{"about":{"site":"https://codewithpapers.app","non_affiliation":"Code with Papers and Syntology are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Papers with Code, Meta, or the pwc-archive mirror.","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","licence_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode","attribution":"https://codewithpapers.app/attribution","modified":"archive material modified by Syntology; see the attribution page"},"url":"/paper/factorio-learning-environment","title":"Factorio Learning Environment","arxiv_id":"2503.09617","date":"2025-03-06","proceeding":null,"authors":["Jack Hopkins","Mart Bakler","Akbir Khan"],"abstract":"Large Language Models (LLMs) are rapidly saturating existing benchmarks, necessitating new open-ended evaluations. We introduce the Factorio Learning Environment (FLE), based on the game of Factorio, that tests agents in long-term planning, program synthesis, and resource optimization. FLE provides exponentially scaling challenges -- from basic automation to complex factories processing millions of resource units per second. We provide two settings: (1) lab-play consisting of eight structured tasks with fixed resources, and (2) open-play with the unbounded task of building the largest factory on an procedurally generated map. We demonstrate across both settings that models still lack strong spatial reasoning. In lab-play, we find that LLMs exhibit promising short-horizon skills, yet are unable to operate effectively in constrained environments, reflecting limitations in error analysis. In open-play, while LLMs discover automation strategies that improve growth (e.g electric-powered drilling), they fail to achieve complex automation (e.g electronic-circuit manufacturing).","url_abs":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.09617v1","url_pdf":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2503.09617v1.pdf","source":{"archive":"pwc-archive (Hugging Face), CC BY-SA 4.0","snapshot":"2025-07-28","licence_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode","row_kind":"abstracts"},"code_links":[{"paper_slug":"factorio-learning-environment","repo_url":"https://github.com/JackHopkins/factorio-learning-environment","is_official":1,"mentioned_in_paper":0,"mentioned_in_github":1,"framework":"none","reach":{"status":"ok","spdx":"NOASSERTION"}}],"tasks":[{"task_slug":"program-synthesis","task_name":"Program Synthesis"},{"task_slug":"spatial-reasoning","task_name":"Spatial Reasoning"}],"methods":[],"datasets_introduced":[],"methods_introduced":[],"results":[],"syntology":{"atlas_url":"https://app.syntology.ai/?focus=2503.09617","mcp":null,"developers":"https://syntology.ai/developers"},"arxiv_metadata":null,"syntology_extracted_results":null}