Satisfactory can be a bit of a daunting experience at first. The game shoots you down onto an alien planet and immediately expects you to start building up a giant super factory. It can be a bit much to handle at the very beginning.

That’s why we’re here to show you the way to begin your industrial empire. This guide will show how to be as productive and as efficient as humanly possible.

The Hub

You’ll start the game inside of a small drop pod that lands upon the planet you choose. It’s important to note that each planet has its own advantages when it comes to setting up your factory.

The Grass Fields will have more biomass available (more on that in a bit), but is much bigger, meaning there’s more area to cover. The Rocky Desert is easier to traverse and has better opportunities for building, but there are limited amounts of biomass. The Northern Forest has tons of biomass, but the surrounding area is smaller and harder to build around. If you’re just starting out, the best option is probably the Grass Fields.

From there you’ll be asked to dismantle the drop pod you landed in so you’ll have the materials necessary to build your Hub. The Hub is basically your home base, so you want to make sure you choose a good location. Don’t worry if you screw up though, if you want to take down a structure and rebuild elsewhere, you can always dismantle things with the F key.

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The best place to build would be somewhere close to mineral deposits such as iron and copper. Iron is going to be incredibly important in the early game, so a location with tons of mineable iron would be the best place to set up shop.

Mining

Mining materials is a big part of the game. The Hub computer gives you things called Milestones, which are goals that require materials to be fed into the computer. Later Milestones will also require parts made from those materials.

You have a scanner which can be used to look around for iron, and then other minerals later on. Mining at first can seem a little tedious, as all you seem to have is a little chisel that doesn’t get much out of any deposit. You want to keep an eye for “pure” deposits, which usually have giant rock formations on them. These will give you more minerals for less effort.

Deposits are often guarded by enemies, so you may have to fight them off. You are given a Xeno-Zapper, which is essentially a cattle prod, that you can use to defend yourself. Keep in mind, if you die, anything that you’re carrying in your current inventory gets dropped behind in a crate that you'll have to retrieve. So, if you are planning on venturing far away from your Hub, maybe drop your stuff in a Personal Storage container to lighten your load.

Crafting

Once you’ve managed to collect enough material, it’s time to bring it back to the Hub and start crafting some parts. Crafting is a big part of the game. It’s how you get the parts to build machines and structures, as well as achieve Milestones. The Hub comes with a handy little crafting table built right into it.

The first Milestone requires some iron rods, so once you’ve crafted enough of those, give them to the Hub computer to accomplish your first Milestone. You want to do all the Milestones in Tier 0 and Tier 1, as they will unlock buildings, machines, blueprints, and equipment that will make your life so much easier.

Once you’ve achieved enough Milestones, you should have the option to build an Equipment Bench. Build this immediately! The Equipment Bench will allow you craft portable miners, which can then be placed on the deposits and will automatically mine iron, copper, or any other mineral for you.

Creating Your Factory

Once you’ve unlocked Hub Upgrade 4 of Tier 0, then things really get going. You unlock the ability to build the Miner Mk. 1, which is a giant machine that can be placed on the mineral deposits. This will mine way faster than the Portable Miner does on its own.

This is also around the time where conveyor belts will start to become a big part of the game. Once your Miner Mk. 1 is built, you can attach a conveyor belt to its output. This belt can then be attached to a Smelter, which will turn the raw materials into ingots. Now from here, you can build something called a Constructor, which will turn the ingots into parts.

For example, if you build a Miner Mk. 1 on an iron deposit, you can then build a conveyor belt to it which will send the raw iron to a Smelter, transforming it into iron ingots. Then, you can build a conveyor belt that connects to a Constructor, so the ingots are fed into the Constructor and turned into either iron plates or iron rods. To finish, you can build yet another conveyor belt to something called a Storage Container, which will store all of the finished product for you.

It sounds complicated, but in action, it’s actually pretty easy to get the hang of.

Power

Each machine will require a power source. In the early game, your main way to power up your machines is going to be the Biomass Burner. Biomass is essentially any flora and fauna you find around the alien planet. You’ll often see the prompt to pick up leaves and wood as you wander around the world. You’re going to want to pick up a lot of leaves.

At the Crafting Bench, you can break down leaves and wood into biomass, which can then fuel your Biomass Burners. Clicking on the burners will give you the option to feed the biomass in, which will begin to generate power.

Machines like the Miner Mk. 1, the Smelter, and the Constructor all require power to function. So, you’re going to need to connect the Biomass Burners to the machines. You can do this by attaching Power Lines to the burners and then to the machine itself. You can also use Power Poles, which can be connected to four different Power Lines to divert power.

Just make sure you don’t overload the Biomass Burners. They can only handle so much power and can be overloaded relatively easily. If you need to, you may have to build additional Biomass Burners in order to keep everything running.

Advanced Factory Upkeep

Once you’ve got your factory up and generating product, keep unlocking Milestones, as you’ll get more and more new things to craft.

In terms of what things may be most important to unlock, I would definitely recommend unlocking the chainsaw as soon as you can. It can’t be used to fight off the alien wildlife, but you can use it to chop down any trees getting in your way, making it easier to build and gather wood for biomass.

Biofuel will also be very handy. Biomass can be turned into Biofuel at the crafting bench. Biofuel is way more efficient at powering the Biomass Burners than plain Biomass, and it lasts longer too.

Upgrading past Tier 0 also unlocks the M.A.M., or Molecular Analysis Machine. This can used to analyze any strange plants, animal parts, or materials found on the planet. Blueprints for new things to craft will then be unlocked. If you find one, definitely analyze a Power Slug, as they will unlock the ability to craft Power Shards which can supercharge your machines.

Hopefully, this guide will help you become a titan of industry, making you invaluable to FICSIT Inc. Now go tear down that alien environment and have fun!

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