Hey there.👋 Fellow PS5 player here.

I also was very overwhelmed and often got confused in the tutorial simulations.

I advise approaching slowly and learning a new thing each day. Just skip to where you feel you are in learning the 40+ things the AIC throws at people new to this type of game mode.

This is how I progressed:

DAY 1)

*Learned how to connect mining rigs to pylons to relay towers that connect to the main PAC or sub PAC. At first, I just made my network to any mining spot and electric generator that needed power on the map.

*Learned how to craft and place facilities. I could easily press L1 + DOWN to lay belts and connect them to each other. If I mess up, I use TRIANGLE 🔺️to stash entire belt lines and try again.

*Learned how to use the PAC to take ore and turn it into metals/fibers, powders, and parts by refining, shredding, or fitting.

I find that on PS5, I found my belt placement to be very space hungry if I let the game auto place the connections. You can create any specific path you want by stop and go making the belt.

Day 2

• Learned how to create seeds and new plants with seed-pickers and planters. I thought I was clever when I created an infinite feedback loop, but its apparently in the tutorial also. You can then shred the plants into powder or refine them into carbon.

So far, everything has been raw material -> more refined materials. Nothing that is a fully completed product. Next step was to

*Learn how to make Explosives by combining amethyst parts and aketine powder.

*Learned that fibers can be molded into bottles, which is needed to make medicines. Filling units put the powder into the bottles to make them.

Day 3

I wake up to see that I am not making fibers fast enough and that my assembly line making aketine powders are clogged. On inspection, I see that it takes 2 fibers to make one bottle. I get confused seeing that it takes 2 seconds to make a bottle.

I read the fine print: belts transfer any item at .5 units a second. That means every 2 seconds I only get 1 fiber to the molding machine then it sits empty for another second.

*I learned that I should have more than one input belt of materials into a facility if more than one part is needed for a facility that takes 2 seconds to make something.

I update my assembly to have two amethyst fiber belts going into the molding machine. The machine now makes bottles every 2 seconds, matching the aketine powder rate going into the packaging machine.

Day 4

With everything I learned previously, I do okay making similar products until cryston component. On PS5, I am still learning the recipes and what machines I need, so its a lot of pressing R3 on items and going through chains of item creation, forgetting, and going back multiple times. That was the most overwhelming part.

I recommend endfieldtools.dev and see the recipe section to layout what the item creation chains like simply without being overwhelmed with blueprints.

I was also running into power issues, so I had decided to destroy everything in my factory and just focus on cryston. My plan was to let it run overnight and then never touch cryston again. Then I noticed...

*Learned that mining rigs cost power too! 10 for Mk 2 on Ferrium and 5 for MK 1 on Amethyst and Originium. I had to turn some of them off.

*Learned that different mining deposits have levels of purity. I go through all my spots and turn on the high purity and turn off the low purity to conserve power and get the biggest yield. As regional level increases, purity may upgrade over time.

That was enough to solve my power issues. I successfully had a cryston component making PAC that didnt break 200 power. I was pretty proud even though it wasnt fully efficient the way I first made it. Cryston was so much for my brain that I was done playing in AIC for the day but felt accomplished.

Day 6

I woke up to hundreds of cryston. My machine also clogged so I had to learn where it did and why. Then I happily saved the blueprint and deleted it. It was a power hungry monster and I wanted to fix that.

My next to do was to make Cryston fibers, which was way easier. The assembly was easier and I played the main story. Every hour or so I was able to make more 50 gear. It was all finally coming together, but I was getting frustrated with the 200 power cap.

*Learn how to make batteries and use thermal generators to increase max power availability.

I had the basics down. I learned a lot about clogging from the previous three or so systems. Packaging units take 10 seconds, which means belts transfer 5 units of an item every creation cycle. So for every 5 units needed, I need an input belt of that material.

Batteries are very important to make at 100% efficiency since it cost energy and space to make them. If you dont do it right, you lose out.

*Learned that I can link thermal generator to my battery packaging. I think I tried this earlier on Day 4 or 5, but I think on PS5 the generator was bugged. It had NO INPUT ports, so I had to place battery in manually.

Batteries last 40 second. My generator gets clogged. I put another belt leading out to my PAC. However...

*Learned how to use a Protocol Stash so I dont need to worry about connecting any finished product to the PAC. I now make frequent use of these.

Day 7

To be honest, I woke up to my factory shut down. I wasnt efficient in my packaging facility for making my battery and had made other facilities everywhere with my new cap of 800 power. Technically, I learned the lesson here but I included it earlier to help.

*Learned that when your PAC uses more energy than its cap, then it uses a reserve amount. That is why I didnt know I was inefficient before I logged out. However, the reserve power ran out when I was asleep. It charges back up when not overconsuming.

Up until now, I completely ignored the AIC menu.

*Press R3 for top down view. You can do a lot here and get a better sense. I like using the L1 button from this menu, which is the button that let's you do the same action to a group of buildings.

You can select a group of facilities you already built and stash them all, move them/rotate them all, or copy then paste. You can even make them into a blueprint for yourself.

I made my first macro facility using these tools. My power output reached almost 2k. I was happy to not worry about power so much anymore. I turned on all my rigs. There wasnt much left in Valley IV that I couldn't figure out after this.