Can I ask from people who have played, does the game make good use of the 3d? Thinking about it generically, the advantage of 2d here is scale, while in 3d you obviously get a Z-axis. Can you build vertical production chains, multiple floors, underground stuff, that kind of thing?
You can build multiple floors. There’s even a helpful winding stairs that you can use to get up and down.
I saw something somewhere… can’t remember where… and they mentioned the beauty of a builder game where the animations were second to none for generalized pieces. Is this that game? Are the animations for certain functions like really detailed and super cool - where you could just kinda stare at one thing for a while and appreciate it?
This article?
I have noticed a little bit of that—just the other day, I stopped building for a minute to watch one of my mining buildings put a new shaft segment into a drill.
I’m more impressed with the design of the world. I’ve come across two or three really striking vistas so far, and haven’t gone all that far from my starting point, either.
Yes that’s it - thank you! So you’re pretty happy with it then at this point?
So far. Given what I know of it now, having only seen the first few tiers of technology, I’m not sure it’ll have the same staying power Factorio does, because the resource requirements seem to ramp up more slowly, and there’s less reason (again, early on) to go all-in on automation.
That could change—for instance, Satisfactory’s steel products seem to be getting to the complexity where I’m going to have to plan out a bunch of sub-factories like the one I did up above, and probably start using trucks more than I have been.
Is that good or bad?
In this context, this is a good thing. Factorio’s success is on the iterative optimization process, so for Satisfactory to have the same staying power it’ll need to have a similar ramp-up of complexity of its systems.
It changes. I haven’t played since mid-January, but there was an inflection point where I realized I had to basically destroy my whole factory setup and start over, laying everything out better and better optimizing power, storage, and throughput. Once you get to the 2nd or 3rd tier of the space elevator, it gets more complicated.
The 3d layering is done pretty well, although there is no “reason” to do it other than for fun, I guess, or organization. The world feels really good. Building is comparable to ark. I’ve gotten passed where I was stuck on the alpha weekend, and its finally starting to get a bit more complicated with steel production. I’m purposefully slowing myself down a bit here, and forcing myself to automate the parts that go into the upper tiers. I feel like the game will not last long enough otherwise.
I also feel like the balance is a bit off. It’s often faster to sit there and craft by hand to unlock tiers. Assemblers are incredibly slow and building a fully automated setup is more like a thing you do for fun rather than to get up the tiers the fastest. Factorio never has this issue. You just cannot make enough science past the first 2 levels to do it by hand. I think it just needs some rebalancing, but the core gameplay is still interesting.
I just found Caterium ore, now there is a whole nother research tree to do. I think the game will be interesting for a good 30 hours or so, if you force yourself to automate things instead of beating the game fast.
I’ve heard the next tiers (which were available in the closed alpha) take quite a huge amount of complex parts like computers. That seems like the point at which it will really be a interesting logistic puzzle game.
But that’s boring!
So, about base design.
How long do you go until you re-design your base? I restarted from the alpha beta (I was not planning on playing this again so soon, but then caved and bought the EA release after having deleted my world) and I am working my way up the tech tree again and have not even completed tier 1 stuff yet.
My base is just things thrown together to get the job done. It is not space efficient and I have to wander around to pick up more iron rods, plates, etc… My plan is that once I get coal power (I haven’t even built the space elevator yet) is to rip everything up, lay foundations everywhere, and try and build a tall structure or at the very least something vastly more space efficient than what I have now.
I am wondering what other people do.
I do think they need to re-order what techs are available. For example you unlock the conveyors and the assembler before you get the tier 1 miner. I have no use for conveyors until I get the miner that can use them. It would make sense to swap the miner and assembler unlocks.
Then after I can get bio fuel, the next order of business is to get the chain saw, ignoring other tier 1 techs so that I can clear the trees and get wood. I wonder if bio fuel is more efficient than other things or if its just more compact.
So far I’ve redesigned twice, and I’m just now to coal so I think there are many more re-designs to come =) Thankfully you get all your resources back when you tear stuff down, so there is no real penalty ala Factorio.
Biofuel is much more efficient. Don’t make the mistake I made and beeline over to the chainsaw until you have biofuel unlocked btw =) one to grow on lol.
I’m guessing it’s to force you into manual crafting, and using portable miners a little longer. It’s just a quick hop into they next tier anyway.
I think I’m with @MrCoffee here. When I played the open beta, I found that I would manually collect the ores from the portable miner, insert that into the smelter and then have a conveyor feed the result into a constructor. Although as @Kyle700 said, I think the overall costs of tiers is so unbalanced as to make the process of just making individual components by hand more effective than automating the solution.
Completing phase 2 of the Space Elevator requires 500 Modular Frames and 150 Motors. Total base materials for that is 24,450 chunks of Iron Ore, 1050 chunks of Copper Ore, and 1350 chunks of Coal. That’s like 260 trips to your portable miners. Doable, I guess, but pretty boring. But that’s only Phase 2 of 4 (though you don’t get anything at present for completing Phase 3 or 4.)
Sure, but we’re not talking about the space elevator. We’re talking about whether the Mk I Miner is correctly placed in the tier 0 sequence relative to the conveyors.
Im guessing the mines never run out of ore? I dont know why i would ever go to a far away iron mine unless i want to ramp up my production like crazy. I think 1 ore mine feeds atleast 3-4 smelters.
I agree!! But in factorio, that is never even a problem since youd never want to do it. if i want to finish a bunch of tiers in this game, its a lot faster to auto craft things especially like reinforced iron plates and above. I’d prefer them make automation more necessary… one idea ive seen is making the space elevator require a certain amount / second to upgrade tiers, which would require a certain level of automation. Now, you automate things just for fun practically… at least for some aspects. Like, making rotors automatically takes a huge factory plan whereas its really really easy to make a bunch by hand.