FactoIRC

FactoIRC is a bidirectional IRC bridge between Factorio and IRC. It comes as a plugin for the irc3 python module.

It can join one or more channels and forward messages back and forth between IRC and Factorio.

Some IRC commands are also provided :

• !rcon: Execute an RCON command and return the result.
• !players: Get the list of the currently online players.

FactoIRC uses the RCON protocol introduced in Factorio 0.13 to forward messages from IRC to Factorio. As a result, FactoIRC will not work with Factorio 0.12 and earlier versions.

Forwarding Factorio chat messages to IRC requires access to the Factorio server output which can be achieved using several methods depending on your setup.

Compatibility

On Windows, forwarding in the IRC -> Factorio direction is only supported starting from Factorio 0.15 and using the console log (--console-log) : https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=37108.

Join/leave messages should work with Factorio 0.13 but are broken in 0.14 (https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=30697). Factorio 0.15 brings them back.

Installation

You'll need to have Python 3.5 (or later) which can be obtained through your distribution's package manager or downloaded from https://www.python.org/ (for Windows users).

On Windows, make sure to check the "Add Python 3.x to PATH" checkbox when installing.

Once Python is installed, FactoIRC can be installed using

$ pip3 install factoirc

Configuration

Configuration is done using the config.ini file. A config.example.ini file is provided as an example and contains extensive documentation.

Depending on your setup, you will have to use one of the file, stdin or systemd methods.

Method 1: file (recommended)

This method reads the Factorio chat from a console log.

[factoirc]
method = file
file = console.log

The console log can be generated using --console-log in Factorio 0.15:

$ factorio --rcon-port=27015 --rcon-password=password --start-server=save.zip --console-log=console.log

For Factorio < 0.15, you can redirect the Factorio output to a file to achieve the same behavior (doesn't work on Windows):

$ factorio --rcon-port=27015 --rcon-password=password --start-server=save.zip > console.log

factorio-init users can also use the server.out file as input. Note that the systemd service for factorio-init does not save the output into the journal, so you can't use the systemd method with it.

Warning: do not use the factorio-current.log file created by Factorio. It does not contain the chat log.

Method 2: systemd journal

This method applies only if your Factorio server runs under systemd (only for Linux machines) and its output is stored in the journal.

In this case, FactoIRC can directly read the log from the journal.

You'll need the following options in your configuration file:

[factoirc]
method = systemd
unit = factorio.service

For this method to work, the python-systemd module is required and can be installed via pip:

$ pip3 install python-systemd

Method 3: stdin

This method reads the Factorio chat log from the standard input stream, it also supports reading from a file via shell redirection.

[factoirc]
method = stdin

You will need to connect the Factorio chat log output to the FactoIRC bot:

$ factorio --rcon-port=27015 --rcon-password=password --start-server=save.zip | irc3 config.ini

Forwarding customization

You can customize the forwarding of messages for the different game and irc actions, see config.example.ini for more information.

Running

To run FactoIRC, you just need to use the irc3 command with a FactoIRC-enabled config file (see config.example.ini)

$ irc3 config.ini

irc3 can be started with the -v flag to show more log messages (including those generated by FactoIRC).

IRC raw traffic can be shown with -r.

Try irc3 -h for the full list of options.