The Ultimate Beginner's Guide To Steel Layouts in Satisfactory 1.0

[@AhnafS2000]

Top down + 1st person is an excellent mix. Really helps put the build into perspective 😄

[@teejaded]

If anything, I think he should use the top down view more than he did.

[@lainling]

The top-down view with the numbered grid is excellent, definitely make use of it going forward.

[@oldsmoothhands8427]

1600 hours in Satisfactory and I just discovered through this video that you can snap splitters directly onto lifts. I've been placing lifts, putting 3 splitters vertically to get the right position, then deleting and remaking the lifts I love this game and its community haha

[@Deilwynna]

the ability to directly attached the splitters/mergers to the lifts was added in update 7 or 8 iirc. i never knew of it myself until 1.0 release

[@GaidalKain]

Same here. Probably around 800 total hours since EA Launch and never knew this was added.

[@paradox...]

WHAAAT. How have I not known of this secret tech?!

[@zengrath]

It's funny, i figured it out as a complete new to 1.0 soon as i unlocked lifts, haha. I guess when you been playing game a while and used to it not doing that, you don't think of trying it again.

[@corncutter]

Yeah, same here. "Only" 400 hours in the game but this will save so much time and space. Now all I'm still hoping for are additional up & down connection slots in splitters/mergers to make use of the ability to stack them. (oh, and half-sized versions of walls, doors, conveyor walls, etc fitting to the half foundations and catwalks.)

[@idkidkk4410]

Hey, just wanted to say this format is sooo good and informative for all viewers. Having you to take time to explain both on first person view and top person view on one video is the best of both worlds. I also appreciate the time stamps you added for future use. Please keep it up and thank you for taking your time to produce and excellent up to date layout guides for satisfactory game. Side note: I've been watching other videos from other KZbinrs. Your new format direction is what we need in KZbin right now.

[@bagel_deficient]

The overhead view is both extremely helpful, and pleasing to watch.

[@TheBoothy666]

I did a slight variation on the steel ingot layout, if you move the foundries out just one step, to give yourself slightly more room in the centre, you can reduce the number of splitters and mergers by half, as you can place the merger at the midpoint between the apposing foundry outputs (so resulting in a curved belt from output to merger), with the splitters above as per your design. So just 3 mergers, and 6 splitters total. The lifts remain the same, and placing the input belts in straight mode, from lift to splitter curves around the foundry with no visible clipping. This also removes the slightly fiddly belt placement between the really close mergers/splitters. This adjusted layout still fits in a 4x4 blueprint.

[@arutsuyo]

The top down view is REALLY nice. I would recommend having the top down as a picture-in-picture while your building in first person view. That helps get a solid 3D spacial sense while the first person camera is spinning around placing things.

[@waynejohnson1500]

I really like these kind of videos. I feel a bit lost sometimes and this helps me find a good order again. One additional idea: Add the underclocking/overclocking percentage on the overview screen if applicable. I usually watch the videos before and when I want to rebuild them the overview is usually good enough but if there is underclocking in it I have to skip through all parts to find them. Not a big issues though.

[@DavidThompson-e3m]

I'm 70 love Satisfactory. Steel Production for dummies, Brilliant, just what I needed.

[@bilasyt]

this guide SAVED my world, i was about to drop the game due to being overwhelmed, hope you keep making these until the mk.4 and above!

[@CH1K3N99]

I'm 3 days into satisfactory, and just paused the video at 9:56 to say I haven't ever bought a "factory" game, just played some RTS and mostly fast pace FPS shooters (so love the movement in this suprisingly!) but, this guide has been good. Thank you! I have started building encased steel, and my factory IS LITERALLY CLIP CITY! But, i literraly slide jump everywhere, so thought it was normal to just make everything clip through, apparently not! Organised chaos, and efficient as well, but wow, mine takes up so much space, and I love yours being built in little squares. I've never even used a foundation until day 3. Game changer! Top down view is great! Even a split screen mini window?

[@ItsSkriptzeeXD]

Trusssttt me my factory was unorganized until hour 1500

[@BetaSolution]

Everyone's first factory is spaghettiville. Just have fun and do what works for you.

[@GokaiGoblin]

Might be a PITA but having a small window showing the top-down at the same time as the First Person view would improve this idea. That way, you're getting both perspectives in sync and real-time to help give a better mixed perspective. Beyond that, these look possible to compress and make them into blueprints... am I wrong? I'm not sure how big the Mk3 blueprint grid is 🤔

[@ChronoDefender]

Wholy agree with this. There was one point where there was a cut in the footage (right after showing top down) and continuing where the build just finished, and my brain had to reboot for a second.

[@Unmannedperson]

11:20: One tip I use for starting up a manifold factory is to bring each section online as you go. That way, the foundries/smelters fill up while you're building constructors, which fill up while you're building assemblers, etc. Once a building's downstream conveyor fills up, then the building fills up, which then idles the building so that further copies of that building down the manifold line get priority for materials. By the time the next section is up and running, what you've built already is saturated. Just in contrast to say, building the whole factory then "flipping on the switch" to everything all at once.

[@sapuseven]

Gotta be careful tho, if you connect the wrong belts by accident to a running section, you're gonna have a lot of cleaning up to do ^^

[@TheBoothy666]

This is what I do, I also label (signs) all my blueprints so I know exactly what is going in and out at each belt position, with numbers.

[@joshsewell5022]

So I am not normally a fan of these types of games... however... i just finished phase 3 and the dopamine kicked in. i have almost 300 hours into the game now because I have really been taking my time, watching videos like yours (which are fantastic by the way, great job), and simply just enjoying the math, the world, thefact that this game has "out of knowhere" taken ahold of my brain. Thanks for your content and your help, great job!

[@TekJunkie09]

As a new player, I really appreciate the attention to detail in these guides. The two player system is nice but just giving a top down view at the end is also enough. I find that the long form step by step instructions are the most important parts of the guide, along with any small detail that could be given, such as the flow rates and which version of the item is being used, which you have a pretty good job at so far! Kudos to you, good sir!

[@john_in_phoenix]

I did manage to find the "Solid Steel Ingot" alternate recipe, and was putting together a blueprint for your "Steel Ingot Compact Factory" layout. I will add this alternate recipe is pretty good, but will require mark 4 conveyor belts between the mergers in the center bottom. Mark 1 is still fine to connect the outputs to the merged belt UNLESS you overclock. So I wind up with output of 360 steel ingots per minute with 240 coal, and 240 iron ingots as input. It really is a neat and compact layout. Thanks!

[@mp3musicbox]

Thank you learned a lot from this video. The top down view makes it a lot easier to understand how it works

[@OrdiNance85]

Thank you! I just hit steel on my playthrough and its quite intimidating hunting down the coal, basically building in an entirely new area. Your videos really help me along.

[@Psykout]

Nailed the viewpoints on this. Extreme amount of clarity for newcomers. Keep it up.

[@GaaraMeepo]

Today I learned you can set the underclock by output items! I thought it was just the % or slider you could use. Very useful tip.

[@maksphoto78]

Yep! I wish you could do this by input items as well.

[@Dazwell]

Love the top-down view, as it makes it clearer to see the layout. What might be a good addition (although more work for you) is some graphical overlays showing splitters/mergers and also machine rates/clocking. It would make it much clearer in a single top-down overview. We can watch the video on how it's built, then pause it at the labelled overview whilst we "try" and recreate it in our worlds.

[@dragonblk2]

I agree. Especially the top down view helps a lot. The 1st person view shows the details. Really good!

[@indoorjetpacks]

the topdown view is absolutely helpful to see. helps with putting down a lookout tower and just checking that things are close to aligned, but the mix is great, def also keep the first person perspective too

[@koolkevin2357]

Bought this over a year ago, just starting it in the next day or two (I know, slow as I always was!) The mix of both views is greatly helpful to both see it on the numbered grid and first person to make sense of the fitment of how it should look as we build it. Thank you for doing it this way, it is IMO, the way to go!

[@leogreed]

I really love the video format, that makes it WAY easier to understand. I have two questions on those guides: 1 - How do we calculate the resources on the mining side? Because you do mention the requirements per foundry/constructor, but not the node/miner side of it, to supply enough to handle 3 at the same time. 2 - How to plan the base next to the nodes? Do you keep it closer to the node? To the water? How do make the energy distribution efficient for those layouts?

[@zerameda]

Fantastic format! Can’t wait to see how tackle more of the space parts (and the darn heavy frames) in this format.

[@scottdowling8154]

Just hit the steel phase last night. What perfect timing 👌🏻 keep the massively helpful videos comming!!

[@Bradrackas]

As a complete newbie to Satisfactory, taking a ‘break’ from Stationeers, I find the top down views incredibly useful as the build pace is so fast that I can’t follow along so the plan view helps see the goal of what I’m aiming for and how to plan the layouts. What would really help is explaining some of the real basics stuff… for example, I’ve heard you talk about balancing versus manifolds, but don’t have the game experience to understand what you mean and the benefits of each.

[@space_dragon3455]

I think there is a video on balance vs. manifold

[@TheBoothy666]

Just as an example, a manifold is just one splitter after the next, in series (the video here has examples of that with the furnaces). If each splitter was feeding a single input, you'd have half the belt going to the first machine, and half going down the line, so the next split only has half a belt of items on it. This typically means machines further down a line take longer to get up to speed, as the input buffers need to fill up on the earlier machines, before more resources are pushed further down the line. This will eventually will sort itself out, as long as you have enough input resource, but it can take a while in long runs. A basic balanced input would be splitters in a tree pattern instead of a line of them, i.e. Input into one splitter, the outputs then go to additional splitters before going to the machine inputs. So if you were feeding coal/ore to say six furnace etc, then you would do a feed into one splitter, then two of the outputs would go to another splitter each (so 3 in total), and each of the three outputs on those second splitters would feed a furnace each. This gives you an even split of the resource going into the furnace, so they start up faster when first switched on. The downside is these are a little more complex to set up and are less compact, especially once you start to scale up.

[@Bradrackas]

@@TheBoothy666 thanks. Kinda makes sense now as you’ve explained it.

[@ithreymesh86]

This style is by far the best way I have seen explaining setups

[@esthoril]

Top down really helps, maybe you can even do a split screen where you have both on screen at the same time? Sometimes I do miss why a belt needs to be MK1, MK2, MK3, etc... Would be nice to show the building and show the numbers from the input and output instead of just saying the numbers by yourself.

[@Snuggles5000]

Totally agree on the numbers. Need some type of visual display for the builds. Unless you’re listening to each word intently you might miss it.

[@rippler4194]

@@Snuggles5000 kinda hard for mr total ... hes streaming a lot these days

[@Snuggles5000]

@@rippler4194 it’s an easy thing for an editor to add. Just a quick summary of input/output requirements would put the overall goal in mind while it’s being built.

[@methosantilles9593]

I agree was going suggest doing picture-in-picture and have the top down view always showing. Also agree with having the numbers appear on screen and might I suggest adding them to video description. Thanks for the excellent video.

[@jacksmith3518]

Lately I've been literally drawing out the designs on paper and it's help make sense of everything. If you draw a circle and slap 120 into it to represent a MK1 normal node, it become easier to draw a line that branches off however many ways, and you can add numbers to the branches to keep track of where splits happens and what the new numbers on each belt look like

[@24ghz2]

Wow! This is so good. Thank you!!! Been playing for about 6 months now and i feel like this just changed how i play during the steel phase

[@cobster79]

in the previous video i was scrolling to the end of each build for the top view, building all i could see then going back to see the 1st person for the details :) so this is a perfect match :)

[@tylersnedigar2027]

I’m well into producing phase 4 parts and setting up nuclear power, but I still love watching these videos. Keep up the great work!

[@PedroGomes_27]

Me, With 2k Hours, 👀

[@Erc294]

I only have 40hrs.

[@felixfam0481]

I'm about to hit 1k but I'm always trying to learn new ways to do things all the time, I even learned something new from this video 😂

[@PedroGomes_27]

@@felixfam0481 yeh for sure, on my 1.0 save I’m already making turbo fuel plant but still I always come and check if I can learn something 😅

[@PedroGomes_27]

@@Erc294 anything you need feel free to ask

[@sorrrbet4923]

@@Erc294god I have that many just from this week

[@perni0815]

Thx for this Video-Series, it help's alot for me as a beginner. Just one little hint: If you could combine the FP-View and the TopDown-View (like a Minimap / PiP) during building it would be (even more) perfect.

[@Rawn144]

I didn't mind the format of the last one, but the 1st person plus top down is outstanding.

[@Spruce1968]

This is a HUGE help! I love the top-down view combined with 1st person. I’m a newbie and really looking forward to your walk-thru videos.

Very nice video. I like the use of first person and third person. It's a win for me. I would have liked it if the third person had been placed to see the first row though. On the design side, I really like the compact foundry setup. I'll definitely use this in my game. I think the load balancing is a bit over-engineered. I would put a single splitter in front of the pipe constructor and merge it into the line for the beam constructor. This will balance "manifold style" real quick (in particular since you use a longer manifold for foundry input). Same for the limestone, I would normally put two pairs of back-to-back constructors and manifold two splitters. Then you can underclock whichever constructor you want so long as the total input is what you want. The important part: verry nice video and I like the 1st-person-3rd-person way of filming.

[@stevescrub1294]

A spectacular tutorial. Plus the dual-view is perfect, it really helps accurately place my layouts as well. Thank you!

[@jean-francoisben4642]

That's an amazing guide ! It's very easy to understand because the result is very clean, the tempo of the video is perfect (not too fast and too slow). Then alternating between 1st person view and top view is important to me because I build in 1st person view (obviously 😁) but I always run a bit to try and get a clear view of my build, to be sure it makes sense and I have a bit of space to scale up.

[@Atezz29]

Top down view is great. This is the one thing i would love to have a research in the mam for so that you are able to build like in basebuilding sims. Very helpful!

[@lordazlan237]

2 min 40 secs in, I am like, what, how did he do that? And this video is for people that couldn't follow his previous ones. Xclipse must live his life in 3D or something. Must watch for people who want to improve their factories!

[@charlesfabbrini7392]

Thanks for this, really enjoyed the top down and the first person approach. Hope you stick with this format going forward!!!

[@RaZed___]

The iron video was a little confusing, but the mix of both views is perfect. Thank you 🙏🏻

[@Fuelmyfire]

Returning player here, love the content really helping me with my new 1.0 build restart. Keep it up, great quality !!

[@Bluewolf1118]

The top down and numbered grids are fantastic!

[@Stukov961]

I saw that one floating 4m foundation right at the start. Can't hide from me!

[@TotalXclipse]

Where do you think the second character was standing? :D

[@Stealth300]

Loved your previous guides and this one as well, though I miss the flashcard at the start of each build detailing how many resources per minute should go in in total and how much of each product per minute will be produced. Was quite nice to use that to get set up and know what kinda nodes to look for. Edit: Also a quick birds eye view of the finished build right at the start would help with planning out how much space will be needed (roughly) to make it easier to fit it in with other production modules in an overall growing base.

[@gofur73]

+1 for the view mix. First person where details matter, e.g. exact distance between elements and top down inbetween and at the end to see the overall picture.

[@jcataclisma]

Man, this is awesome! I found the previous starter layouts' video good enough, but this one is definitely on a better level. Thank you! Cheers!

[@tea_time_t]

Top down plus 1st person was great, but I had a hell of a time understanding what was going on with the splitter-to-merger between the foundry and constructor and how to scale that up.

[@scrappymiller1]

Love the two views so helpful. Thank you for these layouts as well amazing!

[@paulmeahan3667]

Love the top-down view. So helpful.

[@Fenikkusu14]

Love the first to third person style, keep it going!

[@kennethniegut5517]

I like the explanations with the top down view. Thank you

[@davidbean6973]

I like the top down view. One thing I think you could add is labels of how many items per minute each belt is carrying.

[@Soleya9]

The awesome part about the compact steel factory, is it also works perfectly with the Solid Steel recipe. Only that it takes 240 coal and iron ingots (no need for overlocking resource nodes), and outputs 360 steel ingots, so you only need to update the output belt to mark IV.

[@cathyjenkins5985]

Very helpful video…including the top down view is great. Looking forward to more videos.

[@FunnyVideosTV-ex3bl]

Honestly the best advice or tip, is to play the game, construct, fail, construct again until you finish the game. Then start a new save and seek perfection or efficiency with the knowledge you gained. I made the mistake on first save to achive 100% efficiency, good looking factories etc. and dropped the game from frustration at tier 7-8. And that happen from watching and copy/paste factory layouts. From update 6 I picked the game again and played at my own pace and goals, never looked back 😊

[@TuberTugger]

It's not a tip to tell people to do the natural path. It's also arrogant af to assume everyone can figure things out like you might have.

[@FunnyVideosTV-ex3bl]

@@TuberTugger arrogant af? To go play, discover and figure things out through failing? Please, keep it for yourself dude

[@NewGuy1414]

I won’t call you arrogant, but I do disagree about following along with guides. I think by following along with these guides they taught you a lot of basics without you realizing it. If you had started with no guides I doubt you’d have such a smooth experience on your second play through.

[@Snuggles5000]

Would love to see an input/output display at the start of each of these builds before getting into it.

[@creonrex]

Great stuff! Definitely loving the mixed (hybrid?) setup with 1st person and 2nd person top down view.

[@emielhasselt2518]

Great video! Would be nice if you put the inputs and output numbers when looking at the topdown view. Sort of like a sneakpeak of what the build is excactly used for

[@venanreviews]

I really liked this, most of the time there's a detail or something missing I can't see from the top down alone. Having a mix let's me see all around and keep up with the design.

[@moriskel]

Well done amazing job amazing explanation. Can’t imagine how long this took you to create this video. Love all your videos thank you so much for your help.

[@DaveHanson]

Love this format, it's very helpful for figuring out the layouts.

[@daniellagergren2227]

The 2 perspectives are very helpful. Great video, thanks !

[@thrawn82]

this new setup is extremely helpful, you should definitely keep it up for future videos

[@martinhyde3042]

Great video!! Just got to this on my world so will try it out - thank you!

[@FrigidinGardez]

For the encased industrial beams, on the concrete manufacturing line, you have the main trunk split into three belts of 60 each, then divide the center belt with a splitter to merge into the left and right belts, creating two belts of 90 each. Why not just split the original trunk once into two lines of 90?

[@FalconDS9]

because he likes to show off with overly complicated setups... this could all be done alot more easily with manifold lines.. the splitters balance enough on their own, because they skip belts when there is no room for another item...

[@Juiceman86]

This is great! Thank you for taking the time to put this together!

[@MattMeatbag]

Great mix of view angles 👍🏻

[@matthewspencer2094]

Recommend doing a checkerboard pattern inside the numbered grid So rows/columns are easily recognisable

[@Vortex-Gamin]

Liked this format. Great work

[@MikaMikaMika89]

I just got to supercomputers and man I'm petrified xD I know we don't need a "central hub" anymore with the mercer sphere stuff but I still decided to take a break to do a big central facility fed by a map-spanning BUS + hyperloop + train line. I don't even want to imagine how complex tier 9 and 10 are.

[@TheMad18dog]

This is ace, so easy to follow from top down!!

[@Wakkky]

Good tutorial very usefull. If you want to improve it even more you need to show the input and output production per min visually at one point. Maybe in the top view, use ressources icons with associated numbe next to the input and output.

[@sjaakninaber4989]

This view is reall the best of both worlds great work !

[@twatmunro]

That layout looks so helpful that I can see I'm going to have to subscribe.

[@akathoth]

Seems very interessting how you set these things up and the top down view is very helpful of understanding what goes where. Are the concret assemblers missing one output belt in the middle from the right to the left merger in the last setup? I would personnaly never build with load balancing in mind in Satisfactory. Seems too much effort to think about partial throughput. Your builds look amazingly pleasing, by the way.

[@petunia7338]

I love your videos n tutorials you helped me get my head around the game, so in your steel ingots bit i line up the outputs in the middle and then do the same as you for the inputs , is there a reason you staggered the outputs is it better or the same ?

[@piledrive]

with underclocking, instead of changing the clock speed % i usually just change the target production rate (FOr 30 i just type 30) as that way it changes it to what i need without trying to figure out the %

[@cok666joey]

Love both views, thanks for the tips!

[@ricouxstephane1628]

Excellent work (do you sleep sometimes? 🙂). Yes, the 2nd person view is a great idea! Incredibly good format for beginners.

[@nayanjyotidas7383]

I was inspired by you to use signs as lighting decoration. Thanks you for that. And I want to say one thing don't you plan your factories keeping future Expansion, belt mark and miner mark in mind ? And if you then I would love to see your ideas.

[@Jahru]

Brilliant guide, thank you!

[@Riotlight]

I never realised that the splitters worked when attached to the elevator thing like that!! Always thought it was misaligned. Sure I tried it before too!

[@SifArtorias]

I personally don't like the way it looks so I don't use it. Feels like bad clipping

[@eonagon]

thank u so much!!! these are so helpful to new players.

[@CZsanker]

Hi, please next TOP DOWN + 1st person vids guide. Thank you! Nice work!

[@eri5]

The eagle eye view is really helpful. But could you also add input amounts on screen? Thanks

[@lowfiep]

I made something like this but entirely vertical, floor 1 is steel production, then two makes the pipes and beams, then the last floor males the other beam. Ive done something likw this for ever single factory and it takes up no space and looks awesome. Its all fed by drones now but i started it with tractors and trucks

[@KillerBubbles95]

Thank you so much for these videos loving the game but so annoying knowing i could do better layouts, your videos are doing wonders

[@GremlinBooth]

Great work, I've just done my steal, pipes, encased beams, automated wiring and frames. My question I have is, I'm now moving into motors, do you recommend finding new nodes for each material or, take materials from what I've just built.

[@WinWar-The-Reign]

My problem with finding new nodes is all the extra machines they all take up power

[@Sonofthebits1]

Top down view is great! Thank you...

[@g_vost]

i mean if youre splitting the concrete input into thirds just to split a third into sixths, and merge the sixths into the other thirds to make halves, wouldnt you just split into halves in the first place?

[@TotalXclipse]

It wasn't about the splitting - it was referencing 3 inputs of 60 such as from 3 normal miners. I just couldn't be bothered to do three separate containers

[@Kociboss]

It's my 2nd playthough & I tend to make those separate factories (separate rotors, separate reinforced plates etc.) & I wonder if in the end this is a good idea. I do this because you need the "intermediate products". So lets say I build a steel beam factory but later on I need encased beams. I could either go for compact "encased beams only" factory or create a separate one, disconnected from "beams and pipes manufacture". The 2nd version is fine & dandy but you do need more raw resources...

[@rcfpena]

This style of video is great

[@LeoStaley]

This is how i learned you could put conveyor belt splitters directly onto the elevators.

[@darthtrucker489]

Great format. Thanks for posting.

[@TheAlivian]

I found the first video very helpful but would like if you could show how to scale these up

[@TotalXclipse]

Absolutely! But first I need to get the first few guided playthroughs out the way as we'll be covering it there! :)

[@F_the_G]

Seeing you run around and build is actually cool af. Dope idea with second player