What is the best way to proceed?

[DoNotAimAtMe]

Hello,

I have now created several companies that either produce only one product or several at the same time.

With the progress you make now in the game it becomes more and more difficult to automate things.

So far I have mostly made one product in a company but I think this plan is not the right one, how do you go about automating the more complex things?

Do you make individual components and have them picked up by truck and then somehow get into the manufacturer/fabricator or how exactly?

What is the best way to proceed and automate processes.

Thanks in advance.

[Taco Cat]

You pick the item you want to produce and define the amount you want (e.g. 5 Rotors per minute).
Than you do some math and calculate which items you need for that production and how many resources you need. Afterwards you build the items needed in 1 production line which results in your 5 rotors per minute.

This would be 1 possible way to go about it.

[DoNotAimAtMe]

I don't think that is the usually way, it's not automated 😅

[BatWingSix]

Originally posted by DoNotAimAtMe:

I don't think that is the usually way, it's not automated 😅

That actually is the way in a sense. You have to figure out what you want to make. How many of what materials it will take to make them, then how many you want to make. Then you have to either math it out or flood the system with those materials... or just let them trickle in and they will make slowly over time. Those things you make will go into another item at some point where you will start that process over but with the extra steps.

If you are trying to make X which requires parts A and B, you need to figure out how many of Y and Z you need to make A and B respectively, then how many A and B to make part X then feed them into the system. You can use trains, trucks, pipes, belts, whatever you need or want to transport them... but you will want to remember where you are producing A, as well as where you are producing B, then figure out how to get them to the location where you are making X via whatever transit mode you want. Or you can make one mega factory where everything is made right there but that is a long, long, long and tedious process.

I was doing the mega thing for a while but I grew bored of it and frustrated trying to make everything work, so now I have little factories making things then everything will be trucked or trained to a single storage location (outside of closer supply line requirements which will have its own system of one location to another) where they will be broken down into their own storage systems then set to ship out to wherever I may need them.

[DoNotAimAtMe]

Thanks, but how can I ship them to the points and then automate that process.

I know I can set truck ports but to automate that we need a lot of ports.

Maybe the programmable splitter makes it easier at the end.

[jumperfromthesky]

While learning the game you can install many of these blueprints to help get an idea on factory layouts https://satisfactory-calculator.com/en/blueprints

Since I dont have that much time to play, I really cheat and install the whole map railway. https://satisfactory-calculator.com/en/megaprints/index/details/id/1260/name/Global+Railway+Network+3.4

[BatWingSix]

Originally posted by DoNotAimAtMe:

Thanks, but how can I ship them to the points and then automate that process.

I know I can set truck ports but to automate that we need a lot of ports.

Maybe the programmable splitter makes it easier at the end.

Easiest way to start is to just belt them from one location to another. Smart split is good for some things, and others not so much. Lets say you are trying to make reinforced iron plates but your iron is being made somewhere else... you can either put in manufacturers at the point where the iron is being made and calculate (based on non-alternate recipe's) how many iron rods you will need and how many iron plates you will need and place that many manufacturers to meet the demand of the assembler when it makes it, but you will also have to account for how much raw iron you are pulling, and how fast you can smelt it into ingots. Option B is simple, run iron ingots from your smelters to where you are making Iron Plates, and if you are making enough or have another system making ingots send the others to where you are making iron rods. After that you can run the final product again via a belt to the location where you are making the reinforced iron plates and feed them into the machine.

The easiest thing to do is to centralize certain things. It makes little sense outside of just starting or learning to belt raw ores for long distances to a smelter (although it works the same way) so lets say you have 4 Iron nodes within a few hundred meters of each other. Mine all 4 and run them either into their respective smelters (or use split to branch them to others if you are able to pull enough fast enough) and once the iron ingots are made, you can designate that spot to make products X, Y, Z. Lets say X is Iron Rods, Y is Iron Plates, and Z is Screws. Now you have a central location to find those products. Use a buffer container, or two, or fifteen if you want and let them fill up those containers as a buffer if you want. Now you know where those three are and you can decide when you are building another location what system you would want to use in order to get them there. Easiest being belts, most planning will be trains.... or trucks if you are in a really uneven area with a lot of cliffs.

TLDR: Individual belts at the start, Program splits and transportation modes mid to late. Remember that anything you build at the start, will quickly become obsolete as you advance... dont be afraid to build something that works in the now... because after you start getting things unlocked, it will just waste space and resources to keep it. I have gone through 5 versions of the facility I am working on right now, and I held onto it in its outdated state for far longer than I needed to or should have. Basically what you build today, unless you are at the very end game right this second... plan on tearing it down and reworking it in the next 10 - 20 hours of gameplay depending on how fast you progress.

[Veeshan]

There is, of course, no best way. But the way I have employed is to measure the supply of baseline resources, figure out a maximal target rate of my highest level material, and build to produce that at maximum rate.

I.e. if I have 480 Iron Ore outputting from my Miners, I can make X number of Iron Plates per minute, Y number of Rods, Z number of Reinforced Iron Plating, etc.

Other than that you need a big overall plan, or at least I do, and I can only offer vague gestures toward those. Mine are fuzzy as well.

[Huren Ogeko]

I break it down into two things,
the low end items that can be made from a single material I make at the node itself. like I pick an iron node and setup a factory to make just one thing like iron rods...which get shipped off to the main factory
back at the main factory I do assemblers and manufactures where they pick the things off the incoming lines to get the parts they need for more complex things.. and if I dont have enough incoming for a certain part I go out and setup another node or two making the part I have too little of.

but dont worry it gets even more complicated on tiers 6 and 8 when you have byproducts to deal with otherwise your production lines backup and shut down.

I hope you like math.....because all those math skills you told your hs teacher you would never use...well guess what