It was the jankiest of builds, it was the jankiest of builds.

Sorry, Charles Dickens, but in this case repeating myself is the most accurate way to start.

This past Tuesday evening, the kids and I finished up the “Tier 8 Products” factory build. Which is to say, we’ve now automated the final three requirements for the final milestone unlock: Turbomotors, Fused Modular Frames, and Cooling Systems. (Electromagnetic Control Rods are built elsewhere for various reasons.) I noted in voice chat at the end of the session that our co-op build was vastly more efficient and elegant than my personal version of this same (basic) factory had turned out. Spud found this amusing, as he sees our version as being quite “full of the jank.” Which isn’t wrong, but there’s janky and there’s janky.

Please allow me to illustrate.

That there is the big box we just finished crafting. (I say “we” but I spent most of this project elsewhere, running train lines and providing some of the long-distance goods like Concrete and Quartz Crystals.)

Not bad, eh? Here’s the side with the walkway ramps and the big helpful signage.

Inside the box you’ll find several entire floors full of equipment with plenty of room to run conveyor belts and the occasional fluid pipe.

Outside, across the waterway we find the source of Nitrogen Gas along with a few other necessary goods.

While on the northern and western faces of the factory building we can see the petroleum products assembly and the railway stations which bring in the rest of the outside goods.

By comparison, please enjoy… this view of my build’s entire factory floor.

Sorry, almost the entire factory floor. Here’s the sole Manufacturer cranking out Turbo Motors.

Obviously my effort is far more modest. The ratio of “outside goods” to “materials built on-site” is also vastly different to that of the co-op project. That’s why there are three train stations and three drone stations supplying this factory.

And my Nitrogen Gas supply solution is… a bit weird.

Yes, I’m running the pipe down the cliff and into a train station. That train then bops back and forth across a narrow channel of water. I’m probably losing efficiency on this, but I didn’t want to try routing a pipe under, over, or through my railway system. (That, and I wanted to experiment with fluid transport by rail. Nitrogen Gas, requiring zero headlift, is the easiest item to try this for.)

As an aside: Please enjoy the serendipity of both our respective T8 products factories being located in almost the exact same location. It really comes down to ready access to Crude Oil for petroleum products (plastic/rubber) and more importantly to Nitrogen Gas supplies. Originally the co-op T8 site was going to be inland a bit, but we realized that shipping two products out from the original location was preferable to shipping possibly double that amount of products in, never mind the trickier routing of the Nitrogen.

This has all been very entertaining but it also highlights the differences in operational goals as well as design philosophies at work here. My personal game is all about using the power of rail transport to avoid needing to build a half-dozen bespoke production lines for the same things over and over. (I mean, it happens anyway because that’s the nature of the game sometimes, but we’re talking overall goals here.) Once I have a site which builds, say, Heavy Modular Frames I can send those HMFs on various trains to any number of project sites… at least until I saturate my HMF site’s capabilities. At which point I just bulk that up!

In contrast, our family co-op game’s goals tend to be more along the lines of, “If we’re building a complex thing, let’s not rely on outside supplies any more than necessary.” Yes, we’re bringing in some items by rail… but those are from brand new production sites purpose-crafted to supply this specific factory. The factory in my personal game? If it’s underfed, I don’t really care. Achieving any production at all is Good Enough. The family factory, however, is tuned to provide us a certain amount of materials in as timely a fashion as we can get them, and it can’t be harmed by, for instance, production changes or problems further up the supply chain.

The Ever Given can’t ruin our factory’s day, as it were.

All in all, this is why I keep coming back to this game: No two runs are exactly alike, and the more brains you throw at a given problem the more interesting solutions you’re going to come up with. This thing’s not even fully released yet! Amazing.