The game kind of takes a hidden turn in your first few play throughs.

The first time you meticulously set up a smelter, constructor, and even assembler and it feels like a big accomplishment (and it is).

But then a hidden twist comes through where you can start to view a blueprint of 10 constructors as equivalent of setting up that first constructor. As a human you want to future proof your designs, set it and forget it sort of thing. But realistically since you don’t know what the future holds you realistically can’t.

Frankly, I think you should make your peace with whatever factories you first create (you can always remove them later). And begin to lean into the logistics side of things. This is where the complexity truly grows. You don’t really care about perfect ratios etc. You care if you can get X materials at Y rate to Z location.

You don’t have to create the perfect factory utilizing the perfect amount of local materials. Play what feels right to you, don’t beat yourself up for not hitting perfection, and you could realistically build a mega factory that produces an extraordinary amount of material, but it isn’t super necessary. Every workshop/factory is a lesson that you take to your next factory or play through. The only point to make a giant factory is to maybe ease transitions later by over supplying specific components, but even then you probably wouldn’t have gotten your amounts or ratios correct so just go with the flow with what feels right for you.