Zenith 0.1.2

Download the zip for your system, unzip it anywhere and start Zenith (START HERE.txt inside says the rest). You need your own copy of Factorio 2.1 on the same computer; Space Age is optional.

• Zenith-0.1.2-windows.zip: Windows (x64)
• Zenith-0.1.2-linux.zip: Linux (x64)
• factorio-3d-bridge_0.1.2.zip: the bridge mod alone, for Factorio's own mods folder (the downloads above already have it)
• Unsupported: Zenith-0.1.2-macos-unsupported.zip, Zenith-0.1.2-linux-arm64-unsupported.zip, Zenith-0.1.2-windows-arm64-unsupported.zip: never run by anyone; UNSUPPORTED.txt inside each says how Factorio runs beside it.

Every download comes with two add-ons already in its addons folder:

• Cinematic camera 0.2.0, switched on: a free camera, timelapses and recording. Its releases
• Terrain Elevation 0.1.4, switched off: hills under the factory, drawn only (the game stays flat). Turn it on in the Add-ons menu. Its releases

Performance

Every number was measured on the same laptop (RTX 5060 laptop GPU), on a copy of a big real base
(about 380,000 entities), with the windowed client. Each "before" is the 0.1.1 code and each
"after" is 0.1.2, run back to back, two runs each, averaged. Your PC will give different numbers.
The changes should be about the same. Every change below is an improvement: less time (ms) for the same work, or more frames (fps) and game speed (UPS).

The game's speed (UPS) at a busy base

Standing by the busiest belts, Hold the game at 60 UPS turned off so the raw cost shows.

	0.1.1	0.1.2	Better by
Game speed, High	27.8 UPS	43.4 UPS	56% more
Game speed, Ultra	33.5 UPS	47.5 UPS	42% more
Zenith's bridge, per game tick (High)	27.9 ms	18.0 ms	35% less
Reading items on belts, per tick (High)	15.0 ms	5.2 ms	65% less
Reading items on belts, per tick (Ultra)	11.9 ms	4.7 ms	61% less
Reading items on belts, per tick, walking	7.1 ms	2.7 ms	62% less

The bridge no longer re-reads belt lanes that haven't changed. On a busy base most of them are
backed up and still.

Frames standing still

	0.1.1	0.1.2	Better by
Frame rate, High	77.5 fps	93.5 fps	21% more
Slowest 1% of frames, High	34.0 ms	21.8 ms	36% less
Frames over 33 ms, High	1.25%	0%	100% less
Frame rate, Ultra	82 fps	85 fps	4% more
Slowest 1% of frames, Ultra	23.2 ms	21.3 ms	8% less
Minimap and map redraws, slowest 1%	12.9 ms	4.3 ms	67% less
Ambient occlusion (now off by default)	6–7 ms of GPU	0 ms	6 to 7 ms less

Zoomed out over the base

	0.1.1	0.1.2	Better by
Frame rate, Ultra	43 fps	63 fps	47% more
GPU time, Ultra	22.7 ms	15.0 ms	34% less
Draw calls, Ultra	4,270	3,165	26% less
Frame rate, High	68 fps	88 fps	29% more
GPU time, High	13.7 ms	10.7 ms	22% less

Belts that are small on screen are now drawn with a few triangles instead of about 1,450 per tile.

Walking through the base

	0.1.1	0.1.2	Better by
Slowest 1% of frames, Ultra	42.0 ms	34.7 ms	17% less
Frames over 33 ms, Ultra	3.8%	1.5%	61% less
Worst frame spent choosing chunks	10.8 ms	2.7 ms	75% less
Worst frame spent building a chunk	14.6 ms	9.2 ms	37% less

Alt-mode

	0.1.1	0.1.2	Better by
Slowest 1% of frames with Alt-mode on	84.5 ms	28 ms	67% less
Bridge cost of Alt-mode	0.32 ms per tick	about 0 (the same as off)	100% less
Machines showing their Alt-mode icon	403	801 (all of them)	99% more

Smoother while moving

Running round the busy belts at exoskeleton speed (about 31 tiles a second), High and Ultra, Hold
the game at 60 UPS on and off. "Before" here is 0.1.2 without this work (everything above already
in both), so these gains come on top of the walking ones above. Each figure is the middle of the
runs' range.

	Before	0.1.2	Better by
Slowest 1% of frames, running	36.5 ms	30.5 ms	16% less
Slowest 1% of frames, main thread only	34.0 ms	27.0 ms	21% less
Frames over 33 ms, per 84 s run	135	24.5	82% less
Slowest 1% of frames, standing	26.0 ms	21.0 ms	19% less

Zenith's background work (loading chunks, messages, wires, far belts) now shares one time budget a
frame instead of each taking its own slice, the game's messages are read on a thread of their own,
and machine sounds and glows only look at what's near you.

Belts drawn correctly

	0.1.1	0.1.2	Better by
Belts shown an item short or doubled, per update (busy base)	2.5	0 to 0.02	99% less

Keeping whole belt lines in step costs the bridge about 0.7 ms more a tick on the test base, with the
game still at 60 UPS.

Up next for performance

• Belts moved as groups: a run of items moving together (a full belt, a backed-up queue) is
  sent as one group and moved by Zenith itself, starting and stopping together. The game is only
  checked where items can come or go (inserters, side-loading, splitters, undergrounds, loaders),
  not every belt along the way. Expected: far fewer checks for the server on long belts, much less
  network traffic, and belts that stay smooth even when the game is busy.

Items on belts

• Stacked belts: a stack inserter's stacks (up to 4 items in one place) are drawn as piles, as
  Factorio draws them. On the test base, 2.4 times as many items now show (394,801 items in 161,599 stacks; before, one item per stack).
• New settings: "Belt item distance" sets how far items on belts are drawn. "Belt updates"
  sets how many of them move (1,000 to 24,000, or Unlimited). They replace "Belt items in full" and
  "Belt items far away", and your old far distance carries over.
• No more hidden limit: the distance you choose holds.
• Full belts no longer freeze: a full, flowing belt could look still for seconds and then jump.
• No more splitting: big updates are drawn whole, so lanes don't split into moving and stopped
  pieces.
• Steady hand-over: the edge where moving items become icons no longer goes back and forth
  while you stand still. Items stay until their icons replace them, in the same frame, so belts are
  never bare or drawn twice.
• Belts stay in step: a belt line that moved on is updated along its whole length, splitters and
  undergrounds included, so belts no longer show an item short or one too many.
• Missed items keep moving: an item an update misses glides on along its belt instead of
  stopping and jumping.
• Far belts are drawn as full as they are again (stacked belts showed gaps).
• Far plates (iron, copper, steel) no longer vanish far from the camera.

Fixes and changes

• Trains and wagons: right-click mines them, with their fuel and cargo (issue #10).
• Alt-mode icons: they show on every machine, not only the nearest 400 (issue #9). Requester
  and buffer chests show their first four requested items, each a quarter of the icon.
• Alt-mode arrows: Factorio's inserter, pump and machine arrows, as three settings with
  Factorio's defaults. Machines show arrows on the fluid connections their recipe uses, and
  recyclers show their output arrow (issue #9).
• E key: it opens only your own inventory, never what's under the mouse.
• The see-through effect on trees and buildings near the mouse is gone (and its shortcut).
• Shadow distance: new setting under Settings → Graphics.
• Graphics settings: short descriptions, with a (?) for the full explanation.
• Ambient occlusion: off by default. It stays in Settings as a work-in-progress option with a
  high GPU cost.
• Linux download: the program and scripts are now marked runnable when unzipped.

Unsupported downloads (new)

macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel), Linux ARM64 (issue #8) and Windows ARM64. Nobody has
run these, and each zip has an UNSUPPORTED.txt explaining how Factorio runs beside it.

On macOS the app isn't signed by Apple. Right-click Zenith.app and choose Open the first time.

Zenith 0.1.1

Fixes from players' bug reports:

• Red science never unlocked on a new game (#7). Factorio 2.x unlocks the automation science pack when you craft a lab, and labs crafted through Zenith weren't counted, so the research never finished. Hand-crafting now counts (it shows in the production statistics too), and the technology screen no longer offers "Start research" on technologies you unlock by doing something.
• Factorio's graphics not found for an install outside Steam (#6). Zenith now reads Factorio's graphics, icons and sounds from the install you set in Settings → Factorio, wherever it is (for example a zip install on another drive). If you change that path, restart Zenith; the settings page and the main menu tell you when.
• Zooming out of the map's 3D view (#4). Zooming back out of the view you zoomed into from the map now returns to the map at that spot, as in Factorio. It zooms out further before it does (240 tiles), and Settings → Camera → Zoom out to the map at changes how far.
• Save folders in Load game (#3). The load screen shows your save folders, as Factorio's does: click [folder] to go in, [..] to go back up.

Other fixes:

• Iron and copper plates show on far belts again. Thin icons such as plates faded out on belts far from the camera while circuits stayed; every item now shows.
• First person after the map. Going into the map's 3D view from first person and back out returns you to first person, instead of a third-person view with no character.
• Grass and ground clutter no longer flicker as the camera moves. Grass tufts, flowers, bushes and ground decals are now blended the way Factorio draws them, and tree shadows fall across them.
• No more boxes in Gleba fights. The young wrigglers a dying stomper lets out are drawn as wrigglers, and the shell it leaves behind has a model of its own.
• Distant textures use 16x anisotropic filtering.

Also new:

• Zenith's logo and icon, made by David (Vasillo): the logo over the main menu, the gear as the game's icon.
• Zenith is now GPL-3.0 (0.1.0 stays MIT). Add-ons may use any licence; LICENSING.md has the details.
• A roadmap: the milestones to 1.0 are in docs/ROADMAP.md.

The bridge mod is 0.1.1 too, with the red science fix: update it on servers you run yourself.

Downloads: Zenith for Windows or Linux (unzip and run; see USER-GUIDE.md inside), the bridge mod on its own, and the Cinematic camera add-on (drop the zip into Zenith's addons folder).

Zenith 0.1.0

The first release of Zenith: your real Factorio 2.1 game drawn in 3D.

Download the zip for your system, unzip it anywhere and start Zenith (START HERE.txt inside says the rest). You need your own copy of Factorio 2.1 on the same computer; Space Age is optional.

• Zenith-0.1.0-windows.zip: the game for Windows, with the bridge mod and server scripts.
• Zenith-0.1.0-linux.zip: the game for Linux (not yet tried on Linux).
• factorio-3d-bridge_0.1.0.zip: the bridge mod on its own, for a server you run yourself.
• cinematic-camera_0.2.0.zip: optional camera add-on: free camera, tracking shots, combat zoom, timelapses and recording. Drop the zip into Zenith's addons folder.

What's in it

• Your own saves in 3D, with Factorio's interface, hotkeys, sounds and textures read from your install.
• A 3D model for every base-game and Space Age entity; 39 base-game buildings and vehicles use FUE5's textured models.
• Space platforms and the other planets, trains, logistics, the circuit network, combat.
• Add-ons, with an Add-ons menu for their settings and keys.
• Graphics presets with a Recommended setting, and a game held at 60 UPS on big bases.

Tested on Windows 11 with Factorio 2.1.23. Known gaps are in the README.