Finally Realized What This Game Really Needs....

[Gelfan_Dothea]

A white board. A menu that lets you create a rough outline of the setup you want to create.

Situation: I just constructed the space elevator. It requires smart plates, which requires Extractors, Smelters, Constructors, Conveyors, Splitters, Generators, Power Poles, Storage units, etc.. I'm looking around at my current setup and it's a complete disaster. I'm standing there looking at this junkyard of machines going every which way and thinking to myself "how in the hell am I supposed to set this up?" It's a logistical nightmare. I know right away that I'm going to have to destroy hours of work in order to start anew, but how do I prevent the same thing from happening over.... and over..... and over.... Answer: UML.

I hopped into MS Visio and began mapping out a rough design using Unified Markup Language (UML). It's primarily used for Software\Network Engineering, but it can be modified for just about any task. It made everything so much easier. Although bouncing back and fourth between desktop and game to view my design is a bit of a pain. Would be great if the game had something like this built in. Even if it's just simple icons representing the machines that you can snap on a white screen and connect with lines.

[Suzaku]

Here's a site that you might be interested in: https://www.satisfactorytools.com/production

[Huren Ogeko]

Makes me want to buy a white board for the wall next to where I sit

[TheRealClown]

Personally speaking i use a notebook for pre-planning logistics for projects. When entering my factories i have a wall with signs that tell you what's being made and stuff. A whiteboard in game sounds like a nice idea though

[Ragnaman]

Ingame whiteboard or some sort of "planning" tool might be cool, but that would take a lot of dev hours. Something that can be done using pen, paper and a desk locally. For multiplayer games ability to just "draw" on the map could be useful (and fun, because we all know what would be drawn everywhere).
There is also the "notes" and text based To-do list, altho I find I rarely use it.

[Huren Ogeko]

I use a note pad on my desk next to my keyboard and some a smaller degree the in game notes you can store or abundant uses of signs.
but I am can get on board with more ingame solutions....I dont need them but they dont sound like a bad idea

[MetalDad]

For the more complex things I use Visio. Smaller ones in Excel. The problem for me is not finding out what I need, but how to place them in a way I can take advantage of the lay-out. So where to put splitters, mergers and so on. I want to be able to move the machines around a bit to find out the best locations. Where do the belts go. Where can I squeeze in a pipe line. That sort of stuff. I just hate it when all is set up and I missed one constructor of I forgot one output pipe, so I have to rebuild large parts of a factory. Makes me close the game after a while. That being said: experience counts, so after a while you already know large parts of your plan. Pen and paper don't work for me. I need to be able to move things around.

[Huren Ogeko]

I know how that goes. Even with my strong desire to plan out everything down to 2 decimal places I always overlook or miscalculate something and find out I dont have the space or something else I need...then its like..."you know what, I need to deal with this tomorrow"
most of the time its forgetting I need to belt in something and I build all these machines only to find out that the belts wont fit the way I thought because I didnt consider how I would route them....or my initial routing and layout just doesnt work like I hoped.

you know how the best laid plans go.

[Gelfan_Dothea]

Just learned the game has a built in calculator, so that's a huge time saver.

[Huren Ogeko]

you will find stuff like that all the time.
I know there are things I am only finding recently that have been there for years and I wonder why I didnt know about this before.

[start214]

Originally posted by Gelfan_Dothea:

I'm standing there looking at this junkyard of machines going every which way and thinking to myself "how in the hell am I supposed to set this up?" It's a logistical nightmare.

hehe.... i recognize this very well.

[The Big Brzezinski]

I just use OpenOffice, but it has the same problem as most other external planning tools; it exists on my desktop, not the play session. This is a multiplayer game. We can build factories cooperatively. But we lack the tools needed to plan those factories cooperatively as well.

[Krieger]

We all start with spaghetti :D
The fun is evolving how you play, the look out tower is a win for over viewing how you build your network, i love the grass but foundations are sharp, i usually build a bit of spaghetti n then tighten it up for the next tier and then get more spaghetti :D
spaghetti for the space elevator is just the start of the bowl :D

[NZ.Zero]

Try viewing it as an indoctrination into Agile. Once you can fight the inner perfectionist and accept the build-learn-rebuild cycle, the game teaches some amazingly powerful lessons about Agile and you'll be more effective as a result. It takes a while, and it's hard won, but wow the lessons are powerful.

[bb]

Notepad is already in the game

[Gelfan_Dothea]

Yeah, now that I'm actually building I don't see how a design table would even be feasible with the level of 3D building complexity. The game is actually getting better the more I play it, but one gripe that will always remain is the power poles. I really think they should have allowed us to daisy chain off machines. The added challenge isn't really needed.