Personal Preference: Centralized factory, or Decentralized?

[Sterling]

I know a lot of people prefer having everything in one place, but something I seem to really enjoy is processing materials in individual factories and carting them where they need to go. For example, finding a node to mine, and then smelting it into bars next to the miner and either carting the bars to the final site, or processing it there into whatever a need and then carting it to where it needed to go.

It does tend to not work if you don't at least have trucks unlocked and a good handle on how to use them (which I'm not very good with them), but it provides a pretty neat challenge with logistics that you don't get with conveyor spaghetti.

[joe_schmoe_gamer]

Hub and spoke...definitely.

[kLuns]

direct processing untill you can refine raw materials. From that moment centralize

[The Big Brzezinski]

For the most part, I bring all the raw materials together before I start processing them. I've done both single megafactories and distributed production before. The latter fits better into an extensive railroad network.

[Vectorspace]

Decentralised, some feeding each other. Then most all resources are shipped to home base which includes central storage (construction materials), space elevator parts production, and consumables (e.g. ammo) production

[Veeshan]

Doing both, my single player game is my gigantic structure with everything in it, my multiplayer is everything trucked around and eventually trains.

I quite like both. Really love the idea of utilizing the natural world's geography with vehicles and tucked away buildings. But the engine also allows gargantuan creations and I wouldn't want to miss that.

At this moment decentralized feels more complicated to me but I also haven't yet worked out how to limit a truck system.

[Wolfgang]

Tried doing it in one place and realized that it isn't feasable without a ton of work. Though I wouldn't say that my production is all over the place. E.g. I have the production for Fused Modular Frames, Turbomotors, Cooling Systems and some power all in the Blue Crater. But my Aluminium line is somewhere else as are other production lines.

And since I like when my stuff gets transported via belts I have a lot of belts in my world.

[kLuns]

you can toss building on the node untill you got the most unlocks in tier 5 and 6 and than get all the recipes to make a megafactory like this:
https://www.satisfactorytools.com/production?share=oE4aRam1jliPbxda5wyt

all quantities are 20% of a stack except for ammunition and gas filters which is less. Note that there is fuel in this calculation to provide enough power and all possible alternatives used to squeeze the most out of a single resource.

Oil can still be processed on the node and the megafactory can be made near water with plastic rubber and fabric being brought in with the resources.

[Tomcat]

As long things are infinite and are exhausted/cooldowns, Centralized.

The crater lake has like everything nearby except nuclear and oil.


But if they can penalize or limit players who use too many conveyor belts then I would consider decentralizing.

[Sterling]

Originally posted by Tomcat:

But if they can penalize or limit players who use too many conveyor belts then I would consider decentralizing.

I don't see why they would limit/penalize players for using conveyors. Conveyors only have convenience going for them until you get to higher tiers and even then they lack the overall volume that other transport methods have. Fair point though, centralizing things means you don't need to travel for materials and eliminates the need to be bogged down on other transport methods.

[PhailRaptor]

Originally posted by Tomcat:

The crater lake has like everything nearby except nuclear and oil.

There are 6 Oil nodes in the Blue Crater. It lacks Quartz, Sulfur, and Bauxite in addition to Uranium.

Interestingly, there's a spot a ways northwest of the Blue Crater in the Titan Forest that has Quartz, Bauxite, and Uranium in proximity to each other. There's another spot in the southern reaches of the Swamp that has Bauxite, Uranium, and Sulfur, as well...

[Bookslayer10]

Originally posted by Sterling:

Originally posted by Tomcat:

But if they can penalize or limit players who use too many conveyor belts then I would consider decentralizing.

I don't see why they would limit/penalize players for using conveyors. Conveyors only have convenience going for them until you get to higher tiers and even then they lack the overall volume that other transport methods have. Fair point though, centralizing things means you don't need to travel for materials and eliminates the need to be bogged down on other transport methods.

Conveyors take no power or other limited resources, are the simplest to set up, for new players are almost always faster to set up, can easily get by any terrain, and need to be used in any transport system anyway. Belts are pretty OP, really the utter boredom of setting them up is the only penalty, but in a game with no time limits people can easily just push past that, or quit the entire game because it gets too boring to set up what they know is the best option.

All that is needed is to make them take power somehow balanced, and then raise power plant output to compensate.

On topic, I mostly made a megabase when starting, but processes by oil at the nodes because for some reason trucks can't transport fluids without packaging like trains. I did the same with catering processing, quartz and alumina scrap as well, but I stopped playing.

[The Big Brzezinski]

I think it's worth recognizing a very praiseworthy aspect of the game here. Between the terrain, structural objects like foundations, and the large variety of transport solutions, there's enough leeway for each player to organize and distribute production and logistical lines however they like. This happens in spite of how recipes keep the total numbers and ratios of machines fixed. It's a good balance between freedom and consequence. Whether you go centralized, distributed, or something weird, you can make it work.

[Zero2HeroJA]

Originally posted by Bookslayer10:

Originally posted by Sterling:

I don't see why they would limit/penalize players for using conveyors. Conveyors only have convenience going for them until you get to higher tiers and even then they lack the overall volume that other transport methods have. Fair point though, centralizing things means you don't need to travel for materials and eliminates the need to be bogged down on other transport methods.

Conveyors take no power or other limited resources, are the simplest to set up, for new players are almost always faster to set up, can easily get by any terrain, and need to be used in any transport system anyway. Belts are pretty OP, really the utter boredom of setting them up is the only penalty, but in a game with no time limits people can easily just push past that, or quit the entire game because it gets too boring to set up what they know is the best option.

All that is needed is to make them take power somehow balanced, and then raise power plant output to compensate.

On topic, I mostly made a megabase when starting, but processes by oil at the nodes because for some reason trucks can't transport fluids without packaging like trains. I did the same with catering processing, quartz and alumina scrap as well, but I stopped playing.

one problem with conveyor spam in the late game is the framerate issues, only really applicable to some of the truly large megafacs. But I have used trains or drones for truly far away resource nodes because they lower my framerate less than conveyor spaghetti does. But then i'm the kind of madman who builds factories that make 10/min of every resource in the game so kind of a niche case I guess.

[K'senia]

Mostly centralized, but some resources that have an immediate step like smelting before they are a usable product are done right at the extraction point. You can transport so much more product if its already been smelted down into bars. Lately my centralized factory is getting more spread out. A copper products area, steel products area, etc..

[umop-apisdn]

Originally posted by K'senia:

Mostly centralized, but some resources that have an immediate step like smelting before they are a usable product are done right at the extraction point. You can transport so much more product if its already been smelted down into bars. Lately my centralized factory is getting more spread out. A copper products area, steel products area, etc..

This.

It comes down to "How do we define 'centralized' in this context?"

The later in the game you get, the more everything just kind of... flows together. Like a major metropolitan area, eventually you can't really tell at a glance where one factory stops and another starts.