A Growing Void - An Expansion/WG Mod for Satisfactory

tl;dr A mod for Satisfactory where you feed an entity on a platform increasing amounts of resources, growing it in the process.

Foreword

I had been playing around with Gain Factory Reloaded, loved the premise but found the core functionality of Factory building/automation was a real pain. Trying to sort out priorities of inputs into crafting stations, regulating the movement of resources around the base and avoiding a gigantic mess of spaghetti with no snapping/placement assistance left me with a constant feeling of friction. (Not a hit piece against kittykillerkuriosity. Seriously go play GFR, it’s great and more critically actually playable right now, which this isn’t.)

The entire time I was playing the thought of, ‘This would be so much easier if this was in Factorio or Satisfactory’ kept creeping in. As Satisfactory is based on Unreal and has pretty extensive modding documentation I chose that and decided to be the change you want to see in the world.

Main Content

Which brings us to ‘A Growing Void’ (WIP title)

Documentation Link: Here

The idea is fairly simple, build a giant platform with a bunch of conveyer inputs into the base and periodically wipe the inventory of the building. Then using the SINK points values each item has, calculate the total value of the contents, and add that to an ongoing number. Then based on passed thresholds, increase the mesh scale of the entity lounging atop the platform.

What is this entity you ask? Well I don’t really know at the moment. I’m a Designer by trade (No, I will not be sharing which studio I work at) and am proficient in Blueprint coding, but lack serious character modelling capabilities for something of this scale. So for now it’s going to be a cube.

The final entity is probably going to depend on what models I can find available online with the appropriate licences for non-commercial use. Ideas I’ve spit-balled are some sort of Blackhole girl, a machine queen or some sort of slime. Creatures that feeding an endless stream of mechanical components into would make sense for it to be growing.

First rule of designing anything is setting a stable scope for a project. I’m willing to take suggestions, but please do not feel personally insulted if I do not use them. Scope creep is how projects die. With a full time job I will be upfront that updates on this will be intermittent at best, but I’ll try and keep folks abreast of progress.

And that dear reader is where you come in.

Frankly I don’t have the play time in satisfactory to truly appreciate the scale of output that bases can achieve. I need data. With a fresh world, how long a given factory of a given output took to build, your total time played and more generally your relative experience with the title.

This is so I can have a firm starting point for how large the thresholds need to be for setting the weight increases. No point having the default tuned for mega-bases, but also too small that intervening stages are lost in singular jumps. This default then will be altered by a configurable modifier to either increase or decrease the time taken to grow your entity.

The numbers need to be enough that someone simply in this for the fetish can appreciate in an afternoon, or the dedicated looking for a long term goal can have a decent challenge.

So with a lot of yapping done, I’m going back to working on the mod.
Enjoy your afternoons.

4 Likes

im very much interested in this as this would serve a good dump for unwanted items like burner miners and other stuff thay becomes (eventually) obselete

Small update, as suspected, decent models for this project are going to be it’s primary blocker.

Even using blender and attempting to export a pre-existing publicly available model are demonstrating just a complete skill deficit in this area, missing textures, clipping geometry and an inability to pose convincingly. Frankly I’m hopeless when it comes to modelling, so back to the cube for now it is.

More positively the code side seems to be progressing well, I think I’ve identified the sections I’ll need to edit, and I’ve set up the schematics, recipes and description components. Although comparatively this is just prepping ingredients before cooking really in terms of overall completeness.

Alternate Idea that I’d like some feedback on if possible:

An alternate idea that has occurred to me is to use a more generic swirling vortex/blackhole/event horizon effect/model, with a 2d render of the entity looking out through the centre of it. My skills in the material editor are more developed then in 3d modelling, so this would potentially mean a more polished result as opposed to a bodge-job with nice models.

I would then lean heavier on limited interactions between the player and the entity, through the use of text and potentially (If I can find a decent, semi-ethical and not to mention free) voice generation software.

This lets me provide the visual cues of growth and progression, without relying on my meagre 3d skills. It does shift the appeal of the entity however from purely visual expansion to one of more abstract growth, teasing/luring players into feeding the void more, with the visuals being handled by the players imagination.

Folks thought’s and criticisms would be appreciated.
Have a nice morning.

Small update

Sorted out a rough platform mesh, and messed around with the code so in theory the back end should be set up to compare item values against the SINK data, check the total mass and then progress entity stages.

However that’s only in theory as in reality the buildable isn’t grabbing off the belt as intended, and simply backs up, I need to look deeper into how the function I’m attempting to hijack works, and maybe see if another more specialised building would function as a better parent class to extend from.

Work will continue until moral improves I suppose. Have a good week folks.

3 Likes