Here’s a summary of how today’s hours upon hours of Satisfactory went for me, in order to illustrate how sometimes you move forward by moving sideways… a lot.
I can’t progress further in the game without clearing Phase 3, which means I need to make Modular Engines and Automated Wiring to feed to the Space Elevator.
To do that I need to make High-Speed Connectors, which are needed by Automated Wiring. According to my spreadsheet, I can’t just make them the normal, default way. I need specific alternate recipes. Because this save’s (the “New Clear Plan”) entire thing is that any addition to the Phactory (where all Phase X materials will get built) should be designed and scaled for endgame production, that means I need those alternate recipes now. Cue a few hours of hard drive hunting! 10 new drives salvaged & scanned, both of the required alternate recipes acquired… plus I got one of the inventory slot boosts. Bonus!
With the recipes problem settled, I realize that I can no longer wait to start building out the rail network. My empire may not be far-flung yet but it’s getting there, and rail is my best goods-delivery option for a long while yet. To get trains going, unless I want to hand-crank a bunch of each every time it’s time to add a new train or station, I need to get Heavy Modular Frame and Computer production automated.
But to automate those, I’ll need trains. Bit of a chicken-and-egg thing there. And if I’m running train lines, I need new blueprints. Why? Because I’ve never been entirely happy with my previous blueprinted railway supports. (To be clear: I’m not completely happy with the new ones either, but at least they’re newer.) So, I lost an hour to building new dual-carriageway rail line supports. This time I built them on steel frames rather than cement blocks.
They’re not fancy but they’ll get the job done.
And I still haven’t so much as built an actual train or station, let alone anything in the Phactory, let alone the HMFs and Computers factories. But all of this will pay off in the long run!
I’m sure of it!