Satisfactory: A Factorio/Subnautica Hybrid about to be in Early Access

Nekojin said:

The wall mounts for power are super-useful power splitters, because they give 4x connections on EACH side. Way more useful than Mk. 1 power poles.

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I already picked them up

OK, I got PBA up and running, and with it supporting my power grid, I was able to disassemble Coal Base power and move it to location P (henceforth known as Pond Base) and expand it to 8 generators. I'm not sure the right way to line up conveyors, but what I wound up doing was laying out a line of containers that snap to the input/outputs. Then the conveyors snap to their input/outputs, and you have a straight line. Other way I thought of doing it was laying out foundations along the way using the global grind. But that only works well in NSWE directions, and the container method works on a lot more directions... so far.

Next on my to-do list is to set up another steels production line and mass produce encased steel beams....

The PBA looks AWESOME! I copied it to the Pond Base, but it looks less awesome in a field...

So anyway, I'm thinking that if I'm going to have to do this a bunch more (I wanted to get to 32 coal generators) I was going to see about making the basic design modular. I've built it so many times that I think I can set it as modular in the blueprint designer based on memory. I'll still have some work to do putting it together, but it should get it 80% of the way there (back half of the catwalk doesn't fit, fir example).

Woohoo! Only took 30 minutes, and it looks like it will work great! Takes all the work out of the piping, and about 75& of the work for the catwalks. I REALLY should get back on task for the Encased Steel Beam plant, but I wanted to use that empty space to see if I could line up the blueprints properly. Worked like a charm!

Edit2: Well, to make the encased steel beam, I as going to use some machines that needed modular frames. I was out. Well, no problem, I had the parts that need to be used for the modular frame already being mass produced, and so I had plenty. I put them in my duplexed assembler, then decided that the whole point of getting all this excess power was so I could overclock these things when I needed to. So I converted some slugs, and cranked it up to 250%. It's using over 100W (MW? MJ?, whatever, it's over 100). It is spitting out 10 frames a minute. Then I remembered I was going to make an automated system that also did 10 frames a minute, but it was going to me several stories tall... and here I am doing the same thing with my stupid dual assembly machine, not even my quad blue print. Granted, the other one does it from beginning to end using just the iron from a deposit, but still...

I'm still going to make the factory, just because I WANT to make a factory.

Mogbert's starting his world got me interested in starting a new world myself (the world where I posted the pics of the coal generators, to be clear). I haven't advanced to Tier 5/6 yet, so I'm messing around with things. I set up a second coal generator set not far from the first one, then before I got it up and running, set up a pair of stations and a truck. After recording a driving path, deleting a few nodes where I got a little squirrely, and priming everything for pickup and delivery at the stations, the truck is now delivering coal to the 16 generators faster and more efficiently than Mk. 3 conveyors could manage. I ripped up all of the conveyors (and also replaced the Mk 1 Power Poles with Power Towers) so that I have a cleaner, simpler desert.

My only gripe with the trucks is that you can't just ride along in a preplanned route. If you get in the driver's seat, you're driving it, and the AI script is disabled.

Edit: Technically, you can stand on top of the truck and ride it that way, but if it hits a rock and goes sideways for a few moments, you'll get flung off.

I never saw the point of trucks. The routing is a bit jank, particularly in multiplayer, and you aren’t far off from trains when you get them. I just used conveyors until trains are unlocked, then I’ll set up satellite bases feeding into a depot. From the depot, the trains load up and take the items and material to the main factory. I usually have 6-8 stations to unload the material at the main factory, separated by what item or material the train is carrying. With proper signaling, I usually have a 8-12 trains rolling with two cars each.

The Explorer lets you turn the autopilot on and off when you are in it, but I haven't played with in, because I'm crap at driving with them+kb. My hand is kind of screwed up right now and I can't use a controller (not sure if this game supports that anyway).

I could probably set up a truckstop thing over by the sulfur. For right now, supply isn't really an issue. I have too much of most things and storage is an issue. My power was going crazy and it turned out it was because I had so many of my lines backing up with max capacity. Since they are split into making multiple things, instead of just shutting down, they switch into ramping up and down. At this point, even at max I'm not using half my power, so it would be premature to and irresponsible to double my power... that's why I'll probably hold off on doing just that until after I see how to make this factory.

I might just simplify it with a manifold even though it will take a long time to spin up. I've got just about a full container of the frames, so I don't need it to ramp up quickly. If needed, I could also just bring over the parts and fill up the machines immediately which would put it into full production right away, at the cost of some of my other lines.

Eventually, I NEED to hunt down those oil deposits and start working on plastics...

Also, I've taken up doggo farming... It keeps them from being eaten by wild hogs...

Edit: got to where the oil is, finally. Looks like it might not be so easy to run my power over here. I COULD set up some power by turning the oil into petroleum coke? I could prime the generator with some coal I already have, use a biofuel generator on the water pump, and get everything running. Or just suck it up and try getting my power lines run over here. I've just gotten about as far as I can without plastics and such. I have enough power that if I could run my lines over here I could use all the oil here to produce... stuff? Like... what is fuel needed for right now? I'm running my vehicles on color carts, and I'm barely making a dent in them. I could package it and just store it for when I need it later, I guess?

Either way, I'm going to go exploring. Slugs are finally useful, and if I can find a good path over here, there probably won't be much problem. I'm in the vehicle so things don't really attack me much. I'm just using normal rebar gun for damage. I really hate trying to fight the alpha spitters without cover, so I've been avoiding them. I've only died once in the game so far, and it was to an alpha stinger. Once I get better weapons, probably won't be as much trouble...

I just found a new way of getting around (new to me). OK, so I was trying to get to the top of a pillar, and I build a tall, tall, talllll ladder, then jumped, used my parachute and got to what I was grabbing. Then I figured I could just parachute down. I found my old coal node which was far away that I hadn't actually developed, but I had built stuff there. And I found I could easily glide over there. In fact, it was so easy I was wondering why I was doing it any other way. I figure at my bases, I can probably build some sort of zoop-chute cannon or something, then fly between bases.

I might play with it later...

They patched parachutes last year to make them nonconsumable, and quick vertical ascent outposts so you can BOTW your way around isn't something I've thought to try. There's an electric jetpack later on that synergizes nicely with running power lines everywhere, but it's hard to get away from a certain amount of running around which is problematic in a game with so many options for distraction. I hope that 1.0 offers some alternative to the janky, ballistic hacks people have come up with.

Okay... um, it worked a little TOO well... spoiler for size of screenshot, but there isn't anything in the screenshot that would be a spoiler...


Yeah, that's not falling through the ground, that is the space elevator... from above.

Okay, I got my plastic and rubber factory made now. The first thing I need to unlock is something that uses fuel, or packages it or something, because right now fuel is my byproduct and I can't do anything with it yet. So unlocking the fuel generator might be my first priority upon getting a load of plastic and rubber... Okay, second priority, because you CAN;T unlock it until you unlock and craft some other things...

I made the powerlines so that I have a nice zipline out of back, but I used the MoonShot to get out there. I might actually time how long you stay in the air after using your parachute. I also had to take some safety precautions because it takes so long to even FALL from that height...

I thought I would time it, from the peak to how long it takes just falling that far. Guess what I learned... the space elevator has collision and you can totally configure it from that spot up there. Also, by the time you fall to that platform, you take almost enough damage to kill you.

And I just unlocked smokeless powder. If I had a ready way of moving black powder across the map, then I could... wait a sec... hmmm, there is a node of sulfur near POWER BASE ALPHA, so I could use one of those nodes to craft black powder, then set up a truck to ship it to the beach near Oil Island... or something. Logistics aren't my strong suit.

OK, I got to figure out how to unlock these tech tiers, and meanwhile just call me Exxon, because to keep the plastic and rubber factory going, I have to keep dumping this fuel at least every 50 minute, I think...

Edit: OOO! I think I can turn it into a coal like thing... Let me figure this part out... It will at least make it so I can stop having to travel back there to dump fuel. Maybe I can burn it for extra energy...

Edit2: AND I just learned about smart splitter overflow, which can probably solve my steel problem as well. I've got too many steel beams and steel pipes. I've got boxes and boxes full of them. I'll start working on an overflow into a sink solution after I'm done setting up this power plant. I can change it to a fuel burning plant once I get there...

Edit3: Fuel generating unlocked! Need to work on some of these other milestones... Little confused why caterium scanning just got unlocked when the MAM gave that to a while ago.

Edit4: And now I figured out how to do the To Do List. I can put away the calculator... for now.
OK, so now that I've unlocked fuel generators, I'm going to change my oil base to run on fuel generators now... except, I had an idea. I need smokeless powder. Now I can get what I need to refine it several ways, but what if I build a second refiner off my heavy residue pipe, but make it 2m higher. Then I build 5 fuel generators, but make the last one 2m higher as well. Basically, if I overclock the heavy residue->fuel refiner to 150%, then the pipe saturates and the fifth generator kicks in, if I drop it to 100%, then the heavy residue pipe backs up, and the second refiner kicks in. Basically, it is using the refiner as a switch, rather than having to change three things, I can just change one thing.

Still have to finish making all the parts I need for five generators. This will probably take a while... It's too early to have much manufacturing set up between bases...

I messed up and didn't notice that the input numbers changed, so that I wouldn't be overclocking the output, so I made too many generators for the flow of fuel I have... but no worries! I'll break open the other oil well, and then overclock the generators to balance it out (80 fuel a min and 12 x 133.333% x 5 consumption). This also give me a chance to make some of the other materials and designs I wanted to try. It also gives me an excuse to play with the fluid dynamics and building bases on non flat terrain.

I like to see it as the fluid buffer is half full, not half empty...

mogbert said:

I can probably build some sort of zoop-chute cannon or something, then fly between bases.

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I love how you just organically discovered Hypertube Cannons.

They're fantastic, and they pair even better with the Jetpack than they do with Parachutes. If you've already unlocked the Jetpack, I suggest a very small setup (i.e. a single refinery and packager) to keep yourself topped off with Liquid Biofuel, as it's probably the best fuel for general exploration, especially if you're getting your initial forward velocity from a Hypertube Cannon.

dferrantino said:

I love how you just organically discovered Hypertube Cannons.

They're fantastic, and they pair even better with the Jetpack than they do with Parachutes. If you've already unlocked the Jetpack, I suggest a very small setup (i.e. a single refinery and packager) to keep yourself topped off with Liquid Biofuel, as it's probably the best fuel for general exploration, especially if you're getting your initial forward velocity from a Hypertube Cannon.

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From my "miscalculation" at Oil Island, I've already set up a supply of packaged fuel. And if that container gets too full, the machine stalls. and excess gets fed into the sync, so nothing should stop the fun. It was a side part of my need to set up a smokeless powder refiner.

Should be able to unlock jetpack soon, and possible the rifle as well...

Jetpack doesn't seem very good, what am I missing about it? Does the fuel you put in it make too much of a difference? I'm using Packaged Fuel. Should I make some turbo fuel or something?

I need to go to PBA and start making compacted coal and black powder, then see about making turbo fuel and smokeless powder automatically... maybe have something like the truck picks up packaged fuel and drops off black powder, then at PBA, it drops of packaged fuel and picks up black powder. That way the truck is making efficient round trips...

Then again, I haven't even made the truck and haven't really found a path between the two, so I'm getting a bit ahead of myself, but I think it could work...

mogbert said:

Jetpack doesn't seem very good, what am I missing about it? Does the fuel you put in it make too much of a difference? I'm using Packaged Fuel. Should I make some turbo fuel or something?

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The electric jetpack requires no fuel and is a game changer for getting around your base or anywhere else you can string power poles. It makes bypassing aggressive fauna easier too.

CuriouslySane said:

The electric jetpack requires no fuel and is a game changer for getting around your base or anywhere else you can string power poles. It makes bypassing aggressive fauna easier too.

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I think I figured out how to use the jet pack better. I was just kind of expecting it to let me fly places, instead it gives me a little extra vertical on my jump and can possibly break my fall if used correctly. I just have to feather the controls.

OK, I have my turbo fuel / smokeless gun powder set up nearly done. Had a bit of trouble trying to find a driving path between the two bases. I had one place all picked out but then the truck couldn't squeeze in between. Now the conveyor belts... don't look pretty. I'll likely scrap everything and redo it all once I unlock some better alternate recipes. But it works, and once I get the truck going back and forth, it will work automatically in perpetuity. Even if every box gets full, it should still keep working due to overflow being sinked. Now it almost caught me, When you turn regular packaged fuel into packaged turbo fuel, you wins up with a surplus of plastic canisters. Now I could have just built multiple sinks, but I ran the conveyor belt from heck instead. No clipping, but I wound up running it up to the second floor to get it to the other side. I have a bunch of coupons, and I think it is time to get ceiling conveyor belt brackets.

I'm going back to working on blueprints again. My instant coal plant worked so well and I'm getting a ton of use out of my quad assembler, I want to redo them and make them better. I want to make a quad, or at least double, manufacturer. I want to have a wide open area where I can daisy chain them however I want at a moments notice to make the milestone stuff. Right now, I have only one quad going. I just loaded it up with the stuff to make 2000 stators. Once it is done, I have to pull the stuff out, and set it for motors, then put it back in. If I had more room, I'd be able to daiy-chain two quads, load one with stator parts and the other with rotors (I have them being made automatically). And I wouldn't have to wait, I could go do other stuff.

Anyway, with these new parts I'll unlock more of my trees, the I'll work on clearing a large area to work somewhere near my base. Then I'll work on some blueprints for cookie cutter factory pieces, and place them on that cleared area to make the first PROJECT part. It shouldn't take long, I have overflow of just about every material. Finally, while that stuff is cooking, I'll need to clear out the path between Power Base Alpha (it is no longer in all caps as plans to expand it have been put on hold, since I already have more than enough power for this tier) and Oil Island. I've found a number of paths that won't work, or are too long. Still looking for a good one, but it will likely require some cutting down of trees, and likely shooting of spiders and spitters. A lot of alphas. So that is why I want to finish upgrading my ammo first. Then I'll make a lot of ammo by using sneaker net to run the black powder to oil island to refine it into smokeless powder. I can't make turbo ammo yet, until the game unlocks aluminum. But homing ammo is unlocked and it shows that it does more damage than the regular ammo. Let me look it up... Okay, according to people online, the description lies. It says regular ammo does two bars of damage, homing does three bars of damage, and rebar gun does three bars of damage. Apparently, both ammos do 6 damage per shot, and rebar does 15. Maybe they just messed up the description of homing ammo and accidentally made it look like it does more damage.

Edit, new day, new idea... instead of the truck, I should unlock trains...

mogbert said:

I think I figured out how to use the jet pack better. I was just kind of expecting it to let me fly places, instead it gives me a little extra vertical on my jump and can possibly break my fall if used correctly. I just have to feather the controls.

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Yeah, this is it. Get some initial velocity going with a Hypertube cannon, then feather the jetpack to close the distance and land safely.

Different fuels have different properties. Packaged Fuel is "standard", Turbofuel burns fast but climbs super fast, and Packaged Biofuel burns super slowly (2.5x as long as Packaged Fuel, 4x as long as Turbofuel) without giving a ton of vertical climb per second. The details are on the wiki here: https://satisfactory.wiki.gg/wiki/Jetpack#Fuel

My preference for exploring is to fire myself in a cannon at a 30~45° angle, just vertical enough to clear whatever terrain I need, and then use Packaged Biofuel to keep myself in the air almost indefinitely. You can traverse the entire map very quickly this way.

mogbert said:

I should unlock trains

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You absolutely should. They're fantastic at quickly moving large volumes of product, and the only higher-throughput method is Sneakernet via Hypertube. I can't imagine doing Plastic and Rubber any other way, and once those lines are set up it becomes very easy to just tack on extra cars and stations for other items.

I've redone my quad assembler with faster belts and a better plan. I'm using a 6m floor to hold my belts, splitters, and i/o containers. And I was able to fit all four assemblers on the second floor. I've also figured out what causes them to get different amounts stuck. It has to do with the fact I'm feeding from a container. As such, all the conveyors get backed up eventually, so the ones with longer belts get more resources.

I'm about to unlock trains, then I'll probably do something that makes sense, like watch a tutorial on how trains work. After that, Going to see about making a quad manufacturer or something. Will have to be on multiple floors...

Gutted. I wonder if I can refund my 400 hour save. /s


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZJ27aFaoJc


The belt-fed biomass burner is interesting. I wonder if other things are coming to automate harvesting and feed it.

The success of the mod community killed mod support. Neat.

Logic systems and roads would be nice to have, but I can see why they had to cut it out. Terrain mapping generated roads doesn’t always work out nice in games and elevated foundations are close enough. I don’t understand how logic systems work in about every other game I’ve played with them in, but I have a buddy who loves them who plays with us. It would be something more for him trying to get, I don’t know, 1 nuclear spaghetti per second or something.

Maybe it's because I'm new, but nothing in there was really bad news to me. Certainly no deal breakers.
I would like some alternatives to screws. I think what I may have to do is to eventually start hunting down more of the wrecks. I've gotten quite a few, and some of the recipes are game changers if you get them before you have your factory already set up.
I've got most of my track placed. It was tough keeping it from swerving back and forth, but I finally figured how to place the track to mostly get it to go where I want. This also changes my plans with how to move things. Previously, with just one inventory, I had to package the fuel, transport it, unpackage it, modify it, then repackage it. But now that I'm moving two inventories back and forth, it makes more sense to just do all the refining at Oil Island. But that is for another day. I'm probably going to have to run a few more loads of modular frames, then change them into heavy modular frames. I've used up all the ones I had with research and stuff. I also have to make some computers. I've got most of the parts for that.

But first, I'm going to redo Caterium Island. It's been inefficient for far too long, and I'm starting to need quickwire by the thousands rather than the hundreds...

Edit: 3/5 of the first project item I need for the next milestone is complete. In addition, the daisy-chaining of my quad-assembler worked great. At the end of the run, you still need to go in and move everything left over to one machine. But it whipped out 1000 versatile frameworks in a jiffy (four machines at 250% = 10x speed).

Now, I've been using a stand alone manufacturer in my main base for some of the things, but the next step is going to be setting up a quad-manufacturer. Also, my good puppies have been bringing me a lot of yellow slugs, and I found a place that had like 5 or 6 blue slugs in one small area. I screenshotted it, but after I had already picked up one or two. It was kind of crazy.

Also, I don't think I've even uncovered half the map yet.

Quick question: do the stinky rocks respawn or something? There are a couple of places I could have SWORN I had cleared out, but the stinky rocks are back.

Edit2: From the wiki: "Once destroyed, Gas Pillars do not respawn." Maybe I'm just wrong about which ones I've destroyed. Shrug.
I'm watching a youtube video of a guy who set up much further east than me. I like his way of putting down pipes better than what I had been doing.I'm going to have to redo part of my refinery soon anyway. I'm wondering if I might bother making the oil pipes leading from the well to the refinery look better. I've made them mostly straight, but I might want them to look more... industrial than haphazard.

mogbert said:

Quick question: do the stinky rocks respawn or something? There are a couple of places I could have SWORN I had cleared out, but the stinky rocks are back.

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Nothing on the map respawns, with the exception of some buggy behavior during game updates. The green gas sometimes stays, but doesn't actually hurt you anymore.

Thanks...

I have to say, some of these builds I'm seeing on YouTube are scaring me. And they all say "I'm building big so I don't have to redo it at endgame... which I can respect, but does the endgame really need you to be making 1.2 billion copper ingots a minute?

I've also noticed that I've still got a LOT of land to explore. I've been holding off in order to get a better weapon, but I'm not sure that homing bullets were the right call. They are DANG expensive, and I've still had them veer off and hit an obstruction (great, I made my bullets smarter, and now they are suicidal). I can handle alpha hogs, but alpha spitters can take off half me life in a shot (it seems, not sure if I'm just panicking). Also, when hogs, alpha hogs, and spitters are all in there together, I get torn up. There was a hatcher nearby up on a cliff that made things even worse. What I've been TRYING to do, and I haven't checked if it works, but where ever I'm seeing tough enemies that either kill me or nearly kill me, I pave over that area. I think it might prevent them from respawning.

Finally, I redid my copper and caterium plants, and they look nice now and are working fine. They are NOT scaled for endgame. I've got containers and containers of concrete, and even encased beams are starting to overflow. And I'm doing all that with one impure node (I think, it's possible it's normal... it's the first one I found). Same with copper.

Also, watching these engame guys, I've found a new wide open place to build... SPACE! No, wait, I just meant up in the sky. I've been building on the ground like some sort of caveman. I've been using foundations to patch over holes and gullies, ramps to make different levels of terrain fit together. What I should have been doing is go up about 20 or 30 meters, and just start making a floor. 20 would be five of the 4m foundations stacked up, so it would probably be the easiest to start with at the beginning of the game. At this point, I'm just hoping to get to end game before 1.0 comes out, so I'll have a good idea on how to layout things better. One thing I'm still workshopping, because I haven't figured out a good way of doing it yet, is having one giant belt, or loop or something for a factory that feeds ALL the over flow from each line into a sink. I'm thinking maybe just making the belt be really high maybe.

Okay, if any of you have any suggestions for me, I have two troubles that are constant issues:
1) storage.
2) moving materials around.

I'm wondering if I'm doing things too small scale. Line my train line. I'm just trying to get a push-pull train running between Oil Island and Power Base Alpha. I'm trying to learn to crawl before I can run. But crawling in inefficient and time consuming. Perhaps I should just create and entire paved area leading from one base to the other. Perhaps I should sky-connect all my bases together with foundations, then setting up a train line would be easy. but I haven't even unlocked all the materials yet. So maybe I should push forward at my current speed until I learn more. Like, once I have the knowledge I need, NEXT time I play I'll know the right place to set up my main base. For right now, my main base was just at the largest group of impure iron nodes at the beginning. And I'm not even using half of them.

Scaling up seems like a bad idea when I can't even use all the stuff I'm making from a single node (which is why I need to sinks). I had a PART of one of my lines making iron sheets. All my other iron sheets are already being made into reinforced iron plates, They had backed up... and then suddenly I needed a few thousand of them. I mean, I COULD have made a few thousand this whole time, but I couldn't really store that many. If I scale production up, I mess up with storage.

My storage solutions have been pretty much loading a foundation with a bunch of personal chests. Then carrying overflow over to that block and filling the chests up manually. That way, when I need something, I can lay my hands on it. The issue is that it isn't automatable. The storage that IS automatable is MUCH, MUCH larger. For things like quickwire and screws, which are made and used in bulk (and plastic/rubber, which are made pretty far away and I need to run back and forth for), I generally build three industrial containers and bridge them together with belts to make one large container. THEN I line up a bunch of persona chests next to them to empty them out into when I get the chance.

Eventually, I need to start making heavy frames automatable.

I think I may need to go on a hard drive expedition to try and find as many as I can get...

One of the fun things to experiment with is spamming down little bunker blueprints in the wild either for your own protection or containing an annoying enemy.

For scale it's less about storage than throughput. Storage is for buffering and collecting time-consuming parts for known fixed goals, but eventually if it's something you need a lot of, then you need a lot of it, and any storage in the way will run mostly empty. There's no "wrong" way to play, but if you feel the impulse to store huge amounts of a basic resource consider sourcing more instead.

mogbert said:

I have to say, some of these builds I'm seeing on YouTube are scaring me. And they all say "I'm building big so I don't have to redo it at endgame... which I can respect, but does the endgame really need you to be making 1.2 billion copper ingots a minute?

Click to expand...

Billion, lol no, but multiple thousands, yes. Below is a sample of my highest throughput items at the end of my last run. This is with Screws completely eliminated, the majority of my wire being made using the Iron Wire alternate recipe, and most of my Ingots being made using the Pure recipes:

Yeah, I'm going to need a lot of alternate recipes...

OK, so I could look up a map where every wreck is, but that would kind of defeat the purpose of an exploration game. Half the fun is finding these little nooks and crannies where stuff is hidden.

So I made a bunch of ammo, and I'm off to search for wrecks. I still had one on my map that I marked in passing so I ran over there and picked it up. Now I'm going to drive around and whip out my scanner every once in a while.

Edit: Found the first drop pod. "I need 56MW to open." Sure dude, I can do that. I build two biofuel burners, start them up and get the hard drive.
Second drop pod. "I'mma need 400WM..." Uh, one sec, I think I left it in my other coat...

mogbert said:

I've also noticed that I've still got a LOT of land to explore. I've been holding off in order to get a better weapon, but I'm not sure that homing bullets were the right call. They are DANG expensive, and I've still had them veer off and hit an obstruction (great, I made my bullets smarter, and now they are suicidal). I can handle alpha hogs, but alpha spitters can take off half me life in a shot (it seems, not sure if I'm just panicking). Also, when hogs, alpha hogs, and spitters are all in there together, I get torn up. There was a hatcher nearby up on a cliff that made things even worse. What I've been TRYING to do, and I haven't checked if it works, but where ever I'm seeing tough enemies that either kill me or nearly kill me, I pave over that area. I think it might prevent them from respawning.

Click to expand...

I've taken out (I think) every critter type in the game with Stun Rebar. Stun them, rush in, get a few hits with the Xeno-Basher, then Stun them again if they're not already dead. If you get mobbed by multiple enemy types, you're usually doing something wrong and should run away and let them reset, but if you have no choice, you can stun them all in sequence, and beat up the last one you stunned before the others recover.

When I say "I've taken out every critter type," I mean even the tier 3 monsters - I ran into an Alpha Hog that also had a ranged weapon*, hit harder, and ran WAY faster, but once he was stunned, he was as easy as the rest.

Note that you have to switch to the Xeno-Basher (or a different ammo type for the Rebar Gun), because the Stun Rebar does pathetically little damage. You CAN kill things just by hitting them with Stun Rebar over and over, but it'll take a lot more shots than even with normal Rebar.

* I came into the area on a parachute, and tried to land far enough away from him to get ready for a melee fight, but he started fireballing me before I even landed.

Things I would like to be added to the game:
I want to be able to feed more berries to the doggo.
I'd like to be able to plant trees, bushes, etc... Just some way to replant some of the stuff I've gotten rid of.

Anyway, I've unlocked a few more alternate recipes. Nothing game changing, but they give me a few more options at least. I'd like to switch to liquid biofiel, but didn't have a way to make it... before. SO I found the pond I build my first coal power plant on had enough room for another water extractor. So I'm going to build it there. I'm also using that as a place to try out my Twenty Meter Initiative: the Sky is the Limit! I'm going to move my biofuel setup up there, and split it so that half of it is used for biofuel.

Okay, WTF! Bad doggo! No giving me radioactive waste! I'm not even IN that technology yet!

mogbert said:

Okay, WTF! Bad doggo! No giving me radioactive waste! I'm not even IN that technology yet!

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I've always assumed that that (along with some of the planetary "features") like the hexagon metal structures you sometimes see inside rocks are meant to show that there was an advanced alien species around before you.

AlStar said:

I've always assumed that that (along with some of the planetary "features") like the hexagon metal structures you sometimes see inside rocks are meant to show that there was an advanced alien species around before you.

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What else would be demanding that you comply near alien artifacts?

Yeah, I kind of figured that, but we'll have to wait for 1.0 to find out. I figured it was something they put in there to keep people from "farming" the doggos... like I've been doing.

OK, so I got a handful of hard drives and unlocked a few recipes. Nothing noteworthy (I think) except pure iron ingots. I'm not sure what is so good about the pure recipes, but people seem to say they are important. I figure it is probably for people who are doing more than I am in the game.

I redid my solid biofuel plant right where I said I was going to. And it seems to work fine. I added a number of useful user-friendly features. All the inputs and output containers have labels. I have a crafting bench nearby if you want to put in biomass directly (like from monsters, or when doggo gives you biomass). Currently, it splits the fuel into solid and liquid biomass fuel, but there is a bypass where you can drop stacks of solid biofuel into a container going to the refiner. I'm playing around with using a raised refiner so that the output ALL goes into the other side. I started with 2m, then I raised i to 4m, and it works, but it doesn't look that good. I had an idea that could make 2m work, I think. The main trouble being that the conveyor belt is on the wrong side, and while it WORKS, I didn't want the belt and pipe to clip into each other. Also, I've been playing with the pipes a lot lately, and I think I can 'mostly' get them to go how and where I want. One issue is that sometimes the intersection piece I'm using to line up segments decides to go vertical, but I think I figured out what is causing that and can probably get it to stop. Basically, I can make my pipes look real nice now. Similar with conveyors, just needed a LOT of practice. But some layouts are always going to be tricky.

I'm thinking of some other "quality of life" changes I can make, like having converor belts that move up and down the ramp as a moving sidewalk.

In other news, I've been putting off the train, as I was never one to play with model train sets. When I see some of the rail setups other people have, I'm am just confused. I have no idea how or why they work. I can just BARELY get the tracks to go where I want afterplayingwith them for an hour. Having to build the stations fills me with dread. I've been procrastinating by producing heavy modular frames and other things I'm going to need.

But I dont' think I can put it off any longer. I'm going to have to just in and get my feet wet. As far as I know, there aren't any better means of moving things around... right?

mogbert said:

As far as I know, there aren't any better means of moving things around... right?

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They simplify transport tremendously. You'll unlock Drones eventually as well, but the general rules of thumb are as follows:

• Fluids - consume on site wherever possible. Pipes suck, fluid train cars have low enough volume that they limit throughout, and both belts and drones require a packager loop which can make things complicated.
• Short distances - Belts. "Short" here is flexible based on whatever you feel is reasonable, but belts are always best simply because you need them at either end of any transport solution anyway.
• High throughput - Trains. Freight platforms have two input belts, so the theoretical max throughput per car is around 1500/min once you take into account pauses for loading and unloading. Need more throughput, add another car. Their other primary benefit is you can ship multiple items on the same railroad, so if you ever run into a situation where you need to run more than one belt, consider whether trains make sense instead.
• Low throughput - Drones. They're limited by inventory size so max throughput is relatively low, and they take like 2 minutes to load and unload so they're slower than belts within 2km or so, but they're extremely fast and require no infrastructure to run. Put down a drone platform at either end, make sure one end has a constant supply of Batteries (usually also supplied via drone), and forget about it.

I'll add that trucks can be useful for short to medium distances before you've got trains, or for one-offs that you don't think you'll need to expand. I have a truck doing a 1km loop from coal miners to coal generators, where the generators are directly adjacent to the water extractors. There's zero need for me to expand this - around the time I'm ready to actually roll out a train, I won't need the coal generators any more, and I can convert the coal miners to producing steel instead.

Drones are also good for places where you're working with crazy terrain on the Z axis. All my aluminum production was taking place in the Red Jungle, which was way up a giant cliff from all the rest of my operations. Getting those products to the rest of my factory was much easier just using drones.

AlStar said:

Drones are also good for places where you're working with crazy terrain on the Z axis. All my aluminum production was taking place in the Red Jungle, which was way up a giant cliff from all the rest of my operations. Getting those products to the rest of my factory was much easier just using drones.

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I had my Aluminum production there for my first playthrough, with my main base in the Grassy Plains. You can build a 2m train ramp all the way there.

I'm not saying you should, but you can.

I'm torn right now between setting it up, and waiting until the next tier of technology. I think a small push/pull set-up is jsut too much trouble for the work. I'm not really making anything very needed (turbo fuel and smokeless powder). Those two items I'm fine with running as sneaker.net every once in a while but I don't really have much of a use for them after making a few thousand ammo.

I figure once I need to start dealing with aluminum, uranium, nitrogen and the like, then a train might be more important.

The other option is setting up a circular route that includes taking the plastic and rubber back home. Plastic is being used a TON in making some things, and I'm just running back and forth with an empty inventory to grab everything I can. I'm not making plastic that fast, but I'm saving it up in storage the whole time. I can expand later to making more when I need to, but that will be after I need a train station.

So here is another idea... what about building my train stations far enough up in the sky that I don't need to worry about terrain? How do you handle conveyor belts going real high up and down? I was thinking some sort of blueprint of a tower with two conveyors going up and two going down (or possibly three sets, between upx4, downx4, and upx2/downx2) and I'd just stack them up to the train station. I'm just having too much trouble trying to run tracks on the ground, and I think I'm not doing it very well anyway.

Once I have more places, it might be useful. I kind of need a way of marking out locations and routes...

Edit: I think I ran into a bug, Doggo One is holdign radioactive waste, but for some reason, Doggo Two isn't picking up anything anymore. Now when I go to pet him, I get radioactivity damage, even though he has nothing in his inventory. This doggo hasn't ever had any radioactive waste, but now he is glowing! And his inventory is empty. I think the game has glitched and linked the two doggos together or something. Maybe all doggos.

mogbert said:

The other option is setting up a circular route that includes taking the plastic and rubber back home. Plastic is being used a TON in making some things, and I'm just running back and forth with an empty inventory to grab everything I can. I'm not making plastic that fast, but I'm saving it up in storage the whole time. I can expand later to making more when I need to, but that will be after I need a train station.

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Plastic and Rubber are prime candidates for trains. There is no location for Oil refineries that is convenient to the starting locations, and you will need a ton of both as you get deeper into electronics.

How do you handle conveyor belts going real high up and down

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There's currently a glitch(?) with Conveyor Floor Holes where as long as they're lined up correctly in the first place, there's no distance limit for lifts connecting the two.

I think I have unlocked every item I can unlock in the MAM until the next tier. I should probably explore more. I'd like to get more hard drives, and maybe find another place for a base. I think having several pure iron nodes and water and copper... well, I'll look around.

Meanwhile... my Truck has disappeared. It has a marker, but it either fell through the floor or respawned up above. But it isn't where I parked it. I'm standing on the marker in my Quartz base, and there is a distinct lack of truck. Not sure if there is a command to bring it back or maybe saving and quitting. Or if it is gone for good...

Well, saving and reloading didn't help. It looks like it probably fell through the floor. It was parked next to my mini base in the middle of the floor, so it isn't like I have 'misplaced' it. I know where it was, and it isn't there anymore, and the marker is pointing to exactly where it isn't anymore, so it is either higher, or more likely lower.

In other news, I built a container out in the middle of nowhere, then built a conveyor belt to it, then the other end I made a container near my doggo pen. Then pulled out the nuclear waste and threw it in the container. Only lost one par of life. Now I just wait for it to make it out there, and I'll delete the conveyor belt. Now the problem is solved once and for all.
"But-"
ONCE AND FOR ALL!

Don't know if you consider this "cheating" or not, but if you upload your save to https://satisfactory-calculator.com/ you can manually edit the x/y/z coordinates of anything. I was going to double-check that, but apparently the last time I played was almost exactly two years ago, and my save file is old enough that the site won't deal with it.

I refuse to believe that it was that long ago that I last played, so I defy both the website and the "date modified" tag in Windows. I'm young, dammit! 2000 was just a couple years ago!

AlStar said:

Don't know if you consider this "cheating" or not, but if you upload your save to https://satisfactory-calculator.com/ you can manually edit the x/y/z coordinates of anything. I was going to double-check that, but apparently the last time I played was almost exactly two years ago, and my save file is old enough that the site won't deal with it.

I refuse to believe that it was that long ago that I last played, so I defy both the website and the "date modified" tag in Windows. I'm young, dammit! 2000 was just a couple years ago!

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THANKS! I was able to copy the Z coordinate from a nearby building and paste it to the truck. First time didn't work, because by the time I ran back over there, it had fallen through the floor again. So I did the whole thing again with a save file from right next to the truck and I was able to jump in and drive onto a foundation before it fell through again. The internet says that vehicles won't fall through the ground if parked on a foundation.

I'm just pushing to the next milestone. I've got almost everything unlocked in MAM. And the only thing I haven't unlocked in mk2 pipes, which I'm not very excited about right now as I don't really need it yet. The assembler is taking forever, so I might see about making a duplex one in a blueprint. A quad would just be too much trouble, It would be easier making two duplex ones and hooking them together with a double storage container.

The issue is belt lengths. For it to evenly split the items in two paths, the belt lengths have to be the same, or when the machines get saturated, the one with the longer belt length will hold more items on it. This is why after a run of items, you have to go in and move the left overs to the same machine to finish the run.It might be possible for me to artificially lengthen the short belts or something for the assemblers, but for manufacturers it would be too annoying. A manifold would defeat the purpose of using all four at the same time.

Edit:
Duplex assembler is about as much as I can fit in a blueprint, but I can make them modular. The problem I run into is they are so far apart that I'd have a heck of a time getting to them to reprogram them after a run. I'm also attempting to do some sort of balancing so that the belts for the second floor and the third floor are the same length. You know, I've found those half foundation have REALLY come in handy a lot more than I would have thought. Hopefully I'll have it ready by the time I finish assembling this tier. I've done ALL the subcombines and I have the parts set out, I just need to place down an assembler and get it over with. My hope is that if I can get the duplex done in time, it will make up for the lost time by assembling things much faster than the single assembler I have in my main base.

Either way, I'm almost to the next tier. Aluminiminiminiminimium here I come!

AlStar said:

I refuse to believe that it was that long ago that I last played, so I defy both the website and the "date modified" tag in Windows. I'm young, dammit! 2000 was just a couple years ago!

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You forgot the Covid Black Hole, where we all lost 18 months, kind of like being snapped.