[music]
Good time zone internet. Hello and welcome to Design Club, the only game design show on the internet that starts 90 seconds before the second time that I put for when this starts. I think we're the only one that does that. I always try and be factual with those and I'm not always right. I am your humble host, Will, joined as always by my pal, Jeff. Say hi to the people, Jeff. Hi to the people, Jeff. Hi to the people, Jeff. Hey everybody, I am Jeff Ressler, and the studio director of Extra Credits and a long-time game designer here with here trying to talk today with my associate, Will, who is voice of the people and our Twitch overlord. And today we're going to be looking at a game that has been in my Steam library for a while and recommended to me by multiple different people, but that I have not yet gotten to. So, I am very excited for this one. Yeah, so um I just so chat's all on the same page, I have played 95% of
Satisfactory. I could not bring myself to get the last final factory to build the last satellite or the last project part. Um just my brain just crapped out. It was like, I can't do factory anymore, but I will say Satisfactory does a lot of things right. So, uh we're going to dive in
Wait, does it do them right or is does it do them satisfactorily? Both. But I would say that it it would be um faint praise to call some of the things that this game does only satisfactory. Um It does a lot of things really well um and yeah, so let's um let's dive in. Let's let's take a look at the at the title screen cuz we always like doing that cuz that's a fun way to like get a first impression. You know, this is giving me, by the way, um like Half-Life um Portal art style vibes.
It's got that very new future but like still near future but still using like concrete and glass and steel like aesthetic.
of Team Fortress 2 on the color like it feels very Valve. It does in a lot of ways and I feel like this has some inspiration from things a little bit like Garry's Mod. It's not Coffee Stain is not Valve but they I definitely see the inspiration. Yeah and not in a bad way. It's just like looking at this gives me a Valve-y kind of feel for some of their games. Oh, and you while that was on my mind for Christmas I actually gave my nephew um a Switch gift card with a list of games he was supposed to buy because he can get them on sale if he has to move to his own account and he picked up Portal. And he came back a couple days later and was like "Uncle Jeff, Portal's really
good." I'm like "Yes, yes it is." Did you know there's a Portal 2? I will say Nintendo doesn't run a lot of sales but when they do over Christmas I like giving gift cards. I'm like "Yeah, go buy Portal for $5." Yep. It will give you way more than $5 worth of entertainment value. Yeah. So you asked a question while we were messing around and setting up all of the tech for this. You asked a very important question which is what's that? Yeah. And I have a very important and very good answer for you. That's dog.
little green thing? That's a bird. Now you may say but Will those don't look like any bird or dog I've ever seen. Correct. But they are a bird and a dog as far as the game is concerned. It's a lizard dog. They are cute and tameable, fun little pet friends. The birds are not tameable and everywhere. Um, but they are sort of
chew they a combined with if you see it above the dog's head. If you look up from the dog, you'll see on the cliff
I'm I'm going to get bigger screen. Give me a sec. I'm rearranging screens to get bigger screen. So, keep going, actually.
If you look above the dog's head on the cliff side, you'll see a a bright splotch of purple. Yeah. Those three things are some of the only things that give us the indication that we're not on Earth. And I think all three of them are really important to establishing the general je ne sais quoi of Satisfactory. Um, though I I I I think that they're they're they do a very good job uh of that. Um, yeah. I'm Oh, it's green screening out. Ah. Okay. Um, I have snacks I brought back from Japan. If you're munching, mute your mic so we don't have to listen to crunching. All right. Um, we're going to get on in. We're going to start a new game. So, here here's our most important question. Um,
there are four places we can start. Now, if you never played Satisfactory, an important uh note is um that all of these are in the same map. You're not in four different maps. These are just four different places that you could start in the same map. Um, so those four um places all
Okay, so this is like if you're playing an RTS game, it's where is your first city or base getting placed? It's the same map. It's um Correct. Interesting. So, by difficulty, they're just I'm assuming putting you in the harder places? Correct. So, as an example, the grass fields and the rocky desert are both are the two first-timer zones. Um, and they are uh pretty good with having a fair amount of space, a balanced amount of resources, um and they have access to uh water, which is important later. Um the northern forest is um
very resource-rich, but doesn't It's not as easy to build around. There's a bunch of terrain things that you can't move um because despite this being a factory-building game, terrain remains an obstacle unless you just build over it, and I don't mean directly over it. I mean like go up 50 m above all of the terrain and then just build a floating factory. It's an option. Uh and then the desert is well, it's a desert, and that's kind of a pain. Um the dune desert that is. The rocky desert is different. Uh and yeah, so the those are all of the um Yeah, they're all trade-offs. I think that's a very good way of putting it, Aqua Snake. Right? That that they are all um unique, interesting experiences in their own way. Uh so, I think for my money, we're going to start rocky desert because it's going to give us uh everything we need to get going in uh a short amount of time so we can see as much of the game as possible, and um I'm familiar with it, so that's where we're going to go. Cool. So, we're going to choose this, and we need a session
name, which is Brad and Janet build a project. Okay, great.
I like that one. Brad and Janet build
that's I By the way, I really like that as opposed to like you get 20% more resources in beginner mode
Yes. kind of thing. Like it's it's an elegant way of doing it without having to do a lot of balance number tweaky stuff. Yeah. Um I think that's definitely true. Uh Yeah, they're um The The other downside in my mind to dune desert um it for for Chad is the lack of or the difficulty in finding biological material for early bio generators. Um which you might be able to skip. I don't remember the entire tech tree. It's been like a year. Um so, we're going to get started. Yes. Um Keep on boarding. No. Yes.
Separation from main transport complete. Group A delivered to Callistean region. All pioneers functional. Initiating dispersion. Okay, this definitely feels like a Valve-y Half-Life-y kind of start. Mhm.
Welcome to your personal artificial directory and assistant. Welcome to the FICSIT Incorporated save the day
Could be. A FICSIT pioneer has three core assignments. Construct. All pioneers must follow FICSIT guidelines and instructions when constructing any building. Automate. Every pioneer is responsible for setting up and managing efficient pipelines, outposts, and power infrastructure. Explore and exploit. FICSIT selected planets are rich with resources suitable
for direct use or further investigation. Stay within your designated And that is why the world is counting on pioneers like you. FICSIT. Short-term solution to long-term problems. That gave me a little bit of system shock. Uh-huh. Just a little bit. Don't worry about it, Jeff. You just need to hear our song. It's fine. Everything's fine. Don't worry about it. It's great.
Three, two, one. Beginning error assist. Okay, internal sparks are never a good sign. It's probably fine. Descent phase beginning.
Oh, dude, I love the safety placard on the middle on the middle left. Yeah. Like that Skipping parachute. Yeah. ADA is a great
source of not necessarily just comedic stuff, but like you are not the only character in this game despite the fact that you were definitely alone on this. Mhm. What? Nice. Yep. So, that's your portal gun. Correct. A little happy ping is so good. Uh-huh.
[laughter]
Okay.
Zeno zapper. Pause. Mhm. Important note. This is being recorded the 15th of January with the live patch, which means that fixed misses live, which I did not think about. There is a Christmas event every year in Satisfactory. So, if you're wondering why there are gift packages falling from the sky, that's why. We're going to largely ignore them, but just know that this is a single player purchase once game that the community and the developers care enough about to put a yearly Christmas event in. Um so, we uh this is our inventory. We have kind of an RPG style inventory, though we won't be using it for normal RPG things.
it's slot based. Like one of the things too, we can see already it's slot based both on your backpack and your body.
Mhm. We do not waste. The drop pod will be recycled to construct the first stage of the habitat and utility base, often referred to as the hub. Uh So, um we this is our magic portal gun, you were correct. So, this is how we build and dismantle and do everything. Next objective, use the resource scanner to find and collect additional iron to be able to build the hub. If you cannot find iron, be assured scans of the planet have sufficient iron sources. Okay, so you're just grabbing I'm I'm grabbing some stuff that'll be useful later. Potential edible collected. Eating it and surviving does not count as a valid field test and does not generate enough data for Fixit to make an informed decision. Store this potential resource for later use. Okay, so we have uh We immediately have a resource pit, and I'm going to let Jeff pick even though
there is a correct answer here cuz I'm kind of interested. I'm having a little bit of a hard time reading the distance. My general thought would be I would head for the closer one. Okay. So, the closest one is I believe 400 m away that way. Okay. Uh and indeed it is. We're going to go this way. They also said something about like gun for eliminating creature or device for eliminating creatures.
Yeah, that's this. We have a we have a taser, just in case. Okay. We also found one of our birds. Can you tase it? I don't want to It's It Jeff, it's not doing anything. It's It's standing there looking like a a flower. Why would I tase it? I was just curious if you can tase it. I didn't say tase it.
Man, I'm a little worried. Well, I would have done it to experiment.
That's true. That's true. I will I will go tase a bird just for experiment.
No, you don't have to tase a bird. I Oh, god. Potential edible collected. Reminder that look and smell alone do not provide sufficient data to determine exact risk of consumption. Just because it looks like you can eat
it does not mean it won't eat you. Store this potential resource for later use. Tase the annoying bird. Okay, if we see another one, I'll do it. Uh I am a little turned around. Yep, we're moving this way. It's interesting I hadn't actually expected that I'd be wandering through this game like looking for resources before building my first thing. Yeah, so the game has a fair bit of exploration involved. Um experience Now, there's only one map. The map does not change. The map is invariant. So, experienced players have a route through the map in mind, but it is worth noting that the map like if you're a first-time player, you're going to spend some amount of time exploring for resources because you may notice that I can only scan for iron, but I bet you can imagine that we're going to need more than just iron to complete the game because you can only scan for resources after certain points. So, there is a fair bit of
exploration uh for a bunch of stuff. So, this is iron, and that is the reason that we have a taser. I'm going to deal with the pig first. Come here. No, stop running. Oh, for a moment I thought this was going to be it's just a scared away. You don't actually ever kill a thing. No. Uh there are things that you pretty much have to kill. This is one of them. Um it's guarding these resource nodes. Notable features are blunt teeth, suggesting it is herbivorous, and a thickly plated skull and spine. Interrupting previous message for higher priority message. Okay, so we're getting I'm getting a little bit of a Minecraft vibe here. A little. To construct the hub, iron is a base component necessary for all near future progress. So, ensure you build
the hub close to iron sources. Fixit does not pay by the kilometer. Okay. Uh so, here we have the build menu, and this lets us build all the things that we need. So, we're going to build the hub. Um now, a couple of things that are very cool. Um we can I can see you can rotate and move it around.
can rotate. Um we can't suspend it directly like on nothing. Um and it's possible, though I'm going to annoy some people by saying it's not necessary right now, to snap everything to an invisible world grid if you want. Um so that everything always lines up forever. The hub is not one of the things that needs to line up with everything forever. So, we're just going to build it. Um I'm going to put it far enough away from the iron that we have space. I'm going to put it right here. Wait, didn't it say you needed it to be close to the iron? Yeah. Hub foundation built. The hub
terminal and crafting bench are only the humble beginnings of a successful Fixit pioneer, but essential for the next steps of onboarding. Once finished, I think we're going to end up talking over ADA a fair bit, by the way, just to just to keep moving. Yeah. Um this is near. That would be far, right? Like on the other side of the river would be far on like there are all kinds of this map is giant Jeff this that like we if you see it if you see a terrain feature with some exceptions we can go there. That doesn't surprise me like that's the thing that just engines can do now. Okay so we got some exclamation points so you made a thing so basically what we've done is scouted for a little bit of resources and determine where we're starting our base. Correct. So this is the milestone system. This is how this works. So
we every time we do one of these phases will have different portions. So this is the first hub upgrade and it'll give us these things these rewards. Some of them are stats essentially like we can get an additional hand slot. Some of them are science things like the ability to build additional equipment. Some of them are the things you need to beat the game and as we go we'll see what more of those are. Got you so so basically this is the it's a series of quests that get you to the end. Correct. This is their quest system. So here we need to make an iron rod. We need to make 10 iron rods in order to upgrade the hub. So this is kind of a key example. Now we're about to do this in the least efficient way possible which I hate. Which is we can make all this stuff by hand. So mercifully they introduced a feature you there was a period of time where you need to click
through these. Now you can just hold down space bar and my hands are are very happy. All right and then we'll make uh 10 of these. And then we will go Wait, was it 10 or 11? It's 10 you need. I have 11 iron. Cuz that's the amount I had. Um okay, so now we're going to press the upgrade hub button. And now the hub is magic upgraded. Hub upgrade one, storage and frame completed. Equipment like the portable miner can now be made in the workshop. Congratulations on completing your first milestone, the first of many providing access to new recipes and technologies for the fixed admission. Next objective, complete hub upgrade two. Well, uh according to chat, they even updated it even further. You can just press space and walk away. That's pretty great, actually. Uh by the way, Jeff, you made the correct choice. Um
we'll discover more about this later on. This is pure iron. Uh which means that our mining of it is going to be more effective uh than it would be otherwise. Um all right, so I need to make a workshop, so we're going to turn all this into stuff. Oh my glob, this is so good. Is that an entire palm tree compressed into your hyperspace backpack? Yes, yes it is. Don't worry about it. So this is this is the part we're going to try and get through as quickly as possible because this is quite frankly the worst part of Satisfactory is the early game where you need to do these things um just to get started.
least I like what they've done though, like See, there's a lot of progress bar, there's a lot of number go up. It has that kind of nice sound without it's not a harsh building sound. So they're giving you kind of early early progress bar advancement. Yep. So you're at least getting your kind of you're getting that feel out of it of like, oh, thing go up,
um which is usually pretty important for a lot of these games, but also they're do One of the game designer tricks for this is you know, we introduce you to a concept and then later we're like, "Cool, you've got the concept. You don't have to do it anymore. Now we'll give you the automation step or the thing that makes it happen quicker. But you understand the fundamental around it. Okay, so we got a workshop. We have a workshop and here is it's essentially a different workbench where we can build a portable miner. So, uh we need two iron plates and four iron rods. We'll go back over here. I'm going to work with the crafting bench. We'll build one set of two iron plates. We'll go back over here. We'll build our portable miner. So, okay, this is This is a good point, right? I would say that this is the worst part for me because um the
So, did did we get anything or was there in the description said put the miner on a source of Uh we might have. Okay. Wait, is that weathered? Mhm. It's weathered.
to look a little too old to be a miner. The animations, by the way, are something that I really love. Yeah.
Like they definite Like this this is this is a thing that's going to be obsolete with a mighty quickness. And it doesn't matter, right? Because it has all of this cool like um It has all this cool like
good. I I like how they're doing the geometry uh penetration with it. Yep. So, here we can see that we are mining 80 ore per minute with this portable
miner. So now I don't have to click on the mine anymore to get iron. I can just go over and pick it up.
infinite or do they deplete? They are infinite, Jeff. Unlike a lot of other factory games, one of the things I really like about Satisfactory is that it's not about like depleting a resource node, it's about managing rates. Right? You don't have to worry about like, "Oh, you built all of this stuff assuming that that thing would last long enough, but it didn't." So now all of the work you did is useless unless you bring something else from somewhere else in to do the thing. That iron node will last the entire thing, but it does have a throughput rate that is governed by our level of technology and the purity of the resource node. Will there ever be a thing where you're going to be upgrading that miner you put down? Uh yes, kind of. Um
Okay. The portable miner is a crafting
component in a bigger mining uh machine. Um so it's not a direct upgrade, but later we can upgrade things in place. So like if we have a strict upgrade like a mark two over a mark one, we can just upgrade it in place. Okay, so what do we build now? You're building your more parts. Yep, we're building more parts. So the uh actually I should do it right here. So um if you look at the upper right-hand corner, you're always able to see the milestone that we're working towards. So in this case I need 20 rods and 10 plates. Okay. I'm going to build my 10 plates and my 20 rods. I'm almost surprised there isn't a little thing on there that shows you like 10 of 10. Uh it would if I turned them in. Um so like
Mhm, okay. if I split this,
it'll show me Yep. Oh, cool. Okay.
like the And later on, um we'll be able to uh automate this process. We'll be able to make it so that when we complete things we need for the milestone, they're just automatically shoved into the thing we're working for. Uh for some upgrades, not all upgrades. Um, but that helps when we can't like immediately just dump everything into
into power and shell completed. The smelter can turn raw ores such as copper and iron into ingots, and the biomass burner generates power when fueled. Fun fact, most of the native flora and fauna is compatible with Fixit technology. Fueling the biomass burner with inappropriate materials will result in deductions or even cancellation of your yearly bonus. Next objective, complete hub upgrade three. So, this is a a running theme. Now, this has stopped working. Why has this stopped working? It's full. This is another theme. If something is full or
backed up with either of its with any of its export products, with any of its finished products um or obviously if it doesn't have enough input, it stops. It stops where it is.
Okay, so did you just put it all into your inventory when you went over? Okay.
went and grabbed it. And I assume that will be automated later, too. Uh correct. So, I keep seeing all these bushes. Are you just clearing out Yeah. Uh and there's a reason for that. Um which is that our first source of fuel is biomass. Okay. So, one of the easiest and fastest ways is to just grab a bunch of bushes. Uh right? So, we can we need to choose a fuel, right? So, we burn 80 leaves per minute, 12 wood per minute, or 60 mycelia per minute in order to produce 20 MW of power. This is sort of one of our first rate calculation things. Um because we also have um
things like the smelter which you which need 4 MW of power. Um but in order to build the smelter and use the power we need copper. So let's hit up our big old I see a new resource. Indeed, that is copper. And because you conveniently and magically chose the correct direction to go in which we can talk about. Um if we go over here Yeah. Why aren't you grabbing bushes and stuff on the way? Uh cuz cuz I got distracted. Okay, no. I was just curious if there was a No. Um one of Okay. So here's one of the nice things about Satisfactory. There is no time pressure Mhm. at all unless you create it. You can create it. Um usually involving nuclear power and uh byproducts. If you
You're not allowed to throw nuclear waste away, Jeff. I know this is a radical concept, but you can accidentally too much nuclear waste and if you don't have a way to deal with it, you can create a problem where you can't generate enough power to get rid of the nuclear waste that your power made before it all shut down because you don't have a place to put the nuclear waste. Mhm. Um which is sort of the closest to a time crunch, right? But like sometimes um particularly with movement being as pleasant as, you'll notice that it's kind of floaty. Um and later on we'll get more movement tools actually. So occasionally you'll just find me zip zipping around like not worrying about anything, but you're right. For efficiency, I should be collecting um Should you have brought a portable miner over to just dump on that? Uh, could have. Again, I'm just kind of asking. Yeah. There's a whole bunch of a um Are those bushes regrowing? Uh, some of them are, yes. Okay.
Why can't you dump the fission waste into a hole? Uh, you kind of can, but then you'll eventually run out of space for it. Like, there is no way to destroy it. You can only fix it. Contain it? Yeah. So, eventually you run out of space in that container, and then you've just kind of um made the problem go away. And of course, the big problem overall is that there's um Is there a
It's a throughput problem, right? Like, the more nuclear power you make, the more nuclear waste you make. And so, you kind of need to balance the throughput, right? Rather than hoping that you have enough space to get all of the things done before it becomes a problem. You probably could, but it would be almost more difficult in some ways than doing the actual purification process and doing all of the techno magic to make it into something else which you
can dispose of. Um Yeah.
Yes. Tech Yes.
So, you need to get rid of it, though. So, you don't want to be waste-full. You want to be waste-empty. Yes, correct. Uh, all right. I'm going to make uh like three miners.
Make a portable miner and dump it on the copper.
I'm working Hey. Hey. Hey. I'm working on it, okay? I'm working Well, you have the controls. I don't. I'm just saying what I'm looking at.
I know. What, by the way, since I don't think we've played one of these games before, I love um the kind of game where you set up all the logistics and the resources, and you like Like, I used to play a lot of RTS games, and my economy game was strong. Like, I was very good at optimizing resource input.
Mhm.
[clears throat]
And so part of my brain always like oh look it's an automated process you can put on the thing you should just be taking it over. Yep, that's correct. I need to be rods. Um yes. Sort of to that end one of my favorite
things is that in this game one of the objects you can acquire as a and equip as a coffee cup. So that when you're observing all of your uh when you're observing all of the different like processes and everything you can just enjoy a cup of coffee. Oh that's amazing. I just think it's like that's the kind of vibe they're going for along with the fact that Ada constantly like threatens your bonus and is kind of terrible to you constantly and compares you negatively to like other um to other pioneers and like warns you that you're not doing well and like all of that. That's kind of the vibe right? It's a it it has a very blue collar vibe sort of to it. Like Oh nice you can put more than one. Yes, you can put up to three per node and then it starts yelling at you. But I don't have enough iron right now to
make more and I want to put more on the iron because we are going to need more iron. Uh regular halberd. I like I like the regular one. Add Space Americana in the soundtrack it would fit perfectly. Yeah, that's about right. Okay. Uh Okay so you got some real resource collection going. Correct and now we can probably oh I need to build wire. Let me let me we that. Oh cuz you're going to build some power and start hooking things up. That's good. One of the things I like about the design of this is because resource nodes are infinite, it means that you don't have to build in recoveries for wrong build paths. Like theoretically, you could sit here and get enough to go make 30 collectors right now if you wanted to, I'm
assuming. Drop them around and you're not you're not going to get to the point of the game where it's like, "Oh, you ran out of iron before you built the so-and-so." Chat, don't at me. Don't at me, chat. Don't Just don't. It's fine. The comments got you. Oh, I screwed up. I turned in the 20 wire that I made, not remembering that I need eight raw wire, which I turned into cable, in order to make the thing. Uh So, chat's about to get on me for um messing up early game stuff. But, that's the thing. It doesn't matter. Other games would have to have some sort of recovery mechanism in there to account for building things in the wrong order. I'll actually do you one better, Jeff. Mhm. If I Hold on. I'm going to make one. I'm going to make one. Uh buildings have 100% resource recovery. Mhm. Okay.
It's really not about For this game, it's really not about
Well, that's what I mean. Other games where you invest in it and they're they have to put in recovery or other mechanisms in case you're doing You basically build yourself into a corner or they use that as a loss condition. Correct.
With infinite resources, you don't have to do that.
Yep. You can just say your penalty is time. You didn't do it as efficiently as you could have. The penalty is you got to wait a little longer. Okay, so for reasons we'll get into eventually, uh I'm just going to put this here. Um Is that the smelter? That is a smelter. All right, and then we get to do a cool thing, which is I just I Now, here's the important part. There's a There's a power connection point on this. It's back here.
Mhm. I don't have to
me of Fallout. Yeah, I don't have to connect to it. I just have to point at the building, which is really nice. Um okay, and then we're just going to chuck a ton of wood in here. Uh and we can start our smelter going.
So, now our smelter, we have to choose our recipes. In this case, we're going to choose iron. And I'm just going to start us off by eating a bunch of iron in there. I saw a Christmas present landed kind of nearby. Is it worth picking up? Uh we'll go look at it. I have no idea what they are. I just know that Fixmas is happening. I have not explored it this year. Congratulations. You have found your first Fixmas gift package, which is naturally full of gifts. The basic part necessary for most Fixmas seasonal event activities. Don't forget to check the calendar or the map to see what you can do with these gifts. Oh, okay. So, it's its own whole sub thing. Correct. It is its own whole
like, "Here, have some extra iron." Correct. Okay. Um So, we're we can already see the So, it's one iron into one iron ore, but if you'll remember, our our little little minor friend here
makes 80. Mhm. And this is this is the other devilish part of Satisfactory that I really think they did a really great job on. The numbers don't work well right away. You can kind of massage them to work well Mhm. later, but right away, they don't, which I like a lot. Um because it tell it I don't know. It kind of tells you that stuff is going to work differently later on in in some ways and I don't I don't know. I just really like it. Yeah. Um okay, let's do Yeah, there is a variant of this game they could have built where it's like you get 100 iron a minute. You can smelt 100 iron a minute. You can do X 100 like where all the numbers exactly lined up. Correct.
And it would make the balance part of it probably too easy. Yes.
And the game would also feel like it was
more on rails. Yeah. Because you wouldn't be doing the solving part of it. You're like, "Oh, they've done all the solving part of it for me." Yes. That is definitely true. Hub upgrade three, interior furnishing, completed. The constructor can produce simple parts and power poles allow for the expansion of the power grid. When you make the inevitable mistake, Fixit's dismantling feature is designed to salvage all resources used during construction in line with our zero waste policy. We understand that Fixit pioneers
Oh my god, chat. and thus prone to error. Next objective, complete hub upgrade four. Chat. I forgot about screws. No! No! Not the screws! No! Please, Fixit, no! Oh god, no, the screws! All right, anyway. Um
Okay, tell me about the screws. Uh screws are one of the a screw Okay,
how do I explain this properly? Screws are one of the things that just never works out right and early on you need way too many of them, so they end up just being a pain all of the time. They're just like So, here's an example, right? So, So a bunch of screws to make reinforced iron plates, but I need 12 screws. Right? Um but they're made in groups of three, which means I need three iron rods. So they're like one of our first second order products, right? So we refine iron into iron ingots, then we [clears throat] make it into iron rods, then we make the iron rods into screws. And they just never seem to work out properly, uh no matter what we do. Um which is fine, right? There's nothing wrong with that. It just it it always It feels like a um kind of like a rite of passage to just have screws mess you over in the early game. Uh because they're just I feel
like it's a very interesting way to add a thing that is just universally a pain into the game that also makes sense, right? It's it's a pain point. So many screw puns I could be making. You could be making them. That is correct. Okay. Um So is constructor new? The constructor is new. Who's Clarence You said there is a grid snap option? Yeah. So if we look, right? I can mess this around and then you see how it does this? I'm holding down control right now to snap it to this thing so that the input of the constructor lines up with the output of the smelter. Okay.
And this
showing a color that showed you this should connect to that? Uh
How do you mean? Like is that device going to feed in information into this other or parts into to other device?
Yes. Okay. So once we get access to conveyors, which we don't have yet, um Okay, cuz it was showing like an orange line going in or something.
Correct. I'm sort of future-proofing a little bit. The hub is actually in the wrong spot, but that's fine. Oh, that's right. Fine. Fine. Fine. We We're We're now in like the third stage of swallowing the fly. So, now, in order to power both of these things, I need to put up a power pole. Okay. The power pole requires concrete, and concrete requires limestone. So, now I have to go find the limestone.
Which is 300 m that away, back towards where we landed.
another minor thing, so you can take another automated minor over?
Correct. Also, uh this is the point where we unlock character customization. We can do all kinds of things. Uh I'm obviously going to make the most important change immediately. Uh which is to have a llama on my fixit gun and also cat ears. Uh thank you for your
Nice. Um and that does matter in multiplayer, by the way. There's no like third-person option in single player, but in multiplayer you can. I thought you said this was a single-player game. It has It I have only played it as a single-player game. It is a multiplayer game. Um it is possible to play as a multiplayer game, rather I should say. Um and it's pretty good as one. Um from everything that I've seen. Uh it does, however, suffer from a problem. Um which is that it doesn't last as long because each
person, I feel like, um more that like the second person more than doubles your efficiency. Right.
Um also, love this. We did want to take the uh second to point it out. Over above your head now, you will see that there is a to-do list with the parts for the portable miner. Um I can just pin things there that I want to work on. Um and that'll let me do that. Uh that'll let me have a list of things that I'm trying to keep track of, which for me, who loses track of things when they leave my vision, thanks ADHD object permanence, um is very useful. No.
No. No. I keep trying Chat, I keep trying to slide jump. Slide jump? Later on, you'll get better ways to do this, but um right now, I'm just kind of stuck uh running. Whoa. Did you just go past the limestone? I did. I'm trying to remember how well this works before you get a thing that lets you jump higher. Okay. Here's our limestone. Who's the big guy? I will explain the bean in a second. We will we will rock you. Yeah, you're hitting it to the beat of uh We Will Rock You. Was that automated? Did Were you doing that on purpose or was that the game doing it? Uh it was it automatic. I'm just holding
down E. They made their animation and sound for mining to the beat of We Will Rock You? Uh you know Jeff
That's amazing. I'm not sure that they No, it's Coffee Stain. They probably did it on purpose. This is actually the fastest way to get around and since we are short on time, I will Yeah, they're the same people that did Deep Rock Galactic. That's correct. So now we're going to build some concrete. I am happy that I heard that. Yep. I'm going to put that there. Awesome. So this is one of the ways that things start to get funny. Is that Hey game, that's not what I wanted. Um
It will, however, this is kind of interesting. If you build the power line out to nothing, it'll build the power pole for you with the end of it. It's just kind of cool. Um but power poles are sort of the the way that you hub the way that you um sort of hub and spoke everything out to all of your stuff. Power poles get upgraded repeatedly throughout the game cuz they are probably one of the biggest um restrictions I would say. It's funny that that is I said really giving me Fallout 4 vibes. Mhm. Like stringing power poles through your community or settlements in Fallout 4 to bring power to all the different places was a thing. Mhm. Um I don't want to I'm going to go get some copper. Yes, you can also insert a new pole between any two existing um points on the power grid without losing power. Nice. Which is very useful.
As the factory must indeed grow. Oh. Yeah, power pole management is in fact its own mini game. That is true. Yeah, wait for starter belt spaghetti. I'm keeping the spaghetti as short as possible because I don't want it to look terrible for the Um, there is sort of a tradition though that um your initial starter base just has absolutely terrible wretched spaghetti belts. Um, just layered all over it under and through each other and it it will look awful. Um, especially because the belts have rate limits. So, again, it's all about the balancing the rates and um and making it uh work as efficiently as possible because perfect efficiency in the early game, I would say, isn't
Well, you say that, hold on. I'll be right back. Oh, yeah, that's true. Just came in out does have the title of worst spaghetti, aka the spaghetti he made that made Coffee Stain re-optimize the entire game. Uh, which you know, salutes to to a real gaming hero uh and a Coffee Stain for like taking that approach of like, "Hey, we heard you made our game scream for mercy. Um, could we get that? And then fix it." Thank you.
It's funny, things like this are one of the reasons I love playing a wide variety of games. Like I'm pretty sure, though not positive, whoever the people designing this played Fallout 4. And just as they were starting, you know, to think about the layout of things, there's like power poles. Like it's the things in your brain cuz you saw another game do that. And I'm sure Fallout 4 wasn't the first group that did it like that, but it's the first time I saw it kind of in a 3D environment like this. And just kind of going through and doing the add-ons, Is it actually aligned? All right, it is. Because like all of the placement is similar to things like Fallout 4 and others, but the setting up where one thing goes to another is
not a thing you see in those kinds of games. Yeah. But makes perfect sense for a factory. Oh. By the way, while uh Jeff is talking and explaining stuff, I am going to quickly move us through the uh sort of beginning stages of the game. What was that you just looked at that had the little gra- Oh, this? That's our power
a graph line? Yeah, that's our power graph. So, this is uh current consumption, maximum possible consumption if everything connected to the grid was running. This is how much we're producing, and this is the total capacity of production. One of the really nice things that they chose is that biomass burners have elastic production and will only run as much as is needed to meet the needs of your grid. Which is very nice because most of time we're chucking fuel into it manually rather than um having an automated system like we will later for coal, which we probably
won't get to in this stream, or for oil, or for nuclear power, or whatever. Um It It has elastic tongue. So, Thunder Heavy Aaron just said this game came out before Fallout 4. Uh the
think this game was that old. EA might have This game was in early access for um maybe too long. When did this game release? Cuz Fallout 4 came out like 10 years ago. Oh, hot. Hey, chat, do you know what helps um make things work? Uh if you connect them, get this, to the power grid. Wild concept, I know, but uh just a just a note here. Um I need another plate. Let's see.
So, the release date for this is 2024, but you said it's basically been going forever? Uh the early access was much much much much much earlier than that. It went through 10 major early access updates. Wow. That's a lot of early access updates. Yeah, they really did a great job of sort of building the game Well, Fallout 4 was 2015.
from the ground up and doing things like Um early access was the Okay, that's Factorio EA was 2019. So, not quite before Fallout 4, but but I would say early enough that it's possible that they didn't. Yeah. Well, also like Fallout 4, the housing in there came out of a like game jam dev weekend project and they liked it enough they put it in, but it was controversial enough that they almost
canceled it multiple times before the game came out, like that whole system. And then it ended up being one of the things people talked about the most from the game. That makes sense. Okay, so we're slowly stringing together both power and things that make it things into other things. That is correct. We are currently working towards the the thing in the upper um left-hand corner, which is I need 75 iron plates, 20 cable, and I'm done with the concrete. Um so I'm just uh grabbing stuff and shoving it into places and manually moving things from one place to another like some kind of heathen uh because the next milestone is conveyors. We get the conveyor belt, and then we won't have this problem anymore. Hopefully, I pray. Uh but I have set this all up in uh in expectation of conveyors. So there's basically a stage that new players get to, you're saying, that will
be shortly after this where they're like, "Oh, conveyors." And then you go after rebuild their entire base. That's correct. Um but that again is kind of the point, I think, in a lot of ways, right? Like um Does your personal inventory ever get full?
Yes. Oh, okay. I get addition This is This is a slot-based inventory. Um I do get additional slots as part of rewards. Or Or I mean, like if you have 100 iron ore, could you be carrying 100 million iron ore? Like once there's iron ore in that slot Uh it has a stack cap. It caps at 100.
Yeah, everything has a stack cap. Some things stack less than others. Um but most things stack. Yeah. Yeah, I think that this is really true. I think Trey's got it, right? The game gives you all of these you have to do it manually is kind of having to do it manually is kind of a pain woes. So, you're eager to automate and improve
your processes over and over and over again. Yeah, I agree. Um and and I also think that this is very true. Um Demon works uh has a really good point. There's also enough maps so that some folks don't rebuild anything, they just go somewhere else. Yeah, the abandoned starter base is like a um a time-honored tradition of satisfactory of like, "Okay, cool. Great. Well, there's there's like my starter base that I'm never coming back to. Bye. Bye. Um Oh, so you can basically go rebuild from the ground up again somewhere else?
Yeah, because you have the technology. Ah! That's the sound. I heard the sound. Oh, running out of power? Out of power. Whee! Also, this is very pleasing. In order to restart your power, you actually have to pull the lever. Very pleasing.
Hit the box. Oh, well. I mean, the box isn't going to help us. This will. Maybe it's full of wood, Will. Maybe it's full of wood.
Nope, full 20 fish biscuits, which I can't burn, unfortunately.
Um Hellion says, "Anyone else feel like all the buildings in Satisfactory are needlessly gigantic?" I had not heard that expressed, and I'm very interested in hearing more about that.
I actually think they feel okay, but I think it's like we're not used to seeing them at this scale. Because for example, when you play an RTS game and you're looking at that 3/4 isometric perspective, they're purposefully made to be symbolic rather than actual representative. You don't physically go inside it because you're the commander looking down from on top. The barracks has to read as barracks, but it doesn't actually need people going in and out of it. These are also all very small.
something like this does.
Yeah. These are also all very small. Like these build it These are all small. These are the smallest of them. They get kind of stupidly huge. Um which if I'm efficient and speedrun this well enough, we might see some of today. So, at this point, less than an hour in, we're at three resources you can ping. Yep. And it
looks like 10 or 15 different components. Mhm. Hub upgrade four, landing platform and utilities completed. Conveyor belts connect the output of one building to the input of another and transport resources. Due to past incidents, I have been asked to issue a clarification. Portable miners, obviously, do not have a connection for conveyor belts. There is nothing to suggest, visually or functionally, that they can be connected to portable miners. If this is something you struggle with, do not worry. Fix it has alternative uses for all their pioneers. Next objective, complete hub upgrade five. Okay. Okay, so I see you have your first assembly line. Correct. Also, I don't have a box yet, which I I need I need a box, chat. I need a box to put things in, but we'll get there.
Um Uh so yeah, this is this is pretty cool. And I really like this, by the way. This is not It's just so weird. This is not just a representation. That's a unique iron. And that's a That's one, too. And that's one, too. And I can just yank them off the belt if I want to. Right? This isn't just a visual representation. They actually managed to make the game stable while all of those are each individual iron that are actually moving through the system and doing things, which Quick question, are they coming out at the rate they're actually getting produced? Yes. That's pretty cool, too. Yeah, that is not an easy task. Uh we're going to switch to rods because I don't feel like trying to do this the other way. Um I'm going to go check the miners. Yeah, for now.
Yeah, no. Screw Yes, screws we we have discussed to some extent how screws are in fact the devil. Um so yeah, we'll we'll get there. Uh And then we're going to have to uh All right, let's grab this, turn this in, and then we're going to go and do the uh hike to get more limestone um because we need it. And it's not really worth taking a constructor yet, so I'm just going to go get some. Yeah, early early game screws are pain. So one of the things that Chad mentioned too is that so you see how like there's a recipe, right? And it's three iron make two plates. And that's just kind of like the ratio. That sort of just is what it is. Mhm. For now.
One of the things that we can do and I'm actually going to do while we're over here cuz I have a little time while those rods finish. Is that should be right over here. There are ways to get alternate recipes. Mhm. And I believe Did you just say damage there? Yeah, I took fall damage. Where's your hit point? Oh, there are bottom left.
me. Where's the slug? I don't want to fight a spider right now chat, so I'm not going to even though we could get a slug. I know. I know you're all heartbroken. Here we go.
[sighs and gasps]
Oh, failed settlement?
No, this is a drop pod. Or a a cargo pod. Um so kind of a failed settlement. Stop moving.
Thank you. All So instead we fight three pigs. Yeah, I I Okay, hold on. Wait, wait, wait. Chat. Answers Answers in chat, what would you rather fight? Would you rather fight a spitter or fight three pigs? Cuz I'm fighting three pigs all day every day before I fight a spitter without a gun. I'm just saying, right? Like you you are certainly welcome to fight a spitter without a gun, but in a in a toss-up between fighting a spitter without a gun and three pigs without a gun, I'm going
to fight the pigs. So what you just got there is you got some resources that
some resources and I got a reminder that I need to repair that drop pod. So that drop pod has a hard drive in it. Again, we probably won't get to it today, but um in the drop pod there's a hard drive and the hard drive um has a potential recipe that's an alternate recipe from the basics. And there are dozens to hundreds of alternate recipes for almost every product in the game. Everything could be made differently if you wanted to. Um So for example, instead of steel plates and screws, it could be something else? Correct. Yeah, so instead of um the the plates actually have one that uses copper wire. Instead of The advanced plates have a thing that uh is made with copper wire instead of with
screws. Also, you might I don't know if we've talked about this. So advanced plates, the things I need to build constructors, are weird. Because Look at this. A reinforced iron plate takes plates and screws to make a reinforced iron iron Which means I can't make them in a constructor. Cuz a constructor only has one input. Mhm. And this is sort of like another way that they do tearing or like gating of tiers is that you need a thing that can make something out of that many parts. Like before you can make that thing automatically, right? So, we're going to be making reinforced iron plates for a bit because we don't have a choice because we can't make them with constructors. We'll need a different machine later on to do that. Yeah. And yes, yeah, that is that is also very true. Interesting point about alternate recipes, you can't use them manually. Correct, you can only use them in a
machine. Mhm, okay. Hub upgrade five, power expansion completed. The miner, unlike portable miners, can be connected to conveyor belts and requires power to function. Caution, as you expand, the energy demand of your production may exceed the capacity of your power grid. The onboarding program was established because Fixit pioneers often experience memory issues after planet fall. If you are experiencing nosebleeds, nausea, existentialism, or an itchy scalp, there is no need for concern. This should pass within 5 to 7 work days. Next objective, complete hub upgrade six. Did I see space elevator as one of the things you can now build? You sure did, Jeff.
So, basically, you're going to start actually delivering some things up to orbit? That is correct. That is actually where I would like us to get to today. Um, I think it's possible uh, if I if I move my butt. Uh and while I'm while I'm jumping around uh doing various minutiae and tasks, do feel free to ask all of the questions. Getting minorly motion sick with your uh jumping movement.
I will refrain then from using this most optimal of uh optimal of movement methodologies. Now that we've established that it works, uh that's enough. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
minor out? That's correct. Okay. And there's a reason for that. Do you remember when I said that it's part of something else? Mhm. Part of one of these. How long can conveyor belts be? Yes. Cool. Uh the limit is more um
wire. Uh the limit is not really the um Why are you out of power? Are you out of leaves? Huh? That's fine. Do I have any space anywhere in the grid? Nope. I screwed up. All right. Um You don't put it in. Oh, I can just do this. What are you doing? Uh restarting the grid cuz I popped a fuse. Yeah, you can in principle run a single belt entirely around the map, yes. Correct. Yeah, yeah, so yes, you can Chad is being technically correct about this. There is a limit to how long a conveyor
belt can be without automatically placing a support. There is no limit to the contiguous length of conveyor that can be connected together given supports. Got you. So, theoretically, you could build something from the limestone to bring it all the way in. Correct, and probably would if we were continuing. You said something about blowing a fuse. Yep. What did you mean by that? Um I meant that I What? The game? You want to You want to give me a Y? I'm not inside the bounding box.
Okay. Um Ask your question again, Jeff, real quick, cuz I just completely spaced out on trying to fix this problem. Fuse. You said blew a fuse. Uh yes. Uh
Do your power poles have limits of how much can pass through them? That's correct. Okay. You're so ugly and I don't care. Um So, the the fuse is not actually at an individual power pole, it is instead for the whole grid. So, when we say we blew a fuse, we mean our uh demand exceeded production, right? So, if if our consumption ever exceeds uh current production or ever is exceeds capacity or temporarily exceeds production in a way that it can't spin up fast enough, then we have a problem. Um and it shuts down the whole grid, and you have to go figure out why and then turn it back on.
It's funny. It's one of the things about certain kinds of these games that everybody loves the jump hop, but for certain viewers like me, it makes it hard to watch a lot of these because it gets a some of us get motion sick on it. Yep. But it's so ingrained into how a lot of people move that it's hard for them to not do it. Yep. Abomination. It's an abomination. Woo! Look at chat, an absolute just complete messy abomination. Aren't you proud of me? Tell me you're proud of me, chat. You're so proud of me. I know. Yeah. Um Just going to cover up the screen now.
Thanks, Thunder. Appreciate you. Uh Okay, so I need another miner, which is that and that, which means it's probably just faster to go grab more stuff and then do the thing. Yes, making it work first and make it pretty later is the way to go in most cases. Um and yeah, this is why you speedrun foundations. There's a way that you can put down foundations to create a flat level place to build your whole factory on. Um and that is actually the point at which a lot of players will unlock access to foundations, put a container down with all the stuff they need to build like 100 foundations, and then rip everything else they've built up Mhm.
and put it all on foundations so that there's a nice clean grid to work on. Um I can see that.
not a terrible idea. Well, just play if it's free teardowns. Correct. And it feels like this game really understands that it's a sandbox with a point.
Right? Like yes, you can die, but combat isn't the point. And yes, you can blow the power, but you can probably fix it, right? And it's really designed to be like a hey, do you just want to build cool stuff and put it all over the place and make a big messy smelly factory? Dope. That's what we're here for, right? Proceed. You you may proceed with this endeavor, right? And that's kind of the the point and the goal. Um I think more than some kind of like timed or specific resource constrained, right? Like if if the constraint was [clears throat] you only have a thousand iron ore, don't screw up. Right. That's not the vibe that they're going for, and I think that's one of the reasons that it's so beloved is that it's so chill, right? Like the idea of the game pressuring you. It's a cozy builder. Yeah, it's a cozy
builder with like some severe alien dystopia going on. Um Chad, I can get that sphere without a jump boost, right? Or do I need to be able to build ladders? Oh, I guess I'd have to fight for it, too. Uh I don't want to. Although Yeah, and I think uh Factorio um I I think that not this. This. I think um I think that's a common dichotomy is that some people really like Factorio and some people really like this. And I don't think that one is better than the other, but I think that there are some people that like both and there are some people that really like one more than the other, and it's generally the people who like the possibility of having a failure state really love Factorio, and the people who are just like, man, I just want to like build a giant factory, it's fine. Really love Satisfactory. And I feel like they've done such a good job of just making it
ridiculous and non-pressuring. Oh, yeah, I could do a parachute jump thing. Hub upgrade six. Landing platform hydraulics completed. Freighter landing initialized. Congratulations. You have completed onboarding and achieved the absolute minimum skill level required of a Fixit pioneer. Fixit looks forward to your future achievements because a future with Fixit is a future with you. Tier one and two milestones are now available in the hub, and biomass burners can now be built individually. Your first official objective is to initiate project assembly by building the space elevator. This objective will take a significant amount of resources, so Fixit recommends getting to work. Mhm, we probably won't have time to get all of that. But this is the this is the first major thing. This is the first like, and now
you're doing a thing. But this is this is where the game opens up. We finished the tutorial. We have all of these like other milestones now. We could build and this is where we start getting choices, right? So, for instance, um we can choose to do any of these from tier one or two, right? Mhm. We could do logistics and get at splitters and mergers and lifts and um see the building efficiency. We could get uh access to the map and to the BAM, which is how we do research, and uh we get a personal storage box. We get some other stuff. Um base building has foundations. Tier two has things like the assembler, which is make two things into one thing, and it's what we need to make those iron plates that are in constructors, right? And so it is a fascinating like that's it. That's all they give you and then they're like, all right, now go figure out what of this you want to do. Have fun. Do you want to make better conveyor belts? You could build all this
manually. Probably don't, but you could, right? And I think that that's really really like I think this moment is one of the reasons why people like it so much. Right? This is all like pretty straightforward. Here's all the tutorial and then it's do all the things. Which I don't know. This is the moment that I was really like, "Oh, I get it now. It's not just this, it's all of the other stuff." Yeah. I can see the love of foundations. Like kind of looking at it here and like having seen some pictures of big concrete slabs where you put everything on and you line it all up. Yep. Oh, we're absolutely going to run out of power. That's the other that's the other really nice thing about um one of these. And you get to choose, right? What what's important to you? One
of these is you can make the chainsaw which lets you tear down trees for more wood, right? So I could tear down a whole tree and get a whole bunch more wood to more efficiently do the thing. Um Yeah. And by the way, if you notice me slowing down, it's cuz analysis paralysis, right? That that is the downside for me and one of the reasons that I ultimately don't play this game even though I respect it and like love it conceptually is the analysis paralysis makes this less fun for me. Um Uh because it goes too wide open too quickly?
It goes it just completely spaghettis out everywhere, which is fine. Um Especially when we only have uh 15 minutes. Yeah. It's a fun first look. Like um I wasn't exactly sure what to expect.
Yeah. I definitely wasn't expecting as much first-person running around. Yeah, that is a really big part of the game. Um especially because Maybe that's why I keep thinking Fallout 4. Is that's the only other game I've played where I run around in this perspective gathering up loose resources from what I find in front of me. And that is usually things in settlements. Mhm. So we then go build things I plop down like that and connect them with power. Mhm. Uh the thing that fell from the sky, Chad, is the Fix Miss gift. There is a seasonal event. What is that one? That. Nope. I can't make it without a jump boost of some kind. Oh, I could might be
able to do it this way. The whole place. How do you heal up? Uh you heal naturally over time and there are things you can do. Oh. Hey. Hey, Jeff. Mhm. This is why you play the game. All right, what?
biologist, Dr. D. M. Mercer, was the first to recognize the presence and probable nature of these alien artifacts. These chain melted state spheres are named in his honor. Each sphere emits a unique signal and will require study to determine local application. Store it for later use. Dang it. Oh, it doesn't do it on the first one. Do you remember when we were in the landing craft and um all of a sudden there was a thing that happened and it said sing us a song? Those spheres, the Mercer spheres are connected to that and there is actually in amongst all of this witty banter with Ada and everything else, there is actually a story?
Um there's a story about this planet, there's a story about Ada, there's a story about why you're here and that is the other really cool thing. Um normally grabbing I think it's the second Mercer sphere that you grab gives you the beginning of that. Um but there are collectibles all over the place and exploration, all that jazz. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, the chat is popping off because the some of the quotes from uh the characters involved in that are uh memorable and delightfully unhinged. And who doesn't like memorable and delightfully unhinged?
Right, that's what I'm saying. I'm just out here loving my memorable and delightfully unhinged stuff. All right. Coal power is going to go and I don't feel like fixing it. But this this I think is a good like little little first hour and a half look at at Satisfactory. Uh did you have any questions, Jeff, that I like failed to
answer as I was just vibing around building everything in the world? Some of the recipes and stuff, but that really doesn't matter. It's like get materials, make recipe, do thing. They get more complex. I kind of like where, you know, I can see where, as you said, it opens up. Um I like, you know, knowing that part of getting better at the game is just knowing about it to plan efficiently. Right. Like if if
That's also a sub goal. Like you don't have to make stuff look pretty. Correct. Correct. Um so now I think we're going to do something real quick. Okay. So this is That's the beginning of the game. Mhm.
And this is the end of the game. Or pretty close to it. This is um This is This is where you're headed. Uh if you decide to play Satisfactory. Um Yeah. Uh each of those
of What are those power plants?
As far as the eye can see, Jeff. Yeah, as far as the eye can see. This is um and these are particle accelerators that are building things. Those are water reclamation. Um And then uh Do I not have my zip line equipped? Oh I don't. Okay. That's fine. There are drones flying around by the way. Um What are the drones doing? Uh delivering things from different places. Ah.
Where's my claw? Wait, where's my claw? Where did that Oh I did
It says you have it in slot two. Do you have it in slot two? Um this is one of the ways you can get around. No. Can I grab on properly? No. All right, great. Oh sliding on power lines?
Yeah, so this is essentially You remember BioShock Infinite?
Or Infinite? Yeah, it's that. Nice. Uh and where we're headed actually is back to the place that that first landing um began. Uh
What is the green stuff on the ground?
That's a foundation. Um
Okay. That stuff chat a year ago when I played this on stream uh helped God dang it. I have lost all ability to use that. Um kicked out the colors. Oh, okay.
decided that it was going to be um green on the foundation and uh that all the buildings are going to be purple. So we have plastic, that's oil being pumped
out and refined. Um This is the Remember when we said you could build conveyor belts as long as you wanted to? Behold the conveyor belt as long as you want it to be. Um this is just This is all transporting things back here. Um Yeah, it's easy green and twitch purple. Correct at chat's request. Um Uh and that is the space elevator. That's the big thing that you're trying to build and put everything to um in order
So what do you end up shipping up to orbit? You actually have specific things you need to make um that like to begin with are just uh project parts. You can see them up in the right hand corner. Um you need uh a bunch of um different things as you go. Also chat, where is my hub?
Oh, that is a full map. Yep. Oh, that's right. My hub is down at the beach. That's right. That's where it is in the save. Uh correct. The rubber is chugging because I think I was fine having too much rather than too little. It's rate-limited on something else. Um so this is all like one giant factory and all of this is connected and it's all part of the same power grid that's all being powered by the giant field of diesel generators. I'm halfway through the base five finish.
though it's fast, getting around the map is still a long thing.
Yes. Right. Uh there is a thing for um later uh which is uh you can build teleporters. Mhm. Uh how big of an asteroid be disassembled rebuild the space elevator real quick? Uh I will do that after I show Jeff the hub at the end.
It's not I would say uh that the um it's not appreciable uh the difference. Oh, you have a jetpack. Is that a duh? I think they're here, right? Not like completely. Okay. So by the time we get to the end, you have all kinds of things like teleporters and um you can make blueprints that uh you can put together a series of objects in a space and then copy that as many times [clears throat] as you want. That's an example of other things. Um but a lot of it really is just different
ways to do the same thing which is get resources, do stuff. Um Oh yeah, you can build trains. That's another one. Build trains and everything else. So yeah.
Do trains transport resources or just you? Yeah, you you build trains and have it automated time schedule to um uh to have the um the trains run on. Also worth noting uh this is kind of cool. As we head back to to rebuild this space elevator cuz that animation is worth seeing. Um you can Nope. In your inventory, you can store these things. These things You remember when we talked about the stack limit and the size of the inventory? Eventually, you're able to hold things in a dimensional depot that you automatically use when you need them and they're just stored outside of your inventory. So, essentially, I have space for all of these things that are just stored in an
inventory outside of my slots. Um so, they've they have thought of that. So, it's kind of your portable hole. Correct. I see the space elevator. Yep. Yeah, it's like an ender chest on steroids. Correct. Correct. Correct. Uh the storage is very good. That's a drone going by.
got big creatures moving around. You haven't turned those into oil. Uh you actually can't kill the beans. You can kill a lot of things. You can't kill the beans. Okay. Space elevator.
That's a big un. Yep. This is one of the coolest animations in the game. This is the thing that sold a lot of people on the game when it was new. Um is that there's that thing and it So, we start down here and then it sends this tether down and we grab it. Oh, you can kill the beans. Interesting. I have never bothered to spend enough time trying to kill a bean. Apparently. Okay, that is pretty cool. And that's the space elevator. And that this thing up there gets bigger and bigger the longer you uh the longer you work on it. Yeah, that that
up to that? isn't there at the start. Hm? Can you go up to the station? No. No. That that that That's not for us. We're fixing pioneers. We're down here busy doing stuff. Yeah. So, that's uh that's satisfactory in like an hour 45-ish. Yeah. I I I hope this has been an interesting first look. It It feels weird cuz I feel like the either there's the elevator pitch for satisfactory or the too much information pitch for satisfactory. And I feel like we've we've
[laughter]
gone a little far into the too much information, but the game is so weird and deep and complicated that it's very easy to just tip over the cliff into like, you know what? You should probably play it yourself and just figure out all of the things as you go. Um yeah. Yeah. I'm now debating where it is on my list.
[laughter]
With all the other things. That is You know, Jeff, I'm I'm pretty sure that that is that is a good place for it to be.
Um thank you all for joining us for this week's Design Club on Satisfactory and doing all of the uh and doing all the satisfactory stuff. Um we will be back next week with a different game. Yes, Jeff? A a Yeah, I think we're planning to play So, my friends over at Codenames Entertainment have a game that's in just hitting early access called Without a Hitch, which is some sort of truck-based friend slop game. And they promised me a early access crack at it that we can play on stream because they're soliciting feedback. It's going to go right into the dev team. Excellent.
And so, we're going to Will and I are going to play it on stream, take notes, ask all of you who are watching to feel free to also take things in and we're going to deliver that whole slop of notes over to the dev team and be like, "Hey, here's what we thought. Do with it what you will." But they're a good group of people and this is completely unlike the last
game they made. Like radically different. So, I am curious to see what we get. Cool. Cool cool cool. Well, please join us for that next week. Uh if you're over on the tubes of you, we'll be back for breakfast on Monday. Please join me and Matt for that. We're going to have all new crop of news to talk about. Um and otherwise, uh we'll see you all next week for that on Design Club. I think that's everything for today, Jeff. Say bye to the people. Bye to the people. Have a good week, everybody.
[music]
Auto-generated captions from YouTube — names and numbers may be misheard.
Distilling the key insights…
Extra Credits · 2026
Extra Credits · 2026
Thomas Brush · 2025
Comments