Satisfactory (Early Access)

[PZ]

That's cool 

What you built is a bit reminiscent of elements in SimCity

[Art Blade]

thank you

Now that you mention it, I do see some similarities. The biggest difference is probably the way you see your world. Isometric view in SimCity and first person view in Satisfactory which makes it exciting.

[PZ]

Indeed; I saw some of the first person pics in this topic. Definitely sounds like you can put quite a bit of thought into experimentation within the game. 

[Art Blade]

oh yes Experimenting and finding out stuff is right up my alley.. you certainly remember my FC2 experiments about keeping one's car and finding out why and when it despawns..

[fragger]

As long as you're having fun with it then that's really all that matters at this point, keep it going!

I get the distinct impression that Art likes this game

You're doing some really impressive stuff Art The game indeed appears to be a planner's paradise. Games that require you to use your brain, to think and plan, are not, as some critics of gaming in general believe, a waste of time. Anything that gets the old grey matter operating is good for keeping your mind sharp I believe, whether it be regular reading, doing crossword puzzles or a playing a game like Satisfactory.

Actually, I hesitate to call it a game. I guess technically it is, but it seems more like a logistical exercise to me since you're not really playing to win anything or resolve some sort of story. Things like this make good tools for developing one's lateral thinking skills and planning ability.

Good on you, mate. You're obviously having a ball with this, and giving your mind a good workout at the same time. That can't be a bad thing

[Art Blade]

Thank you

I believe I'm guilty on all accounts

And yes, it's mostly a logistic puzzle and typically involves some simple maths regarding capacities. There's almost always either too few or too many items and the best way is to get as close to the optimum (maximum in-, through- and output) as possible. It is beautiful if you manage to get your production to operate at its maximum.

Some of the problems I have to solve are voluntarily self-inflicted. It is absolutely not necessary to run the whole operation in one building and probably not even meant to be done like that. However, I like that extra challenge and the taller the building grows the more logistical problems result which I enjoy solving. Same goes for keeping to a very small area of the map with just the few nodes available. And to keep within only a maximum power production of 1,800MW. It's one of a few and well-known economic principles: Get the maximum profit out of a given amount of resources. However, I'm not intending to try a different one: to get the maximum out of a minimum but I'm alarmingly close to that one

[Dweller_Benthos]

Very cool, and an elegant solution to the excess materials problem, just dump it in the sink!

But in that screenshot, everything is so orderly, what is that weird double triangle thing looping up above the belts? Seems out of place and a weird thing to have as it would seem if it was a walkway you'd have to walk upside down on part of it?

[Art Blade]

thank you

And agree, that thing looks strange now. It is a hyper tube that used to be on one of the early sky bridges which is long gone. It actually follows the conveyor belts that you can still see but it continues upwards then takes a left turn and then straight to the YellFac (which only appears to be "down") where it used to end up on the roof. I had to make changes to it to lead it up to the roof again. All I know is that it would be quite a pain in the back to rebuild the sky bridge in order to get close enough to delete the hyper tube but I might end up doing that anyway, some time in the future. For now, what I still like about it is the splendid unobstructed view all across the map from up there

[Dweller_Benthos]

ah, now that you explain it, I can see how that is working, but yeah it confused me a bit there, wondering what the heck was going on lol

So, there's no discomfort when riding in those hyper tubes at high speed and you take a 90° turn like that? Seems it would be a bit awkward, heh

[BinnZ]

  indeed a bit awkward, and agree, it looks bad. I didn't notice it before you mentioned it, D_B, since I was focussing in the machines on the water surface. I completely agree that this weird hourglass kind of structure needs to disappear from the horizon

[Art Blade]

lol guys, consider it done. Albeit, not right away but later.

Meanwhile, I've managed to get the next, a bit advanced, stage of aluminium production going, yay. It was quite a bit of a hassle I have to say because that type of production is what I did at the very early stages of the YellFac and then I didn't expect having to add more of that stuff later, like right now. Melting down some metal ore into ingots and then make some basic metal parts of those. I needed to find sufficient room for that..

So once more, I expanded the ground floor in order to cram more smelters in there, this time to the other side where that other hole in the building was with that other column supporting the upper parts. It worked, and I am still within the building's perimeter.

Then I had to lead those aluminium scraps to the smelters. I had a hard time finding the best solution for that whole bit, including where to place those smelters but since they were now part of the ground floor I kind of had to go the same route as before with the other ores. I led the scraps from the coal site down the main stream and then deviated to the right where the fuse box switch board is, followed the conveyors coming from that direction and then led the aluminium scraps into the building's ground floor to the smelters. It's the least obtrusive way I could muster.

It also solved the problem of where to store the aluminium ingots. Right next to the copper ingots, again at ground level. Anything else I had thought about before that would have led upwards, like 2nd or even 3rd level of those industrial containers and causing new and more problems. Now I'm at ground level without problems.

Next was setting up a module to actually produce something made of those aluminium ingots and it just so happened that copper ingots were needed for that as well. And lucky me, there was still some room left on the first floor where all the copper stuff is being produced.. meaning I was able to create yet another tailback for copper ingots and lead them into the aluminium module without hassle. And it was easy to lead the aluminium ingots into the same module because the industrial containers with aluminium ingots were at about the same level, just like the other ingots, and it worked just like the other basic production modules.

Now I'm waiting for the containers to fill up completely with aluminium ingots and then I'll start producing those "Alclad Alumin(i)um Sheets" of which I need 200.

Those 200 will be the last components needed to unlock the next part of tier 7/8

FINALLY.

What you guys may not know or remember: Back in June this year I had already been almost as far as now. All I needed was to get enough components to unlock tier 7/8. Then I realised I'd run into problems that I didn't want which made me rethink the whole concept and create the YellFac. It took months to create all this and it has been well worth it, a great adventure and fun to play. Now, with a solid industrial background (the YellFac) it is much more fun to advance than it would have been without.

my YellFac as of now
Guests are not allowed to view images in posts, please Register or Login

Speaking of fun, I still need to take care of the oil business..

[Art Blade]

Just a quick information about my current game's progress.

I unlocked the whole tier 7/8. I already had all the necessary components ready, just had to send them away.

So now I've got access to drills Mk3, conveyors Mk5, a hazmat suit protecting me against radioactivity and finally Nuclear Power (plants, not rockets)

With all the above said, I'm not finished. There's still the whole oil production and some final stages of a few "side quests" about unlockable stuff like radio towers and who knows what else, can't be much though as I unlocked almost everything by now. And there are still quite a few modules to be built like for producing super computers and stuff like that.

And then there's the whole nuclear power stuff. For (hopefully) obvious reasons, I won't do any of that in the YellFac. I might have to create a NukeFac for that

going nuclear
Guests are not allowed to view images in posts, please Register or Login

When I took the pic in my previous post (I did that stingray flyby again) I noticed that there were a lot of resource nodes near my factory site that I'd never touched. I never needed them. All I did was find the nearest node of stuff I hadn't yet had access to and connected it to the factory. I added a few more of those nodes that were really needed a lot like coal and iron but then I continued with what I had.

Creating tailbacks and by that, kind of reusing sources, creating tons of modules without needing either more power (I am still on max 1,800MW coal power) or more resource nodes, I pulled through and I'm kind of proud of how it has all been working so well.

If I add a nuclear power plant it will give me another 2,500MW. Or I could simply substitute nuclear power for coal power and still get more than before.. Hmmm..

[Art Blade]

I tried out some of the new things like conveyors Mk5 made of aluminium and then I ran around a wrecked pod I had been waiting for ever since I discovered it long, long ago: it was surrounded by uranium chunks and even trying to get close got me killed by the massive radiation. The new hazmat suit uses filters based on the same filters needed for areas polluted with poisonous gas. While those gas filters get used up rather quickly, the radiation filters are much more durable which I am thankful for. It means I can actually run around in a radioactive environment without getting x-rayed to death after a few seconds because of filters running out too quickly.

That pod requires some muscle car parts to unlock well, six turbo motors. And for reasons unknown, those comprise radio units

[LowPolyOWG]

 

[Art Blade]

 

I took a closer look at nuclear power and apart from its lethal toxicity, I think it's not exactly worth all the hassle. You don't just feed uranium into a power plant the way you do with coal generators. Instead you have to create a massive chain of production steps ranging from sulphuric acid (requires water, again) over encased industrial steel beams (coal, iron, concrete) to electromagnetic control rods (stators, A.I. Limiters) to finally create nuclear fuel rods, the stuff a nuclear power generator feeds on. And you need to keep producing that as you're going to keep using up that stuff to produce power.

Essentially it means that you're going to need about as much energy to produce all that stuff as you'll get back out in return. It feels as if you needed more power to produce less power, causing a deficit. I know that can't be the idea so in the end you're likely to get more energy out of nuclear power plants but geez, I'm much more content with coal I'm currently running on. Plus once I'm back in the oil biz, I'll be able to run fuel-based generators and even coal generators (feeding on petroleum coke) to add power to the grid.

Oil production requires initial power but at least I'll get the option to produce power to support itself.

I say: "sod all that nuclear *bleep*." WAY too much hassle and lethal on top. Nope.. not interested