How to plan as a beginner?

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Awesome game but as with Satisfactory I always end up disliking when things get spaghetti. Because I do not know what type of buildings are to come I can not plan or know how to set them up so spaghetti starts.

Is there a good tip for this? Do people just demolish a lot of things or do they plan from start? And as a developer I would work on a tool that helps beginners for this. Think it scares many away.

[Kaery]

If you don't know what to expect, select New Haven for a lot of build space and just go wide. Leave yourself the space to expand.

And yes, we do demolish. At the start, resources are tight, you only have a few trucks and no belts yet. So even experienced players will build a little crowded to keep transport times down.
Even later, I usually build a small refinery on the spot my old T1 setup was. Once I'm further along the research tree and have filled in a bit more coast, I pick a spot for a new refinery and tear down the old one.

Go spaghetti at the start. Try to avoid it, but don't worry if it does. Tear down and rebuild later when you have more resources readily available and you can make clean builds.

[Lucky_Star_Fan]

I wouldn't worry about your first layouts, ever. The way the game starts you will always make a temporary arrangement at first. You can plan out your second, third, etc layouts with blueprints when you have more space and optons.

[< blank >]

Originally posted by Kaery:

If you don't know what to expect, select New Haven for a lot of build space and just go wide. Leave yourself the space to expand.

And yes, we do demolish. At the start, resources are tight, you only have a few trucks and no belts yet. So even experienced players will build a little crowded to keep transport times down.
Even later, I usually build a small refinery on the spot my old T1 setup was. Once I'm further along the research tree and have filled in a bit more coast, I pick a spot for a new refinery and tear down the old one.

Go spaghetti at the start. Try to avoid it, but don't worry if it does. Tear down and rebuild later when you have more resources readily available and you can make clean builds.

Originally posted by Lucky_Star_Fan:

I wouldn't worry about your first layouts, ever. The way the game starts you will always make a temporary arrangement at first. You can plan out your second, third, etc layouts with blueprints when you have more space and optons.

Aye that cooled me down! Sometimes my perfectionist takes over.

[Inlustris]

I usually plan in advance, based on specific map as to where I want to place things over time. like keep all Iron smelting close to iron mine, but I leave space for upgrades. Still, I often demolish old thing and build bigger version from saved blueprints.
Some people swear on modular blueprints, that allow you to add blocks of building into existing system, but that sometimes may lead to issues with troughput. I usually just build bigger array next to old, and delete the old one.
Main thing to remeber is to NOT delete old array before you build the new one, or you may end with half-built ghost and unable to produce needed item

[SpeedDaemon]

The first thing to plan as a beginner is to restart a few times. :) Things will get easier to plan once you have some experience with later tech/needs.

One thing I do that's helped immensely is to immediately pause the game at the start, and mark out mine areas around resources (using dumping designations at/below ground level). Rule of thumb I use is about one designation past the edge of the deposit for every 5 levels below the surface the bottom of the deposit is, plus one. That gives enough space to dig it out without millions of retaining walls. It also means that you can put some of your initial builds inside that area, leaving the space outside for the next iteration.

[Name]

Originally posted by Lmao:

Awesome game but as with Satisfactory I always end up disliking when things get spaghetti. Because I do not know what type of buildings are to come I can not plan or know how to set them up so spaghetti starts.

Is there a good tip for this? Do people just demolish a lot of things or do they plan from start? And as a developer I would work on a tool that helps beginners for this. Think it scares many away.

start on a beginner map with beginner friendly settings, plop down 2 research labs and try to prioritize for blueprint research unlock. Once you have that researched, you can now build blueprint designs. I usually build my blueprint on a large space of open land and once i'm satisfied i will copy and paste , drag to fit where it lines up best.

don't be afraid to pause often and play at single speed. take your time, look at the resources on the map, your research priorities and plan what you're going to need. This game rewards careful and precise planning, and punishes those that rush with having to end up tearing things apart to solve later problems.

[Windy Winston]

Originally posted by Kaery:

If you don't know what to expect, select New Haven for a lot of build space and just go wide. Leave yourself the space to expand.

And yes, we do demolish. At the start, resources are tight, you only have a few trucks and no belts yet. So even experienced players will build a little crowded to keep transport times down.
Even later, I usually build a small refinery on the spot my old T1 setup was. Once I'm further along the research tree and have filled in a bit more coast, I pick a spot for a new refinery and tear down the old one.

Go spaghetti at the start. Try to avoid it, but don't worry if it does. Tear down and rebuild later when you have more resources readily available and you can make clean builds.

This is good, and what humans do IRL.