Satisfactory - you may not like this lucious alien planet getting destroyed but this is what maximum efficiency looks like

[Infinity Times Two]

Hi.

This game Satisfactory, a factory-building game (like Factorio) has been in Early Access on steam for awhile now. I couldn't find any OT for it, but wanted to talk about it.



I haven't played Factorio yet, and supposedly that's more hardcore, but anyway, this game is like crack. It's so beautiful, fun, and addicting.

When I started out, I built factories around the different mining spots in the world, but I recently started routing them all into this one megafactory. I still have to run around and fill up with biomass to generate electricity, but I just now unlocked coal power. That might automate that process, not sure how it works yet.

Anyone else playing?

 

[Crazymoogle]

Already spent a hundred hours playing on the Epic Store, smashing into the later progression gaps with radioactive materials. Plan on waiting for another patch before starting over, but they've added a lot of interesting tech since then (trains, material elevators, etc)

 

[Deleted member 8166]

that looks super weird and awesome. I've to look into it after I am done working today

Edit: well, I looked into it now. I need it. As soon as my next pay-check hits.

 

[filkry]

I adore this game. My wife and I have been playing co-op for dozens if not a hundred hours. We are just wrapping up tier 6, really running into the limits of our power sources.

 

[Infinity Times Two]

I adore this game. My wife and I have been playing co-op for dozens if not a hundred hours. We are just wrapping up tier 6, really running into the limits of our power sources.

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Nice, will have to try co-op eventually. Been pestering friends to get the game.

Also, sidenote, the space elevator might be one of the coolest buildings in a videogame.

 

[KDR_11k]

I like Factorio's grabber arm machines, they feel a whole lot easier to use than having to split and join the conveyors to feed them directly into the machines at the correct ratios. Though I guess the recipes in Satisfactory are somewhat simpler so you can still handle them with the direct feed approach.

 

[Ultron]

I got a good 100+ hours out of it! It's very fun. There is an unmatched satisfaction of building a large set of smelters/assemblers/manufacturers, belting them all together, and then finally connecting up your resources and watching it all flow through. It's fantastic. Then when you get trains and stuff pulling around your factory automatically to drop off far flung resources from across the map, it feels even better.

I did kind of stall out on my second big game after update 3 which added pipes. There are some annoyances with how that system works that I'm not the biggest fan of. It seems like the game requires too many refineries now to really get going, and having to have water into all your coal plants makes running out of power into a huuuuuuge annoyance, because now the system requires power to get started, so you need like a secondary generating system. There's stuff you can do to prevent this from happening, but it feels like an unneeded change.

The other big thing that stalled me out was the lack of any copy/paste functionality, which playing Factorio certainly spoiled me on. It's obviously a much harder thing in a 3d game, but doing the math on a say, a pure iron node, and knowing how many machines I gotta make to fully utilize it is now just a demoralizing prospect, instead of a fun challenge. I know what to do, and what it should look like, just give me some way to quick set up 16 smelters and some belts. Or introduce better smelters that can handle larger numbers of resources without having to do the mass construction that the game isn't really set up for.

 

[Ferrio]

Picked this up when it finally hit steam. Delved into a bit, but trying to wait to get my friends organized so we can start a community factory. A pity there's no dedicated server option yet, always a pain with these types of games (looks at astroneer etc). What little I have played it's been fun, and it's pretty much exactly what I expected, Factorio in 3d.

 

[FusedAtoms]

God I've dumped sooooo many hours into this game , its really addicting

 

[Rats]

This looks very cool, way more interesting to me than Factorio. Sharing actual 3D space with the machinery adds so much to the appeal.

Definitely gonna check this out tonight. Thanks for the heads up!

 

[Greywaren]

I'm very curious about it but I'm not sure if it'll be my cup of tea. Does it have any sort of goal or is it a "creative" kind of game?

 

[Memento Mori]

I've spent whole weekends building massive sky bridges across the map to centralise my resources.

 

[Ultron]

I'm very curious about it but I'm not sure if it'll be my cup of tea. Does it have any sort of goal or is it a "creative" kind of game?

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There's a progression based around the Space Elevator. Basically it gives you an objective of "Produce X number of these parts" that you'll need to make to unlock the next level of technology. And producing them requires having various resources mined, various production lines set up with enough throughput to get stuff done in a reasonable amount of time. And those things you have to produce increase in complexity, so at the start you're just mining iron and copper, smelting it, and turning it into some parts, but later on you're mining and processing a bunch of different resources, including oil (which has to be piped instead of moved via conveyor belt), and combining them together through some fairly complex production chains.

So, until you get to the end of the currently implemented tech tree, which takes quite awhile, you'll always have an objective.

But it is purely about production and setting up factories. There isn't any sort of story or objective beyond "build specific stuff". And despite kind of starting like a "survival" game, there really isn't much of that, beyond some occasional hostile creatures. You aren't setting up defenses or worrying about food or anything like that.

 

[Greywaren]

There's a progression based around the Space Elevator. Basically it gives you an objective of "Produce X number of these parts" that you'll need to make to unlock the next level of technology. And producing them requires having various resources mined, various production lines set up with enough throughput to get stuff done in a reasonable amount of time. And those things you have to produce increase in complexity, so at the start you're just mining iron and copper, smelting it, and turning it into some parts, but later on you're mining and processing a bunch of different resources, including oil (which has to be piped instead of moved via conveyor belt), and combining them together through some fairly complex production chains.

So, until you get to the end of the currently implemented tech tree, which takes quite awhile, you'll always have an objective.

But it is purely about production and setting up factories. There isn't any sort of story or objective beyond "build specific stuff". And despite kind of starting like a "survival" game, there really isn't much of that, beyond some occasional hostile creatures. You aren't setting up defenses or worrying about food or anything like that.

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Oh that's great. I don't need a story or anything like that, I just want to know what my next goal is. I get overwhelmed when games give me a lot of tools and don't tell me which ones I'm supposed to use. Thanks for the info, I'll definitely check it out!

 

[Launchpad]

I started playing with the Steam release and the game is incredible. I'm absolute trash and making a good looking factory though, I'll get there.

 

[fulltimepanda]

Really enjoying it so far, we've got coal generation going with trucks transporting it automatically between our main base and our deposits.

Constant battle with my mates who just want to progress and me getting things efficient. We're at the point now where things have to be efficient unless we want to invest in trucking stuff from 2-3km away like we are with coal. And they're starting to find it very annoying lol.

Oh that's great. I don't need a story or anything like that, I just want to know what my next goal is. I get overwhelmed when games give me a lot of tools and don't tell me which ones I'm supposed to use. Thanks for the info, I'll definitely check it out!

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The game is prety good in drip feeding the tools and new tech, things only start to get a bit out of hand with the 3rd tier of iron products IMO.

 

[Deleted member 41178]

I'm hundreds of hours into this on EGS but i'm taking a break for now until a big new content update comes out.

It's an absolutely amazing game and I keep fighting the urge to go back and start yet another factory rather than playing something new.

 

[Rats]

Hmm. Looking at the Steam page now, is there no controller support for this game? Real bummer, if so. I'd love to just sit back and zone out on it.

 

[Dr.Phibes]

Yeah, it's a superb game from one of my favourite indie devs. I'll take one beautifully handcrafted world over an infinite amount of random generated worlds any day of the week.

 

[A Grizzly Bear]

Hmm. Looking at the Steam page now, is there no controller support for this game? Real bummer, if so. I'd love to just sit back and zone out on it.

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You could try it using the Steam controller config options and refund if it doesn't work for you.

 

[Rats]

You could try it using the Steam controller config options and refund if it doesn't work for you.

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Yeah I have a Steam controller, I just find it non-ideal for FPS-style games.

It's not a deal breaker, just a mild disappointment.

 

[Kthulhu]

I played a bit of the early access when it came out but I'm just not having as much fun by myself.

 

[Unicorn]

Nice, will have to try co-op eventually. Been pestering friends to get the game.

Also, sidenote, the space elevator might be one of the coolest buildings in a videogame.

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can you use it? this bothered me they didn't immediately use it.

 

[fulltimepanda]

can you use it? this bothered me they didn't immediately use it.

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You don't actually use it to go anywhere, you just use it to send materials up to unlock the next tiers. It does look cool shipping stuff up though.

 

[A Grizzly Bear]

Yeah I have a Steam controller, I just find it non-ideal for FPS-style games.

It's not a deal breaker, just a mild disappointment.

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Sorry, not the Steam Controller. You can actually configure any controller for each game indvidually on Steam. Checked Satisfactory and there's a few config profiles.

 

[Infinity Times Two]

In the process of replacing all the biofuel burners with coal power. I just don't want to run around filling up all the biofuel, it's the least fun thing to do in the game.

 

[Falk]

Really cool game- scratches the jigsaw itch (heheheheheheheh) while also being a whole different set of problems to factorio. Where factorio scales up to insanity and the game is built that way, Satisfactory has a much more absurd optimization metagame since alternate recipes increase the number of possible permutations as to how to end up with the same product to a ludicrous degree.

Some pics from the current run with a goal of ~17 Turbo Motors and 17 Heavy Metal Framework (6 manufacturers each running alt recipes all the way down the line- fits neatly into the main building in the pictures)

Picked this up when it finally hit steam. Delved into a bit, but trying to wait to get my friends organized so we can start a community factory. A pity there's no dedicated server option yet, always a pain with these types of games (looks at astroneer etc). What little I have played it's been fun, and it's pretty much exactly what I expected, Factorio in 3d.

Click to shrink...

What we've done that works is using a discord channel and treating it like dev SVN - only one person ever checks out the save file as host/solo at once, when the session is done upload the save and whoever else can then download it and continue. Discord also helps to pin things like floorplans/layouts, short/long term goals, overall map strategy, essential alt recipes, etc. Multiplayer sessions work with this setup with anyone hosting, albeit anyone but the host isn't going to be as efficient just because of how clunky the netcode is right now. Since the way saves work is that if A hosts and B C D join, A saves and passes the file to e.g. C, then C hosts and B joins, everyone maintains their engineer/inventory correctly since it goes via steam or EOS ID. Ideally whoever has the beefiest computer should be hosting out of everyone playing at any given point.

I'm up for starting another run with the ultimate goal of 60 Turbo Motor and 60 Heavy Metal Framework running without breaks (Theoretical limit for Turbo Motors is currently 155/m limited by aluminum, so this is both a relatively lenient/possible long term goal but also can get rather laggy towards the end especially on multiplayer) is it also starts diving into ways to optimize the actual game data by limiting what's in range/onscreen at any one time (i.e. reduce conveyors as much as possible, use trains to build stuff far away from the main hub, etc)

I've figured out a lot of best practices but still always finding new ways to optimize both production chains and layouts. Hit me up if you're looking to start a run. Can only really start at the end of the month though.

 

[Aureon]

How hard can this be modded?

Does it have blueprints?

i have 2500 hours on Factorio. I want more.

 

[Piston]

My friends were obsessed maybe a month ago but they fell off and moved to Sea of Thieves. I think there was some issue about sharing a game world that they kept running into (something about needing a host and if the host leaves everyone gets kicked).

 

[Launchpad]

My friends were obsessed maybe a month ago but they fell off and moved to Sea of Thieves. I think there was some issue about sharing a game world that they kept running into (something about needing a host and if the host leaves everyone gets kicked).

Click to shrink...

Yeah the host owns the game world so if they're not online you can't play. Sucks but they are adding dedicated servers at some point which should fix that issue.

 

[Piston]

Yeah the host owns the game world so if they're not online you can't play. Sucks but they are adding dedicated servers at some point which should fix that issue.

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That sounds right. They wanted to be able to work on it whenever but had to schedule play sessions ahead of time with the host.

 

[Artadius]

Yeah, would really like to see a dedicated server release. Supposedly they're working on it.

 

[Falk]

I literally just posted how save files can be passed between all players and as long as people are up to date with the latest save as to not lose overall progress anyone can host or solo.

What we've done that works is using a discord channel and treating it like dev SVN - only one person ever checks out the save file as host/solo at once, when the session is done upload the save and whoever else can then download it and continue. Discord also helps to pin things like floorplans/layouts, short/long term goals, overall map strategy, essential alt recipes, etc. Multiplayer sessions work with this setup with anyone hosting, albeit anyone but the host isn't going to be as efficient just because of how clunky the netcode is right now. Since the way saves work is that if A hosts and B C D join, A saves and passes the file to e.g. C, then C hosts and B joins, everyone maintains their engineer/inventory correctly since it goes via steam or EOS ID. Ideally whoever has the beefiest computer should be hosting out of everyone playing at any given point.

Click to shrink...

 

[Woffls]

700 hours so far, apparently... which does sound accurate. I've been going back to it after each major update to cover the new content, and I've just finished redoing my oldest factory with pipes and stuff. Not going to make any of my factories highly optimal or decent looking until the game is out of early access and I've found every possible recipe from hard drives.

Yeah this game is somethin' else. I am by no means a creative person, but I do like having artificial problems to solve and optimise, so I guess I'll play it forever. Tempted to buy a second copy on Steam because I've got so much value from it. Maybe some merch...

 

[Infinity Times Two]

40 hours in, On Tier 5 (?). I got tired of the spaghetti conveyorbelt mess, so built an entirely new base that's a bit more streamlined.

This is for only simple recipies so far. The plan is to create a second floor and dedicate that to the more demanding recipies.

I recently got into oil production, and I get a lot of fuel leftovers. Not sure what to do with that, but I guess future tiers will tell me.

Also, if someone can help: Where do I get "Fabric"?

 

[Deleted member 12317]

Also, if someone can help: Where do I get "Fabric"?

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I think it's in one of the research trees in the MAM, from some vegetation found on the planet.

 

[Lightjolly]

Bought the game on Epic for $7 using the $10 coupon. Only 3 hours in but man this game feels fun and pretty to boot. Shame about the stuttering

 

[Poodlestrike]

Love this game. It's a lot of fun in multiplayer, albeit pretty buggy. At the moment I'm thinking I want to wait for the next update and some more bugfixes before diving back in, because I'd spent so much time and effort putting together overflow buffers for my smart storage and then they just... added overflow settings to the smart splitters, lol. So that burnt me out a lil'. Still, it's good shit.

My go-to process at this point is setting up localized factories and then passing the needed materials around as needed. Got a few prototype truck lines up and running so I can just smelt all my iron on-site and move ingots around. Eventually, I want to make a whole train setup so everything is either in motion, in storage, or sent to the sink, but that's far off.

Also, if someone can help: Where do I get "Fabric"?

Click to shrink...

It's a MAM thing. You can also get a recipe that uses oil if you find the right hard drive.

 

[filkry]

Our factory was pretty elegant until manufacturers became a thing. Now we need to route so many materials hither and yon that there are many arteries of stacked conveyors running through it. Not really a problem, but it does feel like we lost something.

Just got our first aluminum ingots coming off the line. Production for them is certainly a process.

 

[Falk]

Because the game doesn't have blueprints (and probably won't, from the direction CSS is taking)- the meta for the game really is as much designing stuff that's easy to build/compact (to cut down walking time) and then building repeatedly, as it is the maths behind the production lines.

Up until you've cleared the whole tech tree (and optionally/optimally figured out what kind of alternates are worth) factories, discrete or otherwise are probably going to end up spaghetti to some degree just from the amount of retrofitting required. It's much easier to plan stuff once you know what's coming up. I've found that I tend to gravitate towards the same basic building blocks in every runthrough now while refining how fast they are to get up and running.

All taken together the game really boils down to 40% doing the exact same building patterns over and over, 30% building concrete bridges to connect resource hotspots (lol) 20% exploring for HDDs and 10% maths, with no real endgoal right now except whatever you come up with, whether it be clearing the tech tree of a target of X Heavy Modular Frames/min (a moderate undertaking) or X Turbo Motors/min (p much the current 'endgame')

Nuclear is fun to tinker around with except it leads nowhere because there's literally no reason you'd ever need so much power (comparing to 600/min sulfur worth of turbofuel yielding 25kGW which is a good fraction of what you'll ever need) and the fact that you can't do anything nor get rid of waste.

There's also an art to working with the grid and conveyors/etc. that helps make things incredibly compact, which then again feeds into building things faster/smaller. Maybe I'll post some diagrams soon.

 

[cabelhigh]

Reviving this thread bc there doesnt seem to be an OT, holy SHIT I have been obsessed with this game. I bounced off it hard 3 times, not being able to get past tier 3 thanks to the Biofuel grind, and then suddenly...it clicked. Unlike the other main 'Engine Builder' I've played, Anno 1800, this game is a LOT easier to keep track of what you're doing and which supply lines need to go where. And I love the task of connecting conveyor belts creatively in improvised factories; its like a fun 3d puzzle.

Anyway, just wanted to rave. There hasnt been an update in a while, and there seems to be a long way to go before 1.0, but the early tiers are still hours of fun

 

[GeoGonzo]

Yeah, Update 4 is probably either veeeery late 2020 or early 2021. Which is fine by me! I love how committed they are to avoiding crunch.

 

[Poodlestrike]

I'm glad they're taking their time and avoiding crunch but good lord do I want that update. I HUNGER.