Satisfactory: Beginner’s Guide (Tips & Tricks)

Satisfactory is an early access game where players can build and create their own factories. Working as an engineer, the player character is sent to an alien planet in order to create products for Ficsit Inc. The engineer will be expected to harvest the world’s natural resources, create product lines, and maximize production in order to unlock more complex technologies. The aim is to participate in and complete what is currently known as Project Assembly, a project with an as-of-yet unknown end goal.

Developed by Coffee Stains Studio, Satisfactory has recently become available on Steam as an early access game. Allowing players to start in one of several biomes, each engineer starts the game with the objective of finding an iron deposit and building the HUB. But to really a get leg up on factory production and advancement, the player may want to keep the following in mind:

Ideal Starting Location in Satisfactory

Alright. So the player has watched the introduction, landed on the planet, and has been instructed to equip their xeno-zapper and use their resource scanner to locate iron deposits. Now what? Well, instead of rushing to the nearest iron deposit, the player may want to begin a little exploration.

More specifically, the player will want to locate iron nodes which are close to:

• A Copper Node: For Copper Wire Production
• A Limestone Node: For Concrete Production
• Water: For Future Pipe Usage

For players starting in the grassland area, this should be relatively easy to find. But players starting in more desert-like biomes may have a little bit of trouble. But building a factory close to these resources will make it really convenient to complete the tier 1-2 orders. These tiers serve as the main point of progression for the game, and they can be completed by players depositing certain resources inside of the HUB’s terminal or space elevator (for tiers 3 and above).

While attempting to locate an ideal starting point, players will want to collect any paleberries and beryl nuts they see along the way. These items help restore the engineer’s health and will be especially useful when the player encounters hogs, who tend to spawn near resource nodes. Players will also want to collect any leaves they find along the way. These leaves can be used to create biofuel, which will serve as the factory’s main fuel source until the player discovers coal technology.

Build Smelters and Portable Miners in Satisfactory

Once a building location has been found and the HUB has been set up, the first thing the player will want to do at bare minimum is to set up a few smelters. Producing ingots may not seem like much, but it can save a lot of time since the player will likely be forced to use their crafting bench extensively during the first few progression tiers.

The player doesn’t even have to connect the smelters to storage containers (although it is recommended). They can simply use portable miners to dig ore and the player can manually insert it into the smelters since the smelter itself can store up to 100 ingots. But aside from starting iron production early, the main thing to keep in mind in this stage is that the player can get used to experiment and get used to construction. See what connects to what, how much conveyor belts can bend, etc. Deconstruction is easy, so there is no penalty for excess building or rebuilding.

Plan and Organize Ahead of Time in Satisfactory

It may not be important now since the player is likely building production lines on the planet’s bare soil, but it may we worth planning out what the future factory will look like. Think about which buildings are dedicated to which products, how items will feed into other machines, what the upper levels of the factory will be dedicated toward, etc.

With the aim of the game being maximizing output and efficiency, it will do the player some good to build their factory in such a way that it is easy to navigate. It will make things easier to modify if the need arises in addition to just looking better. This is particularly true for the factory’s power system, which can quickly become a tangled mess of wires if the player blindly sets up wire poles with multiple power sources.

Some Organization Tips Include:

• Build the Ficsit resource sink. This takes in items for a certain amount of Ficsit points, which are then converted into tickets that can be redeemed at the Ficsit shop. This shop has several products which can be useful for organization, such as ramps and attachable wall ports. The resource sink can take in just about anything, so the player should have it eat up an excess of resources that they are not going to use.
• Keep all power sources within the same area. This makes resupplying the power grid much easier and makes it relatively easy to troubleshoot the power grid if continually blows fuses.
• Build up. If the player keeps all of their production lines on the same level, they will eventually reach a point where their factory is a complicated maze of conveyors where looting any item type may take the player from one end of the factory to another.

Set Up a Biomass/Biofuel Line in Satisfactory

This shouldn’t be the player’s first priority, but it will prove immeasurably convenient later on. Players will quickly realize that a good deal of their time (and production effectiveness) will be spent making sure each biomass burner is being used to its fullest capacity. That means making sure each biomass burner is always filled up with organic material. But while each burner can be stuffed with raw leaves and wood, a much more effective more lasting fuel is biomass, which can be made from leaves, wood, carapaces, mycelia, and alien organs. And even more effective than biomass is solid biofuel, which is made from biomass. Each of these can be made at a crafting bench.

This means players will constantly be incentivized to convert organic material into the most efficient fuel. So it will be incredibly convenient to streamline that process. Build a storage container and have it feed into a constructor which then feeds into another storage container. This constructor can be set to create biomass (leaves), biomass (wood), or solid biofuel. Simply store the relevant organic material in the initial storage container, set the constructor to create the relevant biofuel type, and check the output storage container later in order to collect the processed material. This material can then be inserted into the biomass burners or stored for future processing.

Since the constructor’s setting can be changed at any point, that means the player can create a loop of creating massive amounts of biomass and biofuel so long as they visit and supply the production line from time to time. And since the product line only requires fuel for one constructor, it likely won’t be too burdensome on the factory’s power supply.

The MAM and Power Slugs

When the factory has been set up with automated product lines, an organized power system, and a biomass/biofuel processor, this is around the time the player wants to begin researching. This is done by constructing the MAM (Molecular Analysis Machine). When certain material is inserted inside the MAM, like quartz and sulfur, the item will be analyzed over a period of time and reveal new technologies to the player.

Of those research subjects, the ‘power slug’ research tree is arguably the most useful. Requiring the player to go out and collect green and yellow research slugs, the power slug research tree will allow players to unlock overclocking production and the ability to create power shards. What do these do?

Overclock production will allow the player to set a machine’s clock speed, which affects how efficiently a given machine runs. So, say that a biomass burner is only getting half of its power consumed. The player can now adjust its clock speed and set it at 50% running capacity in order to conserve fuel.

But what if the player wants to increase production? To make any given machine run even faster and produce more products? Well, that is where the power shards come in. When inserted into a machine, each power shard increases the machine’s clock speed potential by 50%. This will allow the player to up to increase their production rate and power usage well beyond its base capacity.

So go out and collect as many slugs as possible.

Satisfactory is currently available on PC as an early access game through Steam and the Epic Games store.

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