How often do you tear down your setups for redesign?

[Sterling]

I'm a veteran Factorio player, but I find myself tearing things down a lot of the time for redesigning in Satisfactory. It seems like a lot of Factorio concepts don't really transfer over very well to Satisfactory like a Main Bus. I've also been having a bit of trouble matching numbers to production. For example, a MK1 miner on a normal node will produce 60 ppm, while a MK1 smelter will use 30 ppm to produce 30 ppm. Every time I think I have a 100% efficiency setup, ore production will get backed up and my setup stalls out. I'm fairly sure I've got the right idea, but I feel like I'm missing something.

[Suzaku]

Complete rebuilds are frequent, at least when getting new upgrades like faster belts, faster miners, and good alternate recipes.

Getting max efficiency is easy once you get splitters/mergers and just start manifolding everything.

[Surumon]

The biggest thing you're going to have to unlearn is that vertical factory design is a must. Factorio and it's environment does not support this methodology. To answer you question on tear down and rebuild though: At a minimum on each new tier up and at a maximum of how many times I cannot math correctly (which is very often).

The efficiency gets a bit better when you can change the clock speeds of the machines and mess with the PPM more directly. With the item sink, you'll always have the answer for excess production or overflow although it's a bit large, unsightly, and power hungry of a machine.

Oh, and loud. Very loud. Like, "I hope they turn the volume down in the next patch" loud.

[Sterling]

Yeah, I'm really vertically challenged. I've restarted like four different times because tearing everything down to make it look nicer and more efficient is really irksome. I didn't know how important the sink is for progression until this playthrough because the different walls and attachments are almost essential for making organized factory setups.

How do you guys prefer to setup production? I've been attempting to zone everything out. Basic production like ingots are getting organized, tower-like structures which could be used for a main bus, but I've been thinking that this is going to cause belt monstrosities. It might be okay for basic resources like plates, rods and screws, but getting into assemblies for reinforced plates and above just seems like a terrible idea.

Is there any way early get to distribute resources around without rely completely on belts?

[Suzaku]

I just wing it as I go, tearing everything down and rebuilding it, usually once I've unlocked better alts for making them.

If you need to move resources, belts are your best option, followed by trains, and then wheeled vehicles.

[Grandaddypurple]

Used to tear down a lot when going through tier 3 to 7. Now that I've reached last tier, I still only have access to miner Mk2 (I can build miner Mk3 but I yet don't have the required items to sustainly build it), but I've built my raw material proccessiers in an easily extendable way. I WILL have to improve my train setup and revamp my higher tier producing factory once I can make Mk3 miner though. But I think I'll prevent myself from using it until update 4. I'll see.
But basically it goes like this:
Unlock mk2 belt: tear down because you need more room for your extra smelters / constructors
Unlock mk2 miner: tear down because you need more room for your extra smelters / constructors
Unlock overclocking and mk3 belt: tear down because omg what is happening I need the whole biome
Unlock refineries: tear down because WHAT IS THIS??!

[Aquarius]

I have rebuilt numerous times. The more you play, the more you learn, the more you refine your design techniques as well getting better alternative recipes that free up other resources to be used for other things. The best thing is the map is so enormous and vertical, when you get trains you can really spread your wings. Don't worry too much about matching the production speeds, you want overflow for both the sink and to keep your own personal storage full so you can always have a supply of resources on hand to build, expand, and detail all your bases.

[Surumon]

The vertical connectors are capable of directly connecting to outputs and inputs. That helps eliminate a tiny bit of nightmare belts if you can get the machines close enough to where they need to go. Otherwise I just try to put machines as close as possible to use a small belt connecting them together to ease up on the massive belts.

Oh, and for when you get to it -- Fluids respect gravity. So you will ideally want your tubes to be level or run downhill rather than uphill. We learned the hard way when we had to relocate our entire power grid because the water couldn't get up the 20 degree gradient.

[Mod Sloth]

I've done one teardown/rebuild, and I've completely restarted twice. I wish there was a console command or mod to unlock the tech tiers so I could restart without all the extra work to unlock everything.

On my current save, I'm trying out the main bus concept, and it works, but there are a lot of little hitches involved. At this point my base looks like very organized spaghetti, where all the noodles bend exclusively at 90 degrees.

[Chincheron]

Originally posted by Surumon:

Oh, and for when you get to it -- Fluids respect gravity. So you will ideally want your tubes to be level or run downhill rather than uphill. We learned the hard way when we had to relocate our entire power grid because the water couldn't get up the 20 degree gradient.

Is there some reason the pipeline pumps wouldn't have solved that issue? I haven't actually used them yet so I'm actually curious if they don't work like you'd expect them too.

[Surumon]

Originally posted by jmhyde89:

Originally posted by Surumon:

Oh, and for when you get to it -- Fluids respect gravity. So you will ideally want your tubes to be level or run downhill rather than uphill. We learned the hard way when we had to relocate our entire power grid because the water couldn't get up the 20 degree gradient.

Is there some reason the pipeline pumps wouldn't have solved that issue? I haven't actually used them yet so I'm actually curious if they don't work like you'd expect them too.

Hadn't unlocked headlift yet and needed the power sooner than the unlock, so we just rebuilt since you don't lose any resources. A minor inconvenience but it was a better layout for continually expanding the power grid.

[Suzaku]

You unlock pipeline pumps when you unlock pipes.

[Sterling]

Originally posted by Mod Sloth:

I've done one teardown/rebuild, and I've completely restarted twice. I wish there was a console command or mod to unlock the tech tiers so I could restart without all the extra work to unlock everything.

On my current save, I'm trying out the main bus concept, and it works, but there are a lot of little hitches involved. At this point my base looks like very organized spaghetti, where all the noodles bend exclusively at 90 degrees.

I would agree with the console commands, but part of the experience is learning to progress through the tech trees more effectively. I myself have three restarts at the moment. Each one shaved two to three hours off each tier respectively with more and more organized factories. Right now I'm trying to explore the best way to make production nodes skyward before I do coal power. I've redone my smelter setup like four times now since the area I keep starting in has two iron nodes that don't line up together.

After that I have to decide how I want to automate the basic production materials (plates, rods and screws) and still be able to ship them to the assembly area for R-Plates, Rotors and that one thingy that needs R-Plates and Rods. And before I do that, I have to plan my assembly building and so on. It's overwhelming.

That's the only thing I hate about these games is I am a perfectionist when it comes to building factories, but I lack the organizational and planning skills required to do so. It's a fairly complicated challenge.

EDIT: AND I still haven't unspagettified my copper node because it's located like 100 meters from my base. xD

[Mod Sloth]

Originally posted by Sterling:

Originally posted by Mod Sloth:

I've done one teardown/rebuild, and I've completely restarted twice. I wish there was a console command or mod to unlock the tech tiers so I could restart without all the extra work to unlock everything.

On my current save, I'm trying out the main bus concept, and it works, but there are a lot of little hitches involved. At this point my base looks like very organized spaghetti, where all the noodles bend exclusively at 90 degrees.

I would agree with the console commands, but part of the experience is learning to progress through the tech trees more effectively. I myself have three restarts at the moment. Each one shaved two to three hours off each tier respectively with more and more organized factories.

That's an interesting way of looking at it. I think I'll try that approach on my inevitable third restart.

[Surumon]

Originally posted by Suzaku:

You unlock pipeline pumps when you unlock pipes.

Apologies, I meant to say head lift. We needed those to fix the issue.

[Sterling]

Since I made this post, I decided to tear down and rebuild my factory. Here's what I've put together. Most of it is modular so it can be repeated upward or to the side.

https://imgur.com/a/G4SBccB

I realize I probably put too much time into this venture since I'm still early into the game, but this was in preparation for coal power since I've gotta run pipe from the lake in the upper left to the area on the upper right since the nearest coal node is on a rocky spire. It's pure so I think it can handle 8 generators on three extractors which I managed to fit into that lake.

I'll probably do some exploring once I've automated my power. I want some alternate recipes like cast screws that I lucked into last playthrough. Also, stitched R-Plat is amazing. You can hand feed a storage unit wire and have it produce an absurd amount of units without connecting the copper node to the main factory floor.

EDIT: I'll also move my hub to the top part of the rocky spire on the left, above my concrete and power/fuel production area. I need automated power though so I can forget about the jump pads and slime pads.