It’s been a heck of a journey for Satisfactory to reach full release, one of the few bright star Early Access games to actually achieve that goal, and find a way to maintain focus over their total roadmap. I say that in the context of other EA games, in particular though in the automation genre. I do think that Dyson Sphere Program (DSP) was a better overall game but has really lost it’s way in recent updates, with simply way too much end-game bloat, and the focus on PvE is highlighting that chaos. Techtonica has potential, but Laser Tag was not on anyone’s bingo card. Foundry is more demo than game at this time. Valheim, Enshrouded, Nightingale are all games that are trying to find some footing.

With that said, Satisfactory 1.0 is here, and with it is a rather substantial amount of change. There are the regular balancing items, things moving between tiers to smooth out player progress and exploration, things you’d generally expect. There’s a new larger story to explore, using the odd items laid about the map. It’s not like it’s a mandatory portion, but does provide a more cohesive experience to players. There’s also a new tier of technology, and finally an way to effectively manage all nuclear waste, convert some material into others, and a new power source.

While I am sure others have used older saves to dig into this new tier, I opted for a new world. And a new world using low friction settings – specifically that alternate recipes are unlocked immediately and that flight is there from the start. I have these settings because the exploration part of the game is one that I enjoyed the first few times, and realized that I do not enjoy it anymore. I want to automate factories, not build a bajillion platforms to traverse a world, which all becomes useless in a few hours when the jetpack is available.

The only real downside so far (private server issues aside) is that all my mods are broken. This really sucks, as the inventory size and blueprint system are just too small to be used at scale. The good news is that I am in the early game and it doesn’t matter much yet. So fingers crossed that by the time I get to the oil refinery tier that mods are available.

A quibble here, and one that relates more to pacing than much else. The starting experience, the one up until you unlock coal power, still feels “off”. There’s a gradual progression mechanic with factory automation games, where you start off doing everything manually and eventually automate the basic stuff, then the complex. Now, there are multiple paths to achieve this goal, and the most interesting ones come after hours and hours of playtime. Spaghetti factories are how most people start, with gradual increments of productivity. This is extremely hard to balance at the start, since it will exponentially impact the end game, so the limiting factor often relates to power – how you get the machines to work. Biofuel options have been all over the map, and while it’s awesome you can now feed belts (instead of manually feeding), the power generation abilities are still too small at low levels. It’s not broken by any imagination, just still feels off.

Oh, and Phase 2 still has a weird end-state. 1000 of anything that is produced at a rate of 2/min = 8 hours of production time. This is the point in the game where you go “damn, I need to build wide instead of straight”. It is also the point where you realize that a starter factory is soon going to need to shift to a bus approach. And a bit later you’ll see that a bus approach doesn’t work, and you need dedicated factories to specific mid-tier outputs, and even more so, why this game is in 3D. It’s one of those games where you think you’ve solved it, and realize that the next challenge requires a new approach.

I do want to hit on something that I really enjoy, and it’s math problems. Coal Power is based on supplying coal and water to generators. You need 15 coal and 45 water per minute. Miners give you 60 each (at the start), and water extractors give you 120 each. Through math, you want 2 miners, 3 water extractors, and 8 coal generators to use 100% of the resources. Now to get the stuff around. Belts (for coal) can supply up to 120 at Mk2, so it’s easy enough to set that part. Water pipes cap at 300. 3 extractors give you 360, so you’re short 60. The answer is to split pipes, so you have 180 on one end, and 180 in the other. Logistics, after all, isn’t only about building stuff, it’s transporting stuff as well. You could build the world’s largest factory, but if you can’t supply it… well you have a big gym.

But I am getting ahead of myself. A few more things to produce, and then Oil + Trains are next. Doing either of those without mods is going to be less than ideal. Still, solving the math problems with a visual result, who wouldn’t want some of that?!

And I’ll talk about the new updates to 1.0 in the next update.