds to 30 seconds.

after scrolling in it will look like this:

BLUEPRINTS / BLUEPRINT LIBRARY

push B for blueprint library, then click the right tab that says game blueprints

scroll through these game blueprints

blueprints
car recharger bp located

simple car recharge bp located

mtn backup book under june 27 cars ty gsquaredxc

SpiderTron!

Crafting Plastic Bar First Time!

It might not seem like a big deal to the pros but as a newb this was insane, so let me tell you how I did it.

Find a Crude Oil spot on the ground.

Craft a pumpjack and make sure it has power. They use 90 Kw.? no idea how much that is lol.

Production, pumpjack recipe:

35 iron plates, 7.5 copper plates, and 5 steel plates.

Use Pipe to connect pumpjack to Oil Refinery.

Set oil refinery to produce petroleum gas.

Connect oil refinery to Chemical Plant via pipes.

Chemical plant needs coal, and the petroleum gas to make plastic bars.

MODULES

They go onto the production stuff to make it faster or cost less etc.

Early waves (1–200) defense turrets setup example:

3 rows of turrets

bodies piled up outside wall

mining iron ore for the wall

refinery example for the wall

ammo manufacturing example for the wall

Early Waves (1–200) Power Setup Example outside train:

WAVE 200+ THE VOID APPEARS!

What is the void you ask? Its nothingness, the abyss, a blackhole, etc

Stuff goes into the void and it never comes out. In this mod, the void is shown at the bottom of the screen, and it slowly moves up towards the train.

Therefore it is common to setup north of the void, then as it gets closer along with the spawning biters, the team must packup the items (RIGHT CLICKING STUFF) and then throw it into the train or setup further north, it is a constant nomadic adventure!

note: nothing in the void can be recovered.

note2: The futher up the train moves north the further up the biters will spawn. AND the faster the void moves north if train is in the next zone*? also player count effects the speed*? more players faster void goes.

Staring into the void, green line is the forcefield at the beginning of the game cannot be crossed it damages you if you do

People packing the starting area up after wave 200 example:

wave 200+ Second Base North Example

another image example here of the train in the second base, you can use the rocks to your advantage as a natural land barrier earlier in the game, later in the game the biters are so strong they tear through anything.

Building inside the train

This is a super important and complicated task best left up to an expert but if you want to help and learn you most certainly can, just know if you mess anything up in here all hell will break loose on you.

This is something I found interesting, in how to connect the different train carts together they use this underground conveyor thing, which is probably super important.

User Interface Tips/ Examples (2022)

COMFY panel

top left fish button brings up the COMFY panel with first tab showing Players

next tab in the panel is groups, you can create a group here with a name and description, common groups are AFK, Miners, Defenders, Builders(inside Train mainly, but also outside ) , ??

semi advanced groups: Tax Collector, ??

Next is the Scoreboard tab

Config Tab shows some options for this mod experience

Final Tab is the Map Info which shows the scenario information and some contact stuff for this mod Mountain Fortress

Polls Button

The next tab from the top left after the first icon of the fish is the icon of the Speaker/megaphone looking thing, this is for creating Polls to the mod server

RPG button

RPG button is where you can see the points for your character and information regarding stats.

Very important to note the setting wheel inside this tab on the top right where you can select some advanced settings regarding points for leveling up and auto adding them to categories among other options.

After clicking Settings the RPG Settings pop up as can be seen here:

Difficulty Level for the current round:

You will get notified at the start of a round with options popup to select difficulty for the current round, I think it works by whatever is most selected becomes the difficulty, and usually this is “I am too young to die” difficulty, I have seen it higher, and we all died very fast, highly recommend the easiest difficulty setting.

Hovering the mouse over the icon for diff will show the settings, min max items/turrets, exp percentages, etc.

Connect to another COMFY server button

This button looks like layers of maps stacked on each other, it displays a popup box with the current alternative servers with various scenarios

Journey, Space, Fish Defender, Pirate Ship, and of course Mtn Fortress which you are currently playing.

Show Statistics Button

You can press this button and it will change the way stats are displayed at the top of the screen, it goes through 3 displays, I call them normal, advanced, and none.

Normal shows the wave and the threat level

Advanced adds on

XP Store in the Global XP Pool (IDK HOW THIS WORKS)

Amount of trees / rocks harvested globally ie the entire team?

The current pickaxe upgrade level for the team

Amount of biters killed by team

Amount of landmines that can be built and how many are active

Amount of flamethrower turrets that can be built and how many are active

Amount of train upgrades

Amount of chests limit that can be placed next to the train per wagon(useful for auto dropping loot into the chests which then are sent into the train automatically )

Charge your armor equipment button

This looks like a battery specifically the mk2 version, i learned something already, and important to note in the early game using accumulators to store energy you can stand by them and push the battery button to recharge your armors batteries,

NOTE THE RPG TAB MUST BE CLOSED TO RECHARGE BATTERIES, IF IT IS OPEN THE BUTTON WILL NOT WORK.

MAGIC:

As a newb I have yet to spawn a single item with magic and I barely know how it works so I will fill this in more later when I learn about it. ;)

And I finally learned about Magic today!

NOTE: Spells UI not showing up, this is how you enable it:

Click the fish icon in RPG Settings to show the spells ui.

NOTE: Spells UI not showing up, this is how you enable it: Click the fish icon in RPG Settings to show the spells ui.

Alright newbs listen up because this is super fun.

Today we dive into the wild world of fish and magic!

If you want to use magic you need mana and you get that stat by putting points into magic in the RPG tab.

Note: Mana regeneration increases as the amount of stats in magic goes up. Also increasing Magic stat increases the range/distance at which you can place/grab objects and increases the quality of rng from drops during mining/finding stuff?

magic in rpg tab highlighted
Example of increased distance of box placement shown

Enabling Magic / Spawning Stuff

In the RPG settings, click gear icon in the RPG user interface box top right corner, you will see the option to enable spawning with fish?, check that box so that it is now active and click save changes.

Note: You are not allowed to spawn stuff until you are trusted in the game server which requires 24 hours of game time in server

RPG settings, enable spawning with fish? checkbox highlighted

All spells are shown in the RPG settings Blue information “i” icon at the top right of the RPG settings user interface box, clicking that will take you to the Spells Info Display box, which shows what level you need to be to cast the spell, and how much mana it costs to use the spell.

Spell information

Casting Your First Spell

The moment of truth, you want to use your magic spells, like a young Harry Potter, you grab your fish wand and nothing happens, what went wrong?!

First of all you need to select which spell to cast and be standing a certain distance away from the train, maybe even outside the aura?, the further the better in my opinion, this is hit and miss as sometimes i can spawn inside the aura and sometimes i cannot.

Second you need to make sure you have a fish in your hand, you will know this because the mouse icon has the fish icon and a number behind it, ie you left clicked a fish in your inventory or quick bar and now it is shown under your mouse cursor.

fish icon on screen, mouse icon disappeared for screenshot but you should see it on screen overlaying the fish
Example of iron chest spawning in north of the train

How to see which spells show up on your spells user interface

In RPG settings you will see Mana Settings> Spells MiniGUI Setup> and three drop down menu areas, these are the three icons shown on the screen when you see spells, select level appropriate spells and click Save Changes.

Spells MiniGUI Setup image

The shotgun shell spell doesnt spawn shotgun ammo, it literally shoots where you click as if you were firing a shotgun, so beware, even with no shotgun and no ammo you will do damage, and from the looks of it alot of it.

Steli94:

Best spells is Charge, Warp Gate, Conjure raw fish, steel chest and detonate chest in my opinion.

Also your magic-cast range is limited

If u don't want to cast the spell and just heal move mouse far from player and eat fish

**

vince527:

i like charge warp gate and detonate chest for double the explosion size

5 Minute Break every hour notification

You have the option to click on the I need a stretch button once every hour*(i think its hourly), this will give the server a 5 minute break from waves spawning, if anyone clicks the button it will go into break mode.

The countdown for the waves to come back to normal is on the top as usual

AFK CONVEYOR EXAMPLE

standing on the belt moves you around and holding spacebar allows you to shoot at stuff.

DEBUG SETTINGS

Push f4 for debug settings, pretty advanced stuff.

debug settings

Add grid lines/squares to the game

push f5 to add lines to the game to help with placement of stuff

Save screenshots into folder

Push f12 for screen shots to be saved into the steam folder? factorio folder? not sure where these go, shows up on the bottom right of the screen though

RANDOM ADVICE FROM PROS IN GAME

Steli94: Also best leveling is mining early game, id say until wave 250–300 then defense usually

  • use SHOTGUN when shooting biters, shotgun kicks ass
  • Check RPG tab if you dont manually set auto stats to a category the stats you gain when leveling will just sit idle awaiting you to manually place them in a category.
  • At lvl 50 you can reset all your skill points 1 time. use it wisely. go to RPG settings and click reset skill points. Save changes.
  • Enable all the cool stuff in RPG settings when level is reached. some of it might be automatic, some not.

“Dinodog1998: do not change the few chests in the sorter away from being green the green ones are an upgrade”

gsquaredxc: for those interested: when you input 500 red belts and 500 shotgun shells, they bunch up and filter inserters can only eat so many at once

gsquaredxc: so if you mesh them together, you get significantly higher throughput in most circumstances

--

--

F3ND1MUS
F3ND1MUS

Written by F3ND1MUS

Researcher, Writer, YouTuber

No responses yet