Seeking Clarification on the Abstract Factory Pattern

I am seeking clarification on the exact purpose and definition of the Abstract Factory pattern.

Using a Simple/Static Factory vs. instantiating directly: new Thing() vs. factory.createThing() – what’s the benefit?

Here are two ways to instantiate an object:

What are the benefits of using a ‘decorator factory’ that decorates objects?

In a project I decided to implement the Decorator pattern.

IoC as service locator

I have been wondering for quite some time on some issues while using dependency injection:

Should make concrete factories in the same count of families of objects or according to stages in my problem?

I am programming a game. In this game I have 3 stages. In the first stage, there is a static goal and a static shooter in the game. In the second stage, the goal will move. And in the third one both are moving.

Should make concrete factories in the same count of families of objects or according to stages in my problem?

I am programming a game. In this game I have 3 stages. In the first stage, there is a static goal and a static shooter in the game. In the second stage, the goal will move. And in the third one both are moving.

Should factory make context or concrete strategies objects in strategy-factory pattern?

In a typical strategy pattern

Should factory make context or concrete strategies objects in strategy-factory pattern?

In a typical strategy pattern

Factory that returns multiple implementations of the same interface

A few developers and I are attempting to refactor a class that has grown too large. Currently this class is around 3K lines long. The goal of the refactor is to make the logic more maintainable.

Factory Design Pattern Implementation with multiple interfaces and base class

I know it is lot of code. But I am trying to understand the concept of Factory pattern with interfaces and base class. I have a base class of Car that implements an interface which will be implemented by every derived class.