this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2024
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For grids, there is a "world grid" which players were given access to some time ago, if you build properly on the world grid, then when you meet up one section from a factory to another section from another factory, they'll meet properly.
I always use the world grid to get a starting point before laying anything down. I don't want to struggle later on trying to make things fit, and doing it this way it's a no brainer.
For rail lines, they're completely dynamic, if you want to build it into a pretzel, you can do that. I'm not sure the trains would love it, but you can easily do that. There's actually a problem most new players have that after going around a corner, their rail line goes all wavy because the rail curves a little bit depending on where you place it, and what it's attached to. The solution is, at the end of the curve, when you have your ending point, remove the last section of rail at the curve, then build a perfectly straight section of rail where it will continue, then rebuild the last bit of the curve. This ensures the next section will start perfectly straight and any curve in the rail will be isolated to where the rail is meant to be curved. Then continue building as normal and the rest of the line will be straight.
Of course the rail lines can go up/down as much as you want (within the bounds of the world), so it's not uncommon to see sky bridges with long rail lines that span most of the map. In that configuration, either very tall conveyor lifts being materials up/down from stations on the line, or there's long, looped spirals of track to bring trains down to stations. I've seen both, and both methods are valid.
There will be train and truck stations frequently above or below factories for transit. I've also seen long bridges of conveyor belts bringing materials from one place to another. The main benefits to conveyors over trains/trucks/drones is that they're very consistent and don't require any additional power or fuel to run (trucks need fuel, trains use power), but a lot of people think they're ugly, so trains or trucks are common. I'm more of a fan of consistency so I tend to do conveyors, but I don't fault anyone for making different choices. Trains always need infrastructure, at least a rail line, trucks usually need some kind of infrastructure, though, not always. Drones don't need any, so if you want to preserve nature in the game, you can go that way, but drones are very late-game and require batteries which are difficult to build in sufficient quantities. Not impossible, but not easy either.
I tend to build a road with conveyors hanging underneath. The road is for me to get there and to provide the necessary structure to place the conveyors.
One thing I've heard of that factorio has that satisfactory lacks is the idea of pollution. In satisfactory, you can spew all the toxic gases you want and the environment doesn't change at all. Plants still grow and the world keeps looking the same. IDK, it's a difference I know about.
The first-person style of satisfactory is more like building in Minecraft (I would assume) so getting things lined up is sometimes a challenge until you get to the hoverpack. But the hoverpack requires power, and to get it, you have to be within a certain proximity to a power post.
In any case. I was thinking the tour would be a "before you buy" kind of thing, maybe over discord or something, where I can stream my game and you can ask whatever questions you want, and I can show you the mechanics. If you're not interested, that's fine. There's plenty of that kind of tour content on YouTube too if you want to look around.
For transporting materials, you don't have to. If you build modular factories right next to where your nodes are you can produce your items and store them at that location. The only down side is that when you need that stuff you'll have to go to that location and pick up what you need. A lot of players like to build a resource hub and dump all their finished products into bins there, so they have a single location to go to when building anything. Just pick up whatever mats you need, and head out.
I have a lot more I could say about the nuances of design and structure in such a place, but it's all up to the person playing for what they want to do to put it all together. I tend to keep cramming too much into too small of a space and I have to engineer my way around the limitations. I need to plan better.
Anyways, I hope you enjoy factorio, as I enjoy satisfactory. My offer stands if you change your mind. If you ever buy the game and want to play some mp, let me know, I usually have a server running.
This is actually kind of interesting to me, because in factorio belts are an option, you can certainly use them, but they are almost definitely more annoying (or atleast more strict) than using trains or bots, you get access to bots just after trains, though you don't get logistics until end game science (so you can compare them pretty closely to drones, though the batteries are fairly cheap)
also, one thing that i've seen in satisfactory is all the little "tidbits" that you have to sometimes do, you mentioned it with the curved rails for trains, that kind of stuff is why i really like factorio, because it has almost none of that. Rails are a little funky sometimes, but there are only straight rails and curved rails, so it's only going to be so wrong. Super fiddly stuff is something i often find really annoying though. I assume a lot of that stuff will either, eventually be fixed, or is not a significant problem since you can just play the game around it and ignore it most of the time.
There are no vehicles, unless you play with AAI vehicles or something, so those aren't an option, but generally rails are a literal "paste and place" type building option, you can plonk shit down wherever, as long as you're connected to your rail network and have those materials on the rail line, it will service what you want.
yeah, it's pretty minor, and there are things like efficiency modules which actually counteract about 80% of your pollution when used properly (as well as power consumption, though it's not usually causing pollution, because of solar and nuclear power) Really pollution is just meant to make the biters angry so they attack you, their attacks are actually a function of how much pollution they consume, as well as their evolution. Which has a handful of stages in increasing orders of magnitude, though it does also damage trees, trees will absorb a set amount of pollution continually, and regularly, however if you go above that, you will damage the trees, and the trees will no longer be capable of absorbing as much pollution, leading to more biter attacks, more than likely. Usually trees get in the way more than anything, and it's also worth noting that ground tiles also absorb pollution, grass does quite a bit, sand does less, landfill does none, but nuclear "tiles" (ones that were hit with an atomic bomb) will absorb very little pollution, which is a way of making landfill absorb pollution. Water absorbs very little as well, biters tend to path around water alot, unless you landfill it or something.
You can also just turn it off, if you want, as with most things in factorio, the world is very configurable, since it's all procedural.
ah i see, i probably won't take you up on it then, it's a factory builder, so i can only hate it so little after all.
absolutely, same to you, i've been working on getting a proper megabase setup, i currently have 120spm, and i'm fixing more for something like, 500SPM now. So i need a considerable jump in resources and production, which is what im working on setting up right now.