Factorio Space Age Planet Order 2026: Vulcanus → Fulgora → Gleba → Aquilo Walkthrough

Factorio’s Space Age expansion adds four planets beyond Nauvis: Vulcanus, Fulgora, Gleba, and Aquilo. Each has distinct mechanics, distinct resource constraints, and distinct difficulty. Where you go first, second, and third meaningfully shapes how painful the mid-game is and how comfortable the late-game becomes. Wube has been deliberate about not prescribing an order, and the community has had a year and a half to argue about the right sequence. As of May 2026, the dust has settled enough that there is a clear “recommended path” for a first playthrough, an “alternative path” for replays, and a “do this last” consensus on Aquilo. This guide explains why, with the trade-offs that matter and the resource sequencing that makes each path work.

The four planets at a glance

Before ranking the order, the quick profile of each planet:

Each planet awards its own science pack (metallurgic, electromagnetic, agricultural, cryogenic), and the four science packs combine with Nauvis’s existing packs to unlock the endgame. You cannot finish Space Age without visiting all four. The question is what order makes the journey easier.

The recommended first-playthrough order: Vulcanus → Fulgora → Gleba → Aquilo

This is the dominant community consensus, and the order Wube itself recommended in early Space Age guidance. The reasoning is a chain of “what does each planet teach you, and what does it give you, that helps the next one?”

Why Vulcanus first

Vulcanus is the gentlest introduction to interplanetary logistics. The atmosphere is hostile but the production constraints are familiar: ore patches, smelting, refining, and base layout. Vulcanus rewards the player with two transformative technologies before any other planet:

• Big mining drill: Mines a 5×5 area at twice the speed of an electric mining drill, and burns half the resource per ore. This single technology effectively doubles the lifetime of every ore patch you have on every planet for the rest of the run.
• Foundry direct casting: Smelts and casts metal plates in a single integrated machine, with built-in productivity bonus. The foundry replaces electric furnaces for nearly all metal chains. It is a permanent throughput upgrade.

The Vulcanus enemies (demolishers) are dangerous but spatially predictable. They patrol territories you can map and route around. Vulcanus also has natural choke points and easy lava-driven defences. A competent player completes Vulcanus in 3 to 6 hours of focused play.

Vulcanus’s tier-2 productivity research is the gating science most players have hit by the time they leave Nauvis. Doing Vulcanus first unlocks productivity in a way that compounds across every subsequent factory.

Why Fulgora second

Fulgora is the recursion-and-recycling planet. The only resource is scrap, and scrap recycles into a mixed bag of intermediate items in fixed ratios. The optimisation problem is “how do I separate the recycled stream into what I need, and what do I do with the surplus?” The recycler is a new machine, the electromagnetic plant is a new machine, and the holmium chain unlocks mech armor (interplanetary fast travel) and several quality-of-life modules.

Going Fulgora second has two benefits:

• Foundry from Vulcanus accelerates Fulgora’s metal needs. Fulgora needs significant metal infrastructure for its electromagnetic chain. The foundry makes that infrastructure cheaper to build.
• Mech armor changes the game. Mech armor allows the player to physically fly, opening up Gleba and Aquilo exploration in ways that walking does not. Doing Fulgora second means you arrive on Gleba already capable of flying over its dangerous wetlands.

Fulgora’s enemies are lightning, not biological. The defensive problem is keeping power flowing and accumulators charged. This is a different mental model from Nauvis or Vulcanus and is a fun puzzle for most players.

Why Gleba third

Gleba is the hardest planet because it breaks the Factorio mental model. Nauvis, Vulcanus, and Fulgora reward “build infrastructure, then run it forever.” Gleba’s spoilage mechanic means resources rot if they are not used, which means production lines cannot idle and overproduction is actively harmful. The biological enemies (pentapods) attack in waves driven by the same biological clock as your production, which means base defence is a constantly-active problem rather than a perimeter to be built once.

Going Gleba third lets you arrive with:

• The big mining drill and foundry from Vulcanus (lets you build out Gleba’s infrastructure faster).
• Mech armor from Fulgora (lets you fly over Gleba’s dangerous terrain rather than wading through it).
• Productivity modules and quality modules from previous planets (compensates for Gleba’s awkward production ratios).
• Advanced asteroid handling research is on Gleba itself, but the spidertron and stack inserter you get there are useful for Nauvis and Vulcanus expansion later.

Gleba is still hard. The first 5 to 10 hours on Gleba are uncomfortable. But arriving with the previous planets’ tech makes the discomfort manageable rather than punishing.

Why Aquilo last

Aquilo is the gating planet for the final science pack and the endgame. It also requires the most prior infrastructure: cryogenic plants, heat-managed buildings, and the new fusion power source. Aquilo’s environment is hostile (cold damage to buildings and units), and the only way to function is heat shielding.

Doing Aquilo last lets you arrive with the resource chains of all three other planets feeding into your interplanetary cargo network. The lithium and fluorine chains needed for Aquilo’s endgame products require imports from Nauvis, Vulcanus, and Gleba. Trying Aquilo earlier means doing those import chains piecemeal and rebuilding them later.

The alternative order: Gleba → Vulcanus → Fulgora → Aquilo

A significant minority of community players advocate for going to Gleba first or second, on the theory that:

• Gleba’s spidertron is the most quality-of-life-transforming late-game item in the run. Getting it earlier means using it for longer.
• Gleba’s stack inserter is a permanent base upgrade. The earlier you have stack inserters, the more efficient every belt-feeding line is.
• Gleba’s advanced asteroid handling research unlocks better orbital logistics. Useful for every other planet’s interplanetary shipping.

The case against: Gleba is significantly harder without Vulcanus and Fulgora tech. The “Gleba first” players are usually replaying Space Age and are comfortable with the spoilage mechanic. For a first playthrough, Gleba first is a stress test rather than a productive starting point.

The “do whatever order” replay path

Once you have one Space Age run under your belt, the order matters less. Experienced players choose based on:

• What planet they want to engage with first. If you love the lightning-and-recursion puzzle of Fulgora, start there. If you find the biological clock of Gleba thrilling, start there.
• What achievement or challenge they are chasing. Some achievements are easier with specific orderings.
• What mods they are running. Overhaul mods like Bob’s, Angel’s, or Krastorio interact with Space Age in ways that change the optimal order.

Common mistakes during the planet sequence

Leaving Nauvis under-built before Vulcanus

Vulcanus requires a steady supply of Nauvis-side science packs to research the foundry, big mining drill, and related techs. If your Nauvis base cannot sustainably push tier-1 to tier-3 science packs to space, the Vulcanus stay drags on. Build Nauvis to a comfortable steady-state science output before launching to Vulcanus.

Ignoring orbital logistics on the first planet

The orbital cargo system is part of Space Age and is essential for interplanetary supply chains. Players who treat the orbital phase as “just get to the planet” miss the opportunity to build a sustainable cargo loop. A well-designed cargo platform delivers Nauvis materials to Vulcanus and returns Vulcanus exports, which is the model you need for every subsequent planet.

Building a permanent Gleba base before understanding spoilage

Many first-time Gleba players build an extensive permanent base, run it briefly, and find that all their stockpiled biological materials have rotted. Gleba bases need to be built around “produce, use immediately, and rebuild stockpiles continuously” rather than “build once and run.” Spend your first 2 to 3 hours on Gleba in a small temporary outpost learning the spoilage mechanics before committing to permanent infrastructure.

Building Aquilo infrastructure without heat planning

Aquilo’s cold environment damages buildings and units that are not heated. Many players land on Aquilo and try to build a typical base, only to discover that their buildings are taking continuous damage and their character is suffering exposure. Heat planning is the central design problem of Aquilo, and treating it as an afterthought wastes 5 to 10 hours of rework.

Server-side considerations for Space Age multiplayer

Space Age is meaningfully heavier on server resources than vanilla Factorio. Each additional planet is essentially a separate game world running in parallel. A 4-planet, 8-player multiplayer session in late-game can push a server’s CPU hard.

Factorio’s main update loop is single-threaded, so single-thread CPU performance is the primary bottleneck. Modern desktop-class CPUs with strong single-thread benchmarks are the right choice. Server-class CPUs with many cores and modest single-thread are sub-optimal for Factorio.

The bottom line

For a first Space Age playthrough, go Vulcanus → Fulgora → Gleba → Aquilo. The order is community consensus for good reason: each planet’s rewards make the next planet meaningfully easier, the difficulty curve is gentle enough to build confidence, and you arrive at the hardest planet (Aquilo) with the full toolkit you need.

For replays, the order matters less and personal preference takes over. The hardcore challenge runs go Gleba first, then improvise from there. Mod-heavy runs follow the modpack author’s recommendations.

Whichever order you pick, treat each planet as a separate Factorio puzzle. The reason Space Age earned the praise it did is that each of the four planets is essentially a small Factorio game in its own right, with its own constraints and its own design language. Enjoy the four different games, and the integration of all four into a coherent endgame factory is the satisfying conclusion of the run.

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