Satisfactory · Game data 1.2.4.0
Starting regions and first factory layouts
Choose terrain that suits your building style, then turn nearby resources into a factory you can expand.
Grass Fields: room for a first layout
Open ground makes it easy to see and extend your first production lines. Start with a compact iron area, then keep copper and concrete on separate lines so building materials stay available. Scout the route to water and coal before filling the easiest expansion space with a permanent base.
Use this start when you want to learn layouts in forgiving terrain. The tradeoff is travel as the factory needs more resource types. Leave a transport corridor and room for an eventual power line back from your coal plant.
Rocky Desert: plan around the coastline
Broad building areas and access to coastal water make this a useful place to connect a starter factory with later power generation. Scout both the resource route and the shoreline: water still needs sufficient depth for extractors, and a nearby cliff can turn a short straight-line trip into a longer belt or pipe route.
Keep space for steel and logistics before extending the first iron line. A flat route with room for several belts can be more valuable than placing every machine as close as possible to one node.
Northern Forest: build with the terrain
The forest can offer a compact base, but vegetation, cliffs and changes in elevation complicate a large ground-level layout. Survey a footprint before committing to long production rows. Foundations and dedicated floors for logistics help keep the inputs reachable.
Plan how you will enter and expand the site, not just where the first smelters fit. A vertical factory needs clear lift routes, accessible power connections and room for the larger machines introduced later.
Dune Desert: space with longer supply trips
Wide sightlines and large open areas suit long factory rows. Biomass and accessible water deserve early scouting, because an appealing empty build site may be inconvenient to fuel during the first hours. Keep a reserve of solid biofuel before spending a long session constructing foundations.
Use the space to separate manufacturing, power and transport. Mark routes between them early so a later station or conveyor corridor does not require moving your starter factory.
Turn a location into a working plan
- Inspect the resource nodes in your own world and record their purity. World settings can change resource layouts; do not treat a default-world map as a promise for a randomized save.
- Choose target rates for iron plates, rods, wire, cable and concrete. Plan reinforced plates and modular frames once the basic materials are running.
- Set the planner to your current tier and available recipes. Enter resource limits from the miners and belt marks you actually have.
- Reserve space for power, storage, machine access and later belt upgrades. Keep building-material outputs available even while project parts are being produced.
- Build one production chain, check its sustained output and power draw, then repeat the pattern. Export a planner backup before a large redesign.