I swear the amount of complexity and depth on this "early access" game is something that you get from a logistics course or something. Playing Satisfactory literally helped me in real life in developing the ability to plan. My noggin hurts, in a good way.
What I started setting up for my mega factory is a separate ingot processing factory. So I bring the raw ore in from across the map to the ingot factory where I can decide which recipe I want whether pure, alloy, or default. Then ship the finish ingots over to the main factory where they're used. This helps because most of the nodes aren't near water supplies and quite a lot of iron might not be near copper. My goal is to have the only things near nodes to be the miners, belts, and trains.
I've not yet touched trains as I'm striving towards finishing "the game" (all milestones first, then completing Employee of the Planet - if I can)... just barely installed my first drone circuit to carry the elusive Bauxite to my main grounds (now bowl 'o' spaghet). I'm finding their power consumption to be strange, but "in my favor" in a way -- definitely not seeing a constant 100MW on the chart when I flip the station off/on, or even delete its power line. They might just be all I need. Who needs trains when you've got planes? ;)
This is a great video for people who are a little more advanced in the game. I would love to see a tutorial at the half way point. I always get hung up around tier 5-7. I struggle to become more efficient with the more complex parts. Maybe i am not expanding enough or building the right way. But a tutorial for each tier would be a cool thing to see. I have restarted my save 5 times or more and have 528 hours in game. Really enjoy your vids and try to copy a lot of your designs.
My tip is to keep things as modular and leave room for expansion with additional modules. My Nuclear setup is designed around 2 overclocked reactors. If I ever run out of power I can easily copy my setup, slap it right next to my existing reactors without any problems. This includes the waste management (ie sinking nuclear waste). Some items are underclocked and I have more buildings than I need for max efficiency, but the modularity is the benefit. The key to a modular system is keep all you inputs inline with the next module so that the excess of one module can feed into the next without any spaget. Easiest is to have all your inputs run perpendicular to your construction lines.
When you say "copy", do you mean via a mod, or just "use the same design" but build by hand? Wondering if there's a good mod for this, as in Factorio's blueprinting system.
Would love to see a train focused video! We noticed early on that trains can separate if two cross an intersection at the same time so we tend to use a single line per train that it goes back and forth on. Is that still a bug or are we doing this for no reason?
Very Nicely Done! The one tip I recommend is Have an idea on how you want the area to look prior to building mega builds. I look at an area and decide how I want it to look in the end, then I reverse build it. Example: If i want 10 turbo motors/min, I start there and reverse math all the supporting building to make it happen and how I want the building/area to look when done. All before I begin the building.
I've found if I need more room, I go vertical. As I go up and clear obstacles, I can flare out upper floors to be wider. Then use pillars to make it look like it's structurally sound.
I am a disabled senior stuck at home a lot. I have come to love this game but I swear that sometimes it feels that if I am going to work this hard designing thing I should be getting paid for it. LOL.
Those guides are actual really good overall, also for other projects. As a software developer I can say that a lot of methods actually apply to keeping your project clean as well.
some great tips for those of you with the ability to plan. doesn't matter what it is or how hard I try I am incapable of planning things out in an intelligible way, I can't even come up with goals. I usually just have to play and figure it out as I go/need. Decent info regardless, cheers
There are some intermediates I dedicate entire sections of my factories for certain goods like quickwire, silica, steel, plastic/rubber, etc. Intermediates like these take up alot of space and when you build them, might as well max out the supply you have and distribute to where its needed.
We went with the mega bus system pulling all created items into a huge storage Center. Looks really amazing, but for a long time the bus system down beneath ground was a true horror when there was the need to add more lines... =:O Now it's super tidy and looks phenomenal. Put a hyperloop somewhere in between all the lines to have an amazing rollercoaster trip :)
I prefer to have ALL the items come to one spot, one giant storage facility, they get produced however I need but then sent to one giant storage place that has no machines to reduce lag. I love it ❤🎉 I evem go so far as to have a giant square full of power banks in case i have a shortage ever
Usually I just start next to a set of nodes and say “here’s what I want out of this.” Typically I build any factory with the assumption that it will be asked to handle all input nodes being run at 250% overclock and go from there. I also make sure that I can freely swap between any and all possible products available from that particular factory by simply switching over the machine settings with no re-working of the physical setup, while also ensuring that 100% of all possible end products have a way to overflow into Awesome Sinks in order to prevent any chance of factory shutdown for any reason other than power grid failure. This is doubly important for any oil refineries, as their fuel output makes them 100% self-sufficient so long as their outputs don’t get backed up. It’s a lot of extra work, but the result is a production facility that is very robust and flexible, enabling me to work on future projects that may depend on the potential output of such facilities without having to re-engineer the existing factories just to meet changing demands as my projects increase in scope and scale.
Lol, when you talked about a main bus, I had flashbacks to Factorio. Though I have used Tractors, very early game fuel hungry, but were seriously faster than a tier one belt at the time. The only issue with them was I could get ran over if I wasn't careful when restocking them with fuel, since I hadn't automated fuel into the truck stops. I'm trying a playthrough where I use all things, like trucks, trains, drones, and even jump pad elevators.
1) Big tip to "play around" with base design... Graph paper (paper with squares printed on it), pencil, ruler, scissors. Draw your functional build units/groups out as rectangles (X constructors/assemblers/manufacturers... in a row with room for the mergers/splitters). Cut them out. Then you can play around laying out the functional groups until you have a layout that works. This is especially useful to plan the logistics between the units, and is really useful if you are strapped for space (this was part of my challenge for this build, to start a base in the northern forest where there's basically NO really large open areas). Now here's me praying they don't change that area too much (eek). 2) Learn to use a spreadsheet. You don't need fancy stuff, but knowing how to do cell calculations, sums, and knowing how to use the '$' modifier on cell coordinates make planning and doing "what if I do it this way" type analysis a lot easier. 3) once you step beyond the quick-and-dirty connecting a dozen machines together powered by biomass... Focus on building out your power generation. Nothing more annoying than having the power trip, everything shutting down and now you can't build more infrastructure because you don't have the items, and you can't turn it all back on because you massively overloaded your grid and forgot batteries eventually run flat (just admit it... you've been there... We've all been there...). 3bis) make the power estimate part of your base planning. If you don't, it's pretty much a given you'll run out of power WAY before you finish your base. 4) it's a game, have fun. don't stress out. If you feel like it's turning into a job... STOP, go do something else.
Awesome guide, sums it up pretty good. One thing though...where can I get that handy/fancy document with the calculated values. I think it can help with setting my own goals.
@TotalXclipse - The issue I have with a starter factory is that you start off with tier 1 stuff and very few of the shop stuff so the starting factory ends up been a mess and keeping it clean while you slowly unlock items is an issue for me. How do you manage to keep everything neat and organised at low tiers and plan for expansion as you unlock bigger/faster miners etc. Also upgrading things like conveyors is a massive job in itself once you have a sprawling factory. Would you be able to cover off this subject in a future video please? Cheers
I like to go for more decentralized approaches to my factories. Because I lag a lot, and I'm not confident my PC can take on a mega factory. I have smaller factories that make basic resources like copper sheets, reinforced plates, modular frames, etc. Then depending on the distance, I use trucks or trains to transport those resources to another factory that makes other things like the dreaded heavy modular frames. Repeat this until everything is transported to my hub where all of my storage containers are for when I need to use the resources. The biggest challenge of this is making sure all of the trucks are fueled.
A bus system is a cool idea, these towers and taking everything up per tier seems cool but complicated - and don't you need really different amounts of space per tier?
the issue with the suggestion of "just play it without worry" is that once you hit phase 4, it's manageable to unlock all the tiers, but then you need to make the components and you need 2 machines to make 2 components, then 1 machine to combine those 2 components, then make another setup for another component to make them fuse with the 1st components, then to add that to a 4 way combiner. then restart that process for the remaining 3 components ... and that is only the surface, phase 4 is way too overwhelming with everything that you need and you kinda need to work torwards a mega factory where you got everything organized to make each component
Can confirm about tiered bases. Started buiding a tiered base for the next step of Project Assembly, after I hit Tier 7 / 8 and oh boy, its getting really complicated now- I wish I had made a plan, but only planning I made was horizontal size of the base, and a system for storage and then I went from there. It has been fun, but oh my. xD
I tried a centralized mega base, it killed my PC eventually to slow to be any fun. This time I'm doing smaller factories all over the map, game run a lot better. Plus I need to ship via train very little.
Would love to see a video on rail design. How to make a network that can be used end game, expanded on etc. I am there where my lack of train skill, limits my factory expansion.
what you say about sending ores to base make sense for belts but not for vehicles. Stacks size make virtually all items "compressed" compared to their ingredients
Turbo Motors became the benchmark before the last update, so a lot of long running plans are still geared towards that goal of maximizing Turbo Motors. But yeah, if your goal is to maximize points per minute, you should build as many TPR as possible and use the rest of the ressources creatively.
Started because I saw Josh and his Cthuluesque monstrosity and laughed my ass off. Fast forward 3 months and I have a moleskin full of scribbles and white boards on the walls for brainstorming. My dad came down to visit and called me “beautiful mind” once he found out what I was doing. He thought it was cool though.
400hrs vanilla and so far I've not needed a mega factory but I realise that it might be coming soon. The hover pack transforms your architectural approach - early and middle game you carefully plan and build walkways to get to all your buildings then suddenly the hover pack gives you much better access all over the place. You can pack buildings much closer and build vertically without ramps, stairs or hypertube elevators. Instead I'm now planning for wall and floor gaps and widespread power so that I can use the hover pack everywhere.
Produce as much power as possible and use a lot of overclocking so that when you start to switch on the mega base you will not face an issue where you run out of power.
I’ve put a few hundred hours into this game, and I’m confused. What exactly do you need all of these resources for? What goals does the game provide after phase 8? You can keep producing endlessly but there doesn’t seem to be a good way to spend what you make.
There isn't an end game at the moment so for now it's just a case of biding a factory and sinking the items. Hopefully end game will provide us with a lot more
Hopefully this is the video I've been searching for. I've got about 25-30 GW of unused power from Compacted Coal and Petroleum Coke. I have a few preliminary factories for basic materials, spread around the map. None of these factories is using the most resource efficient recipe (old factories built before better equipment and recipes were unlocked). I did a bunch of hand crafting, so all game progress is complete, except for the final Space Elevator. I did hard drive hunting, unlocked all recipes. I did some Power Slug hunting and have a few hundred, though most are used in power plants to ease build material requirements. I'd transition to prioritizing slug use for resource extraction and expand the power plants later as needed to reclaim shards. I'd like to work out logistics of how to move resources without crashing my computer and melting my graphics card. Also, need to plan what and where to build, to get the missing part factories up as soon as possible so I can more quickly get parts to build a 100% recycling nuclear power plant, sink plutonium for now, then finish space elevator project, and finally proceed to maximize coupons with Thermal Propulsion Rockets, and each other item by AWESOME Sink point value in descending order.
To be honest, I don't have so much time to play but I got to the final tier and I always build three or four containers but still I had no excessive items, so sinks on every prod line is advised only if you're running game day and night. My savegame is 23hrs long, second attempt in dunes after the green fields on update 3 when I reached exact the same development point, got emotionally and physically exhausted the same as couple years ago especially because of the horrible railway to foundation snap and weird angle snap behaviour. Now I'm so hungry for some inspiration outside the game, I know right I like it but if I'll load it I'm going to hang myself. Great vid, as always, keep it up!
I'm 'only' 40 hours into this amazing game, but I already feel overwhelmed of what will come and how should I plan the expansion. These kind of videos make me feel soo small and I don't know how to get bigger...
@@gemmel3197 Great advice! I will try and remove everything useless and start with basic stuff / manufacturing, maybe this is why I'm not progressing. Thanks!
I finally started my second playthrough and one thing that i found would be problematic very quickly was the slow converyor belts. Whenever you make a production line, small, since you can't feed tons of ore, leave a lot of space to make the line bigger. As you unlock higher tier logistics, you'll just have to upgrade the current belts, add smelters/refineries, and done. You'll then be able to feed more machines and grow the starting factories like that. The layout will be laid already, you will only need to update/add machines :) It looks overwhelming, but as logistics become faster, your plants will grow naturally. Just race to coal power as fast as you can, then you can take your time without having to chainsaw the whole map :)
when you get the smart spliters you can run a line down a machine line then loop it. the machines take what they want and extra goes around the loop with new stuff its like an all in one bus system. it takes awhile to get started but if you preload the machine its fine till power goes out loll
Is the big resource nexus collecting from multiple mines and then merging it all into a single train per type of resource? I once started a similar thing, but eventually needed multiple outgoing train stations per type of resource because of the cargo loading times and irregular train arrival times. Feeding multiple factories from a central nexus became quite unreliable. I guess using those extra long trains as seen in the video might work around that, by having a low number of trains that travel around with a ton of resources instead of lots of trains with less resources each.
a suggestion, Play this game with some friends and each have their own job. Who needs a prefect conveyor system if you can use tractors to automaticly haul all ores and items to one location. from there send it into the awsome sink to unlock the structures. then one by one build specific factorys with a truckstation and overflow into the awsome sink. Just manually transport items using a vehicle from one truckstation into the next. Some items will last you hours to produce. It saves PC resourches, It prevents conveyor mis calculations by expansion issues. and you can choose to double down item productions if something is running low. The Human brain is stil better the the perfect algorithm. Sometimes the perfect idea is simplicity when you the solutions seems hard. Just like the paperclip.
Regarding using a spreadsheet for calculating materials, any tutorial or guide about it? I specially can't rely on online tools for my current playthrough since I'm heavly relying on mods' recipes.
i low key want to makee a factory that is just a huge foundation floor starting up above all the terrain and bringing the materials all up to there but that is a pretty extreme thing to do
My issue is i can never make my belts pretty. I just built my first scalable ingot factory and its doing everything i want. I then have that going to a massive ignot storage facility so i can smelt thousands while building the rest but then i try to build constructors or something else and i can never get my materials there the way i want. Or i get stuck with larger facilities and how to lay them out.
I know this is an old video and likely wont get any responses, but this is my first play through satisfactory, I have a really awful spaghetti mess making basically every item I have unlocked, As far as logistics go I only use tractors for getting coal to my foundry and power plant. everything else Is close enough to each other where I can run coveyers (although incredibly ugly) they are effective in making what I need for now. I really want to get started on a mega factory but I assume doing so and replacing all of the stuff (like tractors with trains etc) later on would be tedious, but my efficiency right now is pretty bad, and the asthetics look even worse, but I DO produce basically everything I need (modular frames, rotors, motors, reinforced plates, steel beams, steel pipes, encased concrete, versatile framework, wire, cable, copper sheet, quickwire, screws, rods, and plates.) But its a total fucking mess and I hate looking at it. Long story short should I hold off until I have trains and more power and just deal with the headache while I afk supplies or should I just go for the daunting task? Also do you craft your craterum into quickwire at the source aswell, or does it become useful not to later on?
I am nearly positive I have everything unlocked, and cannot find any busses. I have tractors and trains and trucks and drones and even a mini factory truck. Where do i find the busses? Or are they something the game got rid of? (and if they got rid of busses, why didn't they get rid of the unusable resources?)
A "bus" is a logistic design concept where you have a bunch of parallel belts so that you can have convenient access to a variety of resources in a central location.
I have an annoying brain thing i love these kinds of games but every time something is not perfect I destroy te hole factory and that just gets the fun out and than i dont feel like playing anymore do you have any tips to help
@stephen baker, no this is just a plan to craft x amount of end game products per mimute- only uses about 15% of all oil on the map, also uses most of the Sulphur, Quartz, and Bauxite though
I would love to find a place where people are looking for people to join and build together, does anyone know where you can look for groups for this game?
My big problem, i hate flying bases and i want to have ne great nature and love at the map - its not easy to find a compromise. And i have many single places for single items. My biggest problem, the trainstations waste so incredible much of space. For me, they are to masive/big designed in the game. E.g. You need two recources and have one product, the three train stations are bigger than the factory for the product (i go in the high with the single factory stages). And i transport all Products and recources in my huge trainstation central stogare - one station incoming, one for outgoing in the middle splitters and storage for buffering. But it needs so many space ^^. (and this is not posible without a compromise with the nature and no flying ^^). And than all single product have his own factory, single production. The are 100% easy to copy paste with blueprints upstares if i need more from a single item). This is much easier if you get time in time the better recieps as you mix production lines i think. - So ratio are complet not a point for me - i dont need to calculate anything. This makes me very happy smile. If i see a buffer runs out in the central train storage i copy paste on, two stages over the last product factory and all are fine. (maybe sometimes an extra train for the more output or so)
I think it's kinda funny that you talk about your rule of thumb being to transport as few items as possible, and then give an example of ingots. This rule of thumb is exactly why I don't build mega factories. My first iron processing factory is configurable via smart splitters and can fully use the nearby node to make whatever ratios of iron items I need, exporting modular frames and smart plating... not ingots.
You're absolutely right, but the concept of a megafactory is where everything is produced in one factory. If you're producing everything outside and taking it to the megafactory, is it a megafactory? I like your system idea though, I want to run it so that when I choose I can switch off a segment of the factory, and in doing so, using a scaling factory system the items would be sent to another factory to be used up automatically, all it requires would be to switch a switch on or off. But I think it's going to require a lot more planning that I first thought
@@TotalXclipse The wiring can get pretty involved really quickly. My first nuclear setup is "just" 15 power plants, but the switch network I made to allow me to reassign them to different circuits required some very dense wiring.
@@TotalXclipse Oh, and yeah... I see so many videos about people building mega factories and I always am a bit baffled as to why they even want to do it that way. I'm not going to try to tell anyone how they should have fun, and I enjoy watching all approaches regardless... but the mega factory concept itself is very much not for me.
@@ronhatch9175 I like the idea of having a massive factory that's always running, pushing the game to its limits, but building a megafactory certainly isn't necessary :)
@@TotalXclipse Yeah, that's fair. I'll admit the massive structures look cool, even though I prefer to stick closer to real-world plausible structures for my own builds.
i havent been back on satisfactory since the new update, majority of the mods i had used (mostly new building materials) dont work with the new update :( risk of using mods!
@@TotalXclipse yeah, but you do recording, that takes additional CPU power away. I'm running on a 10 year old computer with a GTX650. It's very playable, but there are a couple places where FPS drops really low. Darned GPU prices atm :( :( :(
Awh man, that's unfortunate! This game is so fun, it's addictive to spend a whole day fiddling with everything, then walk away somewhere, turn and look back and see a massive factory grown up in the place of nothing a few hours before.
@@Thoron_of_Neto I have to admit I got the game and play it on own. Since posting that comment I have just had a look at hours played, I have hit 463 hours, you are right the game is so addictive and sometimes overwhelming I love it.
just so people know, a few days ago from this comment the trucks and vehicles are going to be a ton better, if they bug out they well realise this and pass through the terrain to get back on track. much better and usable, plus other improvements made.
I unlocked everything and can produce anything in the game, and i have literally "zero" drones, trains or tracks. Good old skybrideges and tier 5 conveyors works for me faster and more reliable than anytthing. And yes i have a conveyor belt from swamp uranium cave to north western sea that goes 200m above from the ground.
If you're starting your own mega factory, what's the number one tip you'd recommend?
Use excel to run your numbers, So much easier than pen and paper
wait for early access to end :D - should be soon
GO BIG OR GO HOME!
@@cha0sthenerd I wouldn't bet much on it. At the very least a year to go, if not more, till 1.0
@@cha0sthenerd maybe end of next year?
I swear the amount of complexity and depth on this "early access" game is something that you get from a logistics course or something.
Playing Satisfactory literally helped me in real life in developing the ability to plan.
My noggin hurts, in a good way.
yeah its awesome.. i had just "finished" my 9 playtime in aroudn 120 hours. never got so much game for so less buck
Want to touch Factorio?
@@Nhatanh0475 i baked factorio and have even more hours in that ^^ and currently i play Captain of Industrie
What kills me is there's a story coming.
Megafactory tip: the answer to how much power you will need is always "yes".
Same answer to "How much space does this (sub-)factory need?"
@@DrawingXaos I think you don't know the meme then.
@@DrawingXaos yes
"More"
Yes
What I started setting up for my mega factory is a separate ingot processing factory. So I bring the raw ore in from across the map to the ingot factory where I can decide which recipe I want whether pure, alloy, or default. Then ship the finish ingots over to the main factory where they're used. This helps because most of the nodes aren't near water supplies and quite a lot of iron might not be near copper. My goal is to have the only things near nodes to be the miners, belts, and trains.
This is a great idea. Thanks.
I've been really nervous about using trains as I haven't had a great experience with them. I'd love to see a train guide.
No sweat you kinda have to build trains in reverse to make them do what you want, if that makes sense
I've not yet touched trains as I'm striving towards finishing "the game" (all milestones first, then completing Employee of the Planet - if I can)... just barely installed my first drone circuit to carry the elusive Bauxite to my main grounds (now bowl 'o' spaghet). I'm finding their power consumption to be strange, but "in my favor" in a way -- definitely not seeing a constant 100MW on the chart when I flip the station off/on, or even delete its power line. They might just be all I need. Who needs trains when you've got planes? ;)
This is a great video for people who are a little more advanced in the game. I would love to see a tutorial at the half way point. I always get hung up around tier 5-7. I struggle to become more efficient with the more complex parts. Maybe i am not expanding enough or building the right way. But a tutorial for each tier would be a cool thing to see. I have restarted my save 5 times or more and have 528 hours in game. Really enjoy your vids and try to copy a lot of your designs.
My tip is to keep things as modular and leave room for expansion with additional modules. My Nuclear setup is designed around 2 overclocked reactors. If I ever run out of power I can easily copy my setup, slap it right next to my existing reactors without any problems. This includes the waste management (ie sinking nuclear waste). Some items are underclocked and I have more buildings than I need for max efficiency, but the modularity is the benefit. The key to a modular system is keep all you inputs inline with the next module so that the excess of one module can feed into the next without any spaget. Easiest is to have all your inputs run perpendicular to your construction lines.
When you say "copy", do you mean via a mod, or just "use the same design" but build by hand? Wondering if there's a good mod for this, as in Factorio's blueprinting system.
@@gene1514 I think he means build by hand exactly the same setup again.
Would love to see a train focused video! We noticed early on that trains can separate if two cross an intersection at the same time so we tend to use a single line per train that it goes back and forth on. Is that still a bug or are we doing this for no reason?
Very Nicely Done! The one tip I recommend is Have an idea on how you want the area to look prior to building mega builds. I look at an area and decide how I want it to look in the end, then I reverse build it. Example: If i want 10 turbo motors/min, I start there and reverse math all the supporting building to make it happen and how I want the building/area to look when done. All before I begin the building.
I've found if I need more room, I go vertical. As I go up and clear obstacles, I can flare out upper floors to be wider.
Then use pillars to make it look like it's structurally sound.
I am a disabled senior stuck at home a lot. I have come to love this game but I swear that sometimes it feels that if I am going to work this hard designing thing I should be getting paid for it. LOL.
Those guides are actual really good overall, also for other projects. As a software developer I can say that a lot of methods actually apply to keeping your project clean as well.
In a way, what you're learning is project management through gamification 😃
some great tips for those of you with the ability to plan. doesn't matter what it is or how hard I try I am incapable of planning things out in an intelligible way, I can't even come up with goals. I usually just have to play and figure it out as I go/need. Decent info regardless, cheers
There are some intermediates I dedicate entire sections of my factories for certain goods like quickwire, silica, steel, plastic/rubber, etc.
Intermediates like these take up alot of space and when you build them, might as well max out the supply you have and distribute to where its needed.
We went with the mega bus system pulling all created items into a huge storage Center. Looks really amazing, but for a long time the bus system down beneath ground was a true horror when there was the need to add more lines... =:O Now it's super tidy and looks phenomenal. Put a hyperloop somewhere in between all the lines to have an amazing rollercoaster trip :)
I prefer to have ALL the items come to one spot, one giant storage facility, they get produced however I need but then sent to one giant storage place that has no machines to reduce lag. I love it ❤🎉
I evem go so far as to have a giant square full of power banks in case i have a shortage ever
this is awesome i think every person playing this game needs to watch your videos. Keep up the good work
I would love to see a train video!
Usually I just start next to a set of nodes and say “here’s what I want out of this.” Typically I build any factory with the assumption that it will be asked to handle all input nodes being run at 250% overclock and go from there. I also make sure that I can freely swap between any and all possible products available from that particular factory by simply switching over the machine settings with no re-working of the physical setup, while also ensuring that 100% of all possible end products have a way to overflow into Awesome Sinks in order to prevent any chance of factory shutdown for any reason other than power grid failure. This is doubly important for any oil refineries, as their fuel output makes them 100% self-sufficient so long as their outputs don’t get backed up.
It’s a lot of extra work, but the result is a production facility that is very robust and flexible, enabling me to work on future projects that may depend on the potential output of such facilities without having to re-engineer the existing factories just to meet changing demands as my projects increase in scope and scale.
absolutely want a video on how to build a good rail network for a mega factory...
Lol, when you talked about a main bus, I had flashbacks to Factorio. Though I have used Tractors, very early game fuel hungry, but were seriously faster than a tier one belt at the time. The only issue with them was I could get ran over if I wasn't careful when restocking them with fuel, since I hadn't automated fuel into the truck stops. I'm trying a playthrough where I use all things, like trucks, trains, drones, and even jump pad elevators.
Still great information to this day!!
1) Big tip to "play around" with base design...
Graph paper (paper with squares printed on it), pencil, ruler, scissors.
Draw your functional build units/groups out as rectangles (X constructors/assemblers/manufacturers... in a row with room for the mergers/splitters). Cut them out. Then you can play around laying out the functional groups until you have a layout that works.
This is especially useful to plan the logistics between the units, and is really useful if you are strapped for space (this was part of my challenge for this build, to start a base in the northern forest where there's basically NO really large open areas).
Now here's me praying they don't change that area too much (eek).
2) Learn to use a spreadsheet. You don't need fancy stuff, but knowing how to do cell calculations, sums, and knowing how to use the '$' modifier on cell coordinates make planning and doing "what if I do it this way" type analysis a lot easier.
3) once you step beyond the quick-and-dirty connecting a dozen machines together powered by biomass... Focus on building out your power generation. Nothing more annoying than having the power trip, everything shutting down and now you can't build more infrastructure because you don't have the items, and you can't turn it all back on because you massively overloaded your grid and forgot batteries eventually run flat (just admit it... you've been there... We've all been there...).
3bis) make the power estimate part of your base planning. If you don't, it's pretty much a given you'll run out of power WAY before you finish your base.
4) it's a game, have fun. don't stress out. If you feel like it's turning into a job... STOP, go do something else.
All great tips!
Awesome guide, sums it up pretty good. One thing though...where can I get that handy/fancy document with the calculated values. I think it can help with setting my own goals.
Rail design guide? Do we even need to ask! hahaha Yes please!
@TotalXclipse - The issue I have with a starter factory is that you start off with tier 1 stuff and very few of the shop stuff so the starting factory ends up been a mess and keeping it clean while you slowly unlock items is an issue for me. How do you manage to keep everything neat and organised at low tiers and plan for expansion as you unlock bigger/faster miners etc. Also upgrading things like conveyors is a massive job in itself once you have a sprawling factory. Would you be able to cover off this subject in a future video please?
Cheers
as someone reaching endgame in 1.0 great video :) ty
I like to go for more decentralized approaches to my factories. Because I lag a lot, and I'm not confident my PC can take on a mega factory.
I have smaller factories that make basic resources like copper sheets, reinforced plates, modular frames, etc. Then depending on the distance, I use trucks or trains to transport those resources to another factory that makes other things like the dreaded heavy modular frames. Repeat this until everything is transported to my hub where all of my storage containers are for when I need to use the resources. The biggest challenge of this is making sure all of the trucks are fueled.
+1 On a rail desing video.
A bus system is a cool idea, these towers and taking everything up per tier seems cool but complicated - and don't you need really different amounts of space per tier?
the issue with the suggestion of "just play it without worry" is that once you hit phase 4, it's manageable to unlock all the tiers, but then you need to make the components and you need 2 machines to make 2 components, then 1 machine to combine those 2 components, then make another setup for another component to make them fuse with the 1st components, then to add that to a 4 way combiner.
then restart that process for the remaining 3 components ... and that is only the surface, phase 4 is way too overwhelming with everything that you need and you kinda need to work torwards a mega factory where you got everything organized to make each component
Can confirm about tiered bases. Started buiding a tiered base for the next step of Project Assembly, after I hit Tier 7 / 8 and oh boy, its getting really complicated now-
I wish I had made a plan, but only planning I made was horizontal size of the base, and a system for storage and then I went from there. It has been fun, but oh my. xD
Jesus Christ... I love your voice. You should have your own podcasts about clearly anything and I would listen to it.
I tried a centralized mega base, it killed my PC eventually to slow to be any fun. This time I'm doing smaller factories all over the map, game run a lot better. Plus I need to ship via train very little.
Would love to see a video on rail design. How to make a network that can be used end game, expanded on etc.
I am there where my lack of train skill, limits my factory expansion.
It's a cool idea, I'll certainly be doing something for the train update, but maybe I can do something for the time being :)
what you say about sending ores to base make sense for belts but not for vehicles. Stacks size make virtually all items "compressed" compared to their ingredients
Turbo Motors? Nah you want the Thermal Propulsion Rocket. It's worth 732,956 points to the Turbo Motor's 242,720 points.
Turbo Motors became the benchmark before the last update, so a lot of long running plans are still geared towards that goal of maximizing Turbo Motors. But yeah, if your goal is to maximize points per minute, you should build as many TPR as possible and use the rest of the ressources creatively.
@@QemeH I know. I'm just saying that now we have something worth more we should aim higher.
Eh... my goal is to make a system that can adapt to make the next big thing without having to rebuild it each time an update drops.
@@ronhatch9175 that's fair
First timer, so should I mark this to watch later :D
Started because I saw Josh and his Cthuluesque monstrosity and laughed my ass off. Fast forward 3 months and I have a moleskin full of scribbles and white boards on the walls for brainstorming. My dad came down to visit and called me “beautiful mind” once he found out what I was doing. He thought it was cool though.
Your hella underrated
400hrs vanilla and so far I've not needed a mega factory but I realise that it might be coming soon. The hover pack transforms your architectural approach - early and middle game you carefully plan and build walkways to get to all your buildings then suddenly the hover pack gives you much better access all over the place. You can pack buildings much closer and build vertically without ramps, stairs or hypertube elevators. Instead I'm now planning for wall and floor gaps and widespread power so that I can use the hover pack everywhere.
Produce as much power as possible and use a lot of overclocking so that when you start to switch on the mega base you will not face an issue where you run out of power.
I’ve put a few hundred hours into this game, and I’m confused. What exactly do you need all of these resources for? What goals does the game provide after phase 8? You can keep producing endlessly but there doesn’t seem to be a good way to spend what you make.
There isn't an end game at the moment so for now it's just a case of biding a factory and sinking the items. Hopefully end game will provide us with a lot more
Hopefully this is the video I've been searching for. I've got about 25-30 GW of unused power from Compacted Coal and Petroleum Coke. I have a few preliminary factories for basic materials, spread around the map. None of these factories is using the most resource efficient recipe (old factories built before better equipment and recipes were unlocked). I did a bunch of hand crafting, so all game progress is complete, except for the final Space Elevator. I did hard drive hunting, unlocked all recipes. I did some Power Slug hunting and have a few hundred, though most are used in power plants to ease build material requirements. I'd transition to prioritizing slug use for resource extraction and expand the power plants later as needed to reclaim shards. I'd like to work out logistics of how to move resources without crashing my computer and melting my graphics card. Also, need to plan what and where to build, to get the missing part factories up as soon as possible so I can more quickly get parts to build a 100% recycling nuclear power plant, sink plutonium for now, then finish space elevator project, and finally proceed to maximize coupons with Thermal Propulsion Rockets, and each other item by AWESOME Sink point value in descending order.
Great video as always, I’d love to know how you are making these triangular or overlapping foundations to make your unique look a lot of the time
To be honest, I don't have so much time to play but I got to the final tier and I always build three or four containers but still I had no excessive items, so sinks on every prod line is advised only if you're running game day and night. My savegame is 23hrs long, second attempt in dunes after the green fields on update 3 when I reached exact the same development point, got emotionally and physically exhausted the same as couple years ago especially because of the horrible railway to foundation snap and weird angle snap behaviour. Now I'm so hungry for some inspiration outside the game, I know right I like it but if I'll load it I'm going to hang myself. Great vid, as always, keep it up!
I'm 'only' 40 hours into this amazing game, but I already feel overwhelmed of what will come and how should I plan the expansion. These kind of videos make me feel soo small and I don't know how to get bigger...
I had that problem, just set smaller goals and work toward that don't dwell on the big picture, it will develop on it's own.
@@gemmel3197 Great advice! I will try and remove everything useless and start with basic stuff / manufacturing, maybe this is why I'm not progressing. Thanks!
I finally started my second playthrough and one thing that i found would be problematic very quickly was the slow converyor belts.
Whenever you make a production line, small, since you can't feed tons of ore, leave a lot of space to make the line bigger. As you unlock higher tier logistics, you'll just have to upgrade the current belts, add smelters/refineries, and done. You'll then be able to feed more machines and grow the starting factories like that. The layout will be laid already, you will only need to update/add machines :)
It looks overwhelming, but as logistics become faster, your plants will grow naturally.
Just race to coal power as fast as you can, then you can take your time without having to chainsaw the whole map :)
when you get the smart spliters you can run a line down a machine line then loop it. the machines take what they want and extra goes around the loop with new stuff its like an all in one bus system. it takes awhile to get started but if you preload the machine its fine till power goes out loll
Is the big resource nexus collecting from multiple mines and then merging it all into a single train per type of resource?
I once started a similar thing, but eventually needed multiple outgoing train stations per type of resource because of the cargo loading times and irregular train arrival times. Feeding multiple factories from a central nexus became quite unreliable.
I guess using those extra long trains as seen in the video might work around that, by having a low number of trains that travel around with a ton of resources instead of lots of trains with less resources each.
a suggestion, Play this game with some friends and each have their own job. Who needs a prefect conveyor system if you can use tractors to automaticly haul all ores and items to one location. from there send it into the awsome sink to unlock the structures. then one by one build specific factorys with a truckstation and overflow into the awsome sink. Just manually transport items using a vehicle from one truckstation into the next. Some items will last you hours to produce. It saves PC resourches, It prevents conveyor mis calculations by expansion issues. and you can choose to double down item productions if something is running low. The Human brain is stil better the the perfect algorithm. Sometimes the perfect idea is simplicity when you the solutions seems hard. Just like the paperclip.
Is it possible to run at 100% effieency? I see at some recipes that I just can't make it run smoothly!
Whats the consensus on building in the air??
This game blows my mind, I have literally no idea how in the world I'd ever begin...
i always start and try to get it clean and then it becomes more and more messy ^^ but at the end it works
Regarding using a spreadsheet for calculating materials, any tutorial or guide about it? I specially can't rely on online tools for my current playthrough since I'm heavly relying on mods' recipes.
I believe DrawingXaos has done a video on this, check out his YT channel
I'm hoping to do a video on this when I start planning out my megafactory :)
trains please thanks for the vid bud Edit: subbed also for more
i low key want to makee a factory that is just a huge foundation floor starting up above all the terrain and bringing the materials all up to there but that is a pretty extreme thing to do
Nice vid ! How do you do the oblique fondations for the trains please ? Thanks a lot.
I'll see if I can do a video for trains again :)
This start to sound like doing Math homework while not doing Math homework.
First play through. Figured after i build a train and nuclear power thats when ill destroy everything and start building factories.
Rail Design, yes please
My issue is i can never make my belts pretty. I just built my first scalable ingot factory and its doing everything i want. I then have that going to a massive ignot storage facility so i can smelt thousands while building the rest but then i try to build constructors or something else and i can never get my materials there the way i want. Or i get stuck with larger facilities and how to lay them out.
should i get microsoft excel and spend the hours to learn it jus to plan satisfactory?
Google sheets is free 😉
@@TotalXclipse google sheets is also like the safety school of spreadsheet programs lmao
If you don't need anything else then why pay?@@ThatsARandomGamer
On my 8th playthrough and still make a mess. Don't think I'm destined to make a neat or mega. Functional mess is my zone.
Well I'm quite the ways off from a Mega Factory. Still on my first playthrough and haven't gotten all the milestones yet.
I know this is an old video and likely wont get any responses, but this is my first play through satisfactory, I have a really awful spaghetti mess making basically every item I have unlocked, As far as logistics go I only use tractors for getting coal to my foundry and power plant. everything else Is close enough to each other where I can run coveyers (although incredibly ugly) they are effective in making what I need for now. I really want to get started on a mega factory but I assume doing so and replacing all of the stuff (like tractors with trains etc) later on would be tedious, but my efficiency right now is pretty bad, and the asthetics look even worse, but I DO produce basically everything I need (modular frames, rotors, motors, reinforced plates, steel beams, steel pipes, encased concrete, versatile framework, wire, cable, copper sheet, quickwire, screws, rods, and plates.) But its a total fucking mess and I hate looking at it.
Long story short should I hold off until I have trains and more power and just deal with the headache while I afk supplies or should I just go for the daunting task?
Also do you craft your craterum into quickwire at the source aswell, or does it become useful not to later on?
I am nearly positive I have everything unlocked, and cannot find any busses. I have tractors and trains and trucks and drones and even a mini factory truck. Where do i find the busses? Or are they something the game got rid of? (and if they got rid of busses, why didn't they get rid of the unusable resources?)
A "bus" is a logistic design concept where you have a bunch of parallel belts so that you can have convenient access to a variety of resources in a central location.
@@hudsoncraftworks Ah. That makes sense. Thank you for clarifying that for me!
I have an annoying brain thing i love these kinds of games but every time something is not perfect I destroy te hole factory and that just gets the fun out and than i dont feel like playing anymore do you have any tips to help
Is that list (The Lords-Mega-Factory Plan) a full use of the map resources?
I don't think so, but it is their mega factory plan
@stephen baker, no this is just a plan to craft x amount of end game products per mimute- only uses about 15% of all oil on the map, also uses most of the Sulphur, Quartz, and Bauxite though
I would love to find a place where people are looking for people to join and build together, does anyone know where you can look for groups for this game?
You can join Total‘s discord server, there is a section called „find a group“ which focuses on what you are looking for :)
The map is my factory :D
My big problem, i hate flying bases and i want to have ne great nature and love at the map - its not easy to find a compromise. And i have many single places for single items. My biggest problem, the trainstations waste so incredible much of space. For me, they are to masive/big designed in the game.
E.g. You need two recources and have one product, the three train stations are bigger than the factory for the product (i go in the high with the single factory stages).
And i transport all Products and recources in my huge trainstation central stogare - one station incoming, one for outgoing in the middle splitters and storage for buffering. But it needs so many space ^^. (and this is not posible without a compromise with the nature and no flying ^^). And than all single product have his own factory, single production. The are 100% easy to copy paste with blueprints upstares if i need more from a single item). This is much easier if you get time in time the better recieps as you mix production lines i think. - So ratio are complet not a point for me - i dont need to calculate anything. This makes me very happy smile.
If i see a buffer runs out in the central train storage i copy paste on, two stages over the last product factory and all are fine. (maybe sometimes an extra train for the more output or so)
yeah... my copper is here, iron is there, plastic is 300miles over there.. and its spaghetti conveyor belts all over the place..
Ya I have no imagination on planning. I just try to build the basics.
After watching this I realized I don't have enough autism to plan and construct a mega factory, or maybe I'm just lazy.
lol some of my places got chaos that make letsgameitout´s look structured. the day foundations stop feasting of fps then maybe.
I think it's kinda funny that you talk about your rule of thumb being to transport as few items as possible, and then give an example of ingots.
This rule of thumb is exactly why I don't build mega factories. My first iron processing factory is configurable via smart splitters and can fully use the nearby node to make whatever ratios of iron items I need, exporting modular frames and smart plating... not ingots.
You're absolutely right, but the concept of a megafactory is where everything is produced in one factory. If you're producing everything outside and taking it to the megafactory, is it a megafactory?
I like your system idea though, I want to run it so that when I choose I can switch off a segment of the factory, and in doing so, using a scaling factory system the items would be sent to another factory to be used up automatically, all it requires would be to switch a switch on or off. But I think it's going to require a lot more planning that I first thought
@@TotalXclipse The wiring can get pretty involved really quickly. My first nuclear setup is "just" 15 power plants, but the switch network I made to allow me to reassign them to different circuits required some very dense wiring.
@@TotalXclipse Oh, and yeah... I see so many videos about people building mega factories and I always am a bit baffled as to why they even want to do it that way.
I'm not going to try to tell anyone how they should have fun, and I enjoy watching all approaches regardless... but the mega factory concept itself is very much not for me.
@@ronhatch9175 I like the idea of having a massive factory that's always running, pushing the game to its limits, but building a megafactory certainly isn't necessary :)
@@TotalXclipse Yeah, that's fair.
I'll admit the massive structures look cool, even though I prefer to stick closer to real-world plausible structures for my own builds.
Where is the link for information in circuits in Satisfactory?
Ahhh totaly forgot that, I'll add it now
i havent been back on satisfactory since the new update, majority of the mods i had used (mostly new building materials) dont work with the new update :( risk of using mods!
It's seems a lot of the mods are working again
You forgot the most important thing: get a very god computer,dont try to do this on a laptop !
Just lower the settings. you don't have to play at everything ultra.
Even on low settings I can't do a mega factory just yet :D
@@TotalXclipse yeah, but you do recording, that takes additional CPU power away.
I'm running on a 10 year old computer with a GTX650. It's very playable, but there are a couple places where FPS drops really low.
Darned GPU prices atm :( :( :(
laptops and computers are the same thing. it depends on what hardware you have.
Was looking at buying this to play with my wife, When she saw maths and spreadsheets she said forget it :((
Awh man, that's unfortunate! This game is so fun, it's addictive to spend a whole day fiddling with everything, then walk away somewhere, turn and look back and see a massive factory grown up in the place of nothing a few hours before.
@@Thoron_of_Neto I have to admit I got the game and play it on own. Since posting that comment I have just had a look at hours played, I have hit 463 hours, you are right the game is so addictive and sometimes overwhelming I love it.
6:35 Why this alternative recipe 1 look terrible???
Require more resources, yet way lower production rate.
heres me thinking this was a game...
My play style is compact and neat. OCDs a bitch lol lots of good tips
I want an organised abd a clean factory, but too bad its impossible when i allways play whit an messy friend 😂
Objective: build Amazon
So where can I find "the Lord's Mega-Factory Plan"...
Why recommend the Satisfactory Tools Website as a example when it hasn't been updated for Update 4?
If you go onto the tools website in the top right hand corner you can select update 4 :) It's just for some reason set on U3
woww
just so people know, a few days ago from this comment the trucks and vehicles are going to be a ton better, if they bug out they well realise this and pass through the terrain to get back on track. much better and usable, plus other improvements made.
I planned a 100 turbo motors per minute factory, but the entire world didn’t have enough resources
Mods?
I started my first factory in the sky so I can not focus on looking for the perfect location
I unlocked everything and can produce anything in the game, and i have literally "zero" drones, trains or tracks. Good old skybrideges and tier 5 conveyors works for me faster and more reliable than anytthing. And yes i have a conveyor belt from swamp uranium cave to north western sea that goes 200m above from the ground.
That'll work perfectly well, but that's a lot of conveyors to place for a megafactory :D
The Calculator is not there
long story short, I am not smart enough to play this late game.
my factory radom spaget
Use modules and mods to copy paste. No point in doing the same thing 20times
You’re interested in clean layout and efficiency... but you use Microsoft Word. Yikes.