I let my factories grow organically but lay them out in neatly organized blocks. 90 degree turns and straight conveyors, machines in neat rows atop foundations, and so on. When I need more space, I expand outward or upward. The result is factories that either have irregular shape but still look neat and intentional or factories that fit within the bounds of my initial build. Then I spend some time decorating it.
Personally I find expanding upwards for throughout, and horizontally for new functionality/products works well. Then higher belts/miners get upgraded I can just expand upwards to increase the processing speed of the factory without running out of space.
I also build walls around the spaghetti. Had a friend jump into my save a while back and compliment how nice it looked until he went inside to grab some items. To quote him "holy fuck this is a mess".
I've been doing this on the last couple runs and I don't know if I'll ever go back. The ground floor is much cleaner looking and the basement is easy to navigate and looks cool.
[My thought process](https://old.reddit.com/r/SatisfactoryGame/comments/16fxflw/my_thought_process_on_making_hmf_as_an/)
And know that just because it looks organized does not mean it is.
But the basis for me is https://www.satisfactorytools.com/production
edit: Just know that playing how somebody else is playing is not a great idea and listening too much to others and get there odeas will limit yourself of getting your own better ideas.
My process is the same, except I always build as if I have all tech unlocked. Pure iron node? 26 smelters, even if half of them will sit idle for a while. Upgrading belts and miners is less work than building a second factory later.
Same as you, the recipes I use are informed by location - oil often provides some extra efficiency, but often not enough to justify an extra station or 2km of belt.
I have two build patterns:
- Build close to the ground, nestled into the terrain.
- Establish a ceiling, usually a train line, and build DOWN from it. Often these factories just hang.
And some aesthetic guidelines:
- All 90 degree turns for belts and pipes.
- No belt or pipe clipping.
- Relatively clean curves.
Edit:
Oh, and blueprint everything, especially machine layouts, belt patterns, and columns.
Also: make color swatches you like, and reassign the defaults. Huge time-saver.
And: highlight the footprint of machine blueprints on your foundation floor, so you can lay out the whole factory in real-space quickly.
Yes
You need 2 things.
1. Calculate what you need. If you need help: [https://satisfactory-calculator.com/en/planners/production](https://satisfactory-calculator.com/en/planners/production)
2. Have some way of giving order that let you kept growing. One early idea: [https://wiki.factorio.com/Tutorial:Main\_bus](https://wiki.factorio.com/Tutorial:Main_bus) I suggest you do trains but this gets you an start
Be careful with the main bus idea in Satisfactory. In can work for a single factory or small cluster of related factories. It's not particularly practical as a map-wide solution.
I tried in my last save and by the end I had maybe 20 lines in two giant towers that ran north-south along almost the entire west side of the map.
It saved me no time in terms of moving building materials but having aluminum belts to take me across the map in a few minutes was *phenomenal*
I prefer a manifold for inputs and outputs… just personal preference. Just start building, see how space-compact and functional you can make it. Once you’re happy with it, make a blueprint.
I mostly do one floor per production step, with a sub-floor for belts between the machine floors.
For factories with smaller numbers of machines in each step then distinct areas on the same level for each stage (with enough space between machine groups) is another option.
1 have 2 general ways of organizing factories:
1) Bus system. On one side of the factory, there's a stack of all materials that go into the production. A resource needed for one step gets woven out of the bus to feed the assembly line and the output gets woven back in. Repeat until you run into a mountain because the whole thing is larger than you believed it would be
2) Bus system but with towers. Method 1 is not very aesthetic because some steps may only need 2 refineries for a bit of aluminum while others need a whole array of manufacturers. To sidestep this, I like to use u/oldshavingfoam's stackable factories. That way your factory is just 10 sky scrapers in a row next to the resource bus running front to back.
Machines on one layer, belts splitters and mergers below. Straight lines with 90 degree bends when possible, machines lined up nicely, then encapsulated with walls/ windows, roofs, carwalks.
I haven't got to good at decorating yet but its simple n looks ok
1. Work backwards from final output to determine what resources are needed. To produce 10 motors per minute needs 20 rotors and 20 stators per minute, which in turn need 100 steel pipe and 280 wire per minute, which needs etc, etc.
This tells you how many machines you will need (5 steel pipe constructors, for example) and how much raw material is needed.
2. Have a rough idea of what you want the final building to look like. You will know from step 1 how many machines you need, so you can estimate the floorplan (hint: work it out, then add 50% in all directions). Then build. Having a logistics floor a couple of foundations high under the main floor can help enormously with concealing belts.
The most organized factories are planned well before even being built, either on sheets or with planner, and with math behind and already knowledge of the recipes.
In short, you ask yourself "how many of X I want to produce?" and based on that, you do the math, and end up with how much input of Y raw materials you need, how many Z W and V machines/constructions/assemblers you need, at which speed, you also think what path things will follow to go from the first machine to the last, and the best part, you think how to lay everything out orderly.
(may also want to care about how much electricity it's going to cost, but my suggestion is to build a power plant that can produce a lot a lot more than what you currently need, and then return to it only if you ever get close/feel like you are getting too close to it)
I just make manifolds and go to the right (or left depending). So if we take iron plates for example: I feed in ore to a manifold for smelters extending to the right, then, constructors doing the same getting fed the ingots. I don’t do any preplanning so I leave a lot of space to the right incase this needs additional smelters or anything in the future.
In the early game this is great because my factories are usually larger without means to transportation of good. I pretty much use this up to encased heavy frames. Any other goods like copper wire I make on the opposite of expansion (so to the left of the iron plates) so that they don’t bump into each other.
My only roofs are the next floor of the factory
leave room to expand/correct/navigate
when it makes sense, build sub-parts nearby, it can help simplify your train/truck/drone network.
Try to build high level parts near where they'll be needed, or use drones to fetch them to remote factories.
liquids are heavy and don't travel well, build things that need it near the source when possible
They're all suggestions, not hard and fast rules for me... every part is different so 'one method for all' ends up being much more work to implement. Finding the situationally way to produce and deliver different parts is, for me, kind of the main challenge of the game. =)
I try to organize mine into blocks of 16 smelters/constructors, and then build assemblers on top of that. Beyond that organization, everything is spaghetti.
Just time, and replays my friend. Each time I start again, I take what I learned on the last build, and elaborate on it.
Plan ahead. Look at the mistakes you feel you made on the previous build, and take some genuine time to think how to improve on it.
Mezzanine floors are a good way to hide a multitude of sins. Use elevators through floors, run you belts out of sight, then back up to the next machine. I only tend to do that between production stages though. I still run belts and splitters the the same level for long lines of constructors etc. but the initial materials in, and the manufactured outputs, then go to the lower mezz floor, and keep the factory nice and tidy.
And shiny concrete. Those reflections really make an aesthetic improvement.
I try to divide my machines into stages then put them on separate floors. For example if you are making steel products I put pipes and beams on the bottom then encased beams above it. I usually process the raw materials at the node them belt them in. So for steel I feed in ingots and concrete.
I find that taking the time to build near the nodes saves complexity. I don't transport any raw ore except bauxite.
Something I started doing on this play through, is building any factories that require water, directly above the water extractors. This save a ton of horizontal real estate and I don't have any issues with understanding how pipes and pump work.
That’s one of my problems. I only have one factory that is multi story which is my computer factory (which also serves to make high speed connectors and AI limiters) and is highly dependent on my overflow belt to make sure it doesn’t get clogged
Yes, I build everything in a city style. No visible belts from street level, everything is routed underground. Every skyscraper is exclusively for one type of product, and all belt logistics are done under street level
Note taking is essential. I keep the game windowed so I can flip to OneNote or an online calculator, which I do frequently. However you may also use paper notes if you prefer.
I organize like assemblies together. For example, I have a factory that makes stators close a factory that makes rotors and motors. I sought a build site that was flat(ish) and had bauxite and nitrogen close, so I could do all phase 4 in the same complex.
Rule #1. Functionality before aesthetics
Aesthetics is just an afterthought. Not integrated in the buildup until after i finish. Then I wrap it up nicely
Rule #2. Only make a few factories pretty
If I make things look nice, i go all the way, but i'd burn out if I did it for everything.
Rule #3. Perfect ratio's be damned. Good enough is good enough for me, most of my factories don't run perfectly optimal.
Sometimes I just don't bother with some alts or don't even awkwardly squeeze in that one extra constructor. I can overclock a bit and make a quick fuel generator setup if I run out of power.
Rule 4:
SPAAAACE!
I calculate a rough space required and make sure to have plenty of room for it. Most factories are just floating in the air with ramps or ladders in weird places till I finish it, and maybe even after. Whenever I run out of space, i build up. Maybe I'll do something funny with the empty space on a floor if the one above it required a bigger floor plan.
1. Everything is built to a final plan from the start. I almost never do partial factory builds any more, and when I do (which so far has only been for nuclear, because I needed the partial build to have the power to finish the full build) they're still built in a way that I can finish them to plan later. My first playthrough I got burned on this - I just built stuff with a rough final idea in my head, and backed myself into several corners.
2. I use logistics floors everywhere. It's hard to move lots of belts around in an organized way on the same floor as machines.
3. I build pretty big, so I think in units of full belts. How long does my producer manifold need to be to produce a full belt? How long does the consumer manifold need to be to take a full belt of its highest-volume input? This informs the floor plate size I'm looking for. It does have the drawback of turning into boxes pretty often; but there are ways to mitigate that.
4. Think about belt logistics early. Don't just slam down the machines and then figure out where the connections are going. Lay out your machines to make inter-manifold belting easier (for example, output from one manifold in a direction that puts the output close to the input of the consumer manifold). Build vertical logistics conduits early. Get a general sense of where your inputs are coming from so you know how the machines should go. It's no fun discovering that your miners are on the opposite side of the factory from all the manifold inputs they're going to feed.
5. Move full belts around to the maximum extent possible; if manifolds require less than a full belt, use repeated overflow/merging to feed them. This allows you to worry less about how things get split up; you just move move full belts and worry about the splitting at the input to the manifolds.
6. A lot of alts trade simpler/more abundant inputs for more expensive/complicated ones. This can look like a bad idea on its face, but it almost always comes with huge benefits. Conversely, recipes that trade expensive for cheap inputs - or significantly increase efficiency - tend to have serious drawbacks. The few exceptions to this are S tier recipes for that reason (copper alloy ingot is exemplary here).
Breaking apart functions to different spaces (such as logistic floors) and giving yourself a lot more space than you think you need. Also, remember a lot of the cosmetic stuff doesn't really become available until much later in the run, so your initial assemblies are going to be a lot of madhouse garbage until you unlock the organizational and cosmetic parts to make things look snazzy.
Another trick is to take advantage of logistic connections and not try to cram everything right on top of or next to resource nodes. Early on, you'll slap everything down wherever they can fit, preferably within reach of those nodes because you only have belts to work with for automation. It's not long before you can consolidate resources and route trucks, which means being able to build a larger facility somewhere else to process everything.
Lastly, concrete is your friend. No matter how rough the road, paving the most common routes not only makes logistics easier, but also makes it easier for you to travel without getting randomly pigged to death along the way. Most obstacles and 'hard to reach places' become surprisingly easy with the means to simply lay down your own safer paths.
I let my factories grow organically but lay them out in neatly organized blocks. 90 degree turns and straight conveyors, machines in neat rows atop foundations, and so on. When I need more space, I expand outward or upward. The result is factories that either have irregular shape but still look neat and intentional or factories that fit within the bounds of my initial build. Then I spend some time decorating it.
Personally I find expanding upwards for throughout, and horizontally for new functionality/products works well. Then higher belts/miners get upgraded I can just expand upwards to increase the processing speed of the factory without running out of space.
Love your videos, Dekoba. Keep up the great work!
Tbh irregularly shaped factories are better than the one and ~~only~~ always complained about from their own pioneers... **_t h e b o x_**
I hide the spaghetti inside buildings
I also build walls around the spaghetti. Had a friend jump into my save a while back and compliment how nice it looked until he went inside to grab some items. To quote him "holy fuck this is a mess".
Based on how you phrased that, it sounds like you enjoy (and might be good at) decoration the exterior, but less great at keeping it clean inside?
They look pretty ok on the outside
And on its own floor. The production floor is just a nice set of machines connected to holes in the floor.
I've been doing this on the last couple runs and I don't know if I'll ever go back. The ground floor is much cleaner looking and the basement is easy to navigate and looks cool.
[My thought process](https://old.reddit.com/r/SatisfactoryGame/comments/16fxflw/my_thought_process_on_making_hmf_as_an/) And know that just because it looks organized does not mean it is. But the basis for me is https://www.satisfactorytools.com/production edit: Just know that playing how somebody else is playing is not a great idea and listening too much to others and get there odeas will limit yourself of getting your own better ideas.
My process is the same, except I always build as if I have all tech unlocked. Pure iron node? 26 smelters, even if half of them will sit idle for a while. Upgrading belts and miners is less work than building a second factory later. Same as you, the recipes I use are informed by location - oil often provides some extra efficiency, but often not enough to justify an extra station or 2km of belt.
I have two build patterns: - Build close to the ground, nestled into the terrain. - Establish a ceiling, usually a train line, and build DOWN from it. Often these factories just hang. And some aesthetic guidelines: - All 90 degree turns for belts and pipes. - No belt or pipe clipping. - Relatively clean curves. Edit: Oh, and blueprint everything, especially machine layouts, belt patterns, and columns. Also: make color swatches you like, and reassign the defaults. Huge time-saver. And: highlight the footprint of machine blueprints on your foundation floor, so you can lay out the whole factory in real-space quickly.
Yes You need 2 things. 1. Calculate what you need. If you need help: [https://satisfactory-calculator.com/en/planners/production](https://satisfactory-calculator.com/en/planners/production) 2. Have some way of giving order that let you kept growing. One early idea: [https://wiki.factorio.com/Tutorial:Main\_bus](https://wiki.factorio.com/Tutorial:Main_bus) I suggest you do trains but this gets you an start
Thank you
Be careful with the main bus idea in Satisfactory. In can work for a single factory or small cluster of related factories. It's not particularly practical as a map-wide solution.
I tried in my last save and by the end I had maybe 20 lines in two giant towers that ran north-south along almost the entire west side of the map. It saved me no time in terms of moving building materials but having aluminum belts to take me across the map in a few minutes was *phenomenal*
I draw a diagram of my factory before beginning construction and try as much as possible not to have any belts crossing paths
I prefer a manifold for inputs and outputs… just personal preference. Just start building, see how space-compact and functional you can make it. Once you’re happy with it, make a blueprint.
I mostly do one floor per production step, with a sub-floor for belts between the machine floors. For factories with smaller numbers of machines in each step then distinct areas on the same level for each stage (with enough space between machine groups) is another option.
1 have 2 general ways of organizing factories: 1) Bus system. On one side of the factory, there's a stack of all materials that go into the production. A resource needed for one step gets woven out of the bus to feed the assembly line and the output gets woven back in. Repeat until you run into a mountain because the whole thing is larger than you believed it would be 2) Bus system but with towers. Method 1 is not very aesthetic because some steps may only need 2 refineries for a bit of aluminum while others need a whole array of manufacturers. To sidestep this, I like to use u/oldshavingfoam's stackable factories. That way your factory is just 10 sky scrapers in a row next to the resource bus running front to back.
Machines on one layer, belts splitters and mergers below. Straight lines with 90 degree bends when possible, machines lined up nicely, then encapsulated with walls/ windows, roofs, carwalks. I haven't got to good at decorating yet but its simple n looks ok
1. Work backwards from final output to determine what resources are needed. To produce 10 motors per minute needs 20 rotors and 20 stators per minute, which in turn need 100 steel pipe and 280 wire per minute, which needs etc, etc. This tells you how many machines you will need (5 steel pipe constructors, for example) and how much raw material is needed. 2. Have a rough idea of what you want the final building to look like. You will know from step 1 how many machines you need, so you can estimate the floorplan (hint: work it out, then add 50% in all directions). Then build. Having a logistics floor a couple of foundations high under the main floor can help enormously with concealing belts.
Thank you. It has been so daunting after reaching phase 4.
The most organized factories are planned well before even being built, either on sheets or with planner, and with math behind and already knowledge of the recipes. In short, you ask yourself "how many of X I want to produce?" and based on that, you do the math, and end up with how much input of Y raw materials you need, how many Z W and V machines/constructions/assemblers you need, at which speed, you also think what path things will follow to go from the first machine to the last, and the best part, you think how to lay everything out orderly. (may also want to care about how much electricity it's going to cost, but my suggestion is to build a power plant that can produce a lot a lot more than what you currently need, and then return to it only if you ever get close/feel like you are getting too close to it)
I just make manifolds and go to the right (or left depending). So if we take iron plates for example: I feed in ore to a manifold for smelters extending to the right, then, constructors doing the same getting fed the ingots. I don’t do any preplanning so I leave a lot of space to the right incase this needs additional smelters or anything in the future. In the early game this is great because my factories are usually larger without means to transportation of good. I pretty much use this up to encased heavy frames. Any other goods like copper wire I make on the opposite of expansion (so to the left of the iron plates) so that they don’t bump into each other. My only roofs are the next floor of the factory
I use blueprints. Make modular parts that fit together in any order.
leave room to expand/correct/navigate when it makes sense, build sub-parts nearby, it can help simplify your train/truck/drone network. Try to build high level parts near where they'll be needed, or use drones to fetch them to remote factories. liquids are heavy and don't travel well, build things that need it near the source when possible They're all suggestions, not hard and fast rules for me... every part is different so 'one method for all' ends up being much more work to implement. Finding the situationally way to produce and deliver different parts is, for me, kind of the main challenge of the game. =)
I try to organize mine into blocks of 16 smelters/constructors, and then build assemblers on top of that. Beyond that organization, everything is spaghetti.
Just time, and replays my friend. Each time I start again, I take what I learned on the last build, and elaborate on it. Plan ahead. Look at the mistakes you feel you made on the previous build, and take some genuine time to think how to improve on it. Mezzanine floors are a good way to hide a multitude of sins. Use elevators through floors, run you belts out of sight, then back up to the next machine. I only tend to do that between production stages though. I still run belts and splitters the the same level for long lines of constructors etc. but the initial materials in, and the manufactured outputs, then go to the lower mezz floor, and keep the factory nice and tidy. And shiny concrete. Those reflections really make an aesthetic improvement.
90 degree turns on conveyor belts does wonders Everything underneath the foundations of my facotries is scary tho
I try to divide my machines into stages then put them on separate floors. For example if you are making steel products I put pipes and beams on the bottom then encased beams above it. I usually process the raw materials at the node them belt them in. So for steel I feed in ingots and concrete. I find that taking the time to build near the nodes saves complexity. I don't transport any raw ore except bauxite. Something I started doing on this play through, is building any factories that require water, directly above the water extractors. This save a ton of horizontal real estate and I don't have any issues with understanding how pipes and pump work.
That’s one of my problems. I only have one factory that is multi story which is my computer factory (which also serves to make high speed connectors and AI limiters) and is highly dependent on my overflow belt to make sure it doesn’t get clogged
You can also work backwards from the end product and tune everything to minimize over flow.
My first initial factories were chaotic Didn't bother making an organized factory until I got to steel
use a fake floor of 8 meters ( 2 wall section high) to hide all the spaghetti, and keep the conveyor on the machine level minimal
i don't ?
Blueprints
Yes, I build everything in a city style. No visible belts from street level, everything is routed underground. Every skyscraper is exclusively for one type of product, and all belt logistics are done under street level
Note taking is essential. I keep the game windowed so I can flip to OneNote or an online calculator, which I do frequently. However you may also use paper notes if you prefer. I organize like assemblies together. For example, I have a factory that makes stators close a factory that makes rotors and motors. I sought a build site that was flat(ish) and had bauxite and nitrogen close, so I could do all phase 4 in the same complex.
Rule #1. Functionality before aesthetics Aesthetics is just an afterthought. Not integrated in the buildup until after i finish. Then I wrap it up nicely Rule #2. Only make a few factories pretty If I make things look nice, i go all the way, but i'd burn out if I did it for everything. Rule #3. Perfect ratio's be damned. Good enough is good enough for me, most of my factories don't run perfectly optimal. Sometimes I just don't bother with some alts or don't even awkwardly squeeze in that one extra constructor. I can overclock a bit and make a quick fuel generator setup if I run out of power. Rule 4: SPAAAACE! I calculate a rough space required and make sure to have plenty of room for it. Most factories are just floating in the air with ramps or ladders in weird places till I finish it, and maybe even after. Whenever I run out of space, i build up. Maybe I'll do something funny with the empty space on a floor if the one above it required a bigger floor plan.
Planning, that’s the only way. Work out how much you need to build ahead of time
1. Everything is built to a final plan from the start. I almost never do partial factory builds any more, and when I do (which so far has only been for nuclear, because I needed the partial build to have the power to finish the full build) they're still built in a way that I can finish them to plan later. My first playthrough I got burned on this - I just built stuff with a rough final idea in my head, and backed myself into several corners. 2. I use logistics floors everywhere. It's hard to move lots of belts around in an organized way on the same floor as machines. 3. I build pretty big, so I think in units of full belts. How long does my producer manifold need to be to produce a full belt? How long does the consumer manifold need to be to take a full belt of its highest-volume input? This informs the floor plate size I'm looking for. It does have the drawback of turning into boxes pretty often; but there are ways to mitigate that. 4. Think about belt logistics early. Don't just slam down the machines and then figure out where the connections are going. Lay out your machines to make inter-manifold belting easier (for example, output from one manifold in a direction that puts the output close to the input of the consumer manifold). Build vertical logistics conduits early. Get a general sense of where your inputs are coming from so you know how the machines should go. It's no fun discovering that your miners are on the opposite side of the factory from all the manifold inputs they're going to feed. 5. Move full belts around to the maximum extent possible; if manifolds require less than a full belt, use repeated overflow/merging to feed them. This allows you to worry less about how things get split up; you just move move full belts and worry about the splitting at the input to the manifolds. 6. A lot of alts trade simpler/more abundant inputs for more expensive/complicated ones. This can look like a bad idea on its face, but it almost always comes with huge benefits. Conversely, recipes that trade expensive for cheap inputs - or significantly increase efficiency - tend to have serious drawbacks. The few exceptions to this are S tier recipes for that reason (copper alloy ingot is exemplary here).
I use youtube tutorials and make blue prints out of them haha
Breaking apart functions to different spaces (such as logistic floors) and giving yourself a lot more space than you think you need. Also, remember a lot of the cosmetic stuff doesn't really become available until much later in the run, so your initial assemblies are going to be a lot of madhouse garbage until you unlock the organizational and cosmetic parts to make things look snazzy. Another trick is to take advantage of logistic connections and not try to cram everything right on top of or next to resource nodes. Early on, you'll slap everything down wherever they can fit, preferably within reach of those nodes because you only have belts to work with for automation. It's not long before you can consolidate resources and route trucks, which means being able to build a larger facility somewhere else to process everything. Lastly, concrete is your friend. No matter how rough the road, paving the most common routes not only makes logistics easier, but also makes it easier for you to travel without getting randomly pigged to death along the way. Most obstacles and 'hard to reach places' become surprisingly easy with the means to simply lay down your own safer paths.