Satisfactory Early Access – Episode 07: Perfect Copper Chain and Vehicle Automation

So there ended up being a gap between the last episode where I harvested a nominal amount of coal and the beginning of Episode 7. However, I think the preparation time paid off because we end up covering a lot of ground!

[G^G] Satisfactory Early Access – Episode 7: Perfect Copper Chain and Vehicle Automation

Episode Index

Impressions from Episode 7 – Vehicles Are Key To Success

Originally I was hoping to turn my between episode efforts into a bonus episode, but after spending 3 hours just laying concrete it became quickly apparent that this content wasn’t ready for consumption. So it actually ended up being a good 5 hours or so of gameplay between sessions before I pressed record again. However, during that time I was able to set up the floors and walls of what will be a pretty large structure, and set up some of the low hanging fruit.

Because of my sudden increase in demand for concrete, the first thing I did was re-make my concrete chain. When I set up my first concrete chain I put it on a normal node, little did I know that 40 feet behind it was a pure concrete node just sitting there the entire time! So this time around I set up chains for both nodes for maximum concrete goodness. Once my concrete futures were secured, I moved on to copper.

My copper chain took considerably longer to construct. Initially I underestimated how few copper ingots were needed to produce wire. Eventually I realized that my first setup could only keep up with half of my ore production, so I scaled up and created a second floor to house another batch of constructors. After messing around with the belts a bit, I was able to funnel all of my components into a storage container.

Satisfied with my current automation, I shifted my focused to coal production. I initially toyed with the idea of building a giant belt that carries coal from the node found in the previous episode to the hub, but quickly realized how impractical that would be. I was aware that vehicle automation was a thing, but my previous experience with truck stations not working left me a bit hesistent.

Fortunately, after spending a few minutes tooling around with them without a camera pointed at me, I was able to figure out how they worked. Armed with that knowledge I brought a gaggle of resources back to the coal site, and set up an outpost.

Using a combination of coal burners, tractors, and conveyor belt Mk3s I was able to create a complete self sustaining coal outpost! To make things even better, I was also able to record a trucking path that ships coal between the hub and the outpost!

Not going to lie, now that I have tasted the sweet nectar of energy sourced from mining, I think it is time I updated the reset of my factories to take advantage of this wonderful and (technically) renewable energy source!

Lessons Learned

1. Efficiency matters! One Pure node can produce quite a bit of material if you put a little extra time into making it more efficient.
2. A little copper goes a long way… One pure copper node is enough to feed 12 constructors worth of wire using a Miner Mk2.
3. Vehicles aren’t hard! Once the truck stations are powered and set up to load/unload, vehicles go from being a bit daunting to absolutely essential to the operation.
4. Always re-equip your weapon when you are done chainsawing brush in the wild. You never know when the fluffy tailed hog will want to come out and play…

If you have ideas around how I can improve my videos, please reach out to me on twitter via @GrowUpAndGame.

I hope you enjoyed my content, and until next time… stay efficient everyone!

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