Trainers will break your game ....

[MJS WARLORD]

I only have about 30 hours in the game and got to a point where i could not get enough biomass so progress came to a standstill , i reluctantly looked for a trainer , i did not want to because i want this game to be a long term project.

I found a trainer that i thought would help me , as you know when you demolish an item you retrieve all the items or they are placed in chests , everytime i destroyed something my inventory would be filled with tons of stuff i probably did not need and would spend probably 4 x 10 minutes a day getting rid of stuff i did not need.

So my advice to anyone who is struggling is this ....... carry on struggling because trainers cause more problems than they fix.

[DrNewcenstein]

If you're using the WeMod trainer, there's an optional cheat (F2) that creates infinite numbers of any item, and one (F3) that simply gives you an unlimited amount of items for crafting purposes. F2 will let you meet Milestone and Space Elevator targets by duplicating the items you have, so if you need 300 Cable but only have 100, you can put in 3 stacks of 100 Cable. Just using F3 will consume the 100 Cable, and you'll need 200 more to finish the job.
The crafting station will let you make more with F3 (Easy Crafting), without the requisite number of Copper Wire.

I typically just run F1 (infinite health) F3 (easy crafting) F5 (1-hit kills), and F7 and F8 (faster running and higher jumps). F9 increases game speed, including the day cycle and movement of you and the critters and anything else that moves.

F4 (Super Inventory Size) is another troublemaker; you can accidentally end up with an infinite number of items in your inventory, like items that don't stack (portable miners, jetpacks, etc) and they are difficult to dispose of, even if you deactivate F2.

F2 is the one you want to avoid, or use sparingly. Turn this option on, put a single item into a container, belt it out to another, or loop the belt back to the input, and it will spit out that same item in high enough numbers to fill the 2nd container (or itself if you loop it back in).

As well, machines will produce an endless stream of goods, regardless of their clock settings or input gaps. You will always have power and resources. Vehicles never run out of fuel. You place an item in a container and you still have it in your inventory. It sounds nice on the surface, but once you start using it, it does begin to create problems, which is why I suggest using it sparingly; fill up a container of something, turn it off, then let the container empty normally. It's nice if you just want to build and not concern yourself with resource management and clock speeds and all the "fun stuff". Once you've got your megafactory built and producing endlessly, turn off F2 and then put in the work to keep it running. More power, more resources, etc etc.

By far, the best options are F1 (Infinite Health), F5 (1-hit kills), F7 (adjustable movement speed) and F8 (adjustable jump height modifier). I set them to about 2000, which is reasonable IMO. You can't run corner to corner in a blink, and you can't leap over the tallest structure. You can jump just over a Mk2 miner, but not to the top of a Geothermal generator. The run speed is usually enough to let you blaze through an area before critters spawn in, but if you stop long enough and they do spawn in, you're surrounded. Also working around the void becomes tricky, as you can easily sail off something right down into it. However, if you do accidentally step into a void and manage to land on the last possible ledge, the jump height modifier can get you out.

I'm trying to wean myself off the Easy Crafting option (F3) and do it all the old-fashioned way, but the early game grind is just still so unbalanced until you reach coal power. I use it to MAM my way to Geothermal at Tier 1, and start with 5000MW and the bare minimum biomass burners (just enough to get the MAM unlocked).

I get that the devs wanted you to "experience" the grindy intro and work your way up to the self-sustaining part, but I define what is and is not fun for me. The fun starts with not worrying about power. I can handle waiting for resources to accumulate so I can continue to build more stuff. It wasn't so long ago that I was spending more time trying to get enough power to everything I had than I was actually using what I had. That wasn't fun, especially when patches broke my fuel lines.

[Veeshan]

Originally posted by DrNewcenstein:

... but the early game grind is just still so unbalanced until you reach coal power.

Your post is very cognizant of differences in preferences, yay, except for the use of the term balanced. Remember that your "I define my fun" applies to the idea of balance as well! So for us it's quite well balanced; I felt enjoyable pressure to exploit coal and pleasing release upon completion. :)

[MJS WARLORD]

i am 66 and been a die hard gamer of all types of games since 1982 , this is this first sim game i done since sim city 20 years ago , it is very hard just using biomass in the early stages but you get to a point where you dont need some items for production so i just turn them off.

I dont use a trainer cos the biomass are bugged .... where i mine copper i turned everything off , i even removed the power cables and i am still producing copper ingots and sheets.

[Exile «Foxy» (Ryder17z)]

Originally posted by MJS WARLORD:

I dont use a trainer cos the biomass are bugged .... where i mine copper i turned everything off , i even removed the power cables and i am still producing copper ingots and sheets.

It's probably just the "nopower" cheat flag for this savegame that is still present. That can be removed with SCIM which is an online save-editing tool.
https://satisfactory-calculator.com/en/interactive-map

Alternatively, the offline save editor can also be used:
https://github.com/Goz3rr/SatisfactorySaveEditor

[Kaijuwololo]

try Wemod my friend.

[DrNewcenstein]

Originally posted by Veeshan:

Originally posted by DrNewcenstein:

... but the early game grind is just still so unbalanced until you reach coal power.

Your post is very cognizant of differences in preferences, yay, except for the use of the term balanced. Remember that your "I define my fun" applies to the idea of balance as well! So for us it's quite well balanced; I felt enjoyable pressure to exploit coal and pleasing release upon completion. :)

"Balance" in this case refers more to the amount of effort you have to expend to gather and process biomass to keep a moderately productive factory running (i.e. specifically, max number of smelters and constructors for each miner's capability at that point, as opposed to limiting it to one smelter and one constructor to conserve energy/reduce the demand on biomass) as opposed to the sudden relief of coal power.
You have to hustle to keep everything fueled and build what you need to progress to coal power, then once that's taken over your power needs, the hustle is not as intense.

If it were balanced, the demands to reach coal power would be lower, resulting in less pressure to keep it all running until then. Stronger power would require more and more effort than simply running belts and pipes directly from a raw source, just as more complex parts require more resources and more complex machinery. While you CAN switch to coal variants like compacted coal, it's not pressed upon you in the same way as solid biomass.

[DrNewcenstein]

I know the mods and devs frown on trainers, and as I said, I'm trying to wean myself off the "free stuff", but I'm currently doing a run where I "free stuffed" my way up to trains. Minimal machinery in place - just what I need to build the stuff I can't find at crash sites or the trainer doesn't give you (rubber, plastic, gasoline, and stators, if you can believe that). My plan is to lay down item-specific trains and have them deliver raw materials to a massive centralized factory.

I've placed the space elevator near the center of the map, and plan to tap every node on the map. I'll have trains that only deal with raw materials of a single type (coal train, iron train, copper train, etc). Doing it this way, I don't have an abandoned factory somewhere in a corner, trying to integrate its production into the bigger picture.

Only problem with this is how close to the end you are when trains are available. I know there's still a lot of time-consuming products ahead of me, where I'll need a wall of manufacturers feeding a wall of manufacturers, but that's more of a "build bigger" artificial challenge as opposed to the "get it up and running" of the earlier game.

But aside from power, I've got a clean slate to start the real fun.

[XU]

I don't get trainers, they completely ruin any game even if they work. You may as well pay someone to play it for you LOL.

[DrNewcenstein]

Originally posted by Skindog:

I don't get trainers, they completely ruin any game even if they work. You may as well pay someone to play it for you LOL.

I see no difference in using the save editor to give yourself things you don't have, and that gets a lot of praise around here.

There's still a fair amount of DIY in the game, which I can access with the push of a button to turn off the "free stuff" function. I am essentially starting from nothing but I have advanced transport options, a lot of alternate recipes, and advanced technology to do all the "basic" stuff like making ingots, I just don't have to suffer with Mk 1 belts and inefficient recipes. I have coal miners feeding generators, and geothermal for power, and that's all I've built. I deleted the refineries I made to get packaged fuel, so I can just dump crude into fluid trains.

I'm going around the map now dropping miners and extractors, and will network them once I figure out how I want trains to run across the map. I'm thinking regional/biome-based, delivering to the inside borders of other biomes, with a massive central processing factory.

OTOH, I'm also thinking about massive specialized factories in each biome that only make a few things, but every biome together makes everything. These materials would be brought closer to the space elevator for their next stage, until I reach the final elevator items, produced in a factory that encompasses it and feeds it directly.

The point is, I have options that building up traditionally wasn't immediately affording me.

It's like taking over an installation where the previous engineer left/mysteriously disappeared, or a reasonable starting point the company established and sent me to administrate and build up.

I see it as role-playing. How would it be any different if I made a mod that did the same thing, or used the save editor to do it?

[Maehlice]

Originally posted by DrNewcenstein:

I see no difference in using the save editor ...

Fundamentally, there is no difference. It's all simply "cheating". (Which I'll add matters little/none in a single-player game.)

I think the stigma comes from how "trainer" is really just a pretty name for "cheat engine." That's what they're primarily used for, so there's a stigma right out of the gate.

Meanwhile, the SCIM is practically supported by CSS, who have used and praise it.

Originally posted by Skindog:

I don't get trainers, they completely ruin any game even if they work. You may as well pay someone to play it for you LOL.

It depends on to what extent and why.

If a player wants a mega factory but can't handle the lag from, doesn't have the time for, or lacks the desire to deal with the transportation logistics, they can use mods and/or the SCIM to teleport materials across the map into their megabase.

In that case, they are actually getting more out of the game by enabling a line of play they'd otherwise never reach.

But in the end, it's still a single-player game. If they enjoy playing with "cheats", they are still achieving something that to them is Satisfactory.

[BlueDragonXD]

So I'm semi-pro cheat engine user. Trainers are often like compiled cheat engine tables or of similar software. I don't feel anyone should try to stop or even discourage single player game cheating. If you play in online sessions with others then I can't agree with cheating. Well I guess if everyone playing is also aware and agrees the cheating sure. But it seems like this person is talking about cheating in single player. Sometimes that is fun or allows those with less skill or time to still enjoy a game.

Unless Satisfactory has higher end cheating protection. Like encrypted values etc. It should be easy to cheat with cheat engine. And if you learn how to use cheat engine your basically controlling what you cheat. I would imagine it would be easy to put like 10 of an item in a storage. And then change the value to any number you want. Instead of some trainer that may toss thousands of unneeded materials at you for you to then have to manage.

So if you plan to cheat I do recommend looking into a program like cheat engine. You can learn the basics in usually 30 minutes or so. Keep in mind I have not even played satisfactory yet. Let alone tried to cheat in it. So maybe cheat engine is difficult to use in this game. But probably not. Personally for a game like Factario or Satisfactory mods are how I usually cheat. I will install mods that tweak things to my liking which is often in a way cheating.

[mackster]

I like using mods. I have the train one, which gives me trains way before the game would and the parts are cheaper. I have a fly mod and a few others which are gen quality of life ones (such as smart).

Doesn't detract from the game for me, its enhances it in a way I enjoy to play it (over 200 hours now). Also I use the satisfactory mod manager, which makes keeping up with the ones that the game can update easier.

Mods are def a benefit for me, because it changes the game more towards my preference.

[The Big Brzezinski]

You know what they say. Mod it 'til it breaks.

[umop-apisdn]

I personally like to play "vanilla" games, to experience what the game designer intended. That's not to say I haven't modded a few games until they were unrecognizable, nor do I have any judgements about people who prefer to play with mods. I prefer to play without mods most of the time.

All of that being said, I have to agree with the OP; trainers have a tendency to "break" your game; whether that's by causing outright software stability issues, or simply because they remove the necessity of learning restraint, they tend to interfere with one's enjoyment of the game in my opinion, especially if they're used right out the gate instead of being a novelty added after the original game's "shiny" wears off.

Being as this is a single-player (or cooperative) experience, it's not like we're talking aimbots and wallhacks in a competitive environment. Mod it until your heart's content.

"An it harm none, do what thou wilt."

[Veeshan]

I seem to have some internal, incredibly strong, drive to adhere to whatever the developers put out originally, to the point where it sometimes interferes with my enjoyment of the gameplay. It's an issue, for sure.

I've had to consciously wrestle with this drive specifically in WoW and Ark to extract my optimal gaming experience. Thank goodness Ark is built for that.

Satisfactory so far hasn't required any re-imagination whatsoever, although ofc that's probably because I still haven't "completed" it.

I still can't imagine what mod I'd use, though. The early train concept is certainly tempting, though!