greyduck.net

Looking For Quacks In The Pavement

Month: November 2025

  • Satisfactory: Faze Three (Again)

    There’s a specific cadence to playing through a new Satisfactory save. You build some power infrastructure to meet the current shipment phase’s needs, you unlock milestones to allow you to build the factories to make the materials to meet the current shipment phase’s needs, and eventually you run out of anything else to do but… get the phase shipment sent up to the orbital platform. I’ve arrived at that third step in the waltz once again: It’s time to send up the third space elevator shipment.

    Of course, having done this a few times now, I couldn’t let myself just piecemeal the process as I’ve done in (most) previous saves. (“New Clear Plan” is an outlier adn should not be counted.) Not this time around. Go big or go home, right? And FICSIT Inc. isn’t sending a shuttle to let me go back home any time soon, which narrows my options somewhat.

    Screenshot of a very complex flowchart depicting various source materials being turned into various things to produce three particular end products. It's a barely-comprehensible mess unless you're a dozen hundred hours into Satisfactory like I am.
    And this is AFTER I added the copper products as “inputs” to Tools’ production plotter.

    This may be a while.

    (more…)

  • Satisfactory: Fully Walkable

    It’s only taken me a few years of playing this game but I finally accomplished one of my goals: Making a big factory that’s fully walkable. No jumping or crouch-sliding is required to navigate my new Heavy Modular Frame production site.

    Satisfactory video game screenshot: An aerial view of a large, bulky factory structure consisting of two factory machine floors each with a logistics floor beneath. At the nearest corner is a personnel elevator for ease of access to the various workspaces. Some design elements are in place but the building remains visually unfinished for the time being (awaiting later design pieces).
    It’s operational but not actually finished, as there’s a LOT more decorative work pending the availability of the Hoverpack.

    To aid navigation, this factory even includes an elevator. Ooooh, neat!

    (more…)

  • Assemblage 23 – Null

    “House On Fire.” “Let The Wind Erase Me.” “Spark.” “The Noise Inside My Head.” “Bravery.” “Welcome, Apocalypse.” And… hmm?

    Cover art for Assemblage 23's 2025 album, "Null."

    The new A23 record, Null, arrived a few days ago and I’ve given it a few listens through. If you need a quick one-liner take, I’d say that every one of the ten songs lands somewhere between pretty good and very good, and I’m very pleased with my purchase. I wonder, though: Are any of these pieces going to join the roster of all-time-favorite head-bopping earworms like the above list?

    Or does that matter?

    (more…)

  • Satisfactory: Train In Vain

    One of my favorite milestones in any new Satisfactory save is the one which unlocks trains. I’ve quipped before that this game is a fun train simulator with a factory management system attached. This time, given certain of my goals for the save, I decided to really hunker down and use blueprints not only for the single flat and various flat and angled dual-carriageway pieces but also for the roundabouts. So far everything looks great!

    Satisfactory video game screenshot: The Pioneer looks down at a single engine, two freight car train that is folded back upon itself in a way that traditional physics suggests shouldn't be possible.
    Well that just ain’t right.

    Too bad about the junction bug, though.

    (more…)

  • Satisfactory: Diluted About It

    The Youtuber who goes by “TotalXclipse” posted a useful video recently about how to get 4x the generators out of a given amount of Crude Oil compared to using default recipes. Which is to say, normally your 300m3/min extracted oil ends up powering 10 Fuel-powered Generators. By adding a fair chunk of additional hardware (and unlocking two key alternate recipes) you can get that headcount up to 40 instead.

    Satisfactory video game screenshot: Aerial view of the Diluted Packaged Fuel power facility, from the Heavy Oil Residue refinery section to the Packaged Diluted Fuel creation/extraction section full of refineries and packagers, on to the water extractors providing the H2O to make the magic happen. Not shown: 40 generators being fed by all of this.
    This in-progress view shows the nearly-complete facility, it’s just missing the other fluid buffer and 20 more fuel generators. (The first 20 are mostly out of frame below the camera’s viewpoint.)

    So after years of playing this game and knowing that “everyone says” the Diluted Packaged Fuel alternate recipe is the key to great power (great responsibility is optional) and armed with a fresh how-to, I decided to give it a try.

    (more…)

Calendar

November 2025
S M T W T F S
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
30  

My Links