99% Of Pioneers Don't Know This Spot - Satisfactory Top Starting Locations

99% Of Pioneers Don't Know This Spot - Satisfactory Top Starting Locations
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Satisfactory's has several starting locations, but which one is best for you?
Lets take a look at all of the starting biomes and where I'd recommend heading.
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About: Satisfactory
Satisfactory is a first-person open-world factory building game with a dash of exploration and combat. Pioneering for FICSIT Incorporated means charting and exploiting an alien planet, battling alien lifeforms, creating multi-story factories, entering conveyor belt heaven, automating vehicles, and researching new technologies.
This Factorio like game has heavy automation, with automated mining, crafting, and you can even automate movement!
#TotalXclipse #Satisfactoryletsplay #Satisfactoryletsplayseries

[@linux_master_race]

"Experimenting with fluids for the first time" - I remember those days fondly

[@SavageDarknessGames]

I c wut u did der.. Gigitty!

[@patricksquirrel]

That's where I am ATM:)

[@jeosabb7993]

Yes Keith…..explore those nasty man-dreams u have been having. Dive deep, and get dived in deep. You deserve it

[@BruceCarbonLakeriver]

...I'm 600hrs into the game. Fluids are still an experiment for me 🤣

[@jeosabb7993]

@@BruceCarbonLakeriver Keith won’t mind if you do so

[@friendofp.24]

The Grass Fields are simply the spot for beginners and that's it. Coffee Stain knows new players don't care and just want to hop in the game, and the Grass Fields is the first option. It's designed to help the player as much as possible while also not giving them enough, encouraging factory building and exploration at the same time. One of the spawns plants you right next to a copper, limestone, and 3 iron, everything you need in the beginning. Head towards the edge of the map and you'll find 8 impure iron, limestone, and a pure coal node not too far away, obviously designed to begin steel production. Run for the hills and you'll find a giant lake with 4 coal nodes right next to it, obviously being designed for coal plant, and the proximity of them takes some of the stress off of learning fluids for the first time. After you reach coal power, the biome's weaknesses definitely show, as your only advanced nodes like caterium and quartz are in really inconvenient spots and oil is RIDICULOUSLY far. Overall, the biome is great for beginners, but yeah, the tier 5 & 6 slog is real.

[@emilesteenkamp]

agree. The starter is meant for starters who have no idea how to play yet. You build outwards and expand if you want more resources. And it looks very good.

[@sephypantsu]

best is free of creatures, which I think is important to new player as it can easily become a horror game if you aren't prepared.

[@vgalis]

Honestly, the Northern Forest 3 spot he showed has most of the resources you need right there and is generally easier once you figure out you can just place foundations over the cliff edge, any spot by a cliff has a vast flat building area.

[@LiLBitsDK]

well yeah grass fields are nice and a good beginner spot making you progress but there are easy caterium if you go down south and sulfur not too far east... which means you first need to move "far"ish when you need oil but that ain't too bad either (just build a hypertube) I did that... and then getting aluminum aren't too bad either... yes it is fairly far but you can get like 6-7 600/min belts collected and then run back to your fuel area (since there is plenty easy water)

[@seanberry1]

By the time I finished my first playthrough, which started in grassy fields, I had an aluminium factory at the small swamp oilfields, most of the computer parts coming from northern forest ideal start, and a nitrogen plant/factory. The exploration that led to finding all of these places was epic in scale, and something every player needs to experience for the game to have it's fullest impact. I like that there are places to start to give you a boosted start, but the long, slow road was the one most fun to travel.

[@Foefaller]

I feel like once you get the hang of the game, the Grassy Plains is for players who *want* the challenge of having to source resources from far away, setting up the truck routes to consolidate all the poor and normal resource nodes and rail lines to deliver rarer resources from further away. Approach it like that, and I've found it to be rather engaging as a place to start.

[@italixgaming915]

The location of a starter base is not necessary the same as your ultimate factory. I usually start at Grass Fields but my main factory is on the Northern Sea.

[@AAron-gr3jk]

This guy gets it. Grassy fields is not a great place to start for this reason. I tried a monofactory and omg the belts and transport..continously starved spaghetti

[@fatelvishguy6386]

The grassy plains feels like home. I prefer to spend the early game there simply because it’s nice to look at, and in the early game you spend a lot of time just in nature. There also aren’t many strong mobs or places to fall, so you don’t really get hurt much

[@stefanp2883]

That's true. And you have much wood lying around that can be collected by hand, so it' easy to generate some power from biomass without the chainsaw.

[@mentos2424]

Would love to see a video describing areas for specific modular factories such as batteries like you mentioned. Also would love to see ideas for scenic challenge build locations! Great content in this one!

[@wardvos7925]

This please

[@joaosapo297]

a series of best place for this category of items would be incredible! Best place for computers, etc

[@davep.7444]

Northern Forest: Spot 3 is amazing. The spot along the cliffs is limited on land, but you have LOTS of space you can just lay concrete over just over the cliffside. Plus Caterium and Sulfur are just down the hill away from the cliff. Quartz is along the cliff, and you even have a pure Coal node right there to tap for Steel. If you lay in a skybase, then oil's just on the other side of the valley and an easy drop from above. Bauxite and Uranium are the only resources you have to roam for, but they're close enough that travelling isn't horrible!

[@SirLANsalot]

exactly why that start location is the best because everything is nearby since its centralized enough on the map, plus trains solve any distance issues to begin with.

[@RothAnim]

My favourite as well. Also fun to build a massive vertical factory _downwards_ off the cliff-side.

[@shadowgamer5scorpio815]

My favorite choice too

[@H3xx99]

My favorite spot is the two void pits north of the green plains. It kinda sucks for nearby resources, but imo, it makes up for it with amazing build space. I laid a false floor along the entire valley, built a sunken silo to put the space elevator in, and I'm building a huge logistics system under the floor, and skyscraper towers as factories above ground.

[@sett131]

Sounds like one hell of a mega build

[@H3xx99]

@@sett131 it is, if I can wrangle my ADHD to get it started.

[@sett131]

@@H3xx99 I feel you on that

[@Serenjyn]

I bought Satisfactory back on April 22, 2019. The western coastline, which I nicknamed the Gold Coast, was where I experienced my first 100+ hours in the game. As you say, fantastic for building out over the water. I’ve chosen other sites for later games but will never forget the good times I had there.

[@blast507.]

Damn, the original person who came up with gold coast’s name

[@jasonriffle5789]

I've been using your new starting spot for a few months too. I love it there. I built a fake damn across the waterfall with halfpipe sluice gates and observation platforms.

[@jamesarber904]

I'd highly recommend checking out Nilhaus's starter location in the rocky desert. Lots of iron, Copper, and limestone nearby. Unfortunately coal is a little bit away. But it's compensated by the close oil and high up water (no pumps!)

[@brendanblanks4438]

Personally, the estuary is perfect for heavy modular frames. One of my favorite little "secret starting spots" in the Dune Desert is actually far to the north, east of the twin canyons on the edge of the foliage. The big downside is most of the nodes nearby are normal, but it has reasonable access to every resource you'd need except for bauxite, and uranium. Oil's a liiittle bit more distant, but attainable through the river-canyon, and there's plenty of coal nearby (two each normal, pure, and impure). Add in the sulfur being pure as well, and all you really need to do to make that spot work is bring in iron and maybe a bit of copper. Maybe limestone if you're really burning through it. It feels like a really good spot for showing a new player the ropes while also having plenty of room to work into later game as you expand to the south, east, and west into the waters on the other side of the cliffs. My play style tends to be more "floating" (not literally), minimalist module factories, though, which works well with the naturally expansive nature needed in this spot.

[@LKenjiF]

Only on my second playthrough, and recently hit aluminum. First playthrough was on the grasslands, and I abandoned that for the northern forest. I built in the sky, so the abundance of every resources closeby was really nice. There's alot of sulfur too, so I made a ton of compact coal and made a massive coal power plant on the main lake.

[@thinkerythunker616]

Along the north-western ledge of the Blue Crater there's this place with 4 normal iron nodes, a copper node, and a caterium node all in one spot. Limestone, coal, and quarts are also very close and very accessible. Beautiful spot! Nobody ever mentions that one.

[@dismuter_yt]

Agreed, I went to the comments to talk about Blue Crater. Pretty good location with iron, copper, coal, caterium, oil and plenty of water. Bauxite, Quartz and Sulfur are a bit far, but those resources come into play later. However I believe the northwestern part has 2 normal and 1 pure iron nodes, not 4 normal ones :) There's another pure one near the 4 normal coal nodes on the south-eastern area. The main downside is that it can be a bit challenging to find spots to build large factories around the lake.

[@thinkerythunker616]

@@dismuter_yt Go further up away from the lake, towards the caterium node, to get to the four normal iron nodes. They're by the little lake there. Right next to the caterium and the copper.

[@richardreid6377]

That's one I have used multiple times. The run from Grassy Fields drop location can be a mite hazardous, but I like it. (Be careful; there is an alpha spitter between you and limestone.)

[@MrShadow-qz9xj]

That is the spot I always start, I have started building my factorys down that cliff

[@knotsure7648]

I've been thinking about starting in that exact location. I build my mid-game power station with the oil there and hate the pre-train travel for hauling building supplies. Good to see someone else consider this spot for a start.

[@Walshy148]

Just started a new Update 7 save at the gold coast. I've already tried all 4 starting locations, happy to experiment with a few other different locations. Thanks for the suggestions!

[@knotsure7648]

That start spot is where I build my mid-game power plant. I have often thought about starting there so it was closer on the material runs since i build it before trains. Glad I'm not the only one that has considered that area for a start.

[@chickenmadness1732]

The northern forest cliff is TOO good tbh. You end up completing the game without leaving the starting area or even needing to build factories or trains lol. It's more fun to have a slightly less resource heavy start so you're forced to explore and build multiple outposts.

[@TotalXclipse]

Totally agree!

[@ivocanevo]

Yup! I played my first 500 hours in the grassy plains. Though I liked the pretty views, and relative safety, I didn't realize how limited it was. Surrounded by dangers before getting very far up the tech tree, I felt nervous and apprehensive trying to make my way to resources. Which kept me home, totally away from hard drives, and really added to the tension of the game. For example, water was scarce; oil was in the creepy Blue Crater; and worst of all I had practically zero crystal until I fought my way up to the highlands just southeast of the Red Bamboo Plains. Stingers, ew ew ew

[@cobaltofdoom]

Building vertically isn't easy for everyone. A lot of people avoid it because of that.

[@DistracticusPrime]

@@cobaltofdoom Agreed. Part of my motivation for playing Satisfactory is that I need practice thinking in 3D.

[@zachansen8293]

"completing the game" what is this that you speak of?

[@Viinan]

I'd definitely love to see videos in which you show which locations you think are the best places for setting up specific factories! As someone newer to the game, figuring out where I'm going to put a factory is one of the most time consuming parts of the building process (second only to designing a clean yet efficient layout for the machines) so having recommendations and examples are always greatly appreciated! I'm currently avoiding the red forest and titan forest areas due to the map changes they have slated for (hopefully) 2023 but locations outside of those are all fair game in my book. I'm looking forward to your blueprint series as well and hope you intend to share the blueprints you develop on satisfactory calculator so that those of us who aren't as good might benefit from your experience with the game!

[@hzunasdfgbciw]

I love Satisfactory, because you can build whatever, however you want. If if doesn't work: rebuild it. If you really can't get rid of excess water in aluminium production, try again or copy a blueprint. It's great that there are no two equal map layouts in Satisfactory. Flavor of the month? Not in Satisfactory.

[@thelaughingmanofficial]

The lack of close resources is actually a benefit to me because it challenges me to come up with clever builds to get to that resource and transport it. So I don't mind starting in the Grassy Fields biome. Also node "purity" doesn't really matter much other than getting more of a resource from said node. Great if you want to build stuff quickly, Other than that, it does not matter. Also the "Ocean" isn't too far away and gives you an incentive to build out to it to get water. Oh and before I forget you can also build in the void and over the bottomless chasms. A bit riskier at the start but once you get to a point where you have an overabundance of Concrete and Metal Plates it's a cake-walk.

[@rtxagent6303]

Have you built to paradise island before? There’s no nodes or creatures there but it’s still pretty cool tbh. And if you bring a vehicle with you then you can explore past the world border without taking damage.

[@rbruch98]

The spots you mentioned by Titan Forest, the south end of the Dune Desert, and the spots on the edges of the Rocky Desert get a strong +1 from me. Typically when I build at the location in Titan, It's not a starter factory - It's typically a second or third modular area with a focus on refining.

[@Justincredibalz]

I normally gravitate to the northern spot of the Rocky desert you pointed out, then go south for oil and west to the ridiculously rich spot in the northern forest for some of the more rare spots. I do harness the power of strategic clipping by using the nearby underground quartz node and just use a couple conveyor lifts to pop it to the surface.

[@WestOfEarth]

I've started saves in all the starting locations, the Northern Forest being my current and final place to start. It's claimed to be for experienced players, but I found it to be the easiest start. Building vertically isn't that much of a hindrance.

[@Noidhole88]

I agree. I found that spot where you made your 8 coal generators and started a new build there. It's a great spot so far. Plan to run power to the ocean though as I like to build on the water. Can't wait to check out your beach build.

[@jeecee8283]

Hello Xclipse. Happy Holidays! One area not mentioned is the 'southwest' corner - over the large void, at the bottom of the falls. Bounteous iron, copper, limestone; as well as caterium, coal. Thank you for this pleasant video.

[@HaphazardJoy]

Starting in the Northern Forest/Rocky Desert area is very nice. Then you have fun options for expansion, like taking over the Crater Lakes for power and Bauxite, or building over the top of the canyon between the Northern Forest and the oil-rich coast.

[@arakheno4051]

Dude outed me .. Been building here since .3 along the ocean and the edge waterfalls, also 2 no-requirement HDs, great to start and easily expandable! Told a few people about it 1.5 years ago .. great spot to start/mid/end game

[@KarelPKerezman]

For our three-hander co-op, we all agreed to try the Dune Desert for the first time (none of us had done anything other than HD hunting there at all before). We ended up kind of equidistant between the two larger lake structures, and that worked out superbly. Nodes EVERYWHERE, and the only thing in the way of your builds is being aware of the crest of the highest nearby dune or rock formation. The biggest ironworks I've ever made is there. On the other hand, I've done the Iron Heights location for a solo and a duo co-op game, and while yes you get EVERYTHING (except like Bauxite and whatnot) right there in plentiful quantities, trying to build factories and route trains is such a nightmare in the tight forest confines. I'm doing an "all trains" save right now and starting just outside Iron Heights has been... challenging. (I have a train tour video coming soon, maybe after next weekend.)

[@Avexuzz]

My favourite start is at 4 iron nodes in Southern Forest, near Blue Crater. A little bit tricky to set up basic production, but later you get all rare resources at close proximity and lots of flat space to build in crater and Eastern Dune Forest.

[@octopcz7760]

I love this this spot. One of best for me.

[@hzunasdfgbciw]

I like to start in the green, because it's nice and easy and move up to 162/185 for the first bigger base. It's right between oil, bauxite, uranium and the best place to build vertical near water. My refineries don't need a single pump. And I like the view. Great sunsets there. 😀👍

[@lingwisyer88]

I like starting in the central Northern Forest location. I then use most of the other locations pointed out for specific production lines that utilise all of the nearby nodes. Central and easy to branch out from.

[@alejandrozapataq]

i love the cliff side of the northern forest, it has everything you need very close and it is very well placed to make train networks, i usually build my storage building near the river where the sulfur nodes are located and several factories near the other nodes depending on what i need so at least everything up to motors are produced in that spot

[@Saaihead]

For me personally any nice looking location with some iron, copper, limestone and foliage nearby is good enough to start off with. I just buid infra to bring the rest in, that is actually what I love about this game. :) I am currently back in the grass fields after 3300 hours of gameplay all around the island and it feels like coming back home. :)

[@gessie]

That is great advice, even if counterintuitive for most older gamers. I found it extremely hard to abandon min-maxing and excessive planning, but it really improves the game. Just wing it - the game is clearly intended that way.

[@italixgaming915]

You don't need foliage. I never collect foliage in my games. I get my biomass from hunting and from my Doggos (I have 109 of them in my game 😂 ) You don't need heavy infrastructure either: you can just build secondary factories and come there from time to time to collect the resources you need for unlocking advanved technologies. I travel a lot anyway since there are items to collect, Doggos to pet (Doggos are extremely important for power shards - I have thousands of them, much more that I could get by collecting all the slugs in the world), and so on.

[@Saaihead]

@@italixgaming915 Yeah sure, there are literally thousands of ways to play this game. I prefer to automate asap, before having to unlock biomass from enemies first so I can move to coal power. And I also like to use the enemy remains for early coupons via data capsules. And to be honest, I prefer to build factories instead of baby sitting doggo's. But thatt's personal.

[@italixgaming915]

@@Saaihead Long term choices have to be made. You have to choose between relatively compact factories with intensive use or power shards (which requires Doggos breeding) or extremely large factories with more room management, logistic and game performance issues.

[@Saaihead]

@@italixgaming915 Not necessarily, I have all available items automated, including all ammo and oil side-products, in 4 compact factories and sure I use some power shards, but not more than 100. And I still have like 200-300 of them in stock or in temporary factories. Some come from doggo's, some the advent calender (2 years) but most from slugs I found. And there are still a lot of slugs left to hunt, there's more than 700 on the map, good for like 1300 shards. Also, bigger factories are less of an performance issue since recent updates. And with blueprints it's really easy to build big.

[@luftwolf7405]

I've been setting up my starting location just over the lake in the sourther rocky desert, when EA 1.0 hit the road. It was a gr8 place to start!

[@nikkogeeko]

4:50 - I always use this spot for starting because here you can get REALLY a lot of different PURE resources in one place. Lots of foliage alows you to care less about power supply. If you just build a big flat floor on the edge - here your megafactory place. Moreover, if you go a little to the north you can find some oil puddles and you can build a oil factory right below the main factory place. If you go to the west and cross the river there are resources for steel production. The only odd is that boxite is very distant from this spot. Truly best place to start.

[@Tacomaguy458]

The NW corner of the desert is my go to spot. Makes it easy to setup a little bus style starter base when you have every resource other than bauxite and oil you have to make a small journey for. Building on the dunes kinda sucks so I go heavy on the concrete production early so I can start building platforms but other than that, its 100% the play for me

[@TAiiNE]

When I first started playing I ran off to explore and ended up, thanks to being chansed by one of the BIG spitters, was fall into that oasis lake south of the 4 coal nodes you show around 6 mins in. I've sense build my base along the south wall of that oasis pond, building coal power at the bottom with water extracxtors tucked away inside, and ran resource buss's from all the nodes around the area. It's such a great start and centralized between a number of nodes you need. Even oil is just up the coast line and the two pure quartz node in a (still buggy with the cut off waterfall) caveish area just to the north. Pretty much I find it a perfect start with so much close by to just buss in or use trucks for the short hops back and forth.

[@TheMNWolf]

My first (and current) map was a rocky desert start, and having checked the other locations, I prefer it. In fact, the shot you used when talking about coal nodes is where my steelworks is set up =3 Though my current mega build is off in the dunes because it was a bit closer to the center of the map, and I may eventually need all that space.

[@storytsunami]

Agreed. My first solo game was in the Rocky desert as well. It strikes a good balance between good resource access and aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

[@welbeebee]

First Playthrough (3-player co-op): I started in grassy plains, but around Tier 6 started smaller factory bases at first the Southern Edge of Long Beach to the east of Grassy Fields, and later on in Tier 8 Northern Forest Cliff Edge. You kind of just intuitively find these during the mid-to-late game, because they're just so easy to see the pure iron + copper + limestone synergy of for building basic parts.

[@ArbiterSCX]

Did my fourth restart and went back to the grassy plains, and beat my personal best time to tier 6. I concluded that fewer pure nodes offer no benefit over the many impure nodes in the grassy plains. You are limited hard by mk1 belts and miners, and found I could run more production of a dozen impure nodes at only 45/min, vs getting capped at three or fire pure nodes at 60/min with mk1 belts. At tier 6 I moved up to the norther forest so I didn’t have to waste time tearing down my earlier bases.

[@mormorspepsi]

I just picked up trying to understand this game, I’m moving slowly forward and I believe from watching friends play the despite the grasslands having bad nodes it’s really good for beginners. The lesser resources forces you to explore a little and doesn’t overwhelm you. Plus it makes you understand the use of powerslugs!

[@dondumitru7093]

Don't get stuck in analysis paralysis with Satisfactory. If it looks interesting to you, just jump in. The game has a very gentle start, completely focused on teaching you how the game works, and the gentle start works anywhere. Truthfully, if it weren't for all of the videos about "the most perfectest starting spot in Satisfactory", a newish player would never even know the concept existed.

[@fusionnm]

I love this game. I've played hundreds of hours, bought it first on Epic when it came out, and bought it a second time on Steam for reasons. I would say that if you are new, the grasslands are probably the best place to start. It allows you to get comfortable with how the game plays while not being subjected to some of the harsher environments. I typically have many satellite factories set up, and since changing your primary base just means moving your HUB, where you start isn't really that important. Just get some basic resources going and then move as needed.

[@SuperKagin]

the one thing I didn't know when first starting was building foundations early, even temporarily really helps keep things clean and organized. Aside from opening up the first 4 tears completely asap, getting as much concrete going early on as you can will really help factory building and keeping things organized. The only downside is that early game concrete production is very slow.

[@covenscribe]

Lol I thought i would find a new place to build but then you recommended my favorite spot! Ive nicknamed it the pound. Gives you a great view of the waterfalls.

[@christopherthompson9510]

I've had that spot south of the Rocky Desert before, and it's a FANTASTIC place to build.

[@ImRedRain]

Gotta love that the spot you talk about lastly is my favorite spot in general i know the in and out of it Caterium is a small distance away but that should not pose a problem.

[@Dracule0117]

This was a pretty gratifying video as a new player, lol. I played around in the grass fields for a bit, and then restarted to do my first serious playthrough in the same spot in the Dangle Spires to the NW of there that you're using for that blueprint-focused series. Then when my wife picked up the game we ended up using that spot in the south of the Rocky Desert that you highlighted right after that. We're just now getting coal power plants set up in both saves.

[@therealbahamut]

Started in the grassy fields for my first game. Starting building on the cliffs next to the coal lake which, despite the winding trail down to the lake, has worked just fine for coal power. Built my factory floor outwards from the cliff a bit. I AFKed on my factory floor once while I was distracted doing something else, then noticed I was hearing a lot of wind. I look back to my monitor and realize I've managed to catch a ride on that giant blue sky ray. He was clipping through my factory floor and I'd managed to AFK right on the spot where he makes contact. That was a fantastic ride and I'm thinking about eventually redesigning after I move so I can leave a nice little "sky ray tours" platform.

[@Scott-hf2qz]

There's more than one you can ride too !

[@krosanreaper]

I'd love a video on specific spots for specialized factories. I put a massive battery factory in the crater lakes when getting drones up and running. Cover up the lake next to the surfer node and pipe oil and alumina from the South.

[@PhunkieZero]

That last location you listed is where i am currently posting my very first game on, i started last year on it but went on a satisfactory hiatus for a little bit. I have 16 coal generators in that little lake there, the coal coming down from the nodes up on that hill, snaking down the mountain side

[@thatguy772]

The best mid-game I think is due east of your new spot, the lake surrounded by a large cliff with 4 coal nodes nearby. Iron, copper, limestone, coal, sulphur in reasonable quantities with varying node qualities, vertical and horizontal building options depending on how you build over the lake/cliff, it can get you all through tiers 4-6 only needing to move oil-products from the ocean.

[@commonsense-og1gz]

i don't disregard the grassy plains. the nodes may be impure, but they give a lot of them. also, the vast area is great for construction without having to spend resources on platforms. also, it's location make it easy to pipe in crude oil from the blue crater to the east, due to the corridor along the southeast side of the map. running an oil pipe from the western beaches, should also be easy. this means all of your oil processing could be centralized in the grassy plains.

[@seriously404]

wow! i had just today made a new save file due to some reasons and placed my hub at your perfect strating spot. What a coincidence!

[@moonstenebrocity]

as someone who only started playing with my boyfriend in december, i've been wanting to try my hand at my own world now i have some experience (thanks grass plains) & this video is perfect! definitely checking out your other satisfactory videos!

[@Br3ttM]

My first playthrough, I did the grassy fields start, but I didn't find that coal near the lake to the northwest, so I ended up going all the way to the blue crater for coal power. I eventually had major factories on the western beach and the lake forest, but never finished building a hub to deliver everything to for the last project pieces.

[@love2rogue]

im glad i came across this before i went to town in the grasslands, played around 9 hours love the game! now where to pick to start :D!

[@coyotejohn3101]

I had started my first save in the rocky desert south of the small lake and tried to mega factory and got overwhelmed about 30 hours in. My new save is in the grassy fields and I'm enjoying the challenges of getting things from point A to point B. I just set up a remote coal power plant and I'm intending to go a bit farther out to set up a steel plant. Since I didn't like the mess involved with everything being nearby and having to manage a multitude of inbound conveyor systems, I plan on doing remote manufacturing of base parts with central assembly and run trucks and trains.

[@Lil_Puppy]

The "Perfect Start" location is my favorite. I do all my concrete and basic iron and copper stuff there, expand to the caterium, then down the cliff on both sides - toward the oil for plastic and rubber and fuel and the other side down below for quartz, then down even more and across the lake at the bottom for steel. There's even a tiny pond big enough for one water extractor near the copper plateau to jump start a coal generator or water for more advanced recipes. I do have a large facility in the dune desert in one save but I don't really like to build there.

[@TotalXclipse]

Yeh the perfect start is well, perfect but it's just so commonly used that it puts me off 😅

[@JimmyAgent007]

I used the map to choose where I wanted to start my first serious playthrough (I messed around in the normal starting area for a few hours a few updates ago), and I picked the spot you suggested at the very end. However, now that I am in the late game, I am building a tower base in the dead center of the map, and I'm going to build all over the map, but my first factory area is feeding the construction effort.

[@jaye1967]

My favorite is the dune middle of the dune desert with what has become a "+" shaped manufacturing base with one leg for each of the advancement levels. Iron and steel to the north, oil to the west, bauxite/aluminum to the south, and copper/caterium/quartz to the east. Water I get from the elevated lakes to the west. I find space is never a problem wherever you build if you make your main factory at a level above the terrain features.

[@DenisTrebushnikov]

9:14 - that place I much love, and was excited when I found it, actually, there's 40m-ish high above the oil source at the west ocean (I had only one pump mk1 to feed my refiners, near the stone source, the wester one, at the road up to the cave), and not to far, the same or similar distance is as to quarz sources thru the cave. Sulfur is the most con of this place.

[@JustNilt]

Good old Speed-runner's Alley there at 5:00 in. Great place to start, IMO, for anyone who wants everything near at hand. I do like the water location there, however. It's not somewhere I've done much before so maybe my next playthrough will start there.

[@jamja5816]

This helped me alot and i would be very happy if you could show us what map u use

[@SassyPants34]

I tend to head to northern forest at the the spot mentioned at 5:00 and sit on the cliff edge near those iron nodes. I like to build over the canyons.

[@PandaMan02]

it doesn't matter where you start your base, it just matters how you start your base. build up and make your flat area, conveyer everything in.

[@NovemberStreams]

I don't necessarily like starting on pure resources, since I don't have the miners and belts to take full advantage of them, requiring rework later. I tend to start on less pure resources and move towards pure once I get MK2 miners and Tier 3-4 belts.

[@Cheesebread42]

I'm sold - i'll do my nth epoch re-roll of satisfactory there. (I love the forest, I've used all 3 of those starts you mentioned)

[@OvrlordEtna]

I love grassy area at start, may not have good resources but it is the best on the eyes.

[@Jean_Mi]

After several hours of research and consulting many videos, I started again at your spot N°3 (04:48) and I played there more than 500 hours. Everything is easily accessible -37,614/-142,150

[@schnebot]

i tried grass field during the very first try. i remember squeezing out iron out of those 3 poor nodes next to each other ouch. then tried rocky desert and damn it was a difference - i actually used that "south location" on my first rocky desert try :) 09:08

[@mattbilyeu]

Northern forest is also great if you are forgoing the mega factory model in favor of smaller factories. That’s what I’m doing, my main hub only has an attached warehouse where finished products are all dropped off.

[@ScottDavisPhotography]

Love to see a location of nuclear power plant and how you approach gaining of resources to power it, haven't found much on that on the university of youtube. That's my next venture to explore and build one next for the final skylift delivery

[@nathnathn]

Iv got a preferred starting spot in the grasslands. Its not anything special but it has iron/copper/limestone right next to each other. From there i tend to go to around the waterfall for caterium and water then around the coast for oil.

[@jannieschluter9670]

I like the impure nodes of the grassy plains for the start and keep the pure nodes for the later stages of the game when I have all tech and can afford building any factory without worries.

[@woulyang]

00:02 Key starting locations in Satisfactory cater to different playstyles 01:24 Rocky Desert biome is ideal for mega factories and early to late game progression. 02:44 Dense biome offers challenges and rewards for factory builders 04:02 Three top starting locations in Satisfactory game 05:16 Unexplored starting location south of the rocky desert 06:46 Ideal starting location with ample resources and strategic positioning 08:08 Rocky desert offers great starting locations for resource-rich gameplay 09:31 Ideal starting location for mid-game progress Crafted by Merlin AI.

[@Sirinxbella]

I love the grass fields. Gives quite the challenge once you know what you're doing.

[@yarick5002]

На мой взгляд, начинать лучше всего на западе северного леса. Перврое производство будет несложным, далее много железа и угля для энергии, пороха и немного для стали. Следом сталь надо делать в каменистой равнине к западу, подтягивая уголь сверху. Потом супер-производство энергии из 2-х нефтяныскважин на крайнем севере на 25 ГВт с параллельной выработкой резины и пластика. Сразу после этого - аллюминиевый завод на реке у болота. Наконец ядерное производство в пещере ведущей к одной из бездонных дыр в центре (урановый поезд обязателен, не забываем). Застройка поверх этой дыры. Сложную компонентику заранее рассчитываем и подтягиваем базовые ресурсы к нужным заводам. Всё. А теперь гадайте, как я сделал ослиную... Ах да, нефть.

[@dianwei32]

I recently had a save in the second Northern Forest location mentioned. I got to Quartz, realized that I was dead center in between two Quartz areas 2.7 km apart (so each 1.35 km from my base) and almost immediately abandoned the save. I just was not ready to deal with that much trouble for Quartz.

[@matts_rantz4982]

You can actually get pretty far in game starting in the grasslands i sure did. There may be alot of impure iron nodes but i got to tier 7 using just them along with one normal copper, coal and lime stone nodes near by. Even though i did have to travel pretty far for my first oil nodes.

[@TheCorpsehatch]

I usually go with Dune Desert at 5:56 for the high amount of iron nodes, those coal nodes, and sulfur to the east. Plus it has those two quartz nodes at the northern edge with a few more coal nodes to start steel production. Plus there is that one pure caterium node.

[@Mortomes]

I like to build my "main base" on top of that cliff, there's a lake up there that the waterfall flows down from, and on the other side you have access to the north coast and its oil. The view is pretty nice from up there.

[@JustanotherPlaya]

I would love to see the playthrough with your Grass Fields build, as it's becoming a favorite location of mine, since it's near coal, water, and has easy access to petroleum resources. I've also just built a first computer factory on the Caterium node just north of that location, and added a first attempt at building roads through the two locations to the oil field located on the islands north of there. P.S. - the railroad is Provaw's megaprint from the Calculator website, not miine. Not sure I'll ever be able to match up to that one, LOL.

[@himenaaa3565]

the 2nd spot are the spot i used right now, the nodes are totally good but it requires careful planning to maximize the space you had also using SCIM will helps you to determine the builds in a way or another. Early Raw Quartz can be constructed into Quartz Crystal which is yield more points in sinker for early phase of the game and get you severals cosmetic items or variations you will needed in future. there is another node that is quite okay level than starting point in grassland, which is had 4 nodes of Normal Coal but you can only use 3, since you need bomb to explode the boulder above it. its near 3 nodes of iron (im forgot which rarity it is) in above, and 1 impure of iron ore nodes in nearby the waterwall which is had copper beside it. Not to mention there 2/3 Wreck nearby areas but one of them having big enemies which is a big no for early pioneers unless you know how to deal with it. but lack of other resources will forcing you doing adventuring in early stages which is can be good and bad at same time. regardless you will had plentiful fruits you can harvest in nearby as stock before adventuring

[@ledoynier3694]

I usually start ... in the grass fields :p All the vegetation helps getting up to coal power, then trains it is, and off to explore and build somewhere else !

[@kuriea552]

I love the dune desert. Lots of space to work with. edit - That location you like is pretty solid, I will have to check it out.

[@Karboluk]

As it happens, your new build is where my factory is :) I also love that spot

[@christofferhjorth2243]

imo the grassy area is the best for new players, BECAUSE of the sparse resources, most new players wont think too much of effeciency, and exploring the world for the first time is so awesome. furthermore theres not a huge amount of enemies, and little to no alphas in a huge radius. i think some ppl will see the huge amount of resources you can get from a pure node, will make them feel "pressured" to use all of it, and risk getting an early burnout because of it. imo the grassy area is PERFECT for new players, but it is a bit sad that after the first serious playthrough, gets kind of obsolete.

[@reconshunter]

10:05 I'd actually be really interested in a video about perfect factory positions as I was wondering about this ever since I started playing the game!

[@stefanp2883]

I never started in the dune desert and only once in the red forest. In my opinion the grass field is the most beautyful area with enough resources to get started. Plenty of Iron, enogh copper and limestone. Some caterium. For the first coal power I use the small lake in the southwest, coal is in the very south and can be transported by the tractor or using one long belt. For steel I go to the west of the big arch (2x iron 1x limetone, 1x coal on the mountain. Behind this mountain there is sulfur which I use for the first ammunition and in combination with the steel factory it's great for nobelisks. For quartz I go to the forest in the west, there is some in a cave, for oil I use the western beach. The rocky desert has more space for really big factories, I used it twice as starting location and once I moved there form the grassfields for having more space. In the northeastern part of the rocky desert there is plenty of space, water and coal for the first coal power plant and a big steel factory. Even quartz is there in the cave system. Later in the game you have to explore anyway, so it's not a big deal if the advanced resources aren't nearby.

[@jamespearson3216]

In the grassy plains at -52,696 /231,585 has 3 normal iron and 1 normal copper right by each other with two nodes for limestone, yes there is far more impure nodes, but it is calmer and far more open to be able to have a great start for new players to get a good feel for the game. It is also very easy to reach the coal and sulfer at -75,744/153,779. Which just happens to be a great place for a very large coal power plant. You will have to move out of this area in order to get to end game material, but by then you will have a massive advantage and start to do so.

[@mr.baconmontages8929]

Personally my world (which I've basically unlocked everything on except the last tier of the space elevator) is built on the grasslands of the south however I have trains going from the very north of the map bringing back vast quantities of iron and other ores back to mega factories I've made. I'd recommend it as a starting location if you are willing to sort the logistics out. I love trains and drones so for me it's perfect as it forces trains to be used really. In many other locations trains feel pointless until very late game as nodes are so close together

[@melt7322]

i always start rocky desert and migrate to the crater/northern forest/rocky desert triangle in tier 3-4 first biomass factory is around the five normal iron nodes, has copper and limestone nearby. i shut it down when coal generators are up, get some modular frames from the 4x pure iron north, and move to the east edge of the desert for steel and motors. sulfur, quartz and caterium are available nearby. oil is a bit far away.

[@Xix1326]

I found the Northern Forest spot, using the two Easter Island heads as the guide, and it IS a great one. I'm playing on passive 'cause I'm a builder not a fighter. The one problem is the pure limestone. There are two in the area, but the closest one can't be accessed until you get foundations and ramps. The other is close, but you've got to go the long way around a large mountain. I put the constructors down with the limestone and belted it up to the base. I should have just portable miner and hand crafted the cement until I got enough to get to the close one. Time for yet another restart. lol I did notice there was no food around the site but a little exploration found food and two pure rose quartz nodes, a bunch of single sulfur rocks, a caterium rock, and a rock that I haven't seen anybody mention, probably because it's a WIP. The SAM node is beautiful, even if it's not useful. So my scanner is full of stuf to search out even before getting to coal. One thing I'd like to see a creator go over, particularly in that spot, is the basic setup of the iron and copper mines. The limited flat space makes verticality a must. I put the smelters on the bottom floor and lifted the ingots to the second floor to do the construction and assembly. There are 3-4 wonderful pure nodes but, at 120 per mine, it will handle 4 smelters with just a level 1 miner. So with 12 smelters and all the attendant constructors and assemblers it's crazy cramped. I'd love to see how you build the initial base in detail. Is it always best to use the 4m foundations for the base floors, or will 2 m work fine? How tall is a smelter? It seems to take 3 4m blocks to avoid clipping the smelters, but I did 4 high and it looks, well, bad. When raising the lifts, how tall is each click? It's less than 4m per click, that I know, but I'm having trouble lining things up. There's so many machines so close together that the ctrl placement lines get really weird. Still, I think this is my new favorite game. They've done a great job on doing a 3D Factorio with a whole lot less fiddling. I love that the nodes don't expire. That would be horrible in this game, so I hope the devs never add that (or make it a toggle). And the fact that the biomes are all connected on a single map is magnificent. Thank you for the content you've created for Satisfactory and I hope to see more.

[@Drego117]

the Cliffside spot in the Northern forest is my favorite spot to start in bar none

[@bobafettjr85]

I like the northern forest. I start in the center for basics, then head east to the coal oasis for steel, then west for quartz components and a compacted coal power plant, then just north is all the oil in Spire Coast, then south to crater lakes for aluminum. Everything built vertically in skyscrapers. The only real hard part is nitrogen.

[@DM_Curtis]

My fav starting location remains the rocky desert. Once you have your basic, steel and CPU factories going, you can build your train network and start your endgame base in the dune desert, transporting resources from all over the map.

[@thalandor46]

A few thoughts that stuck out to me during the video. One con for first time players in the Rocky Desert is that coal can be daunting, available either particularly high up, or about a third of the way across the map. If you're not used to travel and exploration yet, the idea of getting coal back west for power and steel can be a bit much. It's not a big deal after you've gotten your feet wet, but I remember feeling discouraged in my first save for that specific reason. A con I would add to the Dune Desert is that it has a good amount of what I call deceptive water, where water appears in the environment, but it cannot be used for water extractors. This can get frustrating for planning, particularly along the west side of the biome. Speaking of water, and this does not specifically involve starting locations, but with your point about the advantage of the flat water surface, it's worth noting that not all of that water is extractable. It is certainly true that you can build a vast amount of foundations that will make for great building modules. But there is a line along the entire west side of the map (and another along the east side, I believe) where you can no longer place water extractors, and that line hits well before the current death bounds, at least as of Update 7. So if you have any plans out into the ocean that involve water, you may want to keep them a bit closer to the shoreline. It's not terribly restrictive, but it can be a surprising inconvenience as you continue to expand off of that coast.

[@IRDazza]

I like starting north west of the green fields area where there is 4 x coal, pure iron, copper, limestone, oil to the west, 3 pure iron and pure copper just west, and most of the otherresources required including water, nitrogen, quartz etc all within reach (Coords 80,000 , 140,000).

[@polarstriker3854]

I'm on my first playthrough of the game, roughly 60 hours in, and my starting position was in the Rocky Desert (I think- it's the second one from the left on the starting screen). There's a large archway with 6 normal iron nodes (one of which is invisible, oddly enough) and a decent amount of copper and limestone nearby. It's not perfect, but it's been pretty good for my beginner Ironworks.

[@TerrisLeonis]

I know that spot, and I'm surprised it didn't get a mention. I used this as a starting location too. Coal was a pain to get, but I ran a tractor up to the coal nodes in crater lakes.

[@jakefowler8522]

Doesn’t matter where ya start off to be honest. The pure area in northern forest is my fave as I can get everything unlocked quicker. Rocky dessert is a close second for me. But either way, I end up knocking down and re doing all my starter stuff once I get to tier 4/5.

[@Warp9pnt9]

As a complete noob, I first started in the Dune Desert, specifically because the description said it was for advanced players. It was like they were trying to scare us from something good. It's a great place to get started. One of the game's 3 pure sulfur nodes is here, with the other two nodes being only just past the border on southeast and northwest. No Oil or Uranium is the big downside, but loads of coal and all metals. There's no Pure Quartz nodes, but two regular quartz nodes literally right next to each other, which actually lets you get more Quartz than a single pure node thanks to Mk.5 belt limitation. 2x600=1200 which is greater than 780! For oil, you just run down the canyon highway a little, and you've got some oil and geothermal to get started. Plenty of biomass around the ponds to the northeast abd southwest and northwest. I ran 960 MW of biomass for ages before getting my coal plant planned. Easy to run across, with no crazy cliffs to fall off or climb up, no insanely hard alpha/green stingers or even big stingers. Tons of easy access power slugs. A few Beryl Nuts for food. Easy to build just about anywhere. I liked that area a lot.

[@ET_CostaLotta]

Tyyyyy imma start using rocky desert from now on

[@K162KingPin]

The grassy area is IMO best for starting. I haven't played in a few years. Just started up a new game 3 days ago and made it to state 4 in 3 days from the grassy area. I only had to venture farther out for a couple of key resources, quartz, and oil, both of which were still found in the bottom left of the map. I like this method because this gets you up to aluminum production which lets you build the tier 5 belts and by this point you can easily have all the cosmetic stuff unlocked in the awesome shops allowing you to further expand into the higher quality areas of the map with the highest tier machines as well as the cosmetic items necessary to make your builds not only functional but also highly productive and asthmatically pleasing. If you start off building in higher quality areas, there is no real advantage. Yes the nodes are better, but you don't have the tech or resources to really take full advantage of that anyway. On the down side the higher quality areas are balanced by having much more difficult terrain to navigate, and more, and harder creatures to deal with. Not pleasant when you are just starting out, have no meds, or good weapons.

[@FizzleFX]

My first start was gras... went to the beach for power (also using trains first time... and a few buggy buggies) ... and then i found the dessert and started over - a lot bigger this time