Satisfactory (Early Access)

[Dweller_Benthos]

Dang pretty nice setup. I like that last shot in the moonlight, very cool.

[Art Blade]

cheers And the last shot, it was more or less only because it looked cool, it doesn't really show the setup at all

[fragger]

The new factory setup looks like a model of efficiency, Art I don't know much about the game, but I can tell that you've put quite a bit of thought and w0#k into the new setup. You're becoming quite the industrialist

The game is still early access, yes? I'm still heavily locked into FO4 at present, but this game looks like it will be a prime contender for my next title. I at least want to see out my current FO4 playthrough as it's the most enjoyable one I've done yet, but I will definitely be keeping my eye on this. I know I haven't commented much here, but I have been following the topic. By the time I get around to it, this topic will be a valuable reference source - provided not too much changes in the meantime.

[Art Blade]

thanks, mate You know, starting out as a complete newbie is almost unavoidably going to end in dismantling and restructuring a lot. So that one time is normal. My second time I got a lot better but ended up focussing on one (high tech) product which in the end consumed all the factory's potential and I really didn't know how to continue from there. That's why I thought that I wouldn't make the same mistake again and started a new third rebuild which is still ongoing, part of what you saw above.

It's still early access, yes, but 219 hours in, and only one crash that I actually caused. So it's stable but yes, there may be changes and rebalancing stuff can be an issue.. I think it's worth it and it's been in development for over a year with a ton of happy players (over a million as far as I know)

You can build the living daylight out of this game, it allows for quite a lot of creativity. Also logic, solving problems on various levels simultaneously and a big portion of that being logistics, it's a fun challenge. I imagine you'd like this

modular setup 1b
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view from 6th floor
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[fragger]

I probably would like it. I've always enjoyed games where you can plan and build things. In fact it's the settlement planning/building/managing that has kept me hooked on FO4 for so long - that and the fact that the game is a fun shooter.

Nice view from the sixth floor there

[Art Blade]

yeah, I really like this mix: alien planet with all kinds of landscape (plus a really far view) that is beautiful until you run into and kill alien monsters guarding stuff you might need (and then they stay dead, no stupid respawn, nice) combined with a tech game that looks beautiful, is fun, and gets more and more complicated. A really good thing because you can take a break from building your factory and go explore and once you've got enough of exploring you can return to your factory and continue building stuff.

I caused my first blown fuse with the new setup because I consumed more energy than I was producing.

Thing is, producing some stuff like in this case reinforced metal plates uses up so many basic components but the output is slow and you get only quite few of those reinforced metal plates. In order to speed up the production a bit, the whole stock of metal plates got consumed. The metal plates are made of iron ingots and screws are made of iron rods, which are made of iron ingots. You see, you need tons of iron ore to produce tons of iron ingots which you need to produce steel plates, iron rods and screws. All of that is a ton of machines for each part. And a ton of machines to produce the reinforced plates. Of course I got other stuff going as well, like copper ore for copper ingots, needed for copper sheets and wire. Then more iron ore and coal to produce steel ingots, of which you make steel beams and steel pipes. The latter I haven't started to produce because I still got industrial containers full of those from my old factory setup. Oh, to get sufficient ore and coal, you need "nodes" (a place with that type of resource) and there you set up massive drills and conveyor belts to the factory. I think you get the idea

Now, I decided to get more coal power. This time I did that differently, too.. faster, more efficient and a neat setup. I didn't even need pipe pumps because there's no inclination (you only need pumps for uphill) and this time I did the maths, too:

12 coal generators, each needs 50m³ water. Water extractors produce 120m³ each. OK, so 5 extractors for those 600m³ but.. pipes have a limit (currently, early access..) of 300m³ so that doesn't add up. And if you split anything like conveyors or pipes, you get half or a third of the amount per split, depending on your choice how to split. Solution: one extractor for two coal generators, pipe split, 120/2=60, more than enough. So I ended up with 6 extractors and 12 generators. Now the coal.. my old generators were fed with conveyors Mk3 which can transport up to 270 units per minute. One miner (drill) on a normal coal node but with two booster shards produces 240 coal per minute, here I'm wasting a bit of capacity but that's the way it is. Turns out that my old 12 generators were full to the max with coal, so obviously they didn't need that many coals. So I split that coal conveyor and each split feeds 12 generators now, still not running low on coal. But at least I didn't take any coal away from production (for steel and gun powder and whatnot) so now I've got indeed twice the amount of power without having to worry about "losing" coal.

Here's some pics for you to examine..

those reinforced plates..
six machines with two intakes each
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added new coal generator setup #3
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[LowPolyOWG]

 

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yeah nice, then there's the question with your ores, do you set up a small factory at the ore site, dig it up and refine it to ingots then send that to the main factory, or do you just send the raw ore of each type to the factory and set up a separate refining process for each type all in one spot?

[Art Blade]

that's up to you, really I prefer sending everything I come across back to base and to w0#k with it there. Saves me a lot of time and running around the map. You keep finding new stuff at who knows how many sites, some of them pretty far from base. So if you set up everything locally, you'll have to be there if something needs changing. I rather have everything under control at my base. The exception is my coal generator setup because those need water and the coal nodes happen to be next to a body of water. I wouldn't want to pump that all the way back (it's about a mile from base) just to fin out a pipe stopped working somewhere or whatever it might be. I may change my oil production because some of that needs water, too, and I've only got a puddle next to my base.

[fragger]

That's what I like, a game which requires you to think and plan instead of just running around shooting stuff. Not that there's anything wrong with that But I like games that make me use my head.

Your factory setup looks great, Art There's a wealth of detail there to look at, especially for someone like me who doesn't know what most of the pieces of machinery are actually doing. I may not know exactly what I'm looking at, but it looks impressive and is pleasing to the eye.

[Art Blade]

hehe, I like that you like all that I've got a feeling that this may be your next game to sink in all your gaming time. It is so much better than I thought when watching those "fun videos" which made me get it, this game gives you an incredible amount of freedom and that is awesome. Just imagine FO4 without settlement building limitations.. here are none. And the world is big.

The details in the pics, I'll leave the coal generators but will tell you a few things about the other one:

- There are 6 machines, 3 on the ground you're looking at and 3 above (you can see the little 7th floor)
- Each machine has two intakes (all of those "intake sides" are facing in your direction) and one output (that you can't see, it's "behind" the machines on the opposite side)
- The intakes require (in this case, producing reinforced pates) iron rods and metal plates but it doesn't matter which intake you use for what, you can choose that for every machine individually

Most of what you see are conveyor lifts, conveyor belts and those cubes are "splitters" to divide streams of materials. These items come from the right and outside the pic, you see a little of that, I use industrial storage containers for it. They get filled downstairs by machines producing rods and plates.

[Art Blade]

I could have set up only one machine or any number but went for 6 because of the splitters. Spitters (those cubes) have one input and three output slots. So I can feed three machines by dividing the stream of materials. In my general setup I took care of "enough" material being available which means that one stream is so abundant that it exceeds a single machine's input capacity. It makes sense to reduce the input as close to the max input capacity as possible. The excess materials should go to other machines following the same principle. Here the feed is sufficient to split and supply six machines.

It looks so spectacular because I challenged myself by building 3+3 on top of one another, it is actually a tad easier to have 6 next to one other just like the coal generators that also have two inputs (water and coal). And it looks so spectacular because I have to respect the individual space of each "food chain" so it now looks like a crazy interwoven web but it does w0#k perfectly well

By the way, I love the fact that there is no time limit and that you can restructure anything at any time any way you want. Just great

[Art Blade]

update on my modular setup

It worked quite nicely, that much I can already say. However, the more I went on, the more I learned about "tighter" and more streamlined segment setups. And that is when I realised I had been wasting space. That missing space led to "use what space is left" and that subsequently to a new mess. By far not as bad as my first steps but still, a mess.

What I mean by that is, I started to lose track of where which machines were and how to feed them with components around other machines which had turned into obstacles. And feeding leads to output, I didn't quite know where to store all the stuff and then how to use that stuff elsewhere. I started to optimise one floor and realised that it wouldn't be enough.. I'd have to optimise the other floors, too. And while I was at it, I realised that I couldn't quite achieve what I had in mind because of the storage towers and holes in the floor that I needed for material flows and storage containers.. I realised that some holes were huge because the conveyor lifts going through them were placed just so that I couldn't close the gap, literally, and to get only one open floor tile rather than two or more, I'd have to move the lifts. That would require to rebuild the in- and/or outputs. And then.. I gave up on fixing that thing while the factory was still running. So I shut it down. Only the coal and oil locations continue to run, there will be power at any time. I learned that before: keep the power circuits modular, too. I can simply disconnect the whole factory while coal and oil keep running

Analysing the situation led to four consequences.

1) Incoming raw materials need to come in from one direction only.

2) Tighter and cleaner segments in order to make better use of space (segment I call production units that comprise multiple machines that produce the same item)

3) Products need to go in one direction only, like opposite of the incoming raw materials

4) Those products need to be in one location and not scattered across every floor in various places and from there through the floors above. Better alongside and outside the building.

In other words, I'll stick with the idea of a modular setup but I'll make it better by reorganising the layout. The first thing I did was getting rid of those storage towers scattered across the building and park all that *bleep* outside. The same towers are now lined up outside (see pic below) to be out of my way when I'll rearrange the production units.

The next step is dismantling and rebuilding the production as described above. That will include the crazy 3+3 unit on the 6th and 7th floor (the pic a few posts ago) so I'll line them up, six side by side. Should look better, a bit like my new coal generator setup.

Here's the "tower pic" I mentioned before: look at all those industrial storage containers, up to seven stories tall. They're all filled with stuff I had produced with the modular setup 1. With those towers gone from the building, you can already see how much more space there is which will be used even more efficiently. The pic below the towers: you can probably tell that I had tried to optimise some production units on the middle floors.

temp storage towers
(with hyper tube, like an express lift so I could move faster)
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optimisation in progress
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[Dweller_Benthos]

Dang that is a lot of storage space. I keep watching Zisteau's videos on the game and it just gets more and more complex the higher up the tech tree you go. The stuff you have to build to make the stuff to build the things you need to build that high level tech is just insane. Covering the whole map with factories seems like the way to go lol.

[Art Blade]

With this modular setup I hope to trick my way out of covering the whole map with factories but we'll have to wait and see. All I know is that some setups are indeed insane to produce some of the high tech stuff. I produced one type before "going modular" and my whole factory was busy with it. Which is why I changed to modular. I hope that it will w0#k out the way I intend it to