satisfactory

02.01.2025

Lately I've been playing Satisfactory, which is a game where you explore a beautiful world, find resources and build factories. It's fun. You get to do some really cool engineering stuff, automation and really satisfy that part of the brain which just wants to be 'productive' and 'get stuff done'. You put down a miner, a smelter, a constructor, some conveyor belts between those and provide power and look at that, you got a fully automated line producing steel plates. It's like taking all the fun stuff from programming (creativity, problem-solving, learning, automation) without the boring parts of a programming job (bureaucracy, meetings, code reviews, testing, documentation).

I also love nature, hiking, and beautiful landscapes. I like taking a break from cities with constant noise, light pollution, advertising, stimulation. Buuuut I also really really like big cities, and all the modern stuff we have developed. Like, Tokyo is one of my favorite places I have ever visited. Thus having a love/hate relationship with modern tech, and the way we live our lives now, because like it or not, it is achieved at the cost of Earth's nature.

That's probably the reason Satisfactory hits home for me, it's about building a huge factories while exploiting the planet for resources. In fact, in the game you are a pioneer for FICSIT Inc. whose motto is to "Construct, Automate, Explore & Exploit".

Anyway, I haven't played the game too much yet, but here are some takeaways on how I have enjoyed the game (so far):

Micro factories. Designing a mega factory might sound practical and efficient but maaaaaaan that's boring. Just do little factories, based on what you need at the moment. Connect them with pathways or something.
Don't think too far ahead. What do you need right now? Cool, make a factory for that. Don't think too far ahead, don't try to 100% optimize everything. You will unlock new stuff anyway making your current stuff legacy, so no need to minmax everything. This is a video game, not a job.
Everything is temporary. Need a bird's-eye view of the thing you're building? Build a lookout tower or 2. They're cheap and can be built-dismantled instantly.
Don't destroy everything. This goes against the whole game since it's about exploiting the world, but I've took it as a challenge to try to keep as many trees and other natural structures to make the word feel more alive.
Make it look pretty. This is difficult in the beginning since you haven't unlocked any pretty building blocks. But when you can afford to, building a good-looking little factories with roads between them makes the game so much more fun that doing a mega-skybase. This is the coolest world I've seen in this game.

PS. If you just want a pure factory building game, Factorio is probably better for you. But for me it feels less chill, and doesn't have the beautiful 3D world.