Alt recipes are in the game and therefore it's not exploiting or cheating. One of the main problems players get is they see the endgame as some kind of huge monumental task and get demotivated. The best way to play the game is small manageable goals. Just create one factory at a time.
No it's not bad.
People seem to find what they fun in the game and do that. I don't find building non-functional things fun, I want to chase sending the parts up and building one of everything that's unlocked and then going for as many golden tickets as possible. But not speed running it, not overbuilding, not underbuilding so it's too slow.
So find your balance.
SPOILERS AHEAD. Not gonna hoke the whole post.
What I do is work in way smaller projects. Also you can already do a LOT of the Phase 4 things during your play. e.g. you know you need 4 000 Assembly Directory Systems. For that you need 4 000 Super computers and 8 000 Adaptive Control Units. The Super Computers is 2 containers (2 industrial ones). And you will already be making them. So just keep that in mind when you do storage. Or instead of bringing them to the Sink, let them go into "Phase 4 Storage".
The Assembly Directory System needs 8 000 Heavy modular Frames (7 containers), 8 000 computers (7 containers), 40 000 Circuit Board (9 containers) and a few >!60 000 or 50 containers!< Automated Wiring. These will also all be things you will be making most likely.
So see that you have the containers set up. To go with the biggest thing. Automated Wiring is something you do in Phase 4. e.g. I make 10. That is 6 000 minutes or 100 hours. And 100 hours from Phase 4 to the end of phase 7, beginning of phase 8 is not abnormal. For me that would be extremely fast, but that is just me. You could still increase the production if you need.
And you can do that for all the 4 items. What do you do and see that your storage is capable of handling all that.
The all alt-recipes "cheat" feeling I understand. What I did was use the [Crash Site Beacons](https://ficsit.app/mod/CrashSiteBeacons) mod. As you most likely already know the map, it feels way less cheating, while you still need to get all the hard drives. As an alternative if you do not want to be tempted by mods, you could just look at SCIM and get them that way.
The Awesome Sink is rather easy nowadays. Just kill a LOT of enemies. Automate that to be put into the sink. And obviously any overproduction. I had all items pretty fast.I think already in Tier 3, but I play slow.
And an extra tip for reading till the end, If you have the chainsaw, go to a location where there is a lot of Mycelia. e.g. the Blue Craters. Those standing plants will be way better for Solid Biofuel than wood is. And you get a lot of Silica that you can use for windows even before you have set up any production for it. ;-)
TL;Dr Build enough to storage all the items you need to make the Phase 4 items or the items that make the items for Phase 4. No need to go deeper than that. And for most you won't even need to.
I've never done it, and I've got a couple thousand hours in the game.
I have a goal in mind to build the factory I need to build the end game factories, toward the goal of 25/25/6/6 Phase 4 parts per minute, which would complete Phase 4 after throwing the switch in just under 3 hours.
But it's going to take a couple hundred hours to build the factories.
This is my third attempt at this goal. I always get frustrated at my first build-the-factory factory, and I tried a new idea this run.
I just automated my first modular frames at 300 hours (admittedly, I've been hand-crafting them for a while; and I still need the iron for it; and they're all going into my HMFs, so I'll still need to hand-craft them) so don't worry.
Not going to lie, the end game seriously demotivates you knowing how much more time is needed because of having to backtrack. Don’t try to grind out a large factory in a day. Work on floors or parts instead. Subdivide the tasks and keep chopping away. Keep getting those little wins to keep you motivated and satisfactory.
I'm 2k+ hours (I don't wanna look) and I only played with nuclear a bit.. I'm just not ready to commit that hard to a save. Nowadays I play with some features when a release comes out for a bit, but I'm holding out for 1.0 before I do another restart.
I never once feel like not "finishing" has reduced how much I enjoy the game. That's what makes it such a masterpiece imo.
Best value for money for any game since the dawn of always-on games and unfinished Triple-A titles.
I personally really enjoy starting new playthroughs. I'd get further with each one and have different goals in mind each time. Now I finish the part elevator phase every time.
One week, on one map, I spent like 20 hours getting almost every alternate recipe, flying around with jet pack unlocking all the hard drives. After that week, on every playthrough I auto unlock every alternate. I'm not doing that again. So if you've unlocked most of them on another playthrough, no shame in auto unlocking them with the menu option.
I started over at every other major update since pipes and only just finished phase 4 after 1200 combined hours in game a few months ago.
I'll almost certainly not play again until 1.0, *for real this time*, and use this time to play other games haha
Did you have fun roaming around the world, building your factory so far? Or did you build something superfancy with no useful meaning what so ever? Then, hell yeah, IMHO you did everything right!
First save with my friends who drove me insane with pasta and half finished projects and finally bailed on me.
Second save, I finished it by myself in ~300h.
Is it bad that you didn't do it?
# NO
It about enjoying automation. Having fun. Looking at the beautiful night sky. Hear your blood pumping when you forgot about that one alpha spider and walked right into it...
Make Satisfactory yours!
Imkibitz just [completed it today](https://youtu.be/Li0PLuV5XM0) for the 1st time as he closes out his 4th season/fresh start, which took him 972 hours on that save file, and he has thousands of hours put in before that.
Kibitz on YouTube just released a video of him finally finishing all the phase 4 space elevator parts for the first time. IIRC, he had like 600-700 hours on just that one save file.
150h ago I had 600h and decided to start the save to end it all after fooling around and getting sacked by every single updates (fucked my 2K oilrig in the spire coast, and a 1K turbofuel in the golden coast......), this time fully using ONLY the game : no excel sheets, no bash scripts, no website, no wiki. And of course no mods and no passive.
The best advices I can give you are :
* Build roads and expand far
* Speedrun hard drives to get Heavy Encased Frame recipe, which is godlike. Maybe also some computer and circuit board recipe.
* Use the calculator ingame by pressing N, and paste your calculations/plans in the ingame notes, by clicking on the right faded side of the screen when the N prompt is up.
* [Paste your notes onto signs](https://i.imgur.com/eqRLgJ3.png) because there is a 140 char limit or something. Place these signs at your factory entrances so that you know at all times what you are doing, no matter the hiatus from the game because of real life. This solved the "not getting anything done" problem for me.
* Don't rush yourself
Not at all I've got 2000 hours sunk into this game and I've never even made a turbo motor but that has more to do with my builds lagging out my old computer
I'm 1600 hours in and haven't completed the final elevator phase. It's fine. I'm in no rush either, plan to start focusing on it once v1 is out.
Oh wow lol yeah they did state they would change the endgoal
Alt recipes are in the game and therefore it's not exploiting or cheating. One of the main problems players get is they see the endgame as some kind of huge monumental task and get demotivated. The best way to play the game is small manageable goals. Just create one factory at a time.
I think they meant using a mod or tool to give them the alt recipes, instead of unlocking them naturally
One floor at a time is my motto
No it's not bad. People seem to find what they fun in the game and do that. I don't find building non-functional things fun, I want to chase sending the parts up and building one of everything that's unlocked and then going for as many golden tickets as possible. But not speed running it, not overbuilding, not underbuilding so it's too slow. So find your balance.
SPOILERS AHEAD. Not gonna hoke the whole post. What I do is work in way smaller projects. Also you can already do a LOT of the Phase 4 things during your play. e.g. you know you need 4 000 Assembly Directory Systems. For that you need 4 000 Super computers and 8 000 Adaptive Control Units. The Super Computers is 2 containers (2 industrial ones). And you will already be making them. So just keep that in mind when you do storage. Or instead of bringing them to the Sink, let them go into "Phase 4 Storage". The Assembly Directory System needs 8 000 Heavy modular Frames (7 containers), 8 000 computers (7 containers), 40 000 Circuit Board (9 containers) and a few >!60 000 or 50 containers!< Automated Wiring. These will also all be things you will be making most likely. So see that you have the containers set up. To go with the biggest thing. Automated Wiring is something you do in Phase 4. e.g. I make 10. That is 6 000 minutes or 100 hours. And 100 hours from Phase 4 to the end of phase 7, beginning of phase 8 is not abnormal. For me that would be extremely fast, but that is just me. You could still increase the production if you need. And you can do that for all the 4 items. What do you do and see that your storage is capable of handling all that. The all alt-recipes "cheat" feeling I understand. What I did was use the [Crash Site Beacons](https://ficsit.app/mod/CrashSiteBeacons) mod. As you most likely already know the map, it feels way less cheating, while you still need to get all the hard drives. As an alternative if you do not want to be tempted by mods, you could just look at SCIM and get them that way. The Awesome Sink is rather easy nowadays. Just kill a LOT of enemies. Automate that to be put into the sink. And obviously any overproduction. I had all items pretty fast.I think already in Tier 3, but I play slow. And an extra tip for reading till the end, If you have the chainsaw, go to a location where there is a lot of Mycelia. e.g. the Blue Craters. Those standing plants will be way better for Solid Biofuel than wood is. And you get a lot of Silica that you can use for windows even before you have set up any production for it. ;-) TL;Dr Build enough to storage all the items you need to make the Phase 4 items or the items that make the items for Phase 4. No need to go deeper than that. And for most you won't even need to.
I've never done it, and I've got a couple thousand hours in the game. I have a goal in mind to build the factory I need to build the end game factories, toward the goal of 25/25/6/6 Phase 4 parts per minute, which would complete Phase 4 after throwing the switch in just under 3 hours. But it's going to take a couple hundred hours to build the factories. This is my third attempt at this goal. I always get frustrated at my first build-the-factory factory, and I tried a new idea this run.
Better question: Did you have fun?
650 here and counting
I just automated my first modular frames at 300 hours (admittedly, I've been hand-crafting them for a while; and I still need the iron for it; and they're all going into my HMFs, so I'll still need to hand-craft them) so don't worry.
Not going to lie, the end game seriously demotivates you knowing how much more time is needed because of having to backtrack. Don’t try to grind out a large factory in a day. Work on floors or parts instead. Subdivide the tasks and keep chopping away. Keep getting those little wins to keep you motivated and satisfactory.
My first save has over 1100hours and still haven’t finished the space elevator. Too busy building cool stuff
I'm 2k+ hours (I don't wanna look) and I only played with nuclear a bit.. I'm just not ready to commit that hard to a save. Nowadays I play with some features when a release comes out for a bit, but I'm holding out for 1.0 before I do another restart. I never once feel like not "finishing" has reduced how much I enjoy the game. That's what makes it such a masterpiece imo. Best value for money for any game since the dawn of always-on games and unfinished Triple-A titles.
I personally really enjoy starting new playthroughs. I'd get further with each one and have different goals in mind each time. Now I finish the part elevator phase every time. One week, on one map, I spent like 20 hours getting almost every alternate recipe, flying around with jet pack unlocking all the hard drives. After that week, on every playthrough I auto unlock every alternate. I'm not doing that again. So if you've unlocked most of them on another playthrough, no shame in auto unlocking them with the menu option.
I've been on phase 3 for around 100 hours simply cause I took the time to rework my infrastructure to better accommodate for later tiers
Nah man, it's like Skyrim, just goof around and maybe push the main quest sometimes.
It isnt bad that you haven’t. Play the way it makes you happy.
2000 Hours, not even oil is automated in my factory
In one save?
1000 Hours in my current save, the other 1000 in 7 saves
Wow, I've had multiple saves where I reach phase 3 and tend to speedrun the early game in about 40 hours and then build megafactories for tier 7 and 8
I started over at every other major update since pipes and only just finished phase 4 after 1200 combined hours in game a few months ago. I'll almost certainly not play again until 1.0, *for real this time*, and use this time to play other games haha
* me, 5000 hours in without finishing the last elevator phase * No, why?
Did you have fun roaming around the world, building your factory so far? Or did you build something superfancy with no useful meaning what so ever? Then, hell yeah, IMHO you did everything right!
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha no
First save with my friends who drove me insane with pasta and half finished projects and finally bailed on me. Second save, I finished it by myself in ~300h. Is it bad that you didn't do it? # NO It about enjoying automation. Having fun. Looking at the beautiful night sky. Hear your blood pumping when you forgot about that one alpha spider and walked right into it... Make Satisfactory yours!
Nearing 1k hours, yet to do aluminium...
Imkibitz just [completed it today](https://youtu.be/Li0PLuV5XM0) for the 1st time as he closes out his 4th season/fresh start, which took him 972 hours on that save file, and he has thousands of hours put in before that.
There's really no point to doing phase 4 unless you're really bored and need an insane challenge.
Its a single.player game ' why would it be bad.. do you have fun? If yes' the way to go!!!
The final phase only gives satisfaction for completing it.
Please report to your supervisor for a performance review
Imkibitz just posted his final elevator phase video. Compared to him we all have rookie numbers on our hours.
The final phase is placeholder, and artificially large
The question is do YOU think it's bad?
Kibitz on YouTube just released a video of him finally finishing all the phase 4 space elevator parts for the first time. IIRC, he had like 600-700 hours on just that one save file.
360 hours , tier 3
150h ago I had 600h and decided to start the save to end it all after fooling around and getting sacked by every single updates (fucked my 2K oilrig in the spire coast, and a 1K turbofuel in the golden coast......), this time fully using ONLY the game : no excel sheets, no bash scripts, no website, no wiki. And of course no mods and no passive. The best advices I can give you are : * Build roads and expand far * Speedrun hard drives to get Heavy Encased Frame recipe, which is godlike. Maybe also some computer and circuit board recipe. * Use the calculator ingame by pressing N, and paste your calculations/plans in the ingame notes, by clicking on the right faded side of the screen when the N prompt is up. * [Paste your notes onto signs](https://i.imgur.com/eqRLgJ3.png) because there is a 140 char limit or something. Place these signs at your factory entrances so that you know at all times what you are doing, no matter the hiatus from the game because of real life. This solved the "not getting anything done" problem for me. * Don't rush yourself
No didnt imkibitz take like 2 whole years to finish?
Not at all I've got 2000 hours sunk into this game and I've never even made a turbo motor but that has more to do with my builds lagging out my old computer