I confess your descriptions of Techtonia weren’t exactly alluring to me–but this sounds like the nail in the coffin. Thanks for the update!
Done with Techtonica, it does strike me as a game where they just fired the staff and got one bloke to finish it. Later talents just pointless. Weird lasertag game in the middle of it. Story just sort of cutscenes at the end with some voices. Optimisation of later game items destroys it through lag.
But back to Satisfactory for the Christmas bit. My major complaint was going to be lack of presents dropping because you need a fair bit to get the later bits and pieces of the tree going.
Except it’s really on WHY CAN’T I SEE DEATH CRATES BETTER?? It appears one present drop was a bomb and I blew myself up. Fine, that’s ok if you want to do that, but in the middle of my base, the crate left behind was impossible to find. So back to an autosave.
It is a persistent complaint about deathcrates. They need to be highlighted. And need to stop falling through the bottom of the world (which I saw on early access, but didn’t die much on release version so not sure if they fixed it).
Satisfactory took 20th in the best games of 2024 in the guardian
And they were robbed. Balatro took number 4. I am playing that and have been over the last few months. It’s an ok card game, it’s not even in the same universe as Satisfactory. I suspect they get non-game fans to rate these games.
Satisfactory 1.1 is on experimental, and it has among other things: junctions on travel tubes, splitters on vertical belts, elevators, horizontal and unlimited nudges (this was what I was waiting for), priority mergers, rework of trains and laying pipes like conveyors (ie: 90 degree bends in them). Oh and auto connecting pipes/train lines/conveyors between blueprints.
Hoping it makes main release soon, not going to bother with experimental.
Satisfactory 1.0 noob here, as I’ve mentioned in the What Games Are You Currently Playing thread. I had no idea there was a whole thread devoted to the game! It will be interesting to read through and get some useful tips.
I bought this on Steam about three weeks ago - long story about how I got here* - and whoever described this game as “digital crack” was not kidding! A couple hours a night most nights and a few weekends more or less down the drain already.
When starting new games like this I tend to start over a lot as I’m learning my way around. I’m on my fourth game now and things are running a little more smoothly, finally got coal power going and making some steel parts. Still early in Phase 2 - I’m focusing more on HUB upgrades than building Phase 2 parts. Trying to keep things running without backing up. Everything needs screws!
* A while back I started watching a YouTuber named Christopher Odd do a play-through of Subnautica. At the end of his run he did a “sneak preview” episode on Satisfactory, and I made a mental note to maybe check it out. Later I watched him do a run-through of We Happy Few and put that one on my Steam wish list, because while it looked interesting I didn’t want to pay full price for it. A few weeks ago I got an email that We Happy Few was on sale, and when I went to buy it on Steam I also saw Satisfactory for reasonably cheap (I think I got both games for around $50). Anyway, I’ve spent all my time lately playing Satisfactory and haven’t even looked at We Happy Few yet.
Ah the good old days, before plastic/rubber feeding back refinineries and huge wedges of 148 fuel plants stretching off in the distance.
I’m definitely firing it up when 1.1 goes live, think it will be hypertubes galore this time rather than the big square highway circling the map (which I gave up because without vertical nudges my blueprint of highway/train track/tubes/pipes/two way belts never connected up when they were going uphill)
If you haven’t started recovering hard drives yet, I recommend doing it before setting up any really complicated supply chains - there’s some alt recipes that drastically reduce your need for screws, or make screw manufacturing vastly easier. Cast screws, in particular, lets you skip the rod making part entirely, which is a huge lift in simplifying your factories.
Finally completed Phase 2 over the weekend. I don’t know if this is a good strategy or not but I try to complete all my HUD upgrades first before working on the items for Phase completion. (Although I still had smart plating running from Phase 1, so those were still cranking out for Phase 2.)
I need to get a transportation system up and running instead of driving my tractor around schlepping things back and forth between sites. So I’ll be looking at that soon.
I’ve found a couple of crashed pods where the door can’t be opened because the battery is dead and requires 100 or 150 MW, so you have to build a bunch of temporary biomass burners just to generate the power needed, then take them all down again. What a pain. Seems like there ought to be a better way…
There is.
Running wires everywhere?
Wherever you go. Useful now, very useful later.
It is a good idea to build a network of power towers across the map. May as well set it up as you explore. No downsides really except the ruined landscape aesthetics.
Yeah I thought about running some lines out there but it seemed kind of pointless since the crashed pods were basically in the middle of nowhere. On the other hand I have more concrete, copper wire, and cable than I know what to do with, so why not?
I take it you haven’t researched the zipline yet? The power towers are your quick transport across the map with those, that’s why you put the towers everywhere..
I’m now on my third run through on the experimental. Given the new junctions and paths on the tubes, I’ve tried out the multiple entrance tricks to speed up my tube travel and enjoying that.
If you’ve researched dimensional depots, you can just upload the mats to make biofuel generators, and enough fuel to run them, produce however many you need when you find a pod, then deconstruct them after you’ve cracked it.