I had put Satisfactory aside for a while, mainly due to the frustration of the map. That’s really what the core of it is, because getting from point A to point B is painfully long, and if you have any vertical walls to traverse, the tools are atrocious.

In something like Skyrim, you travel somewhere, unlock fast travel and sort of forget about the travel path next time. Well, maybe you don’t because there’s some sort of emergent gameplay along the path, or some random chance at something. Satisfactory has none of that. The world looks amazing, but every single thing is placed with purpose and once you’ve found that purpose, the path between points is simply padding.

So I started to think about why the map was so frustrating, or more specifically why I needed to engage with it so much. The answer boiled down to two main things. First, the world-building tools are quite limited, in particular regarding trains (the slope limits make some paths much too complex), so that you’re having to be extra creative to build things. A nuclear plant is going to be 99% over water, because it’s the only open space you can use at that size. Second, the puzzle pieces provided to build things are too limited – your inventory is simply too small. The map is so darn big that you’re going to need thousands of meters of belts, but can only carry a few hundred.

The answer to this is mods. Or was mods. So:

• Increased inventory. Found a mod that gives 300 inventory slots. It is crazy how useful this mod is.
• SMART! which allows building multiple buildings at once. It used to provide the ability to link belts too, but that broke in v8. This cuts factory build time by a good 75%, especially if I want to line up splitters/mergers above ground.
• Teleporters. Once you unlock plastic, you can unlock the ability to build teleporters. I cannot explain how amazing this is. I remember having to walk nearly 10 minutes from one corner of the map to another. Amazing.
• Flight. Ok, this was a mod but has been a game option since v8. It makes building things so much more fun and removes the inventory management nightmare of the actual jetpack. It does trivialize Power Slug collection. Which I am ok with because you never needed it at the start of play anyways, and by end game, you had near infinite jetpack fuel.
• Unlock all alternate recipes. This was a mod, not an option in v8. Alternate recipes are variants to construction that provide alternatives depending on your available materials. Some are absolute bangers in improvements, some are more of a mess. Unlocking them meant exploring, pulling power cables all over the map, and having inventory of dumb things… then waiting 10 minutes for RNG to unlock something. I get doing it once, but it’s a good 8-10 hours saved.
• Docile creatures. The PvE elements in this game are pointless. Effectively it knocks you down cliffs. So turn this off. Also a game setting thankfully.

I am conscious that most of this reduces the value of the bespoke world building the devs have applied here. Things were placed with purpose, and the first time I went exploring, it was a truly fun journey. But this is like a puzzle, the first time you get it done, it feels great. But if I put that puzzle as a requirement to open your fridge, then you would have a different opinion quickly.

Does it allow me to focus on the parts I enjoy, like building big factories? Heck yeah! Is that one of the best parts of this game? Double heck yeah! Is laying belts and running out of material and having to trek 20 minutes back and forth fun? Anyone? If I’ve got the mats, let me use the mats! Especially when we’re talking about laying out factories with 40+ smelters.

Tangent – I still think not having the ability to pre-fab buildings is a bad choice, but also realize that it’s made entirely because of inventory / scaling issues. I’d rather have 15 manufacturers in my bag than the mats for 15. Also means that you’ll build a wall of containers holding mats to collect from.

Back to the topic. Exploration is good. Once it’s explored, it doesn’t need exploring anymore. I want to conquer that exploration, to tame it, or to simply avoid it altogether. This isn’t Valheim where the environment itself is the challenge, and you gradually get better at defending against it. I want to build factories that reach the sky! That sprawl to the end of view! That pump out so many iron plates that the planet’s gravity shifts as a result! Thank goodness for an absolutely rock star mod community.