With the imminent arrival of Satisfactory 1.0 just days away, Coffee Stain Studios community manager Snutt Treptow teases some of the biggest additions coming to the factory-building sandbox game. Among them is a new way to access resources from anywhere on the map, a huge potential boost to your power reserves, and perhaps the most deeply satisfying quality-of-life feature yet.
The highlight of the update is that you’ll now actually be able to make use of Mercer Spheres, the bizarre alien artifacts found around the world of Satisfactory. By researching them and the other strange alien matter (nicknamed ‘SAM’) that you’ll find, you’ll unlock a new set of alien technology in the building game. You’ll find plenty more SAM nodes around the world – “it’s not ‘SAM ore,’” Treptow notes, “That would be a bit like saying ‘ATM machine.’”
The first of the additions is the much-anticipated Somersloops. These are used in a new machine called the Power Augmentor, which makes your existing power network better and stronger. It hands you 500 megawatts of power straight out of the box, and once connected to a circuit it will also augment it by an extra 10% essentially giving you free power just for existing.
Treptow does point out that Somersloops are a limited resource, so you can’t place down an infinite number of these Augmentors. You can use multiple on a single network, but they won’t amplify each other’s additional power. Somersloops can even be used in a new, special overclocking slot on other crafting stations that further amplifies the output you’ll get without affecting the required input. Note that doing so will drain a lot more power, so you’ll definitely want to make use of those Power Augmentors.
Then, we come to Mercer Spheres, which unlock what Treptow calls his “personal favorite feature” in the whole of Satisfactory. “I actually think this feature we’ve implemented solves the biggest issue in Satisfactory up to this point.” Mercer Spheres can be used to build a new storage unit called the Dimensional Depot.
Any part or material that you send in gets uploaded to the Dimensional Depot and is essentially in the cloud. From there, it can be pulled out into your inventory wherever you are on the map. You can also drop items from your inventory into the Dimensional Depot – but while ‘downloading’ parts is instant, uploading them takes some time, and there is a capacity limit on how much it can hold.
There’s even more to look forward to. Perhaps the most exciting quality-of-life change is an option for quickly snapping conveyor belts, along with a visual indicator when nearby parts are cleanly aligned with one another. Best of all is a new ‘straight build’ mode that forces your conveyor belts into straight lines and clean, 90-degree turns. “This is the shit, actually,” Treptow says with a laugh, and I have to agree. As a neat freak, I find those tidy angles very satisfying. You can also hold the Control key while placing railways to keep them on the straight and narrow.
You can now swap chainsaws to a more precise single-target mode where they’ll allow you to chop down a single object without hitting other nearby stuff. Two new cosmetic barriers have been introduced – one shorter and one taller. There are a range of additional fences and windows to look forward to as well, along with the ability to implement ‘finishes’ to change the look of your buildables.
Treptow also shows off Rocket Fuel, which is made by combining Nitric Acid and Turbofuel, and you can use it in a variety of things such as vehicles and generators – our load it it in your jetpack for a really dramatic boost. Beyond that, you can further combine it with Power Shards to craft Ionised Fuel, which offers more stability and a slower burn rate.
To wrap up, Treptow addresses blueprints. “People feel the 4x4x4 grid is too small for the blueprint designer,” he says, although he remarks that the team does want to maintain some level of challenge and a sense of building things by hand – something he emphasized when I spoke to him earlier this year. As a compromise, the blueprint designer has been upgraded to a 5x5x5 size. It’s a small but significant change, but keep in mind that you won’t be able to import old blueprints into the new designer and will have to remake them.
Satisfactory launches into 1.0 on Tuesday September 10, priced at $39.99 / £33.50. You can pick it up now on Steam, Epic, or the Humble Store. The team is also planning celebratory livestreams for the event. “I hope you’ll enjoy 1.0 and all the work that’s gone into it,” Treptow concludes, “it’s been eight years working on this game and it’s all going to come together now next week. Did I mention the laser?”
If you can’t get enough of building and creating, there are plenty more of the best sandbox games and the best crafting games to fulfill your every need.
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