Factory Failsafes YOU Need To Improve Efficiency in Satisfactory 

Do you use Failsafes in your factories?

I have noticed that liquids in pipes behave surprisingly realistically. You can build in a buffer if you ensure that your liquids always flow downwards right before they go into something. That way you're not running into the issue of liquid sloshing around in a pipe, meaning that whatever needs that liquid is occasionally not getting any flow. Because I worked in a factory where many of our resources were fed in from the ceiling (water, pressurized air, argon, nitrogen, coolant, power), I tend to build my factories this way anyway.

The fact you had to "prime" the pipes adds a level of realism I really appreciate!

We are playing different games

I ALWAYS recommend using a “water tower” type of fluid buffer prior to starting up fuel generators. The process can be made much easier by filling up that fluid buffer as you set up all the pipes and build the genny’s with valves built between each section and then opening it up each section and waiting for the lines to fill before opening the next

Yes please cover the belt balancers! I was working one out for concrete but for some reason the first of the 3 lines was backing up to the machines. I thought I had done my math correctly but it appears the mergers will take them 1-1 from each input I semi fixed it by putting a lower tier belt between the smart splitter and merger but I was still having back up issues. So I would love a proper vid on that. its always great to watch your vids and I cant wait to upgrade my GPU to get back to Satisfactory.

Ah, my favorite channel that constantly reminds me of how much I suck at Satisfactory.

Don't be stingy with Valves. Placing one at the top after a lift will prevent any backflow falling back down if for some reason production slows, and if you ever merge larger pipe sections, set valves on any input so they won't push into each other. The fluid behavior can be unpredictable, so just restrict it any way you can to limit those options.

Before update 8, I ran a separate power system for the power systems...if that makes sense, I used different color poles to mark them. The entire supply line ran on their own power, I did this as I ran into the problem you described where I ran out of all of the power.

One fail safe I use is smart splitters for the full manifold. It dramatically smooths out power spikes as the manifold fills one machine at a time. It also allows for interesting designs like my steel factory that can build entirely pipes or beams depending on need. Balanced if both are needed, fully one or the other if one is backstuffed.

One very basic efficiency you're missing out on is input and output buffer containers on stations. If for example you had 2 nodes feeding a station with 240/min each and a train pulls into the station. Well the station then stops accepting items, the belts fill up and eventually after enough cycles, the miner fills up and stops producing. This means that the average rate of production over time will drop below 240/min. Similarly, if a factory relies on a belt being saturated all the time, the moment a train pulls into the station, the belt starts depleting and the throughput on that belt will also be less than nominal over time. Lastly, it's important that they both be used at either end so that items per minute are balanced on both input and output for the entire system. Essentially the only bottleneck of the system then becomes the throughput capacity of the journey itself (total car capacity/trip time); as long as that's higher than the input and output capacity, the entire trainline can be ignored as a bottle neck (providing you let it fill up a little bit first). Items seemingly go in and come out the other end without any interruption in between. VERY IMPORTANT: the belt connection between the station and the container must have faster throughput than the intended nominal input or output to make up for lost time during the loading/unloading animations. As an aside, using another equation (total line capacity (i.e. all trains on a line carrying that specific cargo)/input output capacity) gives us the maximum average interval time for a given station. If you have a very large distance to cover, you can use that equation to add either more trains, or split the journey with cargo stations in between effectively creating multiple buffered train routes with balanced inputs and outputs (as above, it can then be discounted as a source of bottle necking since the input and output are balanced and continuous).

Just found this Video. The "Letting the pipes Fill up" could have saved me from quite a headache a couple of days ago, but i figured it out by myself After all. 😂

When creating a power station you really need a plan for how to bring it back online after a brown-out or black-out. My tips would be: * Build in end-to-end "slices": Work out the minimum set of machines that efficiently produce what you need. eg. for DPF - 1xOil extractor, 2xunderclocked HOR, 1xWater extractor, 2xPackaged water, 2x DPF, 2xUnpack Fuel, 10xFuel gen, 1xPower switch. * Get this to stable running, working "live" so pipes/manifolds fill up, and there's minimal additional load on the existing power sources, and to find bugs fast. * Measure the power needed by this self-sustaining slice. Build power storage to run it, charge it up, then disconnect the batteries ready for a cold re-start. Use a manual power switch to connect the storage to slice one for a restart. Alternatively run the first slice of geothermal with power storage for smoothing. * Work out how many slices you will build total, and what proportion of the generated power is needed to run them. * Build separate power grids: 1 for the first slice (that can be battery booted), one for x other slices to power the rest, and one for the load to the rest of your factories. Priority power switches are not needed as an outage on one isolated circuit can never bring down another. * Build the remaining slices one at a time. Now you know what a working slice looks like, go to town with blueprints. It's all self sustaining so you aren't loading your main power grid by building them. * Relax knowing you'll have reliable power, and if the worst happens it's one switch away from running again. For liquids: * Use gravity: arrange for liquids to flow *down* to the next machine in line, even if it means initially having to pump the crude oil up high. Always feed from above, and make sure the input pipe segment to a machine has a larger volume than the machine's "gulp" size (vol/min * 60 / cycle time in seconds). Pipe floor holes "fail" because short pipe elbows from floor to machine input don't satisfy this condition. * Working in slices means never having to merge all the fuel (or whatever) into a single pipe. Big pipe manifolds are where you'll have all the sloshing trouble. Don't use them. * To ensure fuel gens start and run reliably place humps (elevated pipe supports or stackabe pipe supports) between the junctions to each generator. That way the first fuel gen is completely filled before the next one starts and so on. Also: * No "unreliable" transport (tractors, trucks, trains, or drones) should be part of a power generation plant. The goal is to maximise steady power output!

Good job for doing all this wonder of a factory! It truly is a lot of work and can become a mess so easily! Even though you ran into a lot of trouble, im eager to see your next satisfactory video! Turning every defeat into a lesson is the way to go! Amazing!

Ah, failsaifes, that's certainly one useful thing... *Proceeds to feed a machine with raw sushi*

The game really needs a "Flush conveyors" feature like it has for the pipelines. After feeding in wrong items its not just the conveyors full of wrong items, they also get stuck in mergers, splitters etc and keep coming out of there forever. A real pain to clean up.

When you remember that a pipe has to fill up before something can escape the top of it, things get much simpler. When a machine consumes fluid it does so INSTANTLY and it does that every cycle which means that, for a short time each cycle, the pipe is no longer full. In my factories, pipes going into a machine go downwards. Pipes coming out of a machine go upwards. This also makes refinery manifolds easier to build because I can build splitters/mergers on the floor with their hologram arrows overlapping the refinery arrows and the pipes won't do any nasty clipping. When I have two rows in a manifold, I line up the rows of refineries by their belt connections and use a 2m foundation to place the pipe junctions first, then I have the splitters/mergers stacked with the junctions and the belts are flat and I maintain my rule of pipe inputs flowing down and pipe outputs flowing up. I never build a junction on an existing pipe unless there is no other option. In the rare cases when I am forced to build a junction on a pipe, I immediately dismantle the pipes and rebuild them. Building a junction on the end of a pipe is fine though, but be careful because it should ACTUALLY be on the end and should not cut the existing pipe. If I'm making a huge fluid manifold like fuel generators, and I can't wait to turn them on for whatever reason, at the end of the build I can manually switch off a few of the consuming machines at the end of the line and wait for the pipes to fill. Then I'd check the fluid production machines and wait for them to start backing up (at least half of them with yellow lights) and then finally I can switch those consumers back on. When building a large manifold of fuel generators it usually works best to let the pipes fill up first and then start connecting the power cables because when doing that the generators don't have their cycles synchronised and their consumption is less spikey. Stop making power connections and check the levels after every 20 or so generators. Let them fill. This is also the reason why pipes cannot provide fluid at their max throughput and remain full at the same time - if you need exactly 300 fluid every 60 seconds, that means on average the pipe was emptying for half the time and filling for half the time. If the pipe was both emptying and filling it would remain at the same level and if that level is empty, it remains empty. If the pipe is full it can remain full, but that won't happen in practise because the production machines take a short while to start up. The pipes themselves act as a buffer and the machines also have built-in buffer (50m³) which you should make the most of by giving all the things time to fill up.

i add a water tower to all liquid systems, set higher then any machine. that requires pumps only on one pipe to reach the liquid storage on top instead of all the pipes and it never stalls.

I had one 2 meter long belt to a sink I forgot to connect that slowly shut down my entire turbo fuel power plant. Since 90% of my power came off this one plant it took several hours to get it running again. My big issue was getting the enough energy to power the plant to produce enough fuel to power the generators. To prevent it from happening again I created a huge fuel storage facility, this included emergency buffers for all the materials coming into the factory so that I wasn’t coming from a cold start. I also isolated a small section that would power only the machines needed for fuel production so that I didn’t have to worry about cold starting the entire factory, just a smaller plant. This all was before power storage and smart switches. Even still I design storage and fail safes in so that I never have to cold start all of my power again.

I don't understand the need for semi-balancing the lines in the video example at 7:50. What problem is this supposed to fix exactly? If there aren't enough resources making it to the machine at the far end, what is splitting things at the middle accomplishing? It's the same total amount of resources being processed overall.

Know what satisfactory needs? Item deleters. An item whose only function is, when loaded onto a belt, it deletes any item ahead of it, then disappears when it reaches a belt end, whether termination or inventory input. Loading a few stacks of these onto a ruined manifold would then unclog it.

Whoa, belt balancers! I haven't seen you play Factorio... ... ... did someone from Factorio give you the skinny on belt balancers? Either way, bravo, first Ficsit engineer I've seen on ytube to do it!

Nice tips, one thing that disturbed me a bit is how you were dismantle the conveyor belts 1 by 1 in 05:37 instead of use the dismantle filter which would be a lot better in comodity. Dismantle Filter + Mass dismantle would be a bit less painful to see, you probably know it now but just in case.

I don't use fail safes, but I am heavily into the math side of Satisfactory. For me it is not complicated to simply calculate how much I need and build on a healthy margin. I also tend to have a goal of producing twice as much power as my average use and always keep it above the max use line.

I had a headlift situation that was short by 1....ONE meter....caused 1/3 of my power plant (3rd floor) to run at 20%.

Usually I just kickstart a new powerplant setup with a single bioburner and progressively activate more and more buildings to full potential. (Yeah, forgot to build a powerline at first, and I couldn't be bothered running back across the map :P)

Moral of the story, don't cut corners. But there were some really good tips. Looping your train like that was a pretty big mistake though... should have just kept it as push pull with no loops, instead of push pull with a single loop. Adding a second loop at the other end also works, then you don't need push pull at all

The way ive made trains work flawless is having every train dump into an industrial storage with 2 mk5 belts, and plan for using AT MOST an mk5 and mk4 belt leaving the storage. This allows for the contents to empty out from the train station faster than the line can possibly take, and the result is you can prime the system with the storage so the manifold is alwsys full. And even if somehow your line is disrupted, repriming it isnt the end of the world. I also do this in reverse for loading trains, as i always like to match my belts going into and out of to make a virtual belt on the train car. Same logic applies to fluid cars if youre not going the packaging route, just make sure you use less than 1200/min so you can dump your fluids into 2 storages and have them flow out as needed.

Heya Total! Your failsafe video came right in time for my power plant build. I have 24 refineries producing 960 heavy oil per min. I then have 25.6 refineries using 37.5 heavy oil and 4 compacted coal per min to make 768 Turbofuel per min. I divided that output by 4.5 per min to determine the amount of generators i would need. 170.666667. Anyway, i built all those, waited for everything to run at 100% after fixing several problems. At 100 % i am getting 17,100 MW, by my calculations I should be getting 25,000 MW so i just chalked that up to being on experimental until i saw this video. I built a 10 by 10 and a 3 by 10 grid of power storage devices, waited for them to charge and then systematically turned off each generator. I waited for my pipes to over saturate and then turned everyone back on. Everything is running at 100% but i’m still only getting 17,100 MW. Can you possibly give me any idea as to why i cant reach full production? Thanx for your time and love your vids!!

How far back in Ur videos do I need to go for the most recent update vieios or do u have a playlist now of good and still useful from all updates? IV not played in about a year

Homie is building 23rd century factories and here I am doing the oonga boonga design.

Best failsafe is a pencil & paper, note down things turned on/off and other changes or phases during a project so that when inevitably you need to stop and comeback you have a record of what was or needs to be done.

Very valuable for new players

can you do a video for the balancers, cuz for me personaly its whould be great because i dont even know how to create a balancer!

@10:00 if pipe is not full or close to full (the bubble) flow will drop - max flow is only when pipe is close to 100% fill. So if you did not prime your pipes you will never reach max capacity if input and output is matched. This is fine and easey on local plants, but for one that can get occasional input drops, I would suggest to have output reduced so in case ot su[pplu drop happen, pipe can refill, as otherwise whole system will slowly shutdown.

My last tf 40GW build was a mess, dropping the efficiency by 3-5% costantly. After an hours of debugging and trying to solve this, I gave up. And rebuild the thing from scratch, dividing the liquid into sections equally. So far it’s working grate 😂

8:37 to add onto this tip, while it’s not a complete failsafe for picking out those “needles in a haystack” issues, you should remember the existence and significance of the Status Lights mounted to virtually every machine. They are the thin, tall, colored lights generally located in the uppermost part of the machine, often in a corner. They serve the word not only telling you which machine(s) in a large area are inactive, but also tell you slightly finer status information. Like which machines are overclocked (the light is white), unpowered or has no recipe selected (red light), inactive but still powered with a recipe (yellow), or actively operating at baseline efficiency (green light) The number of times that remembering about this system has either saved me is surprisingly high. Since it helps minimize the amount of time I’ll spend looking through my factories for an issue. Be it either hunting through a complex for power shards I stupidly misplaced last session…. Or trying to root out which machine block is causing a lower output or volatile power fluctuation in a multi-floor, multi building complex with dozens of Constructors per level

I usually build things in stages or modules that can be progressively activated. In the early game, often because I need the product of the line I'm building to build the line (plates, rods, mod frames) or the power plant has to bootstrap itself (It's real fun getting a coal plant primed with water). In the later game, mostly because there's a limit to the belt capacity for ingredients so building components larger than a mk 2 pipe or a mk 5 belt doesn't make any sense. Because of the rail network, I always end up with one global power grid, and I often just don't build big enough to have power problems before I install something new. I build a coal plant at the inlet between the northern forest and the rocky desert, both plastic and rubber produce HOR as a byproduct, which get burned for power, then about the time it's time to start making nuclear pasta I build a nuclear power plant and often a coal plant in that grotto near the giant waterfall. Oh, and geothermal. And that pretty much powers a factory.

I always isolate the power supply required to run the power generation from the main line meaning that even if the main power supply goes down the power required to run my power generation is still running perfectly

Great tips, thanks. I really need to put the priority power systems in place for my factory. I'm thinking that protecting entire self enclosed power generation setups as one unit, so in the case of my oil one that's the two oil wells and everything that hangs off them, including a sink overflow channel. Which is relevant as while your tips are great, you missed the sink overflow output. When storage is full, everything backs up, therefore if you really don't want the factory to backup then a smart splitter with the sink is essential to handle when the output storage gets full. Where a factory produces multiple goods this becomes more important, but a single output factory it's just a way to get more sink points otherwise doesn't really matter. For a power generating setup such as an oil one then it's pretty much essential just in case the removal of the "waste" products, such as plastics, doesn't happen fast enough. It's a good failsafe for something like an aluminium processing plant too.

@7:30 So you split one manifold into two. Prupoese of U shape manifold is to see inefficiency in input of output by seeing drop on ennd machines or clogs on belt (the S-manifold will show inefficiency by machines only). If you split into two manifolds you didn't solve issue, you mask it by fact that two smallet manifolds will gave smaller total buffer, and in youre example input ratio suddenly was in threshold. But yes, it helps for output ratios as in effect You feed two smaller production lines now. Ultimate version of this is non-manifold setup.

More videos on belt balancers please

Excellent video. About smart splitters to safeguard manifolds, sure, but avoid sushi lines or sushi stations as much as possible. Or do sorting immediately at the station. But sill, a final smart splitter is much easier to fix than hundreds of feeder belts. Definitely. About pipes. *sigh*deep-breath* Placing things on pipes then removing ends sometimes leaves slivers inside the pump/valve/junction (pipe device). I always and only connect pipes to supports, delete supports, add pipe device, connect from pipe device to support. Pipe floor holes are broken badly. On the mild side, a floor hole through 1m or 2m foundation always eats 4m lift. On the harsh side, they just don't work at all. You mostly rightly omit fluid storage entirely, as they just slosh infinitely and eat flow rate. The only fluid storage that works is a fill pipe to one side, and key pipe to low side with a valve set to zero to pressurize another pipe. It's self priming, mostly. Except in case of a pipe flush or pump power loss, then you must open the valve to establish pressure, then close it, and do so for all valves on the line. gl w/tht. Usually still worth it. For floor holes, sometimes I just submerge (about 0.3 or 0.4m, I forget) a pipe support. then bend it horizontally. There should be enough of a nub protruding from a foundation to attach pipes from both sides without dismantling foundation. time consuming and ugly, though I try to hide the vertical support in the rear and it's somewhat ok. But doesn't suffer head lift wonk. Sometimes you must go up or down a lot and have little choice. Can also plant junctions in 2m fountations I guess. Really like the balancer discussion. Encountered this when thinking of a train fed global wet concrete build out in the swamp (by the broken ocean water). Trying to design an overflow balancer chain loop so that any single station excess goes to the next and around to the start as needed. 8 station outputs to 7.5 belts used per line, but 10 belt (5 car) stations ... 5 of them, perhaps. Pre-filling machine's internal fluid buffers doesn't so much eliminate backflow as prevent sputtering from starvation. You never quite fully fill everything so there shouldn't be backflow.

Créât vidéo ! Also can you do a video about thé Belt balancing ? It seems interesting but i Think we need a more in depth vidéo on that subject in order to understand. Thanks a lot for your vidéos

Unless you are way over producing in a pipe it always works best to prefill.

In my nuclear power plant I have an overdrive mode for when I need more fuel rods. Then It has a meltdown mode so I can get rid of built up waste.

The pipe floor hole bug sucks... Took me forever to figure it out. Has to do with putting a pump on a pipe within a certain distance of the floor hole... I also did notice the issue where i had to turn off my power plants to fill the pipes first... It is weird how that works.

People who play multiplayer probably know that there's nothing you can do once the conveyor line is bugged and items won't go on it. Gotta demolish and rebuild the entire fricking line, fam.

balancing train loading/unloading with throughput unlimited balancers is very high on my Wishlist for the game... the inability to balance stuff without a giant ugly construction is unfortunately a flaw which is hard to remove

And I only just now learned that you can 'daisy chain' the battery cables!

Balancer tutorial - yes please 👍

u can learn alot from accidently accidently placing copper ore to iron ignot smelter, so u wont need to run in to these kind of if fails later

Place the power storage batteries in the power priority group one along with power plants. In this way when the power fails, the batteries will be empty, and the priority group will be cut. So the still working power plants will charge the batteries as long as the problem is solved. When it is solved, they will be charged and will have enough power to kickstart the non working plants.

Got a weird, unrelated question, How do you make it so the billboard/screen signs illuminate light? Even if I put it on glossy lvl 3 it doesnt emit any light on the ground or surface

Two things I do with my factories these days is: One: slightly over produce required components so the end product can be made at 100% regardless of any little loading bugs/hiccups that may change things. The components being slightly over produced (I'm talking 0.05-0.1%) can be sinked or left to back up Two: Is the opposite of your not concerned about light variations in the end product production but want the rest of the system to run at a consistent 100% slightly overclock the end product production by a bees dick. I use both these methods in combination in my builds to great success

I just genuinely prefer building power plants so I've made a lot of them Safe to say that I don't think I'll have any power issues with a 15,000 mega watt overhead

Stupid question but why didn't you use fluid tanks for your train instead of plastic canisters?

Wow you'd think those idiots would have a sticky somewhere to remind them to fix the pipes.

So the video can be summed up in: "Do not rely on just-in-time production - it is only a tiny bit cheaper to build but will fail spectacularly if even the tiniest bit goes wrong". In 2021 we had seen just how stupid that concept is in the real world - a single ship caused international problems cause nobody had any reserves and nobody could coop with the loss of transportation of a single route.

Wait, how is he connecting machines power directly to each other in a daisy chain? Is that a mod?

I once needed to turn on and off like 136 of those stupid fuel burners.

The isssue at 7.40 and anyhting similar to "factories not runing at their intended full potential" can literally be fixed by, power switch on , power switch off. after it gets 1 item in, the items keep going in even if the powers off, once the conveyrbelts are fully loaded and cant move more forward. power back on ,tadaa fully perfectly working again if everyhting else is set correct

Really useful info this. I'm going to be coming back here. Belt balancer video would be handy

i stopped using wall pipe holes since they reduce flow

I just make massive battery banks. Don’t have to worry about power when you have millions of megawatts

It'd be nice if Satisfactory had an in-built balancer.

Why did you only have one power grid?

God damn 37k mw total consumption , here I was thinking my 700mw factory was using a lot xD

Best solution is create an excess of everything

My main file has about 1000 hours on it, all productions are dedicated to producing more power, or supplied required for more power. And I basically only build power plants. -e The world is name Shinra Electric Power Company, NeoMidgar project.

Wait, did they change how power works? You linked all the batteries to each other at the start, I thought they worked the same as other buildings needing power poles connected.... Have I been doing that wrong all this time?

how many hours of gameplay ?

Good video and all, but you know that trains can transport fluids without the need for packaging, right? You could've skipped a step on each end and distributed with pipes instead of conveyer belts.

the inefficiency was moving liquid....by packaging it? See the problem with moving things by packaging it is you need your trains to be TWICE as long (or moving half as much), since you need half to unload the loaded fuel, the other half loading the empties. Stack this against just normal fuel cars allowing you to move at whatever size trains your running. Distance just means you need more trains moving, and with a proper mainline setup, won't be a problem.

Imagine being able to afford satisfactory

I still don't understand the point of balancers, then again, I don't understand ratios and why people want things to be running at 100% efficiency.

Wow, pipes still have bugs? sad times

I gotta disagree with the premise; troubleshooting is where a lot of the fun pops in. It's like a puzzle.

I've only played about 60 hours of this game total, still figuring out basic efficiency, so I don't understand how you have enough raw materials (coal, oil, etc) for builds of this magnitude.

YOU PLAY STARFIELD it’s a good game

why not using the mod - Modular Load Balancers?

I made a massive coal powerplant 400 strong, I layered the pipes in a sort of 'ship' like form and layered two thousand batteries on top. I let that charge for a very long time and after an update I discovered that a giant mountain has formed on top of it, blocking me from re-railing the train responsible for dropping off the coal. Idk man, with the planet literally terraforming around us, trains are now derailing.. the entire world just seems doomed. I guess I should start over but my Geforce now subscription ended and I have to queue up for 6 hours just for 1 hour of play time. I think I should just quit

What happened to Pappa Snoozy??

...when does 8 go to normal servers?

i Have a Big Problem with you Sounds in the Background. Its seems to be a knocknocevery few seconds....

This guy sounds like hes about to have a mental breakdown each word

Did you wear a leather jacket while recording the audio or are you squirming around in a gamer chair? I can hear it creaking constantly and it's really triggering me. Consider sitting in a non leather chair while recording, perhaps

Hey, you have like a 200 - 500hz ish lobe on your vocal that makes you a little challanging to listen to. Would be great if you could correct that, if you're able.

i will never understand why people use train and cars and stuff.. belt all the way xD i let everythiung ship around the whole world

Something is wrong in your audio mixing. Everytime there's a new title or impact, it's distorting my speakers. This isn't an issue with my speakers, it's an issue with the audio mixing. It's supposed to be an impact sound, I get that, but it's a really horrible sound and isn't working the way intended.

I got Satisfactory a few months ago. It has become boring and unfun. I no longer play this game. It gets old real quick.

Great Channel content, keep it up totalXclipse!