shipping logistics

[Mighty Joe Young]

curious to see what kind of logistics you guys use.

example: heavy modular frames

1) build the products needed in separate factories, then have a vehicle visit each facility to pick up the products, then finally deliver the products to the facility that only makes heavy modular frames.

2) having separate factories build the products like before, but have different vehicles collect from these factories to ship to some distribution center, finally a vehicle grabs the necessary products and then ships them to a facility that makes only heavy mod frames.

3) have facilities just make ingots, then have a vehicle collect the ingots to be sent to the facility to make heavy mod frames.

you guys use any method above? or do you use some other method?
I'm taking 1.0 slow so i am in tier 8 at the moment. wondering how you guys handle the more complex products. thanks in advance!

[Songbird]

I'm using Heavy Encased Frames, which means I need modular frames, concrete, steel pipes, and encased industrial beams. I'm using encased industrial pipes and stitched iron plates as well. This means all I actually need is a bunch of steel pipes and concrete, plus a bit of wire and iron plates. (I could in theory ditch the copper entirely in favor of iron wire, or use a different reinforced iron plate recipe, but that means either importing rubber or using more machines in this case -- based on where I build, I was happy to just use a bit of copper.) So I'm just shipping in a ton of steel pipes (produced with petroleum coke from my pre-blender early rubber factory--not worth doing the diluted fuel route with all the extra packaging steps at this point), and I produce the concrete, wire, and iron plates on-site since they're very simple setups. I set up near water to use the wet concrete recipe, since it's actually relatively efficient, unlike the pure ingot recipes.

Once I have access to top-tier miners and belts, I could consider a mega-factory scale setup, in which case I'd want to have large production centers. Then I'd start using trains for ingots, copper sheets, and other more basic components. (The alt recipes like copper alloy ingots also help you squeeze a lot more out of your copper, and are harder to just set up anywhere than simple smelter ingots, so that's another reason to make bigger facilities when you get into tier 7+.)

That said... I despite building train lines and train stations in this game. The experience is absolutely miserable with the lack of any sensible way to quickly build curves, intersections, and ramps, the way that blueprinted track segments can't be zoop'd and are finnicky about connecting without needing to slowly nudge them into place, and the need to manually connect all the rails. (And any use of curve blueprints that use tiles at small rotation angles will break your train stations' alignment to world grid, which is annoying in its own right.) So any excuse I can get to do production on-site, I'll generally take.

[Tenebris]

Originally posted by Songbird:

I'm using Heavy Encased Frames, which means I need modular frames, concrete, steel pipes, and encased industrial beams. I'm using encased industrial pipes and stitched iron plates as well. This means all I actually need is a bunch of steel pipes and concrete, plus a bit of wire and iron plates. (I could in theory ditch the copper entirely in favor of iron wire, or use a different reinforced iron plate recipe, but that means either importing rubber or using more machines in this case -- based on where I build, I was happy to just use a bit of copper.) So I'm just shipping in a ton of steel pipes (produced with petroleum coke from my pre-blender early rubber factory--not worth doing the diluted fuel route with all the extra packaging steps at this point), and I produce the concrete, wire, and iron plates on-site since they're very simple setups. I set up near water to use the wet concrete recipe, since it's actually relatively efficient, unlike the pure ingot recipes.

Once I have access to top-tier miners and belts, I could consider a mega-factory scale setup, in which case I'd want to have large production centers. Then I'd start using trains for ingots, copper sheets, and other more basic components. (The alt recipes like copper alloy ingots also help you squeeze a lot more out of your copper, and are harder to just set up anywhere than simple smelter ingots, so that's another reason to make bigger facilities when you get into tier 7+.)

That said... I despite building train lines and train stations in this game. The experience is absolutely miserable with the lack of any sensible way to quickly build curves, intersections, and ramps, the way that blueprinted track segments can't be zoop'd and are finnicky about connecting without needing to slowly nudge them into place, and the need to manually connect all the rails. (And any use of curve blueprints that use tiles at small rotation angles will break your train stations' alignment to world grid, which is annoying in its own right.) So any excuse I can get to do production on-site, I'll generally take.

You can also competently forgo requiring any steel for the pipes whatsoever by having the Iron Pipe alt recipe.

[DaBa]

I never intermingle separate production lines, it just makes things messy for no reason. The only things I produce en masse and then ship out are the first refining steps of different raw resources (different ingots, plastic, rubber, etcetera). Especially when it involves efficient alt recipes that take so much space to set up, I really don't want to make a whole new production line for plastic every single time I need it, I'd rather just make a setup that makes a full belt of it at a time.

Satisfactory is just not well suited for the kind of gameplay where you centralize the production of every single item and then move them around where they are needed. I tried doing this before and it always ends up creating more headaches than it is solving, regardless of how I try doing it (a big main bus, spaghetti of belts, grouping items with similar inputs). Self contained item production is the best answer I've found: make a production line for an item, route the product into a storage facility and never return to it again. Infinite resources support this playstyle really well too, you can just set it and forget it.

So on your example of heavy modular frames, I use the encased frames alt recipe. I designate an area near my main base and make foundations to support the build. I split iron ingots from nearest belt that still has available throughput, same with steel ingots and concrete. Then construct everything starting from the basic constructors making iron plates and ending with an overclocked manufacturer making exactly 4 heavy modular frames a minute, which is enough of a trickle to cover all my building necessities in the immediate and far future. Then to end it off I decorate the thing with walls, fences, stairs, lights, and whatever I feel looks nice, turn it on and then let it do it's thing. Forever.

Oh yeah, I decided on this save to build everything in the dunes, I ship out all the materials here and process them, I am not producing a single thing outside the dunes. Not the most optimal way, but it's an interesting change of pace, and my main base is now MASSIVE and looks fantastic, like walking through a city of buildings.

[Vukmir]

I started at top right desert area and i uhh, use conveyors. A lot. I'm nearly done with the game and basically my entire map is a huge network of conveyors. Yes it looks like a hellscape but it works lmao.

I tried using trucks and tractors but i found recording paths and making auto fueling stations very time consuming.

I have some train setups but they are basically very long non branching lines that were extremely easy to automatise. I use them in places where i build multiple parts that use same materials like aluminum sheets, cases, heatsinks etc. and bring them to my main base.

For very complex parts like turbo motors, supercomputers etc. I usually build mega factories far away from main base that takes materials from kilometers away with conveyors. Then use trains to bring them to hub.

[BierPizzaChips]

Heavy Modular Frames: I did setup a Giga-Platform above the trees of the Red Forest with enough space to give the Heavy Modular Frames their own production line. I am not doing large factories producing only one thing. My factories have 'departments' for the parts needed for their 'final' product. Lots of little buildings on top of that Giga-Platform. That Giga-Platform has two layers separated by two levels: On the top layer i am building my little factories and between those layers happens the logistic with conveyor belts (signs on buildings and belts of what they are about are absolutely essential).
Drones are in use to bring in plastic and rubber from far away Oil Rigs where Oil based Generators are running with standard fuel (I never touched Uranium) and a train is connecting my original center of activities in the Green Planes with my Giga-Platform.
All milestones are done - leaving stuff running for the last Phase 5 delivery since cannot buy such parts in the Awesome Shop, using atm the time for aesthetics, maybe setting up a further Oil Rig in the hopes that a future DLCs will allow to continue for some time with the 1.0 build.

[ThanatosX]

Shipping products is usually better since you have all the factory space/steps/energy and all the materials packed into one item. You will have to move some raw/ingots at some point as you can't craft all the components some places because you lack one or more resources.

I just finished a big ass heavy frame factory on the shore of the west coast desert, 6 iron nodes and the limestone there to make 14+ per minute. Belted them over the cliff to the aluminium and going to drone some nitrogen up to make the encased version.

[Huren Ogeko]

Usually I make simple stuff at the nodes themselves and ship those products for the more complex assembly at the main base. No ingots or raw ore ever go to my main base.