Coffee Stain has a huge advantage not needing to cater to the demands of a publisher and their ownership group pretty much lets them operate independently how they please which is a very rare privilege to have in game development. On top of that their team is incredible and they care about quality, fun, and cool game design vs. your average AAA studio that's looking at how they can monetize every mechanic of a game.
They credited their success with this game to Epic for funding their development. Their RUclips channel has a video that talks about it. Their community manager is really great, and explains the whole Epic exclusive game thing from a developers standpoint. Epic basically guaranteed money and resources which allows them to hire more staff and make a better game. I know lots of people think steam good epic bad, but their funding helped this studio(and many more) flourish.
CSS makes 3 of my current favorite games: Satisfactory, Deep Rock Galactic, and Valheim. All 3 of those games are amazing in their own way, it's actually really impressive to me that this (relatively) smaller studio is producing all of the incredible games.
I still remember the first time I met one of the spiders. It was about 2 am IRL and all lights were off in my room. I was out looking around for hard drives, since I was waiting for more concrete to be produced in my factory and suddenly I just hear skittering tippy taps behind me. I turn around and just straight up let out a nearly inhuman shriek. I immediately press escape, save and go to bed. Didn't log on until I had thoroughly researched the spiders and seen images of them online, so I knew what I was gonna see when I logged in again. I'm a 28 year old guy and I was almost reduced to fear-induced tears. So thanks Coffe Stain. Thanks for nearly browning my pants.
I still do not venture into most cave due to the spiders and when I do I blanket everything with nobelisk to blow them up, preferably before i need to see them. Its the one think that might cause me to add mods which I so far have avoided as I want to have the vanilla game play until I can play the final release. But those spiders, they really are the worst mob I have ever encountered in any game in the last 30 years. One of the original aliens games with the face huggers and the beeping scanner is the closet second, but even that is left far behind. And I am not even scared of spiders in real life :)
@@davidmartensson273 this reminds of the "????" boss in first Sanctum (Coffee Stain's older game) which had a 'face' that horrified me to shits... I guess they know how to make poop inducing visuals huh... They should make a horror game. -Will be the first game of theirs I won't buy- 🤣
@Matthew Patience I know but I currently choose to play without mods so that any feedback I give is based on vanilla gameplay. But yes, spiders is the one thing that tempts me to renegade on that goal.
I even named the quartz spider cave Evil Spider Cave with a beacon lol. Best way I found to clear that out is to build some 4 meter foundations when you have blade runners and jump on it and get free shots on the spiders with the rebar gun. That thing is amazing.
You need to be a certain type of person to play these games but man, if you are satisfactory is about as good as it gets. Its my 'have a beer or two and mess about for 6 hours on a friday night' game, and it changes depending on your mood. I have sessions where I just go out to pick up slugs or hard drives, I have sessions where I build entire subfactories, I have sessions where I just 'pretty' things up like Im building houses in The Sims, I have sessions where Im like 'idgaf just get it done/built' and I have sessions where I sperg out because that one power pole is half a tile out of position so I better rebuild that bit. If you want it to be, every project is a rabbit hole. I set off to get some silica one session which lead to laying railways, expanding power, building paths etc etc and 50 hours later im like 'cool, got that silica, now I can start aluminum'. Its like crack.
I just spent, including the scouting locations and calculating production, at least 30+ hours just making a massive facility. Just so I could use a slew of alt recipes that allows for crystal computers, culminating in two assemblers making them lol. Fucking absurd
dont agree....... i not a big fan of these types of games. but as the video mentioned they hit all the marks. Sure i never get 4k hours or 2k in it probably. but i broke 100 hours and i sure given enough time i break 200. for me that is a huge amount of gaming in 1 game. i would argue this game is for anyone. because u can do anything. explore, build, math lol. create, some fighting. i guess that be its biggest hold up is fighting. once u get sword- gun fighting is easy even for noob like myself. but i dont really play this game to fight so its ok.
Its indeed like drugs, if you want to desconnect from earth and see the day come and go in a blink this game is definelty better than any drug i've done so far. trust me. - A former drug addict who was advised this game by a mate in rehab and curently has 3200 hours in this game
"Who the f*ck brought an algebra quiz to my videogame?" Is easily the best way I can describe my experience with this game. I've only played Satisfactory for 60 or 70 ish hours, but I'm already in love with it, nightmarish math and all.
*Me first getting to caterium* Ok so 45 ore p/m for 15 ingots p/m, pretty steep conversion there but let m- *12 caterium ingots p/m for 60 p/m wire* *Perfectionist Aneurysm intensifies*
The Moment i placed down my first portable miner i knew that this game would be one of the best games i've ever played. The way it moved, the way it sounded everything about it was executed so perfectly that it actually felt like it would be alive.
3 года назад+25
Portable miners are my favorites! I like to think them as alive beings because their animation makes me feel like they are alive, they have a character, a personality.
so true, I found myself spending 4 minutes yesterday just looking at the animation of the manufacturer, thinking "I thought every effort made by game developers were supposed to be useful, not just for player's satisfaction"
yeah but its a shame the other buildings dont self assemble in the same animated way just fade in.. I dont know if they intent to add a lot more machine animations by 1.0 but i hope they do. I know animating them constructing and unfolding etc would be a lot of work. I also know its not required - but i think it would make the game even more satisfying and impressive.
I have 4000hrs in Satisfactory and have been playing since March of 2019. You 100% nailed it with this video. It just keeps me coming back. Making videos, streaming it, interacting with the community, promoting it, and even in my down time, coming up with newer and larger builds with a paper and pencil. One thing I think that really separates it from other games is the developers. They are constantly interacting with their community. Taking notes, dropping randomly into streams, commenting on videos, and highlighting players and accomplishments in their weekly dev stream. Another huge thing is they actually listen to the players. They take suggestions, bug reports, and will even add features people request. A team that actually listens to their community these days all the way down to 1 on 1 chats is absolutely refreshing. Thanks for the great breakdown. Now it's my turn to share it everywhere!
Thank you for the kind words! It means a lot. I just hope people pick this game up and see how truly incredible it is and why other devs should take notice.
@@Grifflicious Yeah i mean i really hope other game devs take notice this game has one of the cleanest most user friendly UI/UX ever its so well made. Would love to see this quality in other games.
I have spent HOURS making spreadsheets and solving complex maths to make prefect production and logistics just to reflect and realize the game is so God damn good I'm willing to do homework to play it.
@@404-Error-Not-Found lmao As a mild autistic child I used to black out into a couple hour long fits of rage and anger after getting confused with basic maths, now my brain just shuts down when confronted with mathematics but still I truly love this game, I wing it til things go wrong then half ass it to a point where it sort of works.. 😂😂
"Who the fuck brought an algebra quiz to my video game?!" Instant like!! I find Oxygen Not Included to be a great comparison for Satisfactory. Both scratch the same itch for me, despite being so different.
Ah yes , someone similar to me, there is a reason I have something like a switch between periods like 3 to 4 days or time available divide into several periods between oxygen not included and satisfactory
@@seanwong9869 My two favorite games as well, where true love is found in a spreadsheet. All due respect to the Factorio nerds. You guys are the OG, but we of the second generation of factory games crave something a little more Satisfactory.
The one thing that stands out about Satisfactory is the devs are wholeheartedly invested in the game it feels like everything was a labour of love, that and they listen to what the community wants and welcome constructive criticism.
First playthrough: "Snails make your machines work faster? Awsome!" After first playthrough: "Everything I did was wrong..." Second playthrough: "Let's use what I've learned, optimize, and go for nuclear power!" After secong playthrough: "To fix the radioactive problem I'd have to re-do the whole factory..." Now I'm waiting for update 5. I need to start making vertical segments.
We start off as Italian chefs cooking a nice batch of spaghetti on our first playthrough and slowly become an american road engineer by building things gridlike and massive or die
My problem with everything is I can't stand when something clips, but I'm not creative enough to make a factory that doesn't have belts clipping at least a little bit, and I'm not patient enough to achieve the perfection my brain requires in order to think clearly about the next step...
this video is like praising league of legends when dota 1 made it first like the game did not improve the factorio formula enough aside from being 3d and even that is a downside due too how much less you can build before we reach the limits of our hardware
even tho i have hundreds of hours in Satisfactory and know almost all of the aspects of the game, I still watched the whole 31 min video. This video was really well made and showed exactly why and how this games manages to amaze all of us that play or have played it. Very well done. :)
I recently reached 200 hours but my reaction / feedback is the exact same. A really well made video which I'd share with my friends who are curious about the game as a 'long trailer'
Same here. I also watched until the very end of this video even though I know most stuff that's inside the game. I got over 1200 hours already in this game and just can't stop playing it. I have many other games on my pc but I keep coming back to Satisfactory, even if I have to start all over again because I forgot where I stopped in which save and what needs to be done next. It's perfectly built and feels more complete than most finished games which even had some updates after release. I still cannot grasp how they reach this level of optimization as other games, which don't have to process anything in the background like hundreds of buildings and thousands of conveyor belts and splitters, mergers, lifts etc. Some games have real performance issues without any computational difficulties to be seen anywhere for that type of game. Like some shooters that lag horribly with even far less objects onscreen and no calculations in the background compared to what Satisfactory displays onscreen and needs to process in the background to keep your factory running at all times. When you stand on a mountain in Satisfactory, you can see almost the entire map and you can even see your buildings which can be more than a kilometer away in the distance and they're still being rendered. Other games have such stuff pop in and out if they're further away than 25m or so to be able to get some decent framerate. Satisfactory is a real masterpiece and the developers can be proud of what they made so far and it's not even finished yet, there is alot more to come.
Same thing I said about Factorio. Had it for years and then one day looked and realized it wasn't even fully released at the time. I was in shock as it was always so polished and updates were flawless and never had an issue with bugs. These are the types of developers that care enough to do things right before they push stuff out. It is very impressive. Both Factorio and Satisfactory developers.
Only real "bug" I've run into is that it is possible to fall or be knocked off a cliff into the void, only to land on a ledge and live, but have no way back up, thereby making all your items totally inaccessible after respawn.
@@Nevir202 if you have concrete and iron plates in your inventory, you can build platforms to get you to the top. you can also reload a previous save. it's not really a bug. it's a feature that tells you you should be cautious near cliffs. kinda like in real life. that being said, there's plenty of bugs in the game. coffee stain is hard working and they fix a lot of stuff, but realistically can't fix all of them. one example is the fluid bug when loading into your save game. when loading in, all pipe systems have about almost 5 cubic meters of fluid taken out of them. people have been trying to find workarounds for it, but the only way to prevent idling machines, is making sure there's more fluid than needed. it also means a 100% closed feedback loop is eventually going to cause machines to idle, because the fluid is being removed bit by bit, every time you load in. it just vanishes into thin air, and this has been an issue since fluids were introduced into the game.
One tiny thing I loved, and it'll only happen once in each play through, is when you unlock the xeno basher. When you place it in your hand for the first time, the Pioneer will look at it, stroke that little dangling key-thing, and then open up the basher. I love that! I love that the pioneer takes a moment to appreciate this new item they see for the first time, touching that key-thing and probably wondering what its for. A tiny moment, but it shows the love the developers have for this game, imo.
I am kinda 50/50 on how to do things, some parts of my factory I have optimised perfectly, while others I built with the mindset of "fuck optimisation, it makes the thing I want, however slow, but at least it's being made, so it's fine by me."
I ignored this game for about a year while it was in early access and then decided to try it out. Now I have almost 1000 hours in the game and I absolutely love it. It is probably one of the best games I have ever played.
i remember the sream, where they showcased the update 4, everything was fine and nice and everyone was exited, but then, at the end, another video and BAM, pipes are coming to satisfactory... and everyone in the chat was freaking out...i mean, in what other kind game did the playerbase freak out because pipes are coming in the next update?! i just love it!
In factorio pipes, circuits, drones, blueprints, trains, signals, collisions, were all in the first public early access, so no need to freak out, that's where they started. Maybe one day satisfactoy will copy the rest of factorios core features, would be nice.
@@entelin sure, but you have to admit, that in satisfactory it is way more complicated (just because of the 3d map and fluid dynamics)...and they always sayed that there goal with this game is to bring factorio to a new level, its not just copy everything that factorio has. Even the makers of factorio love the way, that this devs are taking with this game.
@@georgwarhead2801 Yeah I mean, I like the game, but gameplay wise it doesn't offer anything that factorio doesn't itself do better. It's pretty, but that's about it.
@@entelin yea but in Satisfactory... pipes were a meme... they were considered ILLEGAL... CURSED... they probably just hyped it with this... i remember jaw dropping when the Engineer jumped and PIPES appeared... it was the most epic moment And then at the end... the STEAM ANNOUNCEMENT... oh god that was ULTRA EPIC xd
This game really makes you feel like you are improving your brain function in some way. It facilitates creativity and critical thinking and I just love it. This game is nearly perfect.
Fantastic video. Not only the thoughtful design is important, but what the Community Managers Jace and Snutt are doing for the game is truly unique to any other game. That kind of community engagement is phenomenal, I love their philosophy behind it. They want to have developers more humanised to a consumer and not just corporate stiffs or code monkeys.
This video has been recommended to me for several weeks now, but I told myself that as an "already fan of the game" I didn't need to see this. Well, I finally clicked, and - your ability to verbalize the feelings you get from experiencing and playing the game is spot on. I felt like it was my first playthrough again - I got that same excitement again. What a great review. I'm going to go play update 5 now, cheers!
If you like them check out Dyson Sphere Program another Early Access game within this genre... and that game has you building Dyson Spheres around a star, and you get to explore your local star system in early game, and an entire star cluster in mid to late game...
I made the mistake of purchasing this game a few days ago. My life will never be the same. It scratches an itch in my brain I didn’t even know I have. I want to escape and just live in the Satisfactory worlds alone wandering about building factories forever.
I have put an embarrassing amount of time into Satisfactory and I've never been able to put my thoughts into words for why that is. This video is a perfect summarization for my thoughts and it's really refreshing to see that new players that haven't been following the game since its beginning can still fall for it the way that I and many others have. Props to Coffee Stain for such a fantastic game and props to you for this really well put together video!
I remeber spending 1-3 hours on a computer maker. Finally seeing 100% efficiency on the manufactuter after overclocking and undercloking to get the perfect amount for each machine and making all the machines look tidy was ond the most amazing gaming experiences i had. The game is truely satisfactory... One of my favorites games of all time.
Please please please please PLEASE! Come back and make another video after 1.0 comes out in September. This video brought tears to my eyes because of how much I love this game and having someone basically read my mind out to me in a video format was astonishing. Now I get to be excited for both 1.0 RELEASE and another amazing video. -780ish hours deep and many more to come.
Satisfactory is easily in the top 5 all time games for me. One thing you talked about a lot that I'd never realized is how much the game respects the player's intelligence and creativity. It guides the player juuust enough so they're well informed of their options, but it never crosses the line into hand holding. I've played a lot of automation/management/crafting games in my time. Usually these games have god awful learning curves where you're either: A) guided like a toddler through a 2 hour tutorial campaign, B) restricted by upgrades/unlocks that are clearly meant to guide you in a specific direction, or C) completely overwhelmed by systems and recipes to the point that a second monitor with the game's wiki is all but required. Satisfactory is the first game of this genre that was actually enjoyable from the outset. I always knew exactly what I needed to do, and I never knew how I wanted to do it, which is exactly the sweet spot you wanna hit with a game like this.
I love both Satisfactory and Factorio. This video does a great job explaining why Satisfactory is awesome, but it didn't do Factorio justice. The other game has things going for it too! One is tower defense. Enemies in Satisfactory ignore player structures, but defense is a primary motivator in Factorio. Late-game systems are far more rewarding in Factorio, particularly research, circuit networks, construction bots, and logistics. Satisfactory is slowly closing the gap here with the additions of liquids, nuclear power, and trains in recent years.
That's fair. I didn't get super far into Factorio where this become a factor for me but you're right, it certainly does play a substantial role in the gameplay that does put it into a league of its own as far as that's concerned.
Agree, but as he said, he only played for a little bit. I can see someone playing Satisfactory first and then Factorio, how they can think Cracktorio is a downgrade, when it isn't. I have played 2 rounds of Factorio and right now playing DSP to occupy time while waiting for Update 5. All 3 are different, but same, but their own works of greatness.
@@greag1e i did factorio second and it did feel like a step back, but then I got construction bots... looking forward to Satisfactory Update 5 for zooping but ill still miss full blueprint copy/paste. Plus Dactorio Space Exploration mod is awesome! 350 hour playthrough on that.
Factorio does everything that satisfactory does but squared. More ratios, more logistics, more thought needs to be put into building factory. In the end defence doesn't even matter that much, as lasers with walls is all you need, while factory grows bigger and more complicated with every research unlocked.
The Spiders can be really scary in this game. And I am not even that scared from spiders IRL. I can only imagine what horror it brings to those that are. I am more a FPS/Competitive gamer, but this game and FS22 opened some kind of door for me. And I love it.
This game has the best UI and button/mouse combos I’ve ever seen in a game. It’s so fluid and easy that not long into the game, you’re assembling massive factories without hardly thinking. I love this game, and like you I was a bit timid to try it out. I’m so grateful to have found and played Satisfactory. I can’t wait to hear more as the story plays out.
I'm moderately experienced with Satisfactory (1800hr... previously I would have never thought that wouldn't be considered "mastery" in a game) and you have quite expertly explained why I like it so much in a way I could not have enunciated myself. Great video, I enjoyed it!
This game has taken over my life. I got the game about 4 days ago and have 75 reported hours on steam. I legit had a dream I was running late for work and needed to get up and get to the factory. I've never had a factory job and I currently work as a Doordasher, so basically have no "late for work" fears. Not like the nightmares I had (sign of PTSD) about being late to work when working at a retail grocery store. Love this game and it can have my soul l
Now, if I want to introduce the game to anyone, I'll just send them this video. Well articulated and reflects everything that I feel about this game, but not able to explain. Great job Grifflicious!
18:57 where even in 1.0 it still holds true. I remember my first ever playthrough in I believe it was update 5, I did a speed run exploration play through running from one of those stupid spider things. The only reason I even craft the rifle and enough ammo to deploy to the Middle East is specifically for those stinger things.
You know the best thing about this game? There are a ton of different ways to play this game, and EVERY SINGLE ONE of them feels like an intentional, well designed aspect in itself. There were SO many times where I thought to myself, "This game is doing X so much better than game Y. And it's not even finished unlike Y." You can just jump into the game with no prior knowledge whatsoever, and the game organically shows you everything you can do, and you DISCOVER that you can solve a problem in different, equally valid ways. Noone tells you you are doing something right or wrong. You figure that out yourself, even when there are objectively better and worse ways to do it. Each process actually is so unique that a different approach may be required or at least more ideal/easier. I think the exploration aspect is actually extremely well designed and integrated into the game. I like how you start out in the middle of an area, you walk around slowly and keep encountering enemies, cliffsides, poisonous areas and even the literal "end of the world", and you may wonder just how big the world actually is. As you progress with your factory, your own MOBILITY and capabilities increase to an epic scale over time. At first even low-level enemies are a challenge, climbing mountains is difficult, dangerous and slow, areas are blocked by rocks or gas etc. Then you become able to run faster and jump higher, and you start to travel further. When you get the jetpack, and as you learn how to use it, you are able to overcome many obstacles you could not before. You finally get to some good vantage points that let you see more of the world, and again you suspect that there is so much more to explore than you thought. You keep overcoming more and more of the obstacles and become the master of this world. You make it your own. Towards the late-game, due to the non-procedural world, you inevitably expand your factory into this vast world to get all the different resources you need. You may start to build train tracks around the entire map, and finally start to see the whole picture. And once you've finally unlocked everything and "completed" the game, you may start to think about what else you want to do and choose a goal for yourself. And it may keep you playing for another 1000 hours before you know it. For example you might decide that since you now know more or less the entire world, you should find out how much of which raw resources there actually are in total, and what it would take to build an entirely new factory that would collect and use ALL of them... And as you start working on something like this, you start to face challenges you never even had before once again. You may start pushing the limits of what your conveyor belts can handle, and end up contemplating how to best arrange 20+ belts or pipes to get your resources where you need them. Logistics become a huge part of the game. Maybe you never even used a train up until now. Certainly you didn't use the most efficient alternate recipes for everything until now. What even are the best recipes to use? It's not a clear-cut answer. As with everything, you decide how you want to do things. Maybe you start up Excel and calculate it all yourself. Or maybe you use online tools and resources. Or you talk to the online community about it. Either way, if you've enjoyed the game until here, you probably will for much longer.
Even when you’ve completed every milestone there’s never an end within the game. That’s something that I think we all enjoy about the game. It’s not a game with a infinite space, but a game with so much more possibilities to explore unlike other games. It’s something great and very fun to think you’re done but then find out you can make things even better than before
During my first playthrough, I started out in the Grassfields, learned about the game, tried to find my way and built a big warehouse and wrapped all my factories around it using a huge bus system that took resources out of the warehouse and dumped new ones back in. After about 100 hours or so, I unlocked the map and opened it. I haven't even explored a quarter of the map at that point. I just unlocked coal power, setup 16 coals generators and was slowly progressing towards tier 5 and 6. My jaw dropped wide open just by looking at the size of the map. I built a tractor and went exploring and found some beautiful vistas that dropped my jaw open even further. And it keeps getting better and better. Now I'm 1200 hours in and still can't get enough of it. I found new resources, built many new factories and even reached nuclear power in my first runthrough after 500 hours. It certainly keeps you occupied and while you can always find a very small bug or two that are mostly visual stuff, everything works perfectly. And the performance of the engine is so high that you need to have a big world before it starts to stutter, even on a 12-yeard old pc like mine. Other games don't even come close to such performance while they have no calculations to be done in the background and far less visual details to be rendered onscreen at any given time.
Digital heroin, I’ve lost weekends to this game like I just got in a Time Machine - just poof it’s Monday morning but my factory now has 17 more production lines. Worth every penny, 11/10.
Haha just saw this video three years later after 1.0 is out. It has been quite the journey and it's pretty great that your video holds up. Amazing job by coffee stain and an amazing video from you. Now I am going to see if you made any more in the three years since this one.
For me satisfactory is the Perfect level of difficulty its challenging enough to make me really think sometimes and have to come up with clever new ways to automate things. But the challenge is always possible and eventually you overcome that challenge and it feels amazing to have that new structure up and a new challenge awaits.
Yep, you have convinced me that I need to use these five hours I have before work for Satisfactory. Last thing I built was a supercomputer factory that works at 250% efficiency and man, that took HOURS. Eight, to be exact (to be fair, I did some slug hunting in the middle as a "break").
Nice video, that part where you talked about how everything was designed as if you were actually doing it made me think of something, the devs put in a lot of work because when you make a game, you just think of it as a game not an actual "reality" that mimics how things work in a real world so good work to the devs.
Damn what a beautifully crafted video essay on satisfactory. As someone who has literally hundreds upon hundreds of hours, this is by far the best video describing satisfactory for what it is
i only have this game for 2 weeks, but already played it for over 60 hours. You really hit the nail on the head. I got sucked so deep into the game, that i mostly forget time and space around me. I can probably play this game forever and wont be bored.
Started playing today and 3 and a half hours evaporated in the blink of an eye. My factories are a mess and my generators keep blowing a fuse. I can’t stop thinking about this game.
The testament to how much attention is paid to the little things in this game is that there's *movement tech* . Slide jumping off a Mk. 5 conveyor and yeeting yourself forward at mach 3 is an experience that never gets old.
Just wanted to let you know, I would 100% watch more Satisfactory or Video Essay content from you. Loved the video and it covered everything I love so much about the game. Update 5 has diversified the game even more by making decoration a much more feasible option, even in the early game. Already sunk like 60 more hours in the last 2 weeks
I definitely have to build on a couple of mechanical points, just in case some viewers who aren't particularly deep into the game don't fully appreciate the mechanics. ---- 1st, Underclocking: Holy cannoli this is actually amazing. Overclocking not only makes you 'use more power to produce more items', it's actually 'make this thing WILDLY more power-inefficient to simplify your production process'. That is to say, to produce 2x the number of items from a single machine, it costs like 3x more power within the same timeframe. An example from the wiki: Normal Iron Rod production costs 16 MJ to produce the item. At 2x speed, it costs 24.2 MJ to produce each iron rod, totaling at 48.4 MJ. You could have used two constructors instead, saved yourself the power shards, and it'd only cost 32MJ to produce. The overclock conversion only gets even worse at 250% speed. Underclocking, however, is the opposite! Whereas overclocking makes it cost more energy to produce each individual item, underclocking makes it cost LESS energy to produce each individual item! If you want to output the same rate of iron rods, but drastically decrease the energy impact of constructing them on your power grid, you simply create more structures and underclock them. Take one constructor, and make it ten constructors, each running at 10% speed. An individual one is terribly slow, the whole setup costs WAY more materials, and it takes way more space -- but 10 constructors running at 10% speed produce as much as one constructor... at 1/4th of the energy cost. You can reduce how much energy you're consuming to produce those iron rods by -75%. Make 20 constructors, doubling your iron rod production, and you're still at HALF the energy impact of a single constructor running at default speed. Have 40 constructors running at 10% speed, and you have 4x production for the same energy footprint as a single constructor running at default speed. In the early game, underclocking actually SIGNIFICANTLY reduces strain on your power grid, with your finite access to power. It's actually a very good thing to consider if you haven't reached, or haven't scaled up your coal power plants yet, and are still relying on manually feeding Biomass Burners. To further put this into perspective, the video speaks about improved compacting of biomass having better energy yields. I will elaborate on this. 1 "leaves" = 15 MJ. 10 leaves are worth 150 MJ. 10 leaves can be combined to yield 5 "Biomass". 1 Biomass is 180 MJ; so 150MJ can be converted into 900MJ. Hot damn, that's a 6x energy conversion rate! But we can go further. 8 Biomass can be converted into 4 "Solid Biofuel" . 1 Solid Biofuel is worth 450 MJ, so you're converting 1440 MJ into 1800 MJ. Not as big of a jump as before, but Biomass and Solid Biofuel both have a stack size of 200, so while the conversion rate of inventory space 2:1, the efficiency of a single stack shoots WAY up - you can leave a biomass burner nearly 3x as long before you have to visit it again. Now, combine this with Underclocking, and the number of items which can be produced with the energy of a single unit of Solid Biofuel - which in the early game comes primarily from wood and leaves, which are finite resources that do not replenish - can potentially quadruple. You could aim for [improved simplicity of construction + increased inefficiency of consumption], you could aim for [scaled construction + balanced inefficiency of consumption], or with underclocking, you could aim for [increased complexity of construction + improved efficiency of consumption]. ----- 2nd, Alternate Recipes: (Mild Spoilers) These are, usually, a trade-off. Factory complexity, material efficiency, energy efficiency, these are the things that are being wobbled around with alternate recipes. A lot of times, it can be worth it, but HOW worth it is dependent upon how you value your time or your resources. Aluminum Ingots, for example: Standard conversion has you use 90 Scrap + some amount of Silica to produce 60 Aluminum Ingots. The bauxite refinement to create Alumina Solution, which is used to create Scrap, creates Silica as a byproduct, so you only really need a small amount supplemented from elsewhere to keep it all running. However, maybe you don't want to use Silica? Maybe you just want to pump scrap in, get aluminum out. Thus the Pure Aluminum Ingot recipe, which turns 60:30, rather than 90:60, but doesn't use silica, meaning less conveyor spaghetti and smaller, less costly buildings (constructors vs foundries). You can also use the Instant Scrap recipe to throw a Blender into the equation and remove Refineries altogether, structures that have a LOT of space bloat, and in the process also eat less Bauxite and Coal in the process, at the cost of added products somewhere along the chain leading up to the blender, though still at relatively efficient ratios. There are also recipes out there that make things MORE complicated, but for vastly improved input:output ratios. Turbofuel production is an example of this, requiring not only different resources get used in a different factory arrangement, but it's an alternate recipe that REQUIRES ANOTHER ALTERNATE RECIPE TO BE RESEARCHED FIRST, and can be made MORE EFFICIENT STILL by finding alternate recipes where Heavy Oil Residue is the primary product, and a new, different resource is output as a byproduct. Or! OR! You could have a different recipe that outputs THAT byproduct as the primary, and Heavy Oil Residue as the byproduct, and use alternate recipes to recycle the weird NEW product into Plastic and Rubber at WAY better production ratios than simply turning your oil into those things directly. Factory gets bigger, uses more materials, but outputs way more product and energy for the same amount of input. It's insane. One single Pure Oil Node with its output maxed out via overclocking is essentially powering my ENTIRE base, with tonnes of energy to spare, producing more plastic and rubber than I could EVER use, and I haven't even made full use of all the Turbofuel I'm producing. To think that, I could underclock huge chunks of my base on top of that? ----- TL;DR: The game is a sandbox of possibilities. The game dev has ideas, but they don't want to tell you them, they revel in you discovering them on your own with your own capabilities of logic and reasoning, so they simply bring the possibilities, then they throw those possibilities on the table, and smile as they watch you produce the ideas by simply looking at what is being offered on the table. Sometimes, you might even produce an idea that the game devs hadn't accounted for, and instead of thinking "That's not what I wanted you to think", like so many game devs do, they think "You fuckin' amazing lil' cookie you, take that idea and RUN with it! RUN! SHOW ME WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH IT! Show us ALL! Tell you what, your idea gives ME an idea, lemme make some more stuff..." and it just keeps feeding into itself. It's fantastic. The name of this game isn't just a cheeky pun that drives the very design of it on every single level -- even outside of the game, the way the devs and community circle around each other is, in and of itself, satisfying. I honestly really quite love it.
One other factor to consider with underclocking, at least for people with CPUs with lower performance (like me), is that the limiting factor on a save is often the total number of machines you can put in the world before everything slows down too much and your frames become nearly unplayable. Especially an issue when hosting a MP world.
I have some comments to this. First, agree with everything here. Underclocking is extremely attractive but you have to consider its consequence especially if you underclock a endgame factory. The engine can only handle so many items before it begins to have issues. This can be circumvented with a quick .ini edit, but your now circumventing UE4’s item count threshold. Take into your own. Also some warnings. The game does have rounding errors especially impacting mk2 pipes. They are supposed to carry 600 m3 max fluid but never can. In reality its like 599 or 598. Its best to try to math it out so your pipes never carry more than 400m3 of fluid per pipe. That usually solves that issue. The next is junctions. They have effects of causing flow rate to not reset after each junction causing flow issues. To fix this, loop the pipe. 9/10 times that fixes this issue. Or dont make pipe manifolds too big. Use gravity to assist you. Fluids respond to gravity. That is why for inputs I always have the input pipe placed above the input connection spot. One stackable pipe support usually is enough. Final hurdle for piping is there is a buffer loading bug. When the gsme loads a save, 5m3 of all fluid buffers vanishes. This can cause instability in what should be a stable system over time.
This comment for some reason made me laugh. The creator of the video clearly put hours of thought and hard concentration into this video. In return he gets a "great video. Keep it up" idk thought that was pretty funny
"Ass-puckering skittering noises..." Lol. I barely get scared any more in video games, maybe because I loved being scared as a kid and sought out scary stuff. Now I'm an old man and I play more for the romanticism of a compelling atmosphere and good music. What a surprise to pick this game up on an impulse, only to discover it was more polished and had better gameplay than most finished AAA games. I had no idea what I was getting into and just jumped in. I played it by instinct, which I think is the way to go. Sure, making hyper-efficient factories is fine, but on a first playthrough one should simply learn by trial and error. I ended up with a kind of willy wonka, spaghetti factory mess, but it was such a fun process. I praised this game as a kind of puzzle game, so it pleases me to see you talk about this aspect of it. Satisfactory is a succession of problems that will draw you in and keep you thinking, and each problem solved makes you feel... satisfied. Hundreds of hours later and I am so impressed by all the work the devs put into it, and they're still going. In fact, I've been concerned that the devs are doing too much. They're taking so long and stuffing so much goodness into this game that I worry the market will pass them by before release. I worry that not enough people will buy it to justify their hard work. That's a strange way to feel about gaming devs when most games are rushed to market even though they are a buggy mess. I only hope they give it a compelling story, one that isn't corrupted by any woke, progressive, neo-Marxist cancer. That may be too much to hope for but this game deserves better. In any case, great video, Grifflicious.
from what i know, there goal for sold copys was several 10k, there dream goal was breaking the 100k mark. at the update 4 stream (or a little before) they anounced, that they already passed the 1 million mark, wich they never thinked of getting even close. so doesnt matter what they expected to archive with this game, they already archived way more. for the story, they sayed that there will no "big story" behind the game, just this little peaces of what are you doing, why and for who are you doing it....FICSiT
@@georgwarhead2801 I thought of such a great story to compliment this game- a story that would involve very minimal work to implement. It would be just a bit of voice acting and some cut scenes. How I wish I could wed this amazing game to my story. Glad to hear they've already exceeded their expectations. Hopefully they do a bit of marketing at 1.0 and they get double or triple the player base they have now.
I heard on the grapevine Coffee Stain are currently VERY happy with their sales figures. It certainly hasn't fallen foul of the community the way other early-access games have. I think they're onto a winner.
I had managed to place myself so one of the big ones spawned on top of me and got stuck. So I was running around with it on me with it covering half of my screen. A part of me died that day.
@@karadan100 That's good to hear. This game deserves to be a hit. Part of my worry had to do with wondering just how much of the video game market finds games like Satisfactory appealing. I can't see a game like this ever having the popular appeal of 'Call of Duty' or 'Fortnight' but I hope it can draw big numbers and properly reward everyone involved for their excellent work.
The first thing I noticed when I landed my pod was how drop-dead gorgeous the environment of this game is. It makes sense why it is not procedurally generated; the factory you build should look different every time, and should cover different pieces of ground, so I can appreciate the developers' choice to carefully cultivate where needed items are on the map. This video has convinced me to jump back in.
A couple thousand hours into the game and yes, you hit all the best points spot on. Good video. Thank you for reminding me how much I loved playing this. OK, they messed up my aluminum production and I need to get that sorted, maybe soon.
Ive only seen 5 mins of the video but to note with sound design. One of the larger ones i find unnoticed is the machinery hitting the ground. It scaled in pitch length and depth the larger the item you place. Put down a constructor vs a truck stop. Vs a train station vs a space elevator. And just listen to them drop. And the metal and motors scraping on the elevator cut scene
The first 90 seconds had me crying with laughter, been there done that :-) Handy hint ....Whatever the biggest size you think you need for an area, multiply by at least a factor of 20
@@PartytimeYOLO It's an overwiev of the game. But yes. Belt speeds (also the better pipes), nowadays railways and drones ARE a very important aspect of the game.
Looking at your RUclips upload history, it's been a while since you've posted anything. However, your thoughts are well-structured, and you've a good skill in articulating them. Especially if you're looking to focus more on Satisfactory, I know there are others (including myself) that would be very interested to see your take on what builds interest you, and even gameplay (raw or highlights) as you construct it. Just some food for thought, and looking forward to see what you do next.
This video is so good i might be responsible for a few views, the way you describe Satisfactory totally is how i feel about it and how i cannot stay away from that game, excellent work sir! Sidenote, the rant on the stingers, absolute poetry
This video made me decide to play this game. You have a gift in how you explain/show/convey things in a very interesting and logical way. Thank you. You earned my subscription and my appreciation.
As an experienced factory/colony builder, the way Satisfactory made me feel needs was the 1st teller to how great the game design is. Simple things, like not giving you the biomass burner early on to make you think to yourself "I wish I could build one myself" and then a bit later the game gives you that. Or "Oh I wish I could auto craft'' and a bit later the game gives you a constructor. And then ''Oh I wish I had a container to put items in for my constructor'' and then the game gives you that. Everything is really well thought off and it's absolutely amazing to have a sandbox-ich game that is actually designed with such care.
Ive been playing satisfactory since it was first released. Its been one of my favorite "base building" games and I play a lot of them. You can tell by playing the game that the devs are passionate not only about the game but its fans.
"Who the fuck brought an algebra quiz to my video game". That is the best summary of satisfactory yet. And yes, it is indeed a masterpiece of a game. 2 years and 600+ hours in, and I will be here for many more years.
There's something incredibly special about this game and I could never quite put my finger on what it was. I think you really nailed it. I remember the first time I saw a trailer of the game and though it looked like it might be fun, but I didn't think too much of it. I never expected that I would end up liking the game this much. It became the first and only game to ever make me pull an all nighter just to play video games. I ended up playing with a friend for about 35 hours straight without even realizing. And not even a second of it was boring. We had this big project or making a massive oil factory and have a ton of plastic, rubber and fuel produced in the same area, and ended up making enough turbofuel for 148 fuel generators. Did we need that much power? Not even close. Did we enjoy making the absolute most power we possibly could out of a single pure oil node? Hell yeah we did. The algebra quiz joke was very accurate on this one because we had to spend so much time optimizing. We haven't played in a while now but we were planning on doing the same thing but this time with nuclear power. This video really made me feel like playing again.
I don't remember off the top of my head if its under quartz or caterium but wait until you get the thermal generation and start using them on geysers. That's a fun build too, well mostly for power! Drop a couple of them and a few electric accumulators... very nice indeed!
25:40 the most important thing about alt recipes is that, when comparing them to each other, no alt recipe is strictly better or strictly worse. Some alts are strictly better than the base recipe (cast screws is probably the best alt in the game for its intended use, on par with heavy oil residue and diluted fuel,) but there is always a trade off - maybe you can use some oil instead of copper. Maybe you can eliminate high volume items (screws) entirely at the cost of more complex production and slightly decreased material efficiency. Maybe you can make more parts per minute with fewer machines at the cost of more materials. Maybe you can increase the efficiency of both materials per item and items per minute at the cost of additional production steps.
Incredibly well-scripted and executed video. Hit all the nails on the head with this one and I hope it sets a new record in terms of views for your channel (60K). Edit: 78K views in 3 weeks! Congrats
Everything you said here is so true. This game really gave me that thrill of exploration, of total freedom, of discovery, when you feel smart because you figured out an answer completely yourself. The world is vast and beautiful and fascinating. The base building mechanics are the BEST I've ever used before, bar none. Everything fits together perfectly and seems so well thought out. So excited 1.0 is releasing soon!
I really appreciate this video. I just bought this game myself the other day and have been hooked ever since the first couple minutes. I am usually the type of person that can't play any single player game for more than about 3-4 hours before getting unimaginably bored, and I already have 20 hours in this game in 2 days over the weekend lol. Still not very far; I'm on tier 4 I believe, but I'm having a blast hitting production and resource roadblocks and trying to figure out the best way to get past them with what I have. It's frustrating when you hit them, but when you finally figure out how to get around it it's so satisfying. Currently trying to build up the courage to go build a separate base somewhere else to start gathering coal and getting that working haha. Fantastic video, my friend. You earned a sub =] Hopefully you make more videos about this fantastic game!
i was showing my wife my notes for designing a 100% efficient low tier factory and my wife told me she forgot algebra. i asked her what she meant and she reminded me that i just picked up algebra like i never forgot it, just to play my little factory game haha
The sound design really is what stands out for me in this game. I'm glad you mention it, I always felt I was the only one mentioning it. It makes you feel you're really using badass industrial machinery.
As someone who was part of the Alpha Test: Once I realized the dig animation and it's sound effect essentially emulate the beat of "We will rock you!" - I just _knew_ this would become something truly special =) Absolutely agree here, obviously. Nice one!
This is a wonderful video, and really gets the heart of the game, thank you for showcasing the secret sauce that me and so many other players have fallen in love with
What a fantastic video, you have managed to say everything about the game that I thought plus more, in such a way that I was struggling to convey to my friends to sell this masterpiece of a game that’s not even finished and is always growing and expanding.
Man this video was so high quality I assumed you had like 500k subs wtf dude? The one thing I noticed while playing satisfactory was the sound design. It is incredibly satisfying... just the sound of resetting the breaker when the power goes out (now an enjoyable experience). The fact that when I pull that switch I inadvertently jank my mouse all the way down the desk XD
Really well put thought out and executed video. I've been hopelessly in love with this game since I started playing shortly after update 3 came out. I'm addition to the have being expertly crafted, the ongoing community engagement has been superb which is worth mentioning as well.
You hit every point within 12min so far that I love about this game; I tried to play 2 times before and hit those educational moments but stopped playing but the 3rd time things clicked for me and I saw the bigger picture and really find myself enjoying this game everytime , enhancing and tweaking the world I'm working in.
this game is so fun, it is one of the few games that i loose track of time playing, it always surprises me, genuinely a masterpiece, also the devs are chads that listen to the community, i can tell this game has so much love put into it
One detail I like is just the concept of the space elevator itself. A building that you end up plugging all your resources into for project assembly and thus ends up as the cornerstone of your main factory. A building that visually extends through the top of the game world. When your lost exploring and your compass is full of noted crash sites and ore deposits. Just look up.
Satisfactory is probably my favorite building game of all time... It contains a level of polish, and attention to detail, rarely seen in other titles. Little moving parts on machines, imaginative designs, heck.. look close enough on a pipe and you'll see the bolts are actually threaded. It really is a labor of love and a thing of true beauty. Coupled with some of the more technical aspects and it really does boggle the mind. Watching tens of thousands of moving parts zipping around on conveyors, when you see other games struggle with a few hundred particles... just leaves one in awe of the technical side of things. It really is a true masterpiece, and the canvas isn't even fully covered yet.
Great job on this video. . This game is all about choice, and no choice is right or wrong unless you deem it right or wrong for you. Do you load balance every machine in a production line, or just manifold it through? Both choices work. Do you run a hub & spoke rail network to a centralized megafactory, or do you set up loops and manufacturing outposts? You just spent 100 hours designing a perfectly efficient, functional production line. Now go look how dozens of others have solved the same problem in a dozen different ways, and be blown away by the beauty of their creations. There are some factories that look like art out there. And, it sneakily taught my now 10 year old so much math that his teacher has him working from the 8th grade book to keep him challenged. Even my wife, who normally wouldn't come near this game, likes logging into our world just to see the sights.
This is the sort of thing that makes me happy to hear. My girls are still a little too young for it but when their the right age, I’ll 100% be getting them into it. Oh, and my wife and I play together too!
The storyline, the music, the need to send resources and special resources TO THE HEAVENS and out of the production loop, that is what makes Satisfactory so unique, and makes you dream and push forward. Everytime when I hear "MILE-STONE-REACHED" i just have shivers of joy down my back.
Just found this video. Amazing. I fell in love with this game way back. Your video is spot on with the comparisons to Portal and how the developers walked the tightrope between forcing you to do a task and just leaving you on your own. I couldn't do a better job explaining why I love this game so much. Well done.
This is really such a great video. I already loved this game, for pretty much everything you mentioned. But the dive into why these things are amazing was really great to watch. Thank you for this love letter to such a lovely game.
The part about factorio is something i thought myself too, it's only when i got forced out of that mindset by my friend not owning both that i realised how fun it actually is. The immersion in designing and expanding your factory top down is at least as good as exploring it first person, it just feels less natural when you're not used to it making the play times for factorio either below 5 hours or 200+ hours.
Fantastic video! Truly well done. Engaging, informational, funny, well-paced. Puts the emotional tingles this game accomplishes into words. Any time someone asks why I have spent so many hours in this game, I'm going to send them this video.
When this game just came out I played it with a friend of mine, probably the best time I've ever had with him was making new contraptions and exploring the environment. Truly one of my best memories with him.
Beautifuly compressed into video form! Especially the look, feel and sound design you mentioned really bring this game home for me. So many hours were spent just running around, enjoying what I built and watching and listening how it all comes together. Speaking of which: I am a bit bummed out you didn't resolve the "algebra quiz" from the beginning, because there's another game design gem hidden there: 120 iron ore can be perfectly split into crafting one assembler load (5) of Reinforced Iron Plates, one constructor load (20) of normal Iron Plates and two constructor loads (30) of Iron Rods, all fitting neatly together and providing you with your most needed basic materials. You may not notice in the first few playthroughs, but once you see it, it is *SO* satisfying. I'm 95% sure this was on purpose to reward the player for understanding the game mechanics :D
Coffee Stain has a huge advantage not needing to cater to the demands of a publisher and their ownership group pretty much lets them operate independently how they please which is a very rare privilege to have in game development. On top of that their team is incredible and they care about quality, fun, and cool game design vs. your average AAA studio that's looking at how they can monetize every mechanic of a game.
They credited their success with this game to Epic for funding their development. Their RUclips channel has a video that talks about it. Their community manager is really great, and explains the whole Epic exclusive game thing from a developers standpoint. Epic basically guaranteed money and resources which allows them to hire more staff and make a better game. I know lots of people think steam good epic bad, but their funding helped this studio(and many more) flourish.
@@ThePonyxslaystation And the game is made using Epic’s Unreal Engine which is probably the best commercially available engine at the moment.
CSS makes 3 of my current favorite games: Satisfactory, Deep Rock Galactic, and Valheim. All 3 of those games are amazing in their own way, it's actually really impressive to me that this (relatively) smaller studio is producing all of the incredible games.
@@CaptainJebediah Isn’t DRG developed by Ghost Ship Games and is only published by Coffee Stain?
@@Merudiana-the-local-demoness yes you are correct
I still remember the first time I met one of the spiders. It was about 2 am IRL and all lights were off in my room. I was out looking around for hard drives, since I was waiting for more concrete to be produced in my factory and suddenly I just hear skittering tippy taps behind me. I turn around and just straight up let out a nearly inhuman shriek. I immediately press escape, save and go to bed. Didn't log on until I had thoroughly researched the spiders and seen images of them online, so I knew what I was gonna see when I logged in again.
I'm a 28 year old guy and I was almost reduced to fear-induced tears. So thanks Coffe Stain. Thanks for nearly browning my pants.
I still do not venture into most cave due to the spiders and when I do I blanket everything with nobelisk to blow them up, preferably before i need to see them. Its the one think that might cause me to add mods which I so far have avoided as I want to have the vanilla game play until I can play the final release.
But those spiders, they really are the worst mob I have ever encountered in any game in the last 30 years. One of the original aliens games with the face huggers and the beeping scanner is the closet second, but even that is left far behind.
And I am not even scared of spiders in real life :)
Turn on the arachnophobia mode... The cat pic are glitchy and make meows that still weird me out but it's better than those things 😨
@@davidmartensson273 this reminds of the "????" boss in first Sanctum (Coffee Stain's older game) which had a 'face' that horrified me to shits... I guess they know how to make poop inducing visuals huh... They should make a horror game. -Will be the first game of theirs I won't buy- 🤣
@Matthew Patience I know but I currently choose to play without mods so that any feedback I give is based on vanilla gameplay. But yes, spiders is the one thing that tempts me to renegade on that goal.
I even named the quartz spider cave Evil Spider Cave with a beacon lol. Best way I found to clear that out is to build some 4 meter foundations when you have blade runners and jump on it and get free shots on the spiders with the rebar gun. That thing is amazing.
You need to be a certain type of person to play these games but man, if you are satisfactory is about as good as it gets. Its my 'have a beer or two and mess about for 6 hours on a friday night' game, and it changes depending on your mood. I have sessions where I just go out to pick up slugs or hard drives, I have sessions where I build entire subfactories, I have sessions where I just 'pretty' things up like Im building houses in The Sims, I have sessions where Im like 'idgaf just get it done/built' and I have sessions where I sperg out because that one power pole is half a tile out of position so I better rebuild that bit.
If you want it to be, every project is a rabbit hole. I set off to get some silica one session which lead to laying railways, expanding power, building paths etc etc and 50 hours later im like 'cool, got that silica, now I can start aluminum'.
Its like crack.
I just spent, including the scouting locations and calculating production, at least 30+ hours just making a massive facility. Just so I could use a slew of alt recipes that allows for crystal computers, culminating in two assemblers making them lol. Fucking absurd
dont agree....... i not a big fan of these types of games. but as the video mentioned they hit all the marks. Sure i never get 4k hours or 2k in it probably. but i broke 100 hours and i sure given enough time i break 200. for me that is a huge amount of gaming in 1 game. i would argue this game is for anyone. because u can do anything. explore, build, math lol. create, some fighting. i guess that be its biggest hold up is fighting. once u get sword- gun fighting is easy even for noob like myself. but i dont really play this game to fight so its ok.
You nailed it at "... Every project is rabbit hole..."
Preach on brother!
Its indeed like drugs, if you want to desconnect from earth and see the day come and go in a blink this game is definelty better than any drug i've done so far. trust me.
- A former drug addict who was advised this game by a mate in rehab and curently has 3200 hours in this game
"Who the f*ck brought an algebra quiz to my videogame?" Is easily the best way I can describe my experience with this game. I've only played Satisfactory for 60 or 70 ish hours, but I'm already in love with it, nightmarish math and all.
*Me first getting to caterium*
Ok so 45 ore p/m for 15 ingots p/m, pretty steep conversion there but let m-
*12 caterium ingots p/m for 60 p/m wire*
*Perfectionist Aneurysm intensifies*
@@awesome_by_default got a few strokes from it too everytime i started a new factory
@@maggeemoo 550 hours in the game, and the nightmarish math hasn't grown old.
@@JTB-1 Since my initial comment, I’ve nearly reached 400 hours. The nightmarish math is ever present and I still love it.
@@maggeemoo indeed. Where are you at in U1.0?
The Moment i placed down my first portable miner i knew that this game would be one of the best games i've ever played. The way it moved, the way it sounded everything about it was executed so perfectly that it actually felt like it would be alive.
Portable miners are my favorites! I like to think them as alive beings because their animation makes me feel like they are alive, they have a character, a personality.
Portable miners have more personality than the giant beans. However the beans are bouncy and we still love them. Never murder da beans.
The portobello miner
so true, I found myself spending 4 minutes yesterday just looking at the animation of the manufacturer, thinking "I thought every effort made by game developers were supposed to be useful, not just for player's satisfaction"
yeah but its a shame the other buildings dont self assemble in the same animated way just fade in.. I dont know if they intent to add a lot more machine animations by 1.0 but i hope they do. I know animating them constructing and unfolding etc would be a lot of work. I also know its not required - but i think it would make the game even more satisfying and impressive.
That first 3:2 rod & screw ratio makes you feel so good. Then the reinforced iron plates start and things go endlessly sideways
I have 4000hrs in Satisfactory and have been playing since March of 2019. You 100% nailed it with this video. It just keeps me coming back. Making videos, streaming it, interacting with the community, promoting it, and even in my down time, coming up with newer and larger builds with a paper and pencil. One thing I think that really separates it from other games is the developers. They are constantly interacting with their community. Taking notes, dropping randomly into streams, commenting on videos, and highlighting players and accomplishments in their weekly dev stream. Another huge thing is they actually listen to the players. They take suggestions, bug reports, and will even add features people request. A team that actually listens to their community these days all the way down to 1 on 1 chats is absolutely refreshing. Thanks for the great breakdown. Now it's my turn to share it everywhere!
Thank you for the kind words! It means a lot. I just hope people pick this game up and see how truly incredible it is and why other devs should take notice.
@@Grifflicious They absolutely are setting the bar high with Satisfactory and how games should be crafted.
@@Grifflicious Yeah i mean i really hope other game devs take notice this game has one of the cleanest most user friendly UI/UX ever its so well made. Would love to see this quality in other games.
i have arachnophobia and i do not like your profile picture
4'000???????????????????
The fact that a game half finished is made with more thought than huge games like cyberpunk just shows how good satisfactory is.
I thought it hadn't hit halfway yet?
Which is really refreshing in today's world.
I have spent HOURS making spreadsheets and solving complex maths to make prefect production and logistics just to reflect and realize the game is so God damn good I'm willing to do homework to play it.
You write this stuff down? I just do it in my head until veins in my forehead I've never seen and never knew I had until now show up.
@@404-Error-Not-Found lmao
As a mild autistic child I used to black out into a couple hour long fits of rage and anger after getting confused with basic maths, now my brain just shuts down when confronted with mathematics but still I truly love this game, I wing it til things go wrong then half ass it to a point where it sort of works.. 😂😂
Truly one of the most GOATED games of all time.
@@Taller.official NPC response
Truly one of the most Greatest of All Timesed games of all time.
@epicgardening is a Gamer too? :O
"Who the fuck brought an algebra quiz to my video game?!"
Instant like!!
I find Oxygen Not Included to be a great comparison for Satisfactory. Both scratch the same itch for me, despite being so different.
Factorio?
Ah yes , someone similar to me, there is a reason I have something like a switch between periods like 3 to 4 days or time available divide into several periods between oxygen not included and satisfactory
@@seanwong9869 My two favorite games as well, where true love is found in a spreadsheet. All due respect to the Factorio nerds. You guys are the OG, but we of the second generation of factory games crave something a little more Satisfactory.
Right there. I reach for the like button immediately. Hilarious and unexpected
ONI is like Satisfactory, but in 2D!
The one thing that stands out about Satisfactory is the devs are wholeheartedly invested in the game it feels like everything was a labour of love, that and they listen to what the community wants and welcome constructive criticism.
Yup, which is why it has such nice details, good graphics, and runs so smoothly. everything from the feel of the game to the mechanics feels great
First playthrough: "Snails make your machines work faster? Awsome!"
After first playthrough: "Everything I did was wrong..."
Second playthrough: "Let's use what I've learned, optimize, and go for nuclear power!"
After secong playthrough: "To fix the radioactive problem I'd have to re-do the whole factory..."
Now I'm waiting for update 5. I need to start making vertical segments.
This was me with Factorio... minus the snails...
and prevent my trains from crashing...
We start off as Italian chefs cooking a nice batch of spaghetti on our first playthrough and slowly become an american road engineer by building things gridlike and massive or die
**U5 coming**
Me: Oh no, I have to rebuild my factory D:
Me: Oh yes, I have to rebuild my factory :D
My problem with everything is I can't stand when something clips, but I'm not creative enough to make a factory that doesn't have belts clipping at least a little bit, and I'm not patient enough to achieve the perfection my brain requires in order to think clearly about the next step...
Satisfactory is Factorio's little brother.
Both abide by a single truth:
"The factory must grow."
Me: i need to sleep, i got a test tomorrow
My brain: THE FACTORY MUST GROW
There is a second younger brother in the family - Dyson Sphere Program
Factorio, Dyson Sphere Program, and Satisfactory focus on different parts of the factory. Guns, efficiency, and space.
And they all taught me Excel.
Satisfactory is not Factorio's little brother more like Satisfactory is Factorio's GOD!
@@vincewilson1 why? Because it's 3d?
Who EVER in their life thought a factory game would be so absorbing as this.
I expected this since factorio already existed. :)
Factorio devs. They were the real trail blazers.
literally anyone who's played factorio XD
this video is like praising league of legends when dota 1 made it first like the game did not improve the factorio formula enough aside from being 3d and even that is a downside due too how much less you can build before we reach the limits of our hardware
@@MrRafagigapr k
even tho i have hundreds of hours in Satisfactory and know almost all of the aspects of the game, I still watched the whole 31 min video. This video was really well made and showed exactly why and how this games manages to amaze all of us that play or have played it. Very well done. :)
I recently reached 200 hours but my reaction / feedback is the exact same. A really well made video which I'd share with my friends who are curious about the game as a 'long trailer'
Same here. I also watched until the very end of this video even though I know most stuff that's inside the game. I got over 1200 hours already in this game and just can't stop playing it. I have many other games on my pc but I keep coming back to Satisfactory, even if I have to start all over again because I forgot where I stopped in which save and what needs to be done next. It's perfectly built and feels more complete than most finished games which even had some updates after release. I still cannot grasp how they reach this level of optimization as other games, which don't have to process anything in the background like hundreds of buildings and thousands of conveyor belts and splitters, mergers, lifts etc. Some games have real performance issues without any computational difficulties to be seen anywhere for that type of game. Like some shooters that lag horribly with even far less objects onscreen and no calculations in the background compared to what Satisfactory displays onscreen and needs to process in the background to keep your factory running at all times. When you stand on a mountain in Satisfactory, you can see almost the entire map and you can even see your buildings which can be more than a kilometer away in the distance and they're still being rendered. Other games have such stuff pop in and out if they're further away than 25m or so to be able to get some decent framerate. Satisfactory is a real masterpiece and the developers can be proud of what they made so far and it's not even finished yet, there is alot more to come.
700 hours seems to be the magic sauce point for most lol
when I started playing it, got me amazed how an indie game is so polished while in early access, 0 bugs and runs so smoothly and very optimized
Oh. It has bugs now and then. But you can expect an informational/apology video right away and the bug to be gone after a week.
Same thing I said about Factorio. Had it for years and then one day looked and realized it wasn't even fully released at the time. I was in shock as it was always so polished and updates were flawless and never had an issue with bugs. These are the types of developers that care enough to do things right before they push stuff out. It is very impressive. Both Factorio and Satisfactory developers.
Meanwhile: * Call of Duty: Vanguard and GTA: San Andreas Remastered noises *
Only real "bug" I've run into is that it is possible to fall or be knocked off a cliff into the void, only to land on a ledge and live, but have no way back up, thereby making all your items totally inaccessible after respawn.
@@Nevir202 if you have concrete and iron plates in your inventory, you can build platforms to get you to the top. you can also reload a previous save. it's not really a bug. it's a feature that tells you you should be cautious near cliffs. kinda like in real life.
that being said, there's plenty of bugs in the game. coffee stain is hard working and they fix a lot of stuff, but realistically can't fix all of them. one example is the fluid bug when loading into your save game. when loading in, all pipe systems have about almost 5 cubic meters of fluid taken out of them. people have been trying to find workarounds for it, but the only way to prevent idling machines, is making sure there's more fluid than needed. it also means a 100% closed feedback loop is eventually going to cause machines to idle, because the fluid is being removed bit by bit, every time you load in. it just vanishes into thin air, and this has been an issue since fluids were introduced into the game.
One tiny thing I loved, and it'll only happen once in each play through, is when you unlock the xeno basher. When you place it in your hand for the first time, the Pioneer will look at it, stroke that little dangling key-thing, and then open up the basher. I love that! I love that the pioneer takes a moment to appreciate this new item they see for the first time, touching that key-thing and probably wondering what its for. A tiny moment, but it shows the love the developers have for this game, imo.
I am kinda 50/50 on how to do things, some parts of my factory I have optimised perfectly, while others I built with the mindset of "fuck optimisation, it makes the thing I want, however slow, but at least it's being made, so it's fine by me."
That's so true. This is the reason why 1 of my endgame production lines barely makes 1 of a certain item every minute and the other one makes 4.
I ignored this game for about a year while it was in early access and then decided to try it out. Now I have almost 1000 hours in the game and I absolutely love it. It is probably one of the best games I have ever played.
i remember the sream, where they showcased the update 4, everything was fine and nice and everyone was exited, but then, at the end, another video and BAM, pipes are coming to satisfactory... and everyone in the chat was freaking out...i mean, in what other kind game did the playerbase freak out because pipes are coming in the next update?! i just love it!
In factorio pipes, circuits, drones, blueprints, trains, signals, collisions, were all in the first public early access, so no need to freak out, that's where they started. Maybe one day satisfactoy will copy the rest of factorios core features, would be nice.
@@entelin sure, but you have to admit, that in satisfactory it is way more complicated (just because of the 3d map and fluid dynamics)...and they always sayed that there goal with this game is to bring factorio to a new level, its not just copy everything that factorio has. Even the makers of factorio love the way, that this devs are taking with this game.
@@georgwarhead2801 Yeah I mean, I like the game, but gameplay wise it doesn't offer anything that factorio doesn't itself do better. It's pretty, but that's about it.
@@entelin yea but in Satisfactory... pipes were a meme... they were considered ILLEGAL... CURSED... they probably just hyped it with this... i remember jaw dropping when the Engineer jumped and PIPES appeared... it was the most epic moment
And then at the end... the STEAM ANNOUNCEMENT... oh god that was ULTRA EPIC xd
Something it does better than Factorio: verticality.
This game really makes you feel like you are improving your brain function in some way. It facilitates creativity and critical thinking and I just love it. This game is nearly perfect.
Fantastic video. Not only the thoughtful design is important, but what the Community Managers Jace and Snutt are doing for the game is truly unique to any other game. That kind of community engagement is phenomenal, I love their philosophy behind it. They want to have developers more humanised to a consumer and not just corporate stiffs or code monkeys.
With golf, I think, they said they wern't gonna add it cause no one was interested in doing it.
This video has been recommended to me for several weeks now, but I told myself that as an "already fan of the game" I didn't need to see this. Well, I finally clicked, and - your ability to verbalize the feelings you get from experiencing and playing the game is spot on. I felt like it was my first playthrough again - I got that same excitement again.
What a great review. I'm going to go play update 5 now, cheers!
Beautiful analysis, Satisfactory quickly became one of the most addictive games I've played. This and Factorio are dangerous but I love them.
If you like them check out Dyson Sphere Program another Early Access game within this genre... and that game has you building Dyson Spheres around a star, and you get to explore your local star system in early game, and an entire star cluster in mid to late game...
I made the mistake of purchasing this game a few days ago.
My life will never be the same. It scratches an itch in my brain I didn’t even know I have. I want to escape and just live in the Satisfactory worlds alone wandering about building factories forever.
I have put an embarrassing amount of time into Satisfactory and I've never been able to put my thoughts into words for why that is. This video is a perfect summarization for my thoughts and it's really refreshing to see that new players that haven't been following the game since its beginning can still fall for it the way that I and many others have. Props to Coffee Stain for such a fantastic game and props to you for this really well put together video!
Thanks man! That means a lot
I remeber spending 1-3 hours on a computer maker.
Finally seeing 100% efficiency on the manufactuter after overclocking and undercloking to get the perfect amount for each machine and making all the machines look tidy was ond the most amazing gaming experiences i had.
The game is truely satisfactory...
One of my favorites games of all time.
Please please please please PLEASE! Come back and make another video after 1.0 comes out in September. This video brought tears to my eyes because of how much I love this game and having someone basically read my mind out to me in a video format was astonishing. Now I get to be excited for both 1.0 RELEASE and another amazing video.
-780ish hours deep and many more to come.
Satisfactory is easily in the top 5 all time games for me. One thing you talked about a lot that I'd never realized is how much the game respects the player's intelligence and creativity. It guides the player juuust enough so they're well informed of their options, but it never crosses the line into hand holding. I've played a lot of automation/management/crafting games in my time. Usually these games have god awful learning curves where you're either: A) guided like a toddler through a 2 hour tutorial campaign, B) restricted by upgrades/unlocks that are clearly meant to guide you in a specific direction, or C) completely overwhelmed by systems and recipes to the point that a second monitor with the game's wiki is all but required.
Satisfactory is the first game of this genre that was actually enjoyable from the outset. I always knew exactly what I needed to do, and I never knew how I wanted to do it, which is exactly the sweet spot you wanna hit with a game like this.
I love both Satisfactory and Factorio. This video does a great job explaining why Satisfactory is awesome, but it didn't do Factorio justice. The other game has things going for it too!
One is tower defense. Enemies in Satisfactory ignore player structures, but defense is a primary motivator in Factorio.
Late-game systems are far more rewarding in Factorio, particularly research, circuit networks, construction bots, and logistics. Satisfactory is slowly closing the gap here with the additions of liquids, nuclear power, and trains in recent years.
That's fair. I didn't get super far into Factorio where this become a factor for me but you're right, it certainly does play a substantial role in the gameplay that does put it into a league of its own as far as that's concerned.
I do kind of wish for base defense in Satisfactory.
Agree, but as he said, he only played for a little bit. I can see someone playing Satisfactory first and then Factorio, how they can think Cracktorio is a downgrade, when it isn't. I have played 2 rounds of Factorio and right now playing DSP to occupy time while waiting for Update 5. All 3 are different, but same, but their own works of greatness.
@@greag1e i did factorio second and it did feel like a step back, but then I got construction bots... looking forward to Satisfactory Update 5 for zooping but ill still miss full blueprint copy/paste.
Plus Dactorio Space Exploration mod is awesome! 350 hour playthrough on that.
Factorio does everything that satisfactory does but squared. More ratios, more logistics, more thought needs to be put into building factory. In the end defence doesn't even matter that much, as lasers with walls is all you need, while factory grows bigger and more complicated with every research unlocked.
The Spiders can be really scary in this game. And I am not even that scared from spiders IRL. I can only imagine what horror it brings to those that are. I am more a FPS/Competitive gamer, but this game and FS22 opened some kind of door for me. And I love it.
This game has the best UI and button/mouse combos I’ve ever seen in a game. It’s so fluid and easy that not long into the game, you’re assembling massive factories without hardly thinking. I love this game, and like you I was a bit timid to try it out. I’m so grateful to have found and played Satisfactory. I can’t wait to hear more as the story plays out.
The “DAMAGE TO FICSIT PROPERTY DETECTED” made me laugh.
I'm moderately experienced with Satisfactory (1800hr... previously I would have never thought that wouldn't be considered "mastery" in a game) and you have quite expertly explained why I like it so much in a way I could not have enunciated myself. Great video, I enjoyed it!
This game has taken over my life. I got the game about 4 days ago and have 75 reported hours on steam.
I legit had a dream I was running late for work and needed to get up and get to the factory. I've never had a factory job and I currently work as a Doordasher, so basically have no "late for work" fears.
Not like the nightmares I had (sign of PTSD) about being late to work when working at a retail grocery store.
Love this game and it can have my soul
l
Now, if I want to introduce the game to anyone, I'll just send them this video. Well articulated and reflects everything that I feel about this game, but not able to explain. Great job Grifflicious!
18:57 where even in 1.0 it still holds true. I remember my first ever playthrough in I believe it was update 5, I did a speed run exploration play through running from one of those stupid spider things. The only reason I even craft the rifle and enough ammo to deploy to the Middle East is specifically for those stinger things.
You know the best thing about this game? There are a ton of different ways to play this game, and EVERY SINGLE ONE of them feels like an intentional, well designed aspect in itself. There were SO many times where I thought to myself, "This game is doing X so much better than game Y. And it's not even finished unlike Y."
You can just jump into the game with no prior knowledge whatsoever, and the game organically shows you everything you can do, and you DISCOVER that you can solve a problem in different, equally valid ways. Noone tells you you are doing something right or wrong. You figure that out yourself, even when there are objectively better and worse ways to do it. Each process actually is so unique that a different approach may be required or at least more ideal/easier.
I think the exploration aspect is actually extremely well designed and integrated into the game.
I like how you start out in the middle of an area, you walk around slowly and keep encountering enemies, cliffsides, poisonous areas and even the literal "end of the world", and you may wonder just how big the world actually is. As you progress with your factory, your own MOBILITY and capabilities increase to an epic scale over time. At first even low-level enemies are a challenge, climbing mountains is difficult, dangerous and slow, areas are blocked by rocks or gas etc. Then you become able to run faster and jump higher, and you start to travel further. When you get the jetpack, and as you learn how to use it, you are able to overcome many obstacles you could not before. You finally get to some good vantage points that let you see more of the world, and again you suspect that there is so much more to explore than you thought. You keep overcoming more and more of the obstacles and become the master of this world. You make it your own.
Towards the late-game, due to the non-procedural world, you inevitably expand your factory into this vast world to get all the different resources you need. You may start to build train tracks around the entire map, and finally start to see the whole picture. And once you've finally unlocked everything and "completed" the game, you may start to think about what else you want to do and choose a goal for yourself. And it may keep you playing for another 1000 hours before you know it. For example you might decide that since you now know more or less the entire world, you should find out how much of which raw resources there actually are in total, and what it would take to build an entirely new factory that would collect and use ALL of them...
And as you start working on something like this, you start to face challenges you never even had before once again. You may start pushing the limits of what your conveyor belts can handle, and end up contemplating how to best arrange 20+ belts or pipes to get your resources where you need them. Logistics become a huge part of the game. Maybe you never even used a train up until now. Certainly you didn't use the most efficient alternate recipes for everything until now. What even are the best recipes to use? It's not a clear-cut answer. As with everything, you decide how you want to do things. Maybe you start up Excel and calculate it all yourself. Or maybe you use online tools and resources. Or you talk to the online community about it.
Either way, if you've enjoyed the game until here, you probably will for much longer.
Satisfactory taught me much about Excel :P
On my playthrough, I used just a bunch of foundations to make skybridges to explore and used walls to box enemies while i looted crashed ships XD
Even when you’ve completed every milestone there’s never an end within the game. That’s something that I think we all enjoy about the game. It’s not a game with a infinite space, but a game with so much more possibilities to explore unlike other games. It’s something great and very fun to think you’re done but then find out you can make things even better than before
During my first playthrough, I started out in the Grassfields, learned about the game, tried to find my way and built a big warehouse and wrapped all my factories around it using a huge bus system that took resources out of the warehouse and dumped new ones back in. After about 100 hours or so, I unlocked the map and opened it. I haven't even explored a quarter of the map at that point. I just unlocked coal power, setup 16 coals generators and was slowly progressing towards tier 5 and 6. My jaw dropped wide open just by looking at the size of the map. I built a tractor and went exploring and found some beautiful vistas that dropped my jaw open even further. And it keeps getting better and better. Now I'm 1200 hours in and still can't get enough of it. I found new resources, built many new factories and even reached nuclear power in my first runthrough after 500 hours. It certainly keeps you occupied and while you can always find a very small bug or two that are mostly visual stuff, everything works perfectly. And the performance of the engine is so high that you need to have a big world before it starts to stutter, even on a 12-yeard old pc like mine. Other games don't even come close to such performance while they have no calculations to be done in the background and far less visual details to be rendered onscreen at any given time.
Digital heroin, I’ve lost weekends to this game like I just got in a Time Machine - just poof it’s Monday morning but my factory now has 17 more production lines.
Worth every penny, 11/10.
28:23 the red launch button has always satisfied me beyond anything. I love pressing it so much!!! I love this game so much!
Haha just saw this video three years later after 1.0 is out. It has been quite the journey and it's pretty great that your video holds up.
Amazing job by coffee stain and an amazing video from you. Now I am going to see if you made any more in the three years since this one.
For me satisfactory is the Perfect level of difficulty its challenging enough to make me really think sometimes and have to come up with clever new ways to automate things. But the challenge is always possible and eventually you overcome that challenge and it feels amazing to have that new structure up and a new challenge awaits.
Yep, you have convinced me that I need to use these five hours I have before work for Satisfactory. Last thing I built was a supercomputer factory that works at 250% efficiency and man, that took HOURS. Eight, to be exact (to be fair, I did some slug hunting in the middle as a "break").
Nice video, that part where you talked about how everything was designed as if you were actually doing it made me think of something, the devs put in a lot of work because when you make a game, you just think of it as a game not an actual "reality" that mimics how things work in a real world so good work to the devs.
Damn what a beautifully crafted video essay on satisfactory. As someone who has literally hundreds upon hundreds of hours, this is by far the best video describing satisfactory for what it is
i only have this game for 2 weeks, but already played it for over 60 hours.
You really hit the nail on the head.
I got sucked so deep into the game, that i mostly forget time and space around me.
I can probably play this game forever and wont be bored.
Who knows... maybe one day they might make a VR port for it... wouldn't that be something...
Started playing today and 3 and a half hours evaporated in the blink of an eye. My factories are a mess and my generators keep blowing a fuse. I can’t stop thinking about this game.
The testament to how much attention is paid to the little things in this game is that there's *movement tech* . Slide jumping off a Mk. 5 conveyor and yeeting yourself forward at mach 3 is an experience that never gets old.
Just wanted to let you know, I would 100% watch more Satisfactory or Video Essay content from you. Loved the video and it covered everything I love so much about the game. Update 5 has diversified the game even more by making decoration a much more feasible option, even in the early game. Already sunk like 60 more hours in the last 2 weeks
I definitely have to build on a couple of mechanical points, just in case some viewers who aren't particularly deep into the game don't fully appreciate the mechanics.
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1st, Underclocking: Holy cannoli this is actually amazing. Overclocking not only makes you 'use more power to produce more items', it's actually 'make this thing WILDLY more power-inefficient to simplify your production process'. That is to say, to produce 2x the number of items from a single machine, it costs like 3x more power within the same timeframe. An example from the wiki: Normal Iron Rod production costs 16 MJ to produce the item. At 2x speed, it costs 24.2 MJ to produce each iron rod, totaling at 48.4 MJ. You could have used two constructors instead, saved yourself the power shards, and it'd only cost 32MJ to produce. The overclock conversion only gets even worse at 250% speed.
Underclocking, however, is the opposite! Whereas overclocking makes it cost more energy to produce each individual item, underclocking makes it cost LESS energy to produce each individual item! If you want to output the same rate of iron rods, but drastically decrease the energy impact of constructing them on your power grid, you simply create more structures and underclock them. Take one constructor, and make it ten constructors, each running at 10% speed. An individual one is terribly slow, the whole setup costs WAY more materials, and it takes way more space -- but 10 constructors running at 10% speed produce as much as one constructor... at 1/4th of the energy cost. You can reduce how much energy you're consuming to produce those iron rods by -75%. Make 20 constructors, doubling your iron rod production, and you're still at HALF the energy impact of a single constructor running at default speed. Have 40 constructors running at 10% speed, and you have 4x production for the same energy footprint as a single constructor running at default speed.
In the early game, underclocking actually SIGNIFICANTLY reduces strain on your power grid, with your finite access to power. It's actually a very good thing to consider if you haven't reached, or haven't scaled up your coal power plants yet, and are still relying on manually feeding Biomass Burners.
To further put this into perspective, the video speaks about improved compacting of biomass having better energy yields. I will elaborate on this. 1 "leaves" = 15 MJ. 10 leaves are worth 150 MJ. 10 leaves can be combined to yield 5 "Biomass". 1 Biomass is 180 MJ; so 150MJ can be converted into 900MJ. Hot damn, that's a 6x energy conversion rate! But we can go further. 8 Biomass can be converted into 4 "Solid Biofuel" . 1 Solid Biofuel is worth 450 MJ, so you're converting 1440 MJ into 1800 MJ. Not as big of a jump as before, but Biomass and Solid Biofuel both have a stack size of 200, so while the conversion rate of inventory space 2:1, the efficiency of a single stack shoots WAY up - you can leave a biomass burner nearly 3x as long before you have to visit it again.
Now, combine this with Underclocking, and the number of items which can be produced with the energy of a single unit of Solid Biofuel - which in the early game comes primarily from wood and leaves, which are finite resources that do not replenish - can potentially quadruple.
You could aim for [improved simplicity of construction + increased inefficiency of consumption], you could aim for [scaled construction + balanced inefficiency of consumption], or with underclocking, you could aim for [increased complexity of construction + improved efficiency of consumption].
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2nd, Alternate Recipes: (Mild Spoilers) These are, usually, a trade-off. Factory complexity, material efficiency, energy efficiency, these are the things that are being wobbled around with alternate recipes. A lot of times, it can be worth it, but HOW worth it is dependent upon how you value your time or your resources.
Aluminum Ingots, for example: Standard conversion has you use 90 Scrap + some amount of Silica to produce 60 Aluminum Ingots. The bauxite refinement to create Alumina Solution, which is used to create Scrap, creates Silica as a byproduct, so you only really need a small amount supplemented from elsewhere to keep it all running.
However, maybe you don't want to use Silica? Maybe you just want to pump scrap in, get aluminum out. Thus the Pure Aluminum Ingot recipe, which turns 60:30, rather than 90:60, but doesn't use silica, meaning less conveyor spaghetti and smaller, less costly buildings (constructors vs foundries). You can also use the Instant Scrap recipe to throw a Blender into the equation and remove Refineries altogether, structures that have a LOT of space bloat, and in the process also eat less Bauxite and Coal in the process, at the cost of added products somewhere along the chain leading up to the blender, though still at relatively efficient ratios.
There are also recipes out there that make things MORE complicated, but for vastly improved input:output ratios. Turbofuel production is an example of this, requiring not only different resources get used in a different factory arrangement, but it's an alternate recipe that REQUIRES ANOTHER ALTERNATE RECIPE TO BE RESEARCHED FIRST, and can be made MORE EFFICIENT STILL by finding alternate recipes where Heavy Oil Residue is the primary product, and a new, different resource is output as a byproduct. Or! OR! You could have a different recipe that outputs THAT byproduct as the primary, and Heavy Oil Residue as the byproduct, and use alternate recipes to recycle the weird NEW product into Plastic and Rubber at WAY better production ratios than simply turning your oil into those things directly. Factory gets bigger, uses more materials, but outputs way more product and energy for the same amount of input.
It's insane. One single Pure Oil Node with its output maxed out via overclocking is essentially powering my ENTIRE base, with tonnes of energy to spare, producing more plastic and rubber than I could EVER use, and I haven't even made full use of all the Turbofuel I'm producing. To think that, I could underclock huge chunks of my base on top of that?
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TL;DR: The game is a sandbox of possibilities. The game dev has ideas, but they don't want to tell you them, they revel in you discovering them on your own with your own capabilities of logic and reasoning, so they simply bring the possibilities, then they throw those possibilities on the table, and smile as they watch you produce the ideas by simply looking at what is being offered on the table. Sometimes, you might even produce an idea that the game devs hadn't accounted for, and instead of thinking "That's not what I wanted you to think", like so many game devs do, they think "You fuckin' amazing lil' cookie you, take that idea and RUN with it! RUN! SHOW ME WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH IT! Show us ALL! Tell you what, your idea gives ME an idea, lemme make some more stuff..." and it just keeps feeding into itself. It's fantastic.
The name of this game isn't just a cheeky pun that drives the very design of it on every single level -- even outside of the game, the way the devs and community circle around each other is, in and of itself, satisfying. I honestly really quite love it.
I love this comment.
One other factor to consider with underclocking, at least for people with CPUs with lower performance (like me), is that the limiting factor on a save is often the total number of machines you can put in the world before everything slows down too much and your frames become nearly unplayable. Especially an issue when hosting a MP world.
I have some comments to this.
First, agree with everything here.
Underclocking is extremely attractive but you have to consider its consequence especially if you underclock a endgame factory.
The engine can only handle so many items before it begins to have issues. This can be circumvented with a quick .ini edit, but your now circumventing UE4’s item count threshold. Take into your own.
Also some warnings. The game does have rounding errors especially impacting mk2 pipes. They are supposed to carry 600 m3 max fluid but never can. In reality its like 599 or 598. Its best to try to math it out so your pipes never carry more than 400m3 of fluid per pipe. That usually solves that issue.
The next is junctions. They have effects of causing flow rate to not reset after each junction causing flow issues. To fix this, loop the pipe. 9/10 times that fixes this issue. Or dont make pipe manifolds too big.
Use gravity to assist you. Fluids respond to gravity. That is why for inputs I always have the input pipe placed above the input connection spot. One stackable pipe support usually is enough.
Final hurdle for piping is there is a buffer loading bug. When the gsme loads a save, 5m3 of all fluid buffers vanishes. This can cause instability in what should be a stable system over time.
This is a great video Griff. Keep it up!
Thanks, pal! That means a lot!
This comment for some reason made me laugh. The creator of the video clearly put hours of thought and hard concentration into this video. In return he gets a "great video. Keep it up" idk thought that was pretty funny
@@shawnandjenwhat We have a history and know one another so I took it as well as it was meant.
@@Grifflicious Love to see the positive energy in the chat😄
"Ass-puckering skittering noises..." Lol. I barely get scared any more in video games, maybe because I loved being scared as a kid and sought out scary stuff. Now I'm an old man and I play more for the romanticism of a compelling atmosphere and good music.
What a surprise to pick this game up on an impulse, only to discover it was more polished and had better gameplay than most finished AAA games. I had no idea what I was getting into and just jumped in. I played it by instinct, which I think is the way to go. Sure, making hyper-efficient factories is fine, but on a first playthrough one should simply learn by trial and error. I ended up with a kind of willy wonka, spaghetti factory mess, but it was such a fun process. I praised this game as a kind of puzzle game, so it pleases me to see you talk about this aspect of it. Satisfactory is a succession of problems that will draw you in and keep you thinking, and each problem solved makes you feel... satisfied.
Hundreds of hours later and I am so impressed by all the work the devs put into it, and they're still going. In fact, I've been concerned that the devs are doing too much. They're taking so long and stuffing so much goodness into this game that I worry the market will pass them by before release. I worry that not enough people will buy it to justify their hard work. That's a strange way to feel about gaming devs when most games are rushed to market even though they are a buggy mess.
I only hope they give it a compelling story, one that isn't corrupted by any woke, progressive, neo-Marxist cancer. That may be too much to hope for but this game deserves better.
In any case, great video, Grifflicious.
from what i know, there goal for sold copys was several 10k, there dream goal was breaking the 100k mark. at the update 4 stream (or a little before) they anounced, that they already passed the 1 million mark, wich they never thinked of getting even close. so doesnt matter what they expected to archive with this game, they already archived way more. for the story, they sayed that there will no "big story" behind the game, just this little peaces of what are you doing, why and for who are you doing it....FICSiT
@@georgwarhead2801 I thought of such a great story to compliment this game- a story that would involve very minimal work to implement. It would be just a bit of voice acting and some cut scenes. How I wish I could wed this amazing game to my story.
Glad to hear they've already exceeded their expectations. Hopefully they do a bit of marketing at 1.0 and they get double or triple the player base they have now.
I heard on the grapevine Coffee Stain are currently VERY happy with their sales figures. It certainly hasn't fallen foul of the community the way other early-access games have. I think they're onto a winner.
I had managed to place myself so one of the big ones spawned on top of me and got stuck. So I was running around with it on me with it covering half of my screen.
A part of me died that day.
@@karadan100 That's good to hear. This game deserves to be a hit. Part of my worry had to do with wondering just how much of the video game market finds games like Satisfactory appealing. I can't see a game like this ever having the popular appeal of 'Call of Duty' or 'Fortnight' but I hope it can draw big numbers and properly reward everyone involved for their excellent work.
The first thing I noticed when I landed my pod was how drop-dead gorgeous the environment of this game is. It makes sense why it is not procedurally generated; the factory you build should look different every time, and should cover different pieces of ground, so I can appreciate the developers' choice to carefully cultivate where needed items are on the map. This video has convinced me to jump back in.
A couple thousand hours into the game and yes, you hit all the best points spot on. Good video. Thank you for reminding me how much I loved playing this. OK, they messed up my aluminum production and I need to get that sorted, maybe soon.
Ive only seen 5 mins of the video but to note with sound design. One of the larger ones i find unnoticed is the machinery hitting the ground. It scaled in pitch length and depth the larger the item you place. Put down a constructor vs a truck stop. Vs a train station vs a space elevator. And just listen to them drop. And the metal and motors scraping on the elevator cut scene
3D Satisfactory = 2D Factorio with less mods.
This game is the ultimate time sink. It doesn't just consume my time, it also feels WORTH my time.
The first 90 seconds had me crying with laughter, been there done that :-)
Handy hint ....Whatever the biggest size you think you need for an area, multiply by at least a factor of 20
If only there were enough resources and one's PC could handle it... imagine turning the entire world map into one mega factory...
And to think he didn't mention conveyor speed in that first part. Soo the 120 per minute was completely irrelevant...
@@PartytimeYOLO It's an overwiev of the game. But yes. Belt speeds (also the better pipes), nowadays railways and drones ARE a very important aspect of the game.
That cold open was top-notch. Can't wait to watch the rest.
Edit: I finished, this video was very poggers.
Looking at your RUclips upload history, it's been a while since you've posted anything. However, your thoughts are well-structured, and you've a good skill in articulating them. Especially if you're looking to focus more on Satisfactory, I know there are others (including myself) that would be very interested to see your take on what builds interest you, and even gameplay (raw or highlights) as you construct it. Just some food for thought, and looking forward to see what you do next.
You sound just like my professor commenting on my essay XD
This video is so good i might be responsible for a few views, the way you describe Satisfactory totally is how i feel about it and how i cannot stay away from that game, excellent work sir!
Sidenote, the rant on the stingers, absolute poetry
This video made me decide to play this game. You have a gift in how you explain/show/convey things in a very interesting and logical way. Thank you. You earned my subscription and my appreciation.
If words were food, this comment would feed my family for at least 3ish years.
As an experienced factory/colony builder, the way Satisfactory made me feel needs was the 1st teller to how great the game design is. Simple things, like not giving you the biomass burner early on to make you think to yourself "I wish I could build one myself" and then a bit later the game gives you that. Or "Oh I wish I could auto craft'' and a bit later the game gives you a constructor. And then ''Oh I wish I had a container to put items in for my constructor'' and then the game gives you that.
Everything is really well thought off and it's absolutely amazing to have a sandbox-ich game that is actually designed with such care.
Ive been playing satisfactory since it was first released. Its been one of my favorite "base building" games and I play a lot of them. You can tell by playing the game that the devs are passionate not only about the game but its fans.
"Who the fuck brought an algebra quiz to my video game". That is the best summary of satisfactory yet. And yes, it is indeed a masterpiece of a game. 2 years and 600+ hours in, and I will be here for many more years.
There's something incredibly special about this game and I could never quite put my finger on what it was. I think you really nailed it. I remember the first time I saw a trailer of the game and though it looked like it might be fun, but I didn't think too much of it. I never expected that I would end up liking the game this much. It became the first and only game to ever make me pull an all nighter just to play video games. I ended up playing with a friend for about 35 hours straight without even realizing. And not even a second of it was boring. We had this big project or making a massive oil factory and have a ton of plastic, rubber and fuel produced in the same area, and ended up making enough turbofuel for 148 fuel generators. Did we need that much power? Not even close. Did we enjoy making the absolute most power we possibly could out of a single pure oil node? Hell yeah we did. The algebra quiz joke was very accurate on this one because we had to spend so much time optimizing. We haven't played in a while now but we were planning on doing the same thing but this time with nuclear power. This video really made me feel like playing again.
I don't remember off the top of my head if its under quartz or caterium but wait until you get the thermal generation and start using them on geysers. That's a fun build too, well mostly for power! Drop a couple of them and a few electric accumulators... very nice indeed!
25:40 the most important thing about alt recipes is that, when comparing them to each other, no alt recipe is strictly better or strictly worse. Some alts are strictly better than the base recipe (cast screws is probably the best alt in the game for its intended use, on par with heavy oil residue and diluted fuel,) but there is always a trade off - maybe you can use some oil instead of copper. Maybe you can eliminate high volume items (screws) entirely at the cost of more complex production and slightly decreased material efficiency. Maybe you can make more parts per minute with fewer machines at the cost of more materials. Maybe you can increase the efficiency of both materials per item and items per minute at the cost of additional production steps.
Incredibly well-scripted and executed video. Hit all the nails on the head with this one and I hope it sets a new record in terms of views for your channel (60K).
Edit: 78K views in 3 weeks! Congrats
Everything you said here is so true. This game really gave me that thrill of exploration, of total freedom, of discovery, when you feel smart because you figured out an answer completely yourself. The world is vast and beautiful and fascinating. The base building mechanics are the BEST I've ever used before, bar none. Everything fits together perfectly and seems so well thought out. So excited 1.0 is releasing soon!
I really appreciate this video. I just bought this game myself the other day and have been hooked ever since the first couple minutes. I am usually the type of person that can't play any single player game for more than about 3-4 hours before getting unimaginably bored, and I already have 20 hours in this game in 2 days over the weekend lol. Still not very far; I'm on tier 4 I believe, but I'm having a blast hitting production and resource roadblocks and trying to figure out the best way to get past them with what I have. It's frustrating when you hit them, but when you finally figure out how to get around it it's so satisfying. Currently trying to build up the courage to go build a separate base somewhere else to start gathering coal and getting that working haha.
Fantastic video, my friend. You earned a sub =] Hopefully you make more videos about this fantastic game!
Thanks for the sub! Don’t know about more Satisfactory videos for a bit but I have some fun stuff planned so I hope I don’t disappoint.
when you start getting the 37.5/m pieces is when the spreadsheet comes out
i was showing my wife my notes for designing a 100% efficient low tier factory and my wife told me she forgot algebra. i asked her what she meant and she reminded me that i just picked up algebra like i never forgot it, just to play my little factory game haha
The sound design really is what stands out for me in this game. I'm glad you mention it, I always felt I was the only one mentioning it. It makes you feel you're really using badass industrial machinery.
As someone who was part of the Alpha Test: Once I realized the dig animation and it's sound effect essentially emulate the beat of "We will rock you!" - I just _knew_ this would become something truly special =)
Absolutely agree here, obviously. Nice one!
I as someone who is Allergic to cats finds the cats even more scary...
This is a wonderful video, and really gets the heart of the game, thank you for showcasing the secret sauce that me and so many other players have fallen in love with
I'm glad you enjoyed it! Its awesome to hear.
When I first downloaded satisfactory I didn’t think it would be a very fun game but 4000 hours later and I see no end in sight for me
What a fantastic video, you have managed to say everything about the game that I thought plus more, in such a way that I was struggling to convey to my friends to sell this masterpiece of a game that’s not even finished and is always growing and expanding.
Man this video was so high quality I assumed you had like 500k subs wtf dude?
The one thing I noticed while playing satisfactory was the sound design. It is incredibly satisfying... just the sound of resetting the breaker when the power goes out (now an enjoyable experience).
The fact that when I pull that switch I inadvertently jank my mouse all the way down the desk XD
Really well put thought out and executed video. I've been hopelessly in love with this game since I started playing shortly after update 3 came out. I'm addition to the have being expertly crafted, the ongoing community engagement has been superb which is worth mentioning as well.
You hit every point within 12min so far that I love about this game; I tried to play 2 times before and hit those educational moments but stopped playing but the 3rd time things clicked for me and I saw the bigger picture and really find myself enjoying this game everytime , enhancing and tweaking the world I'm working in.
this game is so fun, it is one of the few games that i loose track of time playing, it always surprises me, genuinely a masterpiece, also the devs are chads that listen to the community, i can tell this game has so much love put into it
Thank you for covering how satisfying the switches are.
It feels soooo good to turn the power back on after a circut break
I was definitely not going to watch this whole video...I write this as the video just ended. Even summaries of Satisfactory are captivating. Nice job!
One detail I like is just the concept of the space elevator itself. A building that you end up plugging all your resources into for project assembly and thus ends up as the cornerstone of your main factory. A building that visually extends through the top of the game world.
When your lost exploring and your compass is full of noted crash sites and ore deposits. Just look up.
I like how you can switch to exploring early - mid game when you're frustrated with the factory to cool down!
If I imagined what heaven would be like, it would be me, all alone, on an alien planet, building factories. This game is heaven.
"Who brought an algebra quiz to my video game?" Sorry, I laughed way too loudly at this.
Satisfactory is probably my favorite building game of all time... It contains a level of polish, and attention to detail, rarely seen in other titles. Little moving parts on machines, imaginative designs, heck.. look close enough on a pipe and you'll see the bolts are actually threaded. It really is a labor of love and a thing of true beauty. Coupled with some of the more technical aspects and it really does boggle the mind. Watching tens of thousands of moving parts zipping around on conveyors, when you see other games struggle with a few hundred particles... just leaves one in awe of the technical side of things. It really is a true masterpiece, and the canvas isn't even fully covered yet.
Great job on this video. . This game is all about choice, and no choice is right or wrong unless you deem it right or wrong for you. Do you load balance every machine in a production line, or just manifold it through? Both choices work. Do you run a hub & spoke rail network to a centralized megafactory, or do you set up loops and manufacturing outposts?
You just spent 100 hours designing a perfectly efficient, functional production line. Now go look how dozens of others have solved the same problem in a dozen different ways, and be blown away by the beauty of their creations. There are some factories that look like art out there.
And, it sneakily taught my now 10 year old so much math that his teacher has him working from the 8th grade book to keep him challenged.
Even my wife, who normally wouldn't come near this game, likes logging into our world just to see the sights.
This is the sort of thing that makes me happy to hear. My girls are still a little too young for it but when their the right age, I’ll 100% be getting them into it. Oh, and my wife and I play together too!
The storyline, the music, the need to send resources and special resources TO THE HEAVENS and out of the production loop, that is what makes Satisfactory so unique, and makes you dream and push forward. Everytime when I hear "MILE-STONE-REACHED" i just have shivers of joy down my back.
I came across this game as a No Man's Sky fan thinking it's a similar game. But I really did find another gem to invest my time in.
Just found this video. Amazing. I fell in love with this game way back. Your video is spot on with the comparisons to Portal and how the developers walked the tightrope between forcing you to do a task and just leaving you on your own. I couldn't do a better job explaining why I love this game so much. Well done.
This is really such a great video. I already loved this game, for pretty much everything you mentioned. But the dive into why these things are amazing was really great to watch. Thank you for this love letter to such a lovely game.
The part about factorio is something i thought myself too, it's only when i got forced out of that mindset by my friend not owning both that i realised how fun it actually is. The immersion in designing and expanding your factory top down is at least as good as exploring it first person, it just feels less natural when you're not used to it making the play times for factorio either below 5 hours or 200+ hours.
Other than the Factorio blaspheming ;) Solid video, nicely done sir :)
I feel like they gave up Factorio during the burner phase which nobody really likes. The world really opens when you get contructionbots in Factorio.
Fantastic video! Truly well done. Engaging, informational, funny, well-paced. Puts the emotional tingles this game accomplishes into words.
Any time someone asks why I have spent so many hours in this game, I'm going to send them this video.
When this game just came out I played it with a friend of mine, probably the best time I've ever had with him was making new contraptions and exploring the environment. Truly one of my best memories with him.
now kith
Beautifuly compressed into video form! Especially the look, feel and sound design you mentioned really bring this game home for me. So many hours were spent just running around, enjoying what I built and watching and listening how it all comes together.
Speaking of which: I am a bit bummed out you didn't resolve the "algebra quiz" from the beginning, because there's another game design gem hidden there: 120 iron ore can be perfectly split into crafting one assembler load (5) of Reinforced Iron Plates, one constructor load (20) of normal Iron Plates and two constructor loads (30) of Iron Rods, all fitting neatly together and providing you with your most needed basic materials. You may not notice in the first few playthroughs, but once you see it, it is *SO* satisfying. I'm 95% sure this was on purpose to reward the player for understanding the game mechanics :D