Satisfactory is a factory building game that has been in early access for a few years. The game finally launched into it's finished state a few weeks ago and it's been a huge hit. I played this roughly 18 months ago on my stream and I was completely consumed by the ingenuity and creativity of this game. I decided to drop it and wait for the game to fully release. It happened. It's time.
Automation heaven
For those who don't know, Satisfactory is a game where you build factories to automate the production of different materials. You mine the ore, you smelt the ore, you turn the smelted ore into products who are then used to create other products. This requires the materials to go through a series of machines all connected by conveyor belts, transporting the materials here and there.
It's a full on sandbox so you have full freedom as to how you want to build your factory. You can have a spaghetti heaven factory with conveyor belts going all over the place or you can choose to build more neatly with carefully planned conveyor belts and machine placements. I fit into this last category. It takes more time but the end result is so pleasing when you have a clean and tidy factory.
Exactly what is new in the game since last I played I have no idea. I didn't get very far last time and basically only made it past phase 1 and then some. I decided to start a new game so that I got to experience all of it from the beginning and I've just completed phase 1 again.
Completing phases is how you progress through the game. There's a total of 5 phases that take longer and longer to complete. To complete a phase you need to produce a certain number of specific objects and feed them into the so called space elevator that sends them into space. For phase 1 these objects are smart platings which are assembled using all the materials that come before them.
Iron ore needs to be mined and smelted into iron ingots. Iron ingots then need to be made into metal plates and metal rods. The metal rods then need to be made into screws. The screws are then used together with the metal plates to create reinforced metal plates. You also need to assemble rotors using the screws and metal rods. You then put the reinforced metal plates together with the rotors to create smart platings. All this is automated using machines and conveyor belts. It's beautiful.
My favorite thing about the game is taking the time to make efficient factories. You can choose to just mine up some ore and feed it into a smelter and take it from there, or you can do the math. One ore extractor produces 60 ore a minute. One smelter can smelt 30 ore every minute. That's 50% of the ore wasted every minute! Better use a splitter to feed that ore into two smelters instead making sure I can 100% efficient use of all the ore.
This process repeats with every layer as a constructor need 15 iron ingots a minute to produce 15 iron rods per minute. Time to use a splitter again to ensure I'm not wasting iron rods and time. You get the point...
I'm just about to unlock coal power which means I'll have more power and electricity to fuel even more factories. Time to get back into it. Production must not stop.
All images in this post are screenshots taken by me.