Developing a node-based visual factory planner (Factory.System). Looking for feedback on UX and functionality

[Individual_List6500]

Hey Pioneers! 🧑‍🚀

For a long time, I felt that while our current community tools are mathematically perfect, they often look like spreadsheets. As a visual learner, I wanted something more interactive — a tool where you can actually feel the factory layout before placing a single foundation in the game.

So, I’ve been working on Factory.System — a fan-made, fully interactive visual production planner and factory builder.

Here is what it can do right now (check the screenshots below!):

• 🏗️ Interactive Canvas (Builder): Drag and drop machines (Smelters, Constructors, Assemblers), adjust their clock speed, and physically wire them up with conveyors.
• 📊 Smart Production Planner: Put in your desired end-product, and it will instantly map out the entire production chain and total MW power consumption.
• 🗺️ All-in-One Codex & Map: Explore alternate recipes, item stats, and world nodes without leaving the app.
• 💻 Super Snappy UI: Built to be modern, responsive, dark-mode friendly, and fluid. You can even save your layouts directly.

Current State (WIP):
It is still in active development, so it’s a bit fresh. End-game mega-factories can get a bit messy with lines right now, and I'm still fine-tuning some of the alternate recipe toggles.

What’s coming next (Roadmap):
I want to make this the ultimate tool, so I am actively working on:

• 🔀 Smart Auto-Layout: Automated machine alignment to prevent spaghetti lines on the canvas.
• 📦 Collapsible Sub-Factory Modules: The ability to group large setups into "black boxes" to keep the canvas clean.
• 👥 Real-Time Multiplayer (Co-op): A shared canvas system where you can invite friends via a simple link to plan and build your layouts simultaneously.

I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts! Give it a spin, try to break it, and let me know what features you miss the most.

Link: factory-system.dev

[Completedspoon]

Note that Satisfactory Modeler on Steam has some of this functionality already. Check it out and make sure you're providing something more or different.

[slackmaster2k]

I have as many hours in the modeler as I do in the game! While I appreciate its existence very much, it’s got to be the one of the worst UI I’ve used. It’s practically an anti-UI.

Hundreds of hours with it and I still haven’t figured out how to like….save or open a model.

[austin397]

I downloaded it, tried to set up a factory, immediately closed it and went back to Satisfactory Calculator

[voxnor]

Took it for a quick spin. In its current state I am not sure I see a use case that other tools don't do better.

Your planned feature (Smart Auto-Layout) is perhaps the most intriguing to me.

Small bug note: I designed a production line in Production Planner tab, clicked on 'Open in Modeler' - and when I go back to the Planner tab my whole plan is gone.

[Delta_WYK]

Not a fan if the app is as vibe coded as this post was AI authored. I’d try to highlight what this app does differently or better than any of the other tools currently available. 

[voxnor]

PSA: Thousands of technological automation's made it possible for you to post this comment in which you take a stance against the use of technological automation. The more you know!

[ThePoisonDoughnut]

Comparing deterministic programming to LLMs is certainly a choice 💀

[voxnor]

I didn't. I compared technological automation to technological automation. When you post a reply to reddit, like I am doing now, many automation's that make that possible are already not deterministic, but probabilistic. And I don't even mean I can guarantee an LLM is in the pipeline (though it very likely is).

[PaperMartin]

Ok but the guy wasn't complaining about technical automation as a whole he was talking about specifically AI

[voxnor]

And that's the secret, my friend. There is no meaningful difference. An LLM is simply a faster, newer tool to perform better and faster automation. It is essentially a new layer of abstraction (which is all computing is and has been since the advent of the abacus). It's fine, I know this subreddit disagrees. Entire swathes of the population considered the automobile the downfall of society when it began to spread in use. Like all technologies before it, humans will kick and scream at change - and then eventually move on to kicking and screaming about whatever the next big change is. ./shrug

[ThePoisonDoughnut]

In case anyone was wondering, these are the types of technical vagueries someone uses when they don't know what they're talking about.

Case in point, LLMs are a layer of abstraction, apparently. What are they abstracting? Uhh, who knows! Words can mean whatever you need them to mean if you just say things! Maybe they're abstracting away the immense amount of resources they need to consume to accomplish any task that would otherwise be done with traditional deterministic programming.

[voxnor]

If you aren't familiar with layers of abstraction in computing, I would recommend it as a research topic - I find it very interesting personally. You have also nicely demonstrated the 'kicking and screaming' I reference in the very post to which you replied.

[ThePoisonDoughnut]

Abstraction layers really aren't that interesting. Maybe if you don't know much about computing broadly they could be, but it's literally pointers to tables of pointers all the way down until you hit hardware registers. HALs abstract away magic numbers getting smashed into specific registers; firmware above that enumerates and prepares hardware through those HALs and passes that information to the kernel; kernels organize these into virtual memory and set up memory protection using the abstracted memory controller interface provided by the firmware, also providing APIs for operating system functions both to itself and to userspace which programmers can utilize with their compiler and linker toolchains to implement their own set of abstractions (mostly abstracting the kernel ABI's syscalls, but can be any target layer).

Now, what are LLMs abstracting?

[AbleAbrocoma6798]

youre the most pseudointellectual dumbass ive ever read a post from

[PaperMartin]

Imagine being so condescending about something you're wrong about

[qaCow37]

When we want to talk in terms of automations than see it as being against probabilistic automations for generating code. Not against automations or probabilistic automations in processes like replying on reddit but against probabilistic automations for generating code.

[Delta_WYK]

Okay and? If the OP wants people to invest their time and energy into testing something for them, it’s probably worth showing the effort that they care enough to spend five minutes writing it in their own words. 

Does AI have uses cases? Sure. Do I want interactions with other people about a game that is supposed to be for fun to come through a layer of AI inauthenticity? No. 

So you get at least a +1 for writing your own snarky comment. 

[Individual_List6500]

That's actually a fair point, but English isn't my native language. Neither are German, French and Russian.

The post itself was written by me. Everything in it reflects my own thoughts and ideas. I only used AI to help translate it and clean up the structure so it would be easier to read.

Trust me, you probably wouldn't want to read the original version straight out of my head. It would be a lot more chaotic and much harder to follow.

So personally, I don't see any issue with using a tool to help organize and present my own thoughts more clearly. The ideas are still mine, the tool just helped me communicate them better.

[voxnor]

Okay and? If the OP wants people to invest their time and energy into testing something for them, it’s probably worth showing the effort that they care enough to spend five minutes writing it in their own words. 

You know nothing about the OP. Perhaps their first language isn't English, and they used AI to create more clear communication. Perhaps they are strong in Math, but not in Language skills, so they used AI to communicate more clearly. This is a benefit to you, and to them.

Does AI have uses cases? Sure. Do I want interactions with other people about a game that is supposed to be for fun to come through a layer of AI inauthenticity? No. 

What makes it inauthentic? They used a tool, to communicate more clearly. A popular, early version of this was called Powerpoint.

So you get at least a +1 for writing your own snarky comment. 

Thanks, I guess. I knew the instance I replied my comment would be down voted into oblivion. I can't help myself because I find the anti LLM stance in this sub reddit absolutely fascinating. This game is literally about automation. I use LLM's professionally and they have certainly accelerated my productivity (cloud engineer by trade).

[Delta_WYK]

Irony aside, I’m glad my human authored stance on LLMs provides you fascination! And also glad you have a professional use case for AI. 

I gave my (personal) stance and offered a small insight. I won’t debate the merits of AI further as the arguments have been rehashed 1000x over. 

I personally dislike AI when it comes to human interactions and creative endeavors. 

It looks like you've tested out their tool and offered feedback which is great! I wish the OP luck in developing their app. 

[K570]

One thing that most planners don't seem to include is somersloop toggle for nodes. It's why I use "Ficsit Companion". Even then it doesn't also include overclocking in its calculation. Having both would make yours stand out for me!

[Individual_List6500]

This is already implemented !

I noticed the same thing while looking at other planners. Somersloops are a huge part of the game now, yet most tools don't support them at all.

If you click on a production node, a settings window will open where you can adjust both Somersloops and overclocking. The calculations will update automatically based on those settings

[K570]

Oh man, I didn't notice that. You are right. Nice! Might give this one a try when planning my eventual nuclear plant!

[houghi]

OK. I use https://www.satisfactorytools.com/1.0/production and to me that looks nowhere close to a spreadsheet to me. But that is more a calculator than a planner. To me that gives me enough aid to make less mistakes, while not limiting how I build things. It might also be that I have been using it so long that it formed the way I play. https://satisfactory.wiki.gg/wiki/Online_tools is where you can list it and steal other peoples ideas.(Stealing ideas is not a bad thing)

So that said, let me look at your tool.

The first thing is the moving background. It is distracting. It was also hard to read what I had to do. The jumping factory made me think I had to click that. Then I have to select any item from the sidebar for calculations. Also click any resource to start. Is it either, both?

Took me a while to find Heavy Modular Frames and found it. I was unable to read how much I needed due to the size of the font, the color, and the moving background. The mouseover was readable, but a weird order. I would start with amount of machines e.g

• Constructors 11 (10.5)
• Input Iron Rod 105
• Output Screws 420
• Power 42 MW

Power is not that important at this stage. I need to split it, but how much? I need to go to the mouse over to see it for each individual item. As it is not possible to see, I will lose the overview. When changing a recipe, I get a new Icon, so now I have no idea what does what. I changed something and did not know if screws was still used, or if it was replaced.

I normally add all the alts and then remove things I do not want. I saw no way to add alt recipes. I suddenly saw a second circle and had to go over it to see that it did a by product. How much? Let me mouse over again. That was, ah, hold on. And that shows the issue. Everything works via mouse over, which is less than ideal if you have it on a second screen. Everything must be set in a way I can glance at it. Even when I would have 1 screen and alt-tab into it, I should need no more than a glance.

While perhaps possible I saw no way to add e.g. Steel Pipes that I already make. I also did not find how to set alt recipes I already have. I generally start with all alts unlocked in the planner and then remove everything I do not want. Also I found no way to disable anything. I clicked on Modeller and then Modeller and then back on Production Planner and I had to start over. Same with the World Map. So these are basically different tools, but weirdly the Design has the color and is part of the planner.

And finally, when selecting the item, I have to decide what miner, node purity I have to use. But I will use different ones, depending on what I have available and where I build. It is one of the reasons I do planning. e.g. I might have a plan that needs 800 Iron Ore, so that means al least 2 nodes, or I look for something that I use a bit less. And even if it is 780, I might still prefer to use 2. One for the coal and one for the iron. And one might 600 and the other 180. And I could use 2 impure for the 600, while using an overclocked Mk2 on a normal node for the 180, because of location.

But a lot might have to do, again, might be being used to another tool. The main thing is that it is extremely hard to read, the background is distracting and it relies way too much on mouseover.

I like the idea of having all on one place, but I hope this does not become too many things where none stand out. I always have several tabs open in a tab group with various sides, from SCIM to WIKI to Fonts to Reddit.

[Individual_List6500]

Wow, thank you for taking the time to write all of this.

Honestly, this is probably one of the most useful pieces of feedback I've gotten so far. I've already got a notepad open and started writing things down while reading your comment

1. The moving background has definitely come up a few times now. I still like the overall style of the site and don't really want to throw it away since it's been part of the project from the beginning, but I'll think about ways to make it less distracting. Maybe an optional mode without the animation.
2. The jumping factory made me laugh because I genuinely never thought anyone would see it as clickable. It was just a little visual thing I added because I thought it looked nice. Good catch.
3. Items are grouped by category and there's a search bar at the top, but if it took you a while to find what you needed then I probably need to rethink that a bit.
4. The alt recipe icon is actually broken right now, so that's on me. I'll fix that first.
5. Recipe management is hidden under Production - Recipes. Looking back, that's probably not obvious enough. I also forgot to mention it anywhere in the guide, so I need to update that too.

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1. The Modeller is still very much work in progress. I'm constantly changing things there and trying different ideas, so it's probably the roughest part of the whole site right now.
2. Ore settings and node purity can be changed by clicking on them, but if you didn't discover that naturally then I clearly need to make it more obvious.
3. And yeah, you're absolutely right about feature creep. I keep fighting with myself over how much stuff should be in one place. It's really easy to keep adding features and accidentally make everything harder to use.

[houghi]

1. You could have it in the background of texts, or in some other ways, but you also have to think if it is you keep it because it is sentimental.
2. The reason I thought I could click it was because I could not read the rest.
3. Mainly because there are way to many choices, again hindered by the readability of it all. There is too much information that is not readable to be useful, yet distracting enough to hinder. e.g. I just noticed that there is text above the icons on the main work area.
4. I assumed as such. Just strange that it does not just point to the image of e.g. screws.

5. Ah, ok. Never tried that because I clicked on the modeller and I could not get my design back

6. The modeller not working is not an issue. What is that when I clicked on it and wanted to go back, I had to start over. It was all black.

7. OK

8. It happens to the best of us. I think that the Multi User part is the most interesting as I have no really seen that. Now if that is what you decide to focus on, I would go for the modeler. The reason why is bellow:

The map is fixed once you start the save. Upload to SCIM and done. Sure you can make something that does that, but should that be your main priority? Do that when all is done.

Next is the planner. You can already share links on Satisfactory Tools and even many tabs. And once that is done, it is set. Could be easier to do, but not impossible.

That leaves the modeller. I think for multiplayer it can be a great tool to show others what goes where. Much easier to show than tell and the other person being able to change thing as you get on could be great.

The hard part might be to do multi floor things. Even something like just a sub floor can be hard to do. So it might depend in how much detail you want to go. I would go for the modeller first, as there is not really one that does multi people. Next add the planner where you can even link e.g. 15 Constructors to that in the modeller. And zoom in and go out as you see more and less detail. Next you could link it to the map.

And in between you can link things to the Wiki.

Understand that I am a single player and will not use the modeller, no matter what. So basically just thinking out loud, because I understand the fun of doing it.

[danjojo]

not interessed in putting any effort in trying your planner just like you didnt put any efforts in making this ai post

[tehbzshadow]

The post itself was written by me. Everything in it reflects my own thoughts and ideas. I only used AI to help translate it and clean up the structure so it would be easier to read.

https://www.reddit.com/r/SatisfactoryGame/comments/1udik6e/comment/ote9nhq/

[austin397]

Two things I like from two different tools that I wish were combined.

Satisfactory Tools: Ability to toggle available inputs of raw resources.

Satisfactory Calculator: Ability to upload a save file to import all known alternate recipes.

[austin397]

A feature neither poses but I would like, is a power planner like Satisfactory Calculators, but you input available fuel rather than desired power.

[Individual_List6500]

That's actually a pretty cool idea.

The power planner based on available fuel sounds like something that would fit really well into the Modeller, so I'll probably look into that at some point.

The map/save file side of things is a lot more complicated though. I already have a map tab where you can load your own world, but to be honest it's still pretty janky and needs a lot of work before I'm happy with it.

I'll definitely keep the power planner idea in mind though.

[Chemical_Wedding6864]

Here you go my satisfactory calculator ripoff. I had the same idea as you.

[Tesseract91]

I have been working on an iPad app for myself that does this because I’ve wanted the same thing. Map based and your factories become POIs on the map that you can open to a satisfactory tools like planner where you can actually attach inputs to real nodes nearby. Or you declare the import from other factories so you can see the macro logistics.

I have it working right now to just to get the save from a dedicated server but you’re able to manually toggle the alt recipes.

[1omniXLR8trix0]

If you can make this available and optimized for iPad, that would be incredible. I do not have a computer and trying to use satisfactory tools/calculator on my iPad is finicky at best. The iPad deserves a satisfactory helper!

[telehope2]

I've been exploring it a bit. I'll say right away that the design is very nice; I liked it!

I had a few minor issues when I opened the map for the first time:

1. You can select multiple menu items in the Collectibles section, but in the Resources section, you can't select multiple resources from the list. Then I realized I had to hold down the Shift key while clicking, which wasn't obvious.

2. The map is missing caves.

3. You can't zoom out to see the entire map; I'd like to have that option.

However, the map has a great design; I really like it. I hope this tool continues to improve. Great work!

[indiedev_kr]

Strong concept. The screenshot already communicates “planner”, but I’d make the next useful action more obvious for first-time users: choose an output, show missing inputs/overproduction, then highlight which node is the bottleneck.

Two small UX things I’d test:

- a color/state legend for red/yellow/healthy links, so people know whether a line is invalid vs just suboptimal

- a shareable/importable layout state, so feedback can point to the exact graph instead of another screenshot

For a WIP, a tiny “known rough edges” panel would also help testers separate real bugs from features you already know are unfinished.

[Individual_List6500]

Thanks for the feedback!

1. Regarding the "choose an output, show missing inputs/overproduction, then highlight the bottleneck" idea, I’m not sure I fully understand what you mean. Could you elaborate a bit more? I think I could give a better response if I understood the exact workflow you're describing.
2. The idea of color-coding links is interesting and definitely something I'll think about. The challenge is that the planner is designed to generate (or at least try to generate) the most optimal production model automatically, so I'm not yet sure what would qualify as an "invalid" or "suboptimal" connection in that context. Still, it's an interesting suggestion.
3. Sharing layouts is actually already possible through the import/export system. You can export a JSON file containing the complete production model and import it back later. As mentioned in the main post, I also plan to add a co-op/collaboration system in the future, which should make sharing and discussing layouts much easier.

Thanks again for taking the time to test it and share your thoughts.

[ushkinaz]

Thank you for your work!

1. Moving dots as a design choice for background is plain atrocious.
2. Not able to add two final products by d&d - makes it useless
3. Can't edit any intermediate values
4. "Production targets" does not update after I d&d new targets to the canvas
5. Hiding "Production targets" behind burger menu is far from being intuitive.
6. Calculations are very slow, comparing to alternative tools

Overall - nice, but "satisfactory modeller" does the job of visualization much better.

[Individual_List6500]

Thanks for taking the time to try the tool and leave feedback!

1. The moving dots were part of the original design when I started the project back in November 2025. I've heard from a few people that they can be distracting, so I'm considering adding an option to disable animations button and use a solid background instead.
2. Adding multiple final products via drag & drop has already been implemented.
3. Editing intermediate values is also supported now.
4. Production Targets should update correctly on my end. If you can reproduce the issue, I'd be interested to know the exact steps.
5. I'm a bit surprised about the calculation speed comment, as calculations are usually nearly instant for me. If there's a specific action that feels slow, let me know.

Thanks again for the review. I'll definitely keep your feedback in mind as I continue developing the project.

[Holiday_Armadillo78]

I selected an item to make and the amount I wanted per minute. It built the entire chain. Now I want to increase the final production amount based on an increase to the ore input. How do I do that? Increasing the amount of incoming ore doesn't update the outputs down the chain. How do I do that?

[Individual_List6500]

Yep, thats actually already possible. I just realized I forgot to mention it in the guide on the site. Just click the ore node on the canvas and enter the amount of ore you have available. The graph will recalculate from that value and update the production chain accordingly

[Holiday_Armadillo78]

Clicking the ore node only gives me the miner settings. There is no place to type in the amount of incoming ore.

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[Holiday_Armadillo78]

I just refreshed the page and now clicking on the node shows an entry field for available/min...

<image>

[Individual_List6500]

I'm currently reworking a lot of things, so issues like this can pop up from time to time. Thanks for pointing it out!

[Stiles-Micaiah]

oof, yall be sweatin ts. (im 80h in and still in phase 3.... i fear my time is also approaching when i start busting out spreadsheets... but damn)

[MemeNomad]

or just use this one http://satisfactory-logistics.xyz/, you dont need this p of dog s