JakenVeina

First item for today was to finish the new sections of tubeway. I.E. tear down the blueprint scaffolding, and place support framing.

With that done, I had a look and this is basically the only segment of straight tubeway pieces that can serve as an entrance to our new factory. I decided to only consider the lower of the 2 new tubeways, so that I could leave all the nice foliage around on the upper segment.

Tube entrances are spliced in.

Now, from this spot, I'll need to gain some height so the building can clear that big jut of cliff out there. So, that establishes about 4 foundations of distance between the tubeway and the entrance to the factory: 1 flat up against the tubeway, 2 4m inclines, and another flat in front of the door.

That should be the rough shape we need.

I decided to re-visit the concept I tried for the Frameworks factory: big-honkin'-foundation-sized features to make up the walls of the building, instead of just the thin-ass walls that don't have a whole lot of opportunity for detailing. As such, all these floors are oversized by 1-2 whole foundations, and these foundation pillars are all sitting in that additional space. It's possible I might downsize a thing or two, as I go, but really, I'll probably just live with some extra open space in the factory, if it comes to that.

This should cover all the floor plans I roughed-out last time.

The rest of my time I just spent getting creative with detailing. Should be able to build out machinery tomorrow.

This issue has resurfaced again.

So, the factory I'm going to build next, I've actually had planned out since, like, Christmas. I just need to figure out how to build it. I laid out these sections of machines to try and estimate what kind of space I'm going to need for this building. I've got a good idea of the layout I want now, and a rough idea of where I'm going to put it.

Next step was to get some tubeway laid out in the area. There's actually 2 different segments here, one from behind Quartzworks, and one in front of it, that run out a ways and then meet up. I'm not entirely sure which one (if not both) will connect to and serve the new factory, so I wanted to get them both done.

Aaaand, all blueprinted out.

Finished product!

Let's take a tour.

First floor is constructors, making all the intermediary products and sending them up.

Second floor is... a singular Manufacturer, making SAM Fluctuators.

Yeah, I might have made this building a liiiiiittle oversized.

Third floor is the comically-large Smelting platform.

I think I'd like to eventually use the roof for some additional Alien Power Augmenters. There's plenty of space for it, and it'd fit with the SAM work the building is already doing.

Access hatch.

Didn't even need to do any planning in Satisfactory Modeler for this one. There's just not very much going on here.

I started today with rebuilding the spiral staircase. I also added interior lighting on all the machinery floors, which I neglected to get pics for.

Next, I figured it'd be best to get the SAM line built out, since that's really the last precursor to building machines.

I started today with the realization that I forgot an entire chunk of the build (as I often tend to): the uploading and sinking wing, which I was planning to do as an extension onto the front. That's gonna throw off the entire placement of the spiral staircase, so I simply tore it down entirely.

Before moving on with the staircase, I figured it'd be a good idea to finish out the triple-thick walls throughout the build, since they can be rather tricky to place, after I have stuff blocking the way. And since I was able to do it pretty darn quickly with a handful of repeatable blueprints.

Moving on to the new entrance wing, I was able to get it almost fully completed. Just need to add some lighting and the windows.

Tomorrow, I'll get the staircase put back up.

After a little bit of scouting, I decided on roundabout here for the next build. What with the SAM underneath the archway, and the unused Iron Ore right nearby.

This build's actually going to be quite small, compared to most of the other recent ones, so I can try out this relatively-small hexagonal layout I've had in mind.

I only actually need one Iron Ore miner.

All these perfect 120-degree corners were actually QUITE tedious to build, and then replicate up to each floor. Sure look nice, though.

Miner and a walkway built out, for Iron Ore.

Next, I spent a little bit of time building out a blueprint for detailing walls on the logistics floors. Had the idea for 45-degree ceiling lights, so I came up with this double-wall and tilted ceiling to cover the pillars they sit on.

Also came up with beams as a nice way to cover the gap between the walls, in the spots where I need doors.

As promised, not leaving walkability until the last minute, with a spiral staircase reaching all the floors. Which I just now realized isn't actually a staircase, since I didn't use actual stairs. I'll have to fix that tomorrow.

Also tried out this idea that's been in my head for a while: triple-thick walls to prevent z-fighting and clipping with windows.

First item for today was to finish this building by adding stilts. Had to be unorthodox here, compared to the last two buildings, because the space to PUT these stilts was so limited by the miners. Happy with the result, though.

A few more blueprints for the tedium of the final building, since the sizing is slightly different from the others, and that building is all done.

Finally, for walkability, I just connected each building to the big trunk/walkway with some catwalks, and then added some ladders to interconnect all the floors. Definitely a lazy solution, since I didn't really consider walkability from the beginning. Still a productive experiment, I think, in just laying out some flooring, and figuring it all out as I went along, but I'm gonna try and keep walkability a higher priority, going forward.

Final wide shots of the whole campus.

Nerd docs.

The idea struck me that the stilts don't have to attach to the top of the building, just near it. I'm quite happy with how it came out.

Second building went a LOT quicker. Largely cause it's so much smaller. Also, it's possible I forgot something.

Again, though, I didn't get the stilts done.

I've AAAAAAALLLMOST got this building finish. The only thing I didn't get to is the stilts on the back side.

I have a total of 13 temporary blueprints in my library right now, that I used to build out this building, and it STILL took like 10 hours, total. I might have overdone myself.

Man, I ended up liking this design, but GODDAMN did I pick one that's extremely tedious to build. This was like 6 hours of work, and I'm STILL not done with the FIRST building. I've only done about half of the lighting, haven't done any coloring, realized I completely forgot all the beams lining the undersides of the floors...

Welp, more tomorrow.

Okay. I can't put it off anymore. I have to figure out how to detail these buildings. Let's start with this small one, and see what we come up with.

This style of edging was kinda the only thing I had in my head to try, where the beam is even in height with the foundation. Buuuuuuuut, it doesn't work. The Z-fighting is extremely obvious, and not something I can just ignore.

Let's try something really crazily different.

Yeah, I hate that.

I really wanted something that was going to give the edges more depth, but looking through everything in the build menu, what I've already tried is basically it: beams and pillars.

So, I'm gonna go with this. Really unsatisfied with it, as is, but I don't see what else I can try that isn't just pillars, which I've rather over-done at this point.

Maybe it'll get better as I add floor supports.

Alright, you know what? That does rather help. I can nudge to avoid clipping into the beams on this side, but on the other side, where there's an acute angle between the floor and the pillar, the clipping in the railings is more offputting, and much less avoidable.

How's about we just ditch the railing on that side, in favor of something that clips into pillars, no problem: more pillars? I actually like the increase in variety here.

I like it much, much less, extending it up to the top floor. I didn't take a shot of what it looks like on the actual top, but it's very weird.

Adjusting the positioning of the angled pillars a bit gets the cross-pillars centered much better.

I'm feeling a heck of a lot better about this whole endeavor.

I got really into things at this point, and ended up not taking any more progress pics, until I got to the finished product. I'm astounded that I came up with something I actively like, here. Not my favorite design, by a long shot, but I'm entirely satisfied to get something this nice out of the UTTER design-block I was in.

The angled support pillars, mirroring the angling of the floors, was basically the only thing that was always part of my plan.

Night shots.

So, I now have a confident game plan for duplicating this out on the other 3 buildings.

The only actual remaining question is how I'm going to place some staircases or whatever between floors. Or really, I suppose, where in the layouts I'm going to PUT them.