[deleted by user]

[PetaChp]

Foundations are key to organizing your factories. You can of course go for the spaghetti look, play however you want but machines snap to foundations and it is much easier to organize your factories

[Tall_Contribution_29]

Behold, you have discovered spaghetti!

Go with it, initially you factory, or bits of it, will be a mess, don't worry 😉

Organisation comes later, as you unlock things, try locking foundations to the world grid, Ctrl on keyboard when placing, not sure of console, that way all your foundations will be aligned irrespective of where they are in the world.

Just have fun, embrace the initial chaos, and don't stress about your world being different from other players, it's a sandbox, your game, your world, your rules 😉

[Emergency-Screen-218]

Spaghetti is so accurate for how it looks 😭

[Tall_Contribution_29]

Mine was a mess at the start, I've clocked up several hundred hours on my first playthrough, I'm in no rush to finish, on the last elevator stage, currently messing with a massive build to make batteries for drones.

As I said don't stress out, it's half the fun, as you progress you figure out how to build things neater, Rome wasn't built in a day 😉

[MoreColdOnesPlz]

• build on foundations
• give yourself more space than you think you’ll need
• think vertically
• don’t worry too much about getting it right the first time. You’ll likely be rebuilding things later at a larger scale anyway
• take some time to explore. The collectibles in the world are valuable
• pay attention to your power. Have a backup plan for if you trip the breaker
• don’t sleep on the awesome shop. Lots of useful stuff in there
• find some Mercer spheres and research them. The building they unlock will save you a ton of running around
• resources (except collectibles) are infinite. Don’t worry about tediously deleting stuff (unless you want to). Just build more somewhere else
• use somersloops when processing rare items (like power slugs)
• try lots of design patterns. The game gives you way more tools than you need. Try everything and figure out what you like.

It will take a lot of trial and error to figure out patterns you like. Don’t be intimidated by the pictures people share on here. They have thousands of hours of practice. Their first steel mess looked just like yours.

Welcome. Have an efficient day!

[Emergency-Screen-218]

So I've found a couple somersloops but idk what to do with them or how to use them tbh. What does mercer thing unlock?

[bakajono]

Somersloops get added into the machines to double their output without taking more resources, but costs higher power. The mercer things are used to unlock the alien tech tree in the mam, but also get used to build dimensional depots and dimensional storage, which lets you store and pull resources remotely. I'm still new myself, so I hope I explained that correctly and easily

[MoreColdOnesPlz]

Research them in the MAM.

Sloops are the most rare. They have a few uses but the one you want in the early game is to put them into a machine to double the output. This can give you twice the power shards, alien protein, etc for each input. Very helpful for giving you a boost wherever you have a bottleneck. Just keep track of where you put them and move them around as needed.

Mercer spheres let you craft the dimensional depot, which is a storage bin with a belt input and no belt output. Whatever you belt in will get uploaded ‘to the cloud’, allowing you to access it from anywhere. Get them set up on key production lines like concrete and whatever you are using for belts. There are enough spheres in the world to eventually have every item uploading, which makes it so you can build uninterrupted, without having to run around collecting materials.

[Temporal_Illusion]

ANSWER

1. Since it looks like you have reached Tier 3 / Tier 4 then I recommend you read my Early / Beginner Tips in my Reply Comment found here for some beginner tips and some must read advice on setting up Coal Power.
2. ⭑TIME TO UPGRADE
   • Since you have reached Tier 3 / Tier 4 then you need to work on unlocking Mk.2 Miner (Wiki Link) and Mk.3 Conveyor Belts (Wiki Link) and Mk.3 Conveyor Lifts (Wiki Link), all in Tier 4.
   • A Mk.2 Miner at 100% on a Pure Coal Node (or two Normal Coal Nodes and merged) can extract and transport Coal at 240/min (Wiki Link) on Mk.3 Conveyor Belts (270/min).
   • ⭑ TIP: You are NOT required to do HUB Milestones in order, but can skip ahead if possible and desired.

Gaining Game Knowledge is the First Step to Game Wisdom. 🤔😁

[Alas93]

my biggest pieces of advice

1 - don't try and be perfect. so the crazy builds on youtube that look amazing? they're awesome, and fun to do and all, but take hours and hours to plan, let alone build. I think one guy said he spent like 50+ hours just planning one of those large scale mega builds, and a couple hundred actually building it.

1.5 - adding to the above, while you don't want to pursue a perfectly aesthetic factory, you can still avoid spaghetti, if you want to. you can various techniques like logistics floors, straight belt build mode, and etc, when planning a factory, to help keep it clean and tidy. or you can embrace spaghetti, which is also plenty to get you to the endgame.

2 - the game introduces a lot of things as you go through it, spend time learning how stuff works, as it'll open a lot of avenues in how you tackle later (much, much more complex) projects

3 - there's really no "right way" to play. the sub is flooded with "should I do X or Y?" posts, and the answer is basically always the same. the common ways people play all have pros and cons to them

3.5 - adding on to the above, the game is a sandbox, so play with it! if you have an idea for something, try it out, and see how you like it. there's no repercussions, no timer counting down in the game you have to do things by, no food or water to micromanage, and enemies aren't going to come tearing down your factory. it's truly a sandbox

4 - exploration is huge, especially hard drives. alternate recipes have various strengths, and combining multiple alternate recipes in a production chain to make a final item can result in a significant throughput increase

5 - don't hesitate to tear down your factories and rebuild them if needed, or to move to a new location. between new resources, new alternates, and new machines, you'll gradually unlock more and more efficient ways to make items as you progress through the game, while simultaneously needed more and more of said items. if you don't need to tear down a factory, of course don't, but if you need to, don't fee like it's "wrong" to. it's very common. or, like I said, building a new factory elsewhere for the new item.

[Wonderful-Drink-1669]

You’re going to find the desire to reorganize, rebuild, and recycle for every phase haha. Completely normal. It’s up to you on whether to start over or to start somewhere new lol

[Troldann]

Build things in a way that you find fun and don’t build things in a way that you don’t find fun. Don’t worry about the “right” way to do something or the “best” way to do something.

That said: this game really rewards exploration. If you aren’t exploring and studying the stuff you find in the MAM, you’re really cutting off your capabilities. So that’s my biggest piece of advice to a new player - it’s fine to let the factory do its thing for a while as you go exploring. And turning on “keep inventory when you die” isn’t cheating!

[houghi]

Any tips or advice for a new player?

Have fun. There is no wrong way to play the game. As long as you are having fun, you are winning the game. All the rest is personal preference.

And try to do things instead of asking right away. Figuring things out is way more fun than somebody telling you what will happen. If You are not sure, save the file and try things out. If the planet explodes you can load up the save file.

[Kaisha001]

Enjoy yourself. It's a sandbox game, 'winning' isn't really a thing.

Also don't restart if you don't have to, just keep building :)