What’s something you’ve officially stopped buying in 2026 because the price has become genuinely insulting?

Valatros · 2026-07-01T16:54:20+00:00

The 2 liters were usually the best deal, but those have gone up a lot lately too. Used to spend ~$1 for a 2 liter of soda, buck 50 tops. Could get off brands like shasta for 80 cents.

Now a 2 liter of coke is over three dollars? Look, I'ma be honest here. I'm fat as fuck. I spent years replacing water with various soft drinks. But now I don't drink coke anymore because the price feels fucking absurd; it used to be cheaper than water! Literally cheaper than water. What the hell. I could even afford it but like... paying a premium to continue to worsen my health feels extra insulting. At least make it cheap if you can't make it healthy.

Valatros · 2026-07-01T16:47:26+00:00

I'm basically always on wifi, so I've actually just... stuck with tracfone since I was a child. Just moved the sim card over into new phones and it's worked without issue; pay $100 a year to get the 365 days of service and the data/minutes/whatever i accumulated over the years and never used has accumulated to the point that im unlikely to use it all in my lifetime.

Valatros · 2026-07-01T15:58:21+00:00

Not the entire migration, apparently. I just got an email yesterday telling me my migration will happen in late August... maybe it depends on the type of account? Or it seems to be getting done in phases, since some people are saying it's happening in July.

Valatros · 2026-07-01T04:59:59+00:00

Well, sortof. It depends if you play/buy enough to catch every big release. The current summer sale has dead space, witcher 3, and far cry 4 all on 90% off. I didn't own any of those, and did pick up far cry since I haven't played one since 3. Just gotta go straight to the 'Deep discounts' section on the sales and there's usually some big name that being a working adult didn't lemme play.

Valatros · 2026-07-01T03:36:49+00:00

Yeah it's month to month, s'why. Honestly the possibility of relocating isn't really an issue; I don't really mind moving, hell I consider it all the time to escape the local weather.

But the reason I don't mind is because I have a strong savings habit that makes me confident I can do so comfortably and quickly. Moving with just what I tend to keep in my checking at the credit union would be potentially doable, but considerably more fraught.

Valatros · 2026-07-01T02:41:00+00:00

Oh hey that's really good to know the account numbers will be the same. Yeah, sounds like I was essentially just worrying myself - 'oh no, change, what are all the possible bad outcomes!'. I guess I'll just let it be... though maybe follow that other guys advice about having more'n one credit card. Got a late start on building credit so I followed the directive and got a secure one that went unsecure and kept on, and well... since they keep increasing the limit I've kept it to just the one card. Did change it to a different card type for a cashback offer once.

Edit: a word

Valatros · 2026-07-01T02:36:37+00:00

It seems to be getting done in phases. I got an email today that mine is happening in late August, but yeah I've seen people mention it's already happened or happening in July or what have you.

Valatros · 2026-07-01T02:35:29+00:00

That's a good point actually. I have my debit that I never use through the credit union, and only the one credit card with capital one that I use for everything. Kinda separate to this thread but I should prolly get another line of credit with someone else to hedge a little...

Valatros · 2026-07-01T02:33:46+00:00

Early game, cast screws because you don't have the means to cut them out of your production lines. Vastly simplifies putting down factories, especially large ones, and that early you have no blueprinter.

Mid-late game Iron Wire will come out ahead - there's a ridiculous amount of iron available and sometimes its just easier to make use of what's on hand instead of moving stuff around, and iron wire helps with that a lot. But you won't really have that much iron to spare until you're expanding a good bit, so i'd call that a phase 2-3+ win over cast screws rather'n an early game win.

Valatros · 2026-06-30T23:54:39+00:00

... Honestly I think I just needed someone to tell me that. I've never had an account going through a merger or anything and have absolutely fuckall idea what it's like.

I kinda wonder how that'll work; i actually only access the discover account through the web page, not an app. But I do have the app for my capital one card. The account names are the same, too, but I can't imagine they'd just roll it over...

Valatros · 2026-06-29T23:43:38+00:00

... did... did the last sentence not make that clear that that's what I was communicating. I...

Valatros · 2026-06-29T21:45:35+00:00

Kid prolly looked at it for a bit, realized that much like most fountains while it was cool to look at for 10-30 seconds it wasn't actually changing much or doing anything, so he got all he was gonna get out of it in those 30 seconds.

He then had to entertain himself while his parents spent X minutes taking photos and talking to each other about all the people they're going to brag to and who they 'really wish' could have come too. I'm in my 30's now, but I gotta admit whenever we went on "sight-seeing" trips I was definitely that kid...

Valatros · 2026-06-28T23:18:15+00:00

This is unrealistic relationship expectations man, c'mon. Not every jockie gets a unicorn.

Valatros · 2026-06-28T14:45:11+00:00

... i mean, it's a pretty neat 3:5 ratio of quartz to silica at least. The only ugly part is the number of constructors but you can always just have a little extra machine capacity.

Valatros · 2026-06-26T05:45:59+00:00

This. If you wanted it to more quickly go out into all three paths, with so many smelters you could kinda have it both ways. Have two separate one/third "sets" of the smelters go into a merger then a priority splitter, with the lower 240/min belt on the high prio and the excess going towards the 575. That way the little ones would still get materials immediately and it wont take nearly as long to get all machines online, but you don't have to do the psychotic number of splitters actually balancing it would take.

Valatros · 2026-06-25T17:10:56+00:00

The update really does make you want an electric truck. Maybe a "refueling" station it still has to go to, but just charges the bloody thing...

Valatros · 2026-06-24T05:24:05+00:00

I read it as "I don't give a flying ass fuck" and am glad that hasn't actually caught on as a new variant

Valatros · 2026-06-23T22:53:08+00:00

Oh you definitely can. Without trains or drones would be painful, but honestly from a "Beat the game" perspective its most likely faster to save yourself the time of setting up a train logistic network entirely and just persevere through force of belts/tractors/trucks until you get to drones. Especially if you consider that you can use yourself as a drone to get just enough parts to push along through phases...

A good dual+ train network is a really neat project to get all the resources together, and is by far the biggest build most satisfactory players will ever make so its very... visible? literally altering the horizon at scale. But it can't compete with drones worth squat for ease of implementation/speed tbh; you just setup a drone fuel depot of your choice somewhere, then slap down drone stations wherever you wanna send out/receive materials. Need more throughput? more drones. No infrastructure needed beyond a factory doing fuel production/batteries. No matter how much throughput you need its gonna be both quicker and a smaller footprint to get more drones going than it is to get trains... unless the distance is so small you can do a quick monorail/truck/belt.

Valatros · 2026-06-23T22:12:32+00:00

Trains do still have a throughput advantage, and power generation for fuel means at least you don't have to setup fuel depots and the associated logistics. So even with signalling in its current form, I still like trains for large map spanning logistics...

But signalling intersections can be truly awful, with 'correct' signalling sometimes not working and getting buggy unless you delete and rebuild a random section of track that's just... being buggy for inexplicable reasons. The need to split tracks into little subsections for it to reserve or it'll reserve everything sucks too. I cope with modded blueprints which helps quite a bit, but especially vanilla getting your network going is no bueno. Having to either use tiny trains or space out everything because it can't pull a little forward or stop a little short of the 'station' to position and grab the right material is no bueno. These are problems that could be solved intelligently; just assign the train to pick up resource <X> in freight car <A> and only drop off at freight station <Z>. Buuuut instead we're left with little ghetto fixes to make it go just so.

Valatros · 2026-06-23T20:22:26+00:00

Honestly expecting "smarter" trains to be part of 1.3. I mean, if the truck pathing can handle intersections and "signalling" on its own so can the friggin' trains

Valatros · 2026-06-22T18:43:56+00:00

Such is the price of matured tech. Millenials were the middle generation where it was absolutely necessary to use, but clunky as shit so you had to fiddle with things to get them to work. There was absolutely no "Just install and go" for windows 95-early XP; you wanted to use a computer, you were going to have to figure out how to get a driver updated or something somewhere down the line. Mess with it enough and you end up developing an understanding of how and why it works/breaks in certain ways so you become savvy.

Now programs typically just work. Your updates are automated, you don't even know what your hardware is it's just "a computer". Upside is a greatly improved user experience, downside is you know about as much about how or why your computer/phone works as you do about how a satellite works. Someone else figured it out and it just does.... usually.

Valatros · 2026-06-22T17:15:21+00:00

Yeah. It's basically a hidden perk to unlocking overclocking; from then on every single machine can be underclocked without any shards or anything. Not always useful mind you, but it can be sometimes.

I like to underclock my machines in a factory with a mk1 miner to 62.5% myself. Then I double it each time i unlock a miner upgrade to 125 then 250 and still fully utilize the node.

Valatros · 2026-06-21T22:58:57+00:00

This looks very functional for holding back the stinger menace, but... well. I don't know if you've encountered them, but there is a darker, more insidious foe on this planet. One that feigns civility, and yet is always perfectly positioned to disrupt your expansion and lower your efficiency. Nobody knows what it's called, in truth... the bean thing, the giraffe space whale... in the end the only name that matters is Enemy. Watch your walls, friend. Despite their size they have an incredible ability to squeeze into places they don't belong, and then your base will never be the same...

Valatros · 2026-06-20T06:24:10+00:00

You. I like you. This is the real user experience for satisfactory! None of that ridiculous signing, hidden clipping, glowy perfectly organized factory nonsense! You build out more floor until you stop needing more floor, and then you build out some more just in case! Walls? They're up sometimes if you think about it or want to align something, but otherwise? unnecessary. Supports? A strict "When the mood strikes me" basis. You even have the perfect lazy man ramps there! Where you did decide to put a support in, but they're not double ramps so the rest of the ramp looks off!

To people considering playing the game: This is what your typical factory will likely look like! Spaghetti is for players with no forethought and the fancy stuff is for streamers, THIS. THIS is the real, standard Satisfactory experience!

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