Are long belts bad practice?

[linux ISO collector]

I'm a newer player. I'm wondering if belting some resource from a long distance is bad practice, or impractical? And, how long of a belt is too long?
I'm looking to get caterium and coal, and they both are almost 1000m away from my main base.

[Samseng Yik]

Play with long belt mean you can centralize your production and get everything done.

If you don't want long belt, then prepare to configure automate late game air drone , lorry or train delivery and pick up

[Doc✪Hollywood]

Originally posted by Samseng Yik:

Play with long belt mean you can centralize your production and get everything done.

That's exactly what will make your game stutter

[The Big Brzezinski]

You can build belts, but you're missing out. Moving coal to power plants and steel mills is part of how you learn to handle more complicated logistics problems. You'll be glad for the experience when you're bringing resources together for an electronics factory.

Trains are just much bigger, smarter conveyors. If you built your rail network properly, a large number of trains can share it to move oodles of products anywhere on the map.

[Shahadem]

Belts consume no power and never need to be refueled.

PLUS no solid product can move faster than a belt because every product is spit out onto a belt even if it is moved onto a train or truck after.

And belts generally look nicer than trains because we have on dedicated train parts that would let us put down clean railway. Rails are always super wonky looking unless you spend an eternity of frustration to make it look clean.

[The Big Brzezinski]

You make straight railroad tracks by building the second length out first, then connecting it. The larger your railroad gets, the more you can just slap down stations at points A and B (or just A, if B already has receiving platform) and build another train to move products instead of having to lay down yet more miles and miles of alclad aluminum sheets.

Road vehicle fuel is just a matter of distribution. Most early scenarios have you fueling tractors using resourced produced on site, like coal, petroleum coke, and packaged fuel. A more extensive solution would be a whole transport system to carry fuel to different truck stations at your various factories. This is a low tech way of being able to move anything anywhere. If you wanted to have a large steel mill that produced all the steel parts, motors, and heavy modular frames you need in an arbitrary location, a coaling network for all the tractors I'm going to have running around supplying it is first thing I'd build.

The fact that people just build belts instead of experiencing this more interesting gameplay is a fault with the game that leave right at the devs' feet. They should have had an obvious mechanical downside to warn people off from their experiential downside. Maybe disallow them from extending more than three lengths from machinery, and require splitters and mergers be powered.

In lieu of that, I encourage people to avoid letting the temptation of cross country belts steal gameplay from them. Transportation infrastructure is one of very few wildcard variables in a game full of static, unchanging values. It's one of the best opportunities you'll get in Satisfactory to be creative with a practical aspect. Don't let yourself fall into the trap of "optimizing" the fun out of your experience.

[Maehlice]

Originally posted by The Big Brzezinski:

... They should have had an obvious mechanical downside to warn people off from their experiential downside. Maybe disallow them from extending more than three lengths from machinery, and require splitters and mergers be powered.

This sounds a lot like something I said a few years ago.

The takeaway was: belts are OP, trucks/tractors need a slight buff, trains need a nerf and/or to be in Tier 8.

It'll never happen, though.

[The Big Brzezinski]

Maybe the post-early access update will have a pleasant surprise in store regarding this issue.

[Omega420]

The only down side to belts is as you get more and more of them, you might see a performance drop due to the game having to keep track of so many items. However, I think using belts is the only way as it's the only way to know your getting constant steady numbers....

I'm currently waiting for 1.0 but in a few previous games, I tried to belt every Pure / normal node on the map.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3259843589

Every Pure / normal node from the grassy fields.....

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3227945554

[cboath11]

Originally posted by The Big Brzezinski:

You make straight railroad tracks by building the second length out first, then connecting it. The larger your railroad gets, the more you can just slap down stations at points A and B (or just A, if B already has receiving platform) and build another train to move products instead of having to lay down yet more miles and miles of alclad aluminum sheets.

Road vehicle fuel is just a matter of distribution. Most early scenarios have you fueling tractors using resourced produced on site, like coal, petroleum coke, and packaged fuel. A more extensive solution would be a whole transport system to carry fuel to different truck stations at your various factories. This is a low tech way of being able to move anything anywhere. If you wanted to have a large steel mill that produced all the steel parts, motors, and heavy modular frames you need in an arbitrary location, a coaling network for all the tractors I'm going to have running around supplying it is first thing I'd build.

The fact that people just build belts instead of experiencing this more interesting gameplay is a fault with the game that leave right at the devs' feet. They should have had an obvious mechanical downside to warn people off from their experiential downside. Maybe disallow them from extending more than three lengths from machinery, and require splitters and mergers be powered.

In lieu of that, I encourage people to avoid letting the temptation of cross country belts steal gameplay from them. Transportation infrastructure is one of very few wildcard variables in a game full of static, unchanging values. It's one of the best opportunities you'll get in Satisfactory to be creative with a practical aspect. Don't let yourself fall into the trap of "optimizing" the fun out of your experience.

I think of using belts only as a self imposed challenge. I am at phase 4 with all 4k of the first part made and not really having touched the other 3 parts. All w/o using a single vehicle for logistics.