Military 20

Lore & Background

In the world of Factorio, the player arrives on a seemingly empty planet only to discover it is anything but. The enemies—spiders, tanks, and the towering behemoths that lumber through the night—are not merely obstacles; they are the planet's immune response to an invasive industrial organism. The military technology chain, from the humble gun turret of Military 1 to the final, devastating tier, represents the player's gradual escalation in that response. Military 20 sits at the apex of this escalation. By the time it is researched, the player's base has likely spanned dozens of kilometers of conveyor belts, mining drills, and assembly lines. The turret that this technology enables is not just a weapon; it is a statement. It is the final answer to a planet that has been telling the player, in increasingly violent language, to leave. The player, of course, does not leave. The player builds another belt. Fans of the game often describe the moment of completing the final military tier as a quiet, almost meditative achievement. There is no fanfare, no cutscene. The research bar simply fills, a small chime sounds, and the player can finally place the last missing piece of their defensive puzzle. The enemies still come. They always come. But now the base simply absorbs them, the way a river absorbs a pebble.

In Their Own Story

The night sky over Sector 7 was the color of rust. Kael watched from the observation platform as the third wave crested the ridge—tanks, dozens of them, their treads grinding the red dirt into powder. Below, the factory hummed its endless, indifferent hum. Belt by belt, drill by drill, the machines kept building. The turrets swiveled. Not the old ones, the ones from Military 1, back when Kael had been fumbling with circuits and wondering why the spiders kept eating their little legs off. No. These were the new ones. The final ones. The ones that made the tanks slow down, hesitate, and then simply… stop. One by one, the armored hulls crumpled like wet paper under a sustained, patient fire. Kael sipped cold coffee and watched the last tank tip over into the dust. Somewhere beyond the ridge, more were coming. They always were. But the turrets would be waiting. The turrets were always waiting. The factory hummed on.

Reader's Guide

Military 20 is the terminal node in Factorio's military technology progression. To reach it, a player must have completed the entire preceding chain: Military 1 (gun turret), Military 2 (flamethrower turret), Military 3 (laser turret), Military 4 (artillery turret), and Military 5 (railgun turret), along with all intermediate military tiers that bridge the gap to the final entry. Each tier requires increasingly large pools of science packs, meaning the player must have a mature, multi-science research infrastructure in place before even beginning the final military research. Practically, Military 20 unlocks the most powerful turret variant available in the base game. It is typically deployed as a final-layer defense around the outermost ring of the base, complementing the earlier turret types that handle mid-range and close-range threats. Because it is expensive to research and the turrets it produces are resource-intensive to build and power, players must balance its deployment against the ongoing demands of production. In the broader tech tree, Military 20 sits alongside other late-game technologies, meaning it is often researched in parallel with advanced logistics, energy, or production upgrades. The blueprint system allows experienced players to share and import base layouts that already incorporate the optimal placement of these final-tier turrets, saving newcomers the trial-and-error of designing their own defensive perimeter from scratch. Community-shared blueprints for large bases often treat the Military 20 turret ring as a non-negotiable outer shell, the last line before the enemy reaches the factory floor.

Did You Know?

• Factorio's military technology chain is one of the few in the game that is strictly linear—each tier requires the previous one, with no branching paths within the military category.
• The enemies in Factorio scale in difficulty and quantity over time, meaning that even a fully maxed military setup will face increasingly aggressive waves if the player does not expand their defensive perimeter.
• The game's enemies are never explained or given names in the base game; they are simply referred to by their visual type (spider, tank, etc.), leaving their origin and purpose entirely to the player's imagination and com
• Factorio has no traditional 'victory condition' tied to the military tech tree; the final military tier is a player-driven goal, and the game continues indefinitely after it is completed.