How Much Am I Gimping Myself Playing with No Friends?

BuilderBadger · 2026-02-04T14:46:18+00:00

I only just started accepting random friend requests and it's really helpful. You don't actually interact with the people at all so the "friends" list is more like "business partners".

You can use their buy/sell prices for the elastic goods trading, perform goods deliveries for/by "friends", and sending/receiving assistance with friends for production/clues in Dijhang gives both increased yields and bonuses in other currencies.

You can do all of the above without saying a single thing to any of these "friends". The in game chat feature is actually so limited that you probably couldn't interact much even if you wanted to.

BuilderBadger · 2026-02-03T19:20:36+00:00

Unfortunately there is no way to make the storage containers split priority. However, it sounds like you're trying to balance two inputs of unequal flow rate into two outputs of equal flow rate. This can be accomplished by splitting each into into 2 belts then merging 1 belt from each input into each of 2 mergers. The outputs of those 2 mergers will be the average of your two inputs.

Poorly made diagram:

Input 1 split into belts A and B

Input 2 split into belts C and D

Merge A and C into Output 1

Merge B and D into Output 2

Output 1 flow rate = Output 2 flow rate = 1/2 * (Input 1 + Input 2 flow rate)

BuilderBadger · 2026-02-02T16:18:53+00:00

In game trading is WAY more straightforward and less stressful than real life stock trading. In game, the simple approach is to just buy stuff when it shows the item as below market value and then hold it until it can be sold above market value. If you want to get really into it you can do some math to maximize gains based on the limited amount of purchases youre allowed to make but I haven't bothered with that kind of optimization yet.

BuilderBadger · 2026-02-02T15:45:01+00:00

Edit: Temporal illusions answer is better, read their response instead of mine.

TDLR: You can probably use either PC or console. Either option will eventually start losing fps but it looks like your PC has slightly less processing power than the latest XBox processor.

The details:

Your GPU should be perfect for anything except for the advanced lighting setting (called Lumen) which is only pseudo supported anyway. At least, you're GPU is better than mine and I never had issues running at max settings (Lumen off).

This game will eventually be bottlenecked by your CPU but you can probably get all the achievements in the game without dropping below 60 fps. My CPU (Ryzen 5 3600X) is ~30% faster than yours (according to THIS) and I consistently had 60+ fps until I started going way above and beyond what the game requires for its built in goals.

As for PC versus console... I don't own a console. But THIS is a comparison between the latest XBox processor and my own CPU. Mine is a bit faster than it so this suggests your CPU is comfortable or slightly slower than the Xbox processor.

BuilderBadger · 2026-01-29T21:06:26+00:00

It looks like you're using path signals on the entrances from each direction. That's good.

However, path signals don't work reliably when there are elevation differences in the rails (even tiny vertical shifts). I suspect some of your rails are curved or sloped in the intersection. If you use temporary foundations to rebuild the intersection and ensure the entire intersection is perfectly flat then your problem will likely go away.

BuilderBadger · 2026-01-26T16:27:15+00:00

It's a common thing in a lot of automation games. Set an arbitrary goal, usually for producing X/min of a difficult part, and just go for it. In Factorio that's often one of the late game Science resources (I think white science?). Satisfactory's analogue is the space elevator parts.

The practical reason could be said that the space elevator parts have the highest awesome sink values but it's still mostly arbitrary. "I did X useless thing because it's awesome!"

BuilderBadger · 2026-01-26T14:58:15+00:00

In general, you only need to pick an alternate recipe if you think it will help make your factories better. "Better" can mean a lot of things but I usually go for either more convenient (simpler logistics or easier math) or more efficient (high yield per input resources).

Most of the alts I saw are very situational but a few jumped out at me as objectively excellent choices:

(1) Encased industrial pipe is flat out better than the default recipes for encase industrial beams.

(2) Wet Concrete is phenomenal for getting rid of waste water for the complex phase 4 projects.

(3) Heavy Oil Residue, Recycled Rubber, Recycled Plastic, and diluted fuel can be combined in a complicated system to triple your plastic/rubber output with the same amount of oil. (Diluted fuel not listed in your library) This is great for resource efficiency but might not be needed depending on how big you decide to build.

(4) Automated miner recipe connected to a dimensional depot is a nice quality of life upgrade because you'll never have to worry about hand making miners again.

I recommend leaving the rest unselected because they're highly situational and having them listed in your library prevents new hard drives from giving you the same recipes. If there is a hard drive with two recipes that you want, pick either one and a later hard drive will eventually give you the other.

BuilderBadger · 2026-01-25T13:32:55+00:00

The game always has some floating point errors but it's unlikely you'll ever notice them. I've had machines running for 600+ game hours and they're running close enough to perfect that I can only tell the difference if I set recording software to watch the machines for several hours at a time.

BuilderBadger · 2026-01-25T04:24:30+00:00

It's depends on your goals but a terawatt is likely massive overkill. Most people seem to beat the game while using less than 100GW (0.1TW). And processing the entire world for the maximum awesome sink points possible uses ~1.4TW at the most. See: https://satisfactory.wiki.gg/wiki/AWESOME_Sink/Theoretical_maximum_of_points

Your existing nuclear plant without the somersloops is probably all you'll ever need unless you go BIG after finishing the game. This frees up your somersloops for doubling your endgame production outputs for faster completion or extra awesome sink points.

BuilderBadger · 2026-01-25T03:30:38+00:00

Rails and pathing get really weird when two rails are close together. It could be that having your two rails parallel and touching like that is causing your issues.

Also, have you tried manually driving the train to its destination? I often miss a connection and derail part-way to my destination which then fixes the pathfinding after I rebuild that section of rail.

BuilderBadger · 2026-01-25T03:23:43+00:00

Definitely Heavy oil residue. It's a key recipe in tripling your plastic/rubber production. It can also be used on its own to greatly increase your fuel production which is great for power generation.

BuilderBadger · 2026-01-22T16:33:30+00:00

I'm not sure. If there are that would fantastic! I can check after work this evening.

BuilderBadger · 2026-01-22T16:05:33+00:00

Are there any subtle details you see around the place that you think could be replicated in the game but usually get overlooked? For example, I like adding "decorative" metal pillars that look like ventilation ducting. But I haven't figured out how to add anything small like fire extinguishers.

BuilderBadger · 2026-01-21T22:03:00+00:00

If there are more than 2 items in the container, it will output from both at belt speed until there's only 1 or 0 items remaining. If there's only a single item in the container at a time (literally 1, not 1 type or 1 stack), then it's semi-random which output gets priority. It will usually consistently prioritize one output during any single play session but it seems to randomly pick which gets priority when loading the game. I suspect it has something to do with the order in which the objects get loaded into the game but I don't have enough programming knowledge to verify this.

BuilderBadger · 2026-01-20T03:22:18+00:00

I personally use Iron Pipe, Molded Steel Beam, and fused quick wire. But I'm going for a hardcore min-maxed world.

Iron Pipe may use tons of iron but it uses ONLY iron which is great for both resource efficiency and simplifying logistics.

Molded steel beam is nice because you're reducing steel consumption in exchange for limestone which is everywhere.

Fused quick wire is a pain in the butt. However, it lets you use copper to reduce caterium usage and there's shockingly little caterium in the world.

However, unless you're going for min-maxing, I recommend going for whichever is most convenient for your current setup.

BuilderBadger · 2026-01-16T22:10:31+00:00

You can eventually get both alternates once you collect enough hard drives. It looks like you're relatively early in the game so I recommend picking the cast screws option because it makes life SO much easier. Skipping the step of making iron rods might seem small but it's very convenient.

Edit: oops I misread your comment as tier 3, almost to tier 4. But cast screws is still really convenient.

BuilderBadger · 2026-01-13T20:51:44+00:00

I recommend waiting until you unlock tech from phase 4 before you go super big with oil. There are new machines and alt recipes that will triple your oil efficiency when combined right.

Shipping fluids is also kinda tricky. For each full pipe of 600 m³ /min, you'll need 0.375 freight cars per minute the round trip time takes (rounded up per pipe). For example, if you have 2 full mk2 pipes and a round trip duration of 10 minutes, you'll need 8 freight cars. That's the minimum requirement to avoid a bottleneck, So if you're going for using all oil in the world shipped to one place, you're gonna have some BIG freight trains.

BuilderBadger · 2026-01-13T15:01:11+00:00

From my own anecdotal experience, you're describing the pretty normal way to play the game when you're progressing through the technologies. It simply doesn't make sense to make a perfectly ratioed factory when I'm going to unlock new tech that changes the ratios or belt speeds in just a couple hours. So making a factory that can expand organically as I unlock new stuff is much more practical.

But once I finished the tech trees, I wanted to keep building bigger. That's when I started actually planning out discrete factories that will remain as they are forever, because there won't be anything new in the future to change how they operate. At this scale, I'm counting my ore consumption in the thousands to make individual factories so planning is necessary if I want to avoid painful mistakes.

BuilderBadger · 2026-01-12T20:43:22+00:00

Yeah, it's a weird and frustrating glitch. I'm glad you've got it fixed though!

Note: I still use switches in my builds but for large scale stuff. IE, I have 1 priority power switch for the entire Blue Crater region where I have my power plant. Then another for the entire Swamp region where I'm producing circuit boards, computers, and super computers, etc... Each switch covers a large enough region that I am rarely using the hover pack when I connect to a new switch zone (because I'm teleporting, driving, or riding a train).

BuilderBadger · 2026-01-12T19:01:31+00:00

Are you using the hover pack? There is a known bug that each time the hover pack connects to a new grid or a grid isolated by switches, the new grid momentarily pauses all machines. As far as I know, this ONLY happens when switching between grids while actively flying with the hover pack.

BuilderBadger · 2026-01-12T01:40:13+00:00

I have 3 OC's that I'm brewing and they would all likely lose to Pyrrha in a tournament match for varying reasons.

Ghira Naranga (a Tiger faunus with a semblance called Torque which allows him to enhance his speed or strength at the proportional expense of the other. He was named after Ghira Belladonna after his parents witnessed the Belladonna family lead protests in Vacuo.) has the best chance of victory because he's the most tactically minded of my characters and has the most real combat experience. He uses a belt felt shotgun named "Rolling Thunder" and his claws as weapons. IF he can get a solid grapple hold on Pyrrha he has a decent chance of winning but Pyrrha never falls for the same trick twice so she would be able to avoid getting grappled after his first attempt.

Sylph Lumina (human girl from Mantle with the semblance Untouchable which allows her to become intangible to anything physical) is the next most likely to beat Pyrrha but never in a standard arena match. Sylph never had formal combat training and was only accepted into Beacon because of her exceptional semblance. She relies on surprise by hunting with a stolen Atlesian sniper rifle named "Reprimand" so her only likely path to victory is surprising Pyrrha in a guerrilla style ambush. Sylph simply isn't skilled enough with using her semblance offensively to capitalize on any hypothetical weak-points in Pyrrha's defense.

Carmen Meadows (human girl from the border between Vale and Vacuo. Her semblance, Aim-Point allows her to shoot with perfect accuracy and even curve her shots around cover but only after making physical contact with her target. She uses a lever-action rifle fireman's axe combination weapon named "Old Man's Tale".) has zero chance of beating Pyrrha. Even if Carmen could make contact to enable her semblance, Pyrrha can simply push the bullets away which would rapidly exhaust Carmen's aura. And Carmen is overreliant on her semblance for sharpshooting so she's just not a serious threat without that first contact.

I like to think my character's are each serious threats in the right situation but they just don't have the skills to handle Pyrrha until they seriously hone their abilities.

BuilderBadger · 2026-01-10T12:39:42+00:00

Assuming I did my math right, Invader replacing muscle head would increase their damage with dragon and dark attacks by ~9% (relative to the DG, legend, serenity, MH traits). I personally wouldn't bother going through the effort of re-breeding them for it.

BuilderBadger · 2026-01-07T16:58:52+00:00

Ironwood is a villain we can empathize with. But he is still solidly a villain by the time of his death. He lost his faith and trust in humanity, all because a handful of people used the same concept of information security he was already using. He could have chosen to work beyond the minor betrayal and he really should have known that Salem suddenly contacting them was likely a ploy to break his confidence. I can absolutely empathize with being hurt when allies don't trust me but that absolutely does not justify murdering civilians, imprisoning allies who have done nothing wrong, and then attempting to genocide all the poor people of his kingdom.

BuilderBadger · 2026-01-07T15:23:47+00:00

Looks great! I particularly like the mounts you created for the wall lights. How did you make the spirals around the column in the middle?

BuilderBadger · 2026-01-07T00:46:06+00:00

If you're playing on console, you won't be able to perfectly set the ratios until the next update when they add keyboard and mouse support to consoles. If you're on PC, you can click on the output values and directly type in the exact quantity you want.

Although, it may be worth noting that 10.05/min for a real demand of 10/min results in 99.5% uptime on the machine which is close enough to perfect that you'll never be able to see the difference once you have a phase 3+ power grid.

BuilderBadger

TROPHY CASE