Stack logistics are a super interesting problem to solve, very analogous to real world logistic issues. It boils down to how of much of a thing can be shipped in the same space between locations. Compression ratios are another way to look at this. Real world, it is easier to ship aluminum powder in bulk than it is to ship aluminum boxes, due the stack size of the objects. Stack sizes in game relate to how much of an item can be stored in 1 inventory location, or on a given belt, are are up to the designer to decide. Maybe you can stack 100 of an item, maybe only 1. The why of it is interesting.

Knowing what the limit is of a stack impacts a lot of decisions, in particular in the amount of items required in it’s production path.

• Iron Ingots require 1 Iron Ore. They each stack to 100. No difference.
• Energetic Graphite requires 2 coal. Each stacks to 100. It is 100% more efficient to ship the graphite than the coal. Coal is used for other things unfortunately, so you will still need to ship it.
• Carbon Nanotubes require 6 stalagmites. Nanotubes stack to 100, stalagmites to 50. That is 12x more efficient. Stalagmites are not used for anything else, therefore you never want to ship stalagmites.

Understanding these bottlenecks can also determine if you want to create a mini-factory or ship to a planet factory. Something like Blue Science stacks to 200, which has a 10x+ efficiency rating for shipping.

In the simplest of phases, you only ever need to ship raw material (except stalagmites, titanium ore and silicon ore which should be refined first), and then distribute to a main factory. You can reach rather stable throughputs in a somewhat straightforward 1:1 ratio of interplanetary logistics station between planets.

If you want to complete a Dyson Sphere in less than 12 hours though… you’re going to need a different model where you have multiple raw-material dedicated input stations that then distribute material out to the factory. This will require about a dozen planetary mining operations to sustain. I’ve done this before and after Dark Fog. I can attest that is sucks big time with Dark Fog on.

Stack Inserters + Pilers

DSP (and Factorio) enable stacking material, which adds a base compression ratio. 4 stacks of items in DSP is a big deal, in particular when dealing with bulk base materials like ore + plates. In a large scale factory, upgrading a producing building (e.g. a smelter) to higher production rates means more items out per minute, which will likely oversaturate a belt, causing a slew of production issues. Choice #1, build more belts – unlikely as you are limited in the inputs at the destination. Choice #2, don’t upgrade and simply build a new production chain – this is actually super valid and as long as you have space to build, way more efficient. Choice #3, use pilers to create stacks which quadruple the amount possible on a belt – the best option when you are space constrained, which is likely the case by the time this problem presents itself.

Side note: this particular concept is an interesting result of the math not mathing. Factorio vanilla didn’t need this as it was dirt cheap to simply build a new belt lane with infinite build space and rather low througput. Space Age though… legendary buildings + mods on Vulcanus change your throughput rates by a factor of 5-10. More belts won’t fix that and stack inserters become mandatory. Satisfactory should have this, it would save massive builds with 70 odd belts of the same material going everywhere. And don’t get me started on fluids… that system is infuriating.

Rate Limits on Transport

If you consider real world implications, a courier, a truck, a train, and a ship have different throughput rates. A courier is the fastest but can only carry a very small amount. A truck will be faster and more precise, but can only carry 1 load to a destination. A train can carry more, but takes longer and is less accurate (it needs a train station after all), but can carry 100+ loads. A ship takes weeks to complete a shipment, can only distribute to ports, but can transport thousands of loads in a single run. And that assumes there’s a truck/train/ship available when you need it.

DSP has 4 modes of transport as well. Drones, belts, intra and inter planetary ships, which follow a similar construct as the real world. Factorio goes bots, belts, trains, ships. Satisfactory is dimensional depots, drones, belts, trains.

If you only need a few items at a time, the lower rate / higher speed options are fine. Sometimes it’s so complicated that while math says belts may be best, having a saturation of drones is actually easier as the complexity of the network is too much to overcome. Gleba in Factorio comes to mind, with spoilage coming from dozens of locations.

Interesting note for DSP is that hub distribution limits do exist. Interplanetary hubs can hold 100 intra and 10 inter planetary ships. Intra ships can move 200 items each (so 20,000 items total) and inter ships can move 2,000 (also 20,000 items total). The distance each of these ships travels is key, one stays on the planet and one goes between them…so in nearly all cases they are emptied faster than they are filled. To offset this limit, you need to build multiple hubs for the same material, then group them. A full factory planet that is optimized will likely have 5 or more hubs dedicated entirely to iron ore, and the intra ships can pick from any of them to fulfill their needs.

DSP also has a fair amount of customization in terms of grouping + prioritization, which helps dramatically with optimization. The totality of the game space (meaning all system + planets) have more tools here to effectively distribute items that Factorio does (primarily due to rocket limitations in Space Age). It’s also looks friggin’ amazing to have a planet factory running.