OpenFront Trains

A Factory in OpenFront is a train spawner, not a gold building by itself. Gold settles when a train visits a station: a City or a Port you (or a partner) actually own. If you spam Factories on a beach with no City in range, you get moving trains and empty pockets. Buildings is the when-to-buy list. This page is the rail.

Port and Factory share one cost counter. The first of either is 125,000, then 250,000, then 500,000, then 1,000,000. Buying a Factory first makes the first Port expensive. In most openings you still want City, then Port, then Factory once a station exists. Prices: gold costs. Keys: 2 Factory, 3 Port — hotkeys.

The numbers that decide a rail

Community-checked v0.33.12 rules:

• A Factory should reach at least one controlled City or Port within about 110 tiles.
• Rail paths should split into segments below about 155.6 tiles. Longer single hops fail or pay badly.
• Train spawn chance scales with Factory count, not vibes. A published rate parameter is trainSpawnRate = (factoryCount + 10) * 15. That is a generation parameter, not a timetable.
• v0.33.12 fixed disconnected stations blocking every spawn. A dead station no longer freezes the whole network — it still pays nothing.

Station payouts players actually quote:

• Your own station: about 10k gold per completed visit (you own the train and the stop).
• Allied player station: about 35k.
• Teammate or unallied player station: about 25k.

Those numbers move if a patch says so; treat them as the current public-FFA language, then confirm on v33 notes after a major.

The Ultimate OpenFront.io Factory Guide

Build a loop, then watch it

1. Own one compact land mass with a City (troop cap) and, if the water has a job, a Port.
2. Place the first Factory where the ghost rail actually hits that City or Port. If the preview does not connect, you are buying a toy.
3. Watch completed stops for a short window (about 60–120 ticks) before you add a level or a second Factory.
4. Prefer two short branches over one heroic line across the continent: one branch to your Cities (predictable 10k), one branch to an ally or teammate station (25k/35k) if the pact will last.

Alliances last about five minutes. A 35k allied stop that becomes a war in four minutes is a trap. Alliances is the timer. In team games, name one rail coordinator; Team Games covers who farms and who fronts.

Do not stack five Factories on one tile because a video said “mitochondria.” Spread enough to reach stations, not enough to trip the shared Port/Factory cost into 1M before you have a Port.

When to skip trains

Skip a Factory when:

• You have no City or Port in range.
• The map is a skinny water board (Las Vegas Strip, Gibraltar, island chains) and the next 125k should be a Port. File the map on map archetypes.
• Overtime is about to close the FFA and you need cheap land, not a 20-second rail. Overtime is the falling 80% bar.
• Someone is already nuking the hub. A Silo without ammo is still 1M; a Factory that dies with the City pays nothing. Nukes.

Naval gold from a working Port often beats a mid-game Factory on water maps. Naval is trade versus piracy. Factories win inland continents (Europe, United States, Pangaea) once the first City exists.

Deleting and embargoes

You can delete Factories and rails. Do it when the hub is about to be captured or when the shared cost is blocking a Port you now need. Embargoes and broken pacts cut foreign station payouts; do not plan a 35k allied loop on a neighbor you will betray in two minutes.

v33 performance work made late-game rails cheaper on the CPU. It did not make disconnected beaches pay. The Guides Hub is the rest of the tutorial set. Play one match where the only new habit is Factory after a real station, then come back.

Build rails as stations plus a loop. Count Factories after the trains arrive, not before.