Let’s start with 2D crafting first and the grandfather – Factorio. Crafting stations produce X items if you feed it Y material. You want to ensure you are feeding it the most to get the most production. Factorio uses inserters to transfer items to crafting stations. These have different speeds, depending on type, and different ranges. At scale you will have multiple stations running from a single belt, but won’t be optimal without a lot of work.

Dyson Sphere Program uses inserters and they marginally slow down at range. However you can research stacking options, so that you get max reach and max speed. Crafting at scale here is extremely easy to achieve.

Satisfactory doesn’t use inserters at all and only relies on belt speeds. This is good for many reasons, mostly to offset weird alignment issues (and boy are there lots of those!) This essentially means that any crafting station will simply take in (and give out) everything up to its stated max, and allows for “buffering” of items on the belts. The challenge with this particular model is that you’ll need to work belt magic if ever you need to split items between multiple crafting stations if you are unable to produce MORE items than the belts can buffer. For example, if you create 100 iron ingots per minute and have 2 stations requiring 30 each, you’re fine. If you have 2 stations requiring 60 each, then you need to split the belts rather than buffer so that both stations work.

Techtonica uses inserters like Factorio but is 3D. The progression of the game has various inserter types:

• Regular – these move items 1 distance at a rate of 20 per minute
• Long – these move items 2 distance at a rate of 15 per minute
• Filter – these move items 1 distance at a rate of 15 per minute, but allow you to select the type of item moved (which is about half of all crafted materials)
• Fast – these move items 1 distance at a rate of 40 per minute. In most cases you are better off using 2x regular, if you have space
• Stacked – these move a stack of items (3/6/9/12) 1 distance at a time at a rate of 60 per minute. Caps at 720/minute.
• Stack Filter – these move a stack of items (3/6/9/12) 1 distance at a time at a rate of 50 per minute, but allow you to select the type of item moved (which is about half of all crafted materials). Caps at 600/minute.

(Note: as with other factory games, create an automated supply chain of inserters, storing 250 at a time. Basic Assemblers make 45/min, more than enough speed.)

When to use these is the key piece is the math part. One recipe requires 904.9 items/minute, meaning that you need 2 Stacked filters to even have a chance to meet the requirement. Nothing too complicated so far.

When looking at having a main bus, things start off simple enough as long inserters typically have enough speed (if you put 2) to run 30/minute. At later points, especially with advanced assemblers, you need 100+ items inserted per minute. Creative needs call for creative solutions.

I do like this creative aspect of the game, which is much more similar to the belt ninjistu of Satisfactory. The larger challenge is not so much building these things, but the lack of blueprint tools to repat them – an item only solved through mods in Satisfactory and yet to be available here.

Now, one caveat to all this, and it relates to Blast Miners. Through upgrades, you can get 5x the material with 15x the explosives, and at max level that means 60 explosives per minute, per miner. In fact, it goes 3x, 5x, 10x, 15x in terms of requirements for benefits.

• Base: 5/ minute
• 3x: 15/minute – a long inserter can do this well enough. The worst ratio and the best option.
• 5x: 25/minute – this is horrendous belt ninjistsu
• 10x: 50/minute – as bad as 25/minute
• 15x: 60/minute – 1 fast + 1 regular inserter sending to a stack inserter, or you need belt magic. Let alone the fact that you can only realistically create 75/minute until you invest heavily in end-game automation.

For the 5x/10x variants: Option 1 = ignore the 25 per minute and only do 20, save the hassle. Option 2 = belt magic with a ton of splitters to break down materials across multiple belts.

I am chalking this mostly up to Early Access foibles here. First, that the “end game” scaling has some really weird magic math, and second, this Blast Miner balancing act is trying to be fancier than it need be. I enjoy mathing stuff out. This one though, right on the edge of madness! Which I think is what keeps me coming back.