It’s been nearly a year since patch 1.1, which was mostly QoL stuff as a result of the massive 1.0 launch. Well, 1.2 is here and there are a few notable changes.

• Rain is back, which was removed to do occlusion issues (it rained indoors).
• Additional game mode where you can set the resource costs and node richness values. This is a sort of middle ground to ‘build for free’ mode. Tweaking power consumption is a nice option.
  • Related, Space Elevator costs can be tweaked if you want to turn on ‘hard mode’
• Vehicle pathing and reworks. This is more like trains now. I’ve always thought the concept of vehicles was good, but the execution was really quite random. Trains are almost always a better option, and at the end game, drones run the show.
• Trucks can now transport fluids. This is good for mid-game options, where for some reason you don’t want trains.
• Daisy Chaining for power connections between buildings. Never really had an issue with this outside of the start of the game, but certainly a ‘cleaner’ view of power poles.
• Pipeline T-Junctions. This one is weird. Fluid dynamics in Satisfactory are physics-based, which really shows up when you make aluminum. Should make for cleaner pipes… should.
• The recipe list also now shows alternative recipes prior to you unlocking them. I really like alternative recipes, as much for efficiency as flexibility. This QoL thing effectively removes the need to alt-tab to a wiki.

In total, the majority of this is also in the QoL space, though vehicles are the bigger piece. Which brings to topic the choice of when to use which vehicle. First, the list:

• Belts & Pipes
  • Belts go from 60 to 1200 items per minute and can span the entire map. These generally make for ugly maps if you rips belts everywhere, but for short distances they absolutely rock.
  • Pipes are 300 or 700 per minute. Liquid piping usually isn’t too bad and due to transport issues, often better than all other options. Gas piping… this actually impacts your factory locations. Very rare to ship liquid in mass quantities for long distances.
• Terrain Vehicle
  • Truck – Unlocked at tier 3. Uses for medium deliveries (25). Uses fuel. Needs a dedicated path.
  • Tractor – Unlocked at tier 5. Used for larger deliveries (48). Uses fuel. Needs a dedicated path.
• Rails
  • Trains. Unlocked at tier 6. Used for long distances and very large deliveries (32 per car). Uses electricity. Needs a rail.
• Air
  • Drones. Unlocked at tier 7. Uses for very large distances and smaller deliveries (9). Can only deliver material, not liquid. Uses fuel. Auto-maps.

The tiers do matter. Tier 3 is Phase 1 of the elevator. Tier 5+6 are Phase 2. Tier 7 is Phase 3. This generally means that Tractors are somewhat irrelevant as Trains are way more effective and unlocked at the same time.

Picking the appropriate delivery model is primarily a math exercise… how many items do you need per minute? You would be surprised at how few items you actually do need near the end game and how many items you need for raw materials. Time to delivery is total (volume per trip * # of trips per minute). The distance and pathing matters. Small trips with Trucks are going to be faster than trains, and way faster than drones. Medium trips for trains work well enough. Long trips, trains and drones are king. Something like 200 items or less per minute across medium/long distances, drones are amazing.

I tend to apply a rule of thumb here. If I can see it, I will belt/pipe it. If I can’t see it, and I only need a few, then I will drop a drone. If I can’t see it and I need a lot, then I’ll add some cars to a rail. Trucks are used for a very niche set of work on micro-factories, which are primarily Sulfur or Carbon related as those recipes aren’t used all that much and the nodes are in weird spaces.

Which gets back to 1.2 and vehicle changes. These are good changes, yet apply to a niche deployment. They don’t move fast enough or transport enough to make them viable alternatives to trains. This patch has a lot of work in it, no question there, but the net effect for a playthrough isn’t actually impactful.