【Factorio】5 Things to Do After Completing the Tutorial

Right after finishing the Factorio tutorial, the sudden increase in freedom can leave you uncertain about what comes next to stabilise your factory. I myself experienced production and research grinding to a halt during my first blackout and enemy raid, only then realising how crucial prioritisation truly is.

This article walks beginners through the first five essential steps in chronological order after tutorial completion. Using standard figures like steam power generation at 1:20:40 ratio, yellow belts at 15 items/second, stone furnaces at 48 units per line, and electronic circuits at 3:2, we move smoothly from manual crafting → maintaining research → basic defence → trunk line design without strain.

What's crucial in the early game isn't building a perfect endgame factory from day one. Instead, build a small factory that doesn't stop, then restructure it into an easily-revisable form—this approach gets you far faster and easier in the end.

【Factorio】Key Foundations to Confirm After the Tutorial

Target Version and DLC Treatment

This guide assumes vanilla Factorio 2.0 and later. Even if you've installed paid DLC like Space Age, the priorities for Nauvis (from tutorial completion through early factory structure) remain fundamentally the same: power stabilisation, basic material automation, continuous research, minimum defence, and main line establishment. We focus on the period from tutorial completion through the point where your factory's skeleton is established.

Elements You Can Ignore at This Stage

Attempting to optimise everything simultaneously right after the tutorial halts progress. What's safe to postpone includes late-game optimisation built around beacons and modules, UPS optimisation, and complex oil processing efficiency tuning.

Beacons are powerful, but their real value emerges much later. They're advanced-tier equipment for distributing effects to surrounding areas, consuming 480kW each. What's usually scarce in the early game is power, basic materials, and consistent supply—three things that don't benefit from adding complex enhancement modules yet. First, you need assemblers, belts, and inserters creating uninterrupted production lines.

Steam power becomes simple once you memorise the ratio: pump : boiler : steam engine = 1:20:40. One offshore pump supplies enough water for 40 steam engines. One boiler generates roughly 1.8MW, and one steam engine consumes 900kW, meaning one boiler supports two steam engines. The ratio makes it obvious: expand in 1:20:40 unit chunks.

UPS optimisation likewise is a concept that matters once your factory scales up considerably. The factory sizes you'll have right after the tutorial make this a very low priority. Early on, a slightly messy-looking setup that actually works matters more than perfect design. In fact, beginners typically advance faster with layouts where you can visually follow bottlenecks than by rushing overly organised designs.

Oil likewise doesn't need perfect, final-form efficiency at this stage. Petrol-based production branches explode in mid-game, so planning it all out now often leads to overthinking before your factory even reaches that scale. What beginners should focus on isn't sophisticated optimisation but three things: how far to reduce manual work, how to keep research flowing, and when to add defence.

Beacon - Factorio Wiki

wiki.factorio.com

Essential Terminology

Here are the key terms you'll encounter moving forward. At this stage, understanding each facility's role matters more than memorising terminology perfectly.

Transport belts are the fundamental infrastructure that move items through your factory. Think of them as your factory's circulatory system, carrying ore from mining to furnaces, iron plates to assemblers, and intermediate goods like gears and circuit boards. Yellow belts flow at 15 items/second, which becomes your benchmark for "does this line need one belt or more?"

Inserters are the arms that move items between belts, chests, and machines. They pull iron plates from a belt into an assembler, or deposit finished goods into a chest. Factorio automation boils down to "belt transport + inserter handoff" repeated endlessly. Once these two concepts click, your entire factory becomes much more readable.

Assemblers are machines that automatically manufacture items from recipes. This is where early-game automation delivers the most obvious benefit—assigning gear, circuit, inserter, and belt production to assemblers instead of manual crafting cuts your workload dramatically.

Malls (not an official game term but widely used) are small supply hubs that automatically replenish construction materials via belts, inserters, electric poles, assemblers, and furnaces. For beginners, malls are tremendously valuable because you stop hand-crafting the same components every time you expand. My own factory became much more comfortable once I added a mall.

Main Bus refers to gathering major materials like iron and copper plates into several trunk belt lines flowing in one direction, then branching off materials as needed. The goal isn't aesthetic—it's to make clear where you can branch off materials. The conventional beginner layout is four parallel belts with a 2-tile gap between groups. Early-game factories don't need full main bus scale, but the principle of "consolidating primary materials into one direction" significantly reduces spaghetti.

What matters here isn't memorising definitions precisely. After the tutorial, in freeplay mode, these terms serve as language for deciding what to automate where and which items form trunk lines. Terminology isn't knowledge for its own sake; it's a tool for structuring priorities.

1. Stabilise Steam Power Generation First

Recognising Power Shortage Symptoms

In your immediate post-tutorial factory, the very first thing to stabilise isn't production lines themselves but electrical power. The reason is straightforward: power shortage doesn't manifest as outright stops but as gradual factory-wide slowdown. Mining machines, furnaces, assemblers, and inserters all slow simultaneously. Research stalls, supplies lag, and construction materials dwindle despite appearing automated. Most "nothing's increasing even though I've automated everything" moments stem from power issues.

I initially imagined blackouts meant complete shutdown. In reality, inserters move sluggishly, item handoff falls behind, belt flow destabilises, furnace supply falters, and assembler input crumbles gradually. The result: belts jam, materials accumulate in bottlenecks, and your factory cascades into slowdown. Once I boosted power generation first, these chain-reaction troubles largely vanished.

You can spot power shortages easily enough: generation graphs clinging to demand levels, equipment running at high utilisation, warning icons appearing. When you see these signs, suspect power before anything else. Barely-sufficient power today becomes insufficient the moment you expand—and early-game factories expand constantly. A state where "we're just getting by" is effectively power-starved.

The critical insight is why you boost power generation first. Iron plate or research pack shortages are localised problems, but power shortage impacts your entire factory. Investing in more power generation simultaneously raises the ceiling for mining, smelting, assembly, research, and defence prep. The numerical return on investment is high, making it an intuitive early priority. Giving yourself a comfortable power margin in the first 15–30 minutes dramatically stabilises everything that follows.

The 1:20:40 Step-by-Step

Steam power becomes simple once you memorise the ratio: pump : boiler : steam engine = 1:20:40. The official Factorio Wiki confirms this ratio—one offshore pump supplies enough water for 40 steam engines. One boiler generates roughly 1.8MW, and one steam engine consumes 900kW, meaning one boiler supports two steam engines. The ratio makes it obvious: expand in 1:20:40 unit chunks.

The method is straightforward. If you already have steam generation, don't add boilers alone or engines alone—expand by complete 1:20:40 sets. This prevents imbalances. Early game equipment multiplies rapidly, so modest additions become insufficient quickly. Building in surplus upfront means less rework down the line.

Expansion decisions don't require complex calculation either. If generation graphs cap out, your factory feels sluggish, or warnings appear—add one unit rather than agonising over layouts. I personally prioritise easy horizontal expansion over aesthetic appeal, since stable power makes relocating your factory much easier later.

Equally important: think of power supply not as "current demand" but "next expansion included." Adding research stations, furnaces, assemblers, and inserters all increase power draw. Early factories have continuously climbing demand, so surplus isn't waste—it is stabilisation itself. Planning for comfort rather than tight fit smooths your progress dramatically.

Power production

wiki.factorio.com

Common Early-Game Power Troubles

A frequent early mistake is assuming "we have generation" without checking if it's sufficient. Engines are spinning, boilers have fuel, so it must be fine—but if demand has grown beyond supply, everything is already struggling. Without complete shutdown as a warning sign, you miss the slowdown entirely. By the time you notice, research and supply already lag.

Another common error is adjusting boiler or engine counts by feel, breaking the ratio. Adding only engines, for instance, leaves water or steam bottlenecked—output won't rise. Adding only boilers creates waste with insufficient engines. Returning to the 1:20:40 ratio instantly clarifies the issue. This standard is powerful precisely because it gives you a reference point when confused.

Sometimes fuel supply runs thin, destabilising only part of your power plant. Late boilers in the chain don't receive fuel; early ones run, output falls short across the line. The factory doesn't halt completely, so you discover this late. Full power stability requires checking fuel transport alongside generation hardware itself.

The lesson I found hardest was that power shortage makes inserters sluggish, which cascades through your supply network. Ore enters furnaces slowly, iron plates reach assemblers sluggishly, finished goods move slowly—every small delay compounds into factory-wide slowdown. Conversely, resolving this first transforms the same equipment count into dramatically more pleasant operations. Early power generation is unglamorous but foundational to all automation that follows.

2. Create a Basic Mall to Reduce Manual Work

What Items to Automate First

After establishing adequate power, the next major benefit comes from never running out of construction supplies. A mall here means a small automated factory producing "items that deplete when placed"—belts, inserters, poles, assemblers, furnaces, and ammunition. It's less flashy than research or smelting, but it directly controls your expansion pace. Eliminating manual crafting wait times instantly speeds up mining expansion, power boosts, and defence line placement.

Initially, I'd hand-craft belts whenever depleted. Constantly interrupting for crafting is exhausting. Worst was running out of belts mid-expansion and halting entirely. The moment I added a small mall, these bottlenecks largely disappeared. Now construction items sat ready in chests; building flowed without interruption. Gameplay comfort transformed.

Early priorities: yellow transport belts first. At 15 items/second, yellow belts carry early-game logistics far. Next come standard inserters and long inserters (long inserters reach two tiles away, bridging belt gaps and fitting tight layouts). Follow with medium electric poles to end manual pole crafting, cleaning up your power lines. Then assembler 1 and stone furnaces—assemblers building assemblers eliminate hand-crafting machinery, and stone furnaces are prolific early construction items. Once defence becomes relevant, add ammunition to keep gun turrets supplied without constant resupply runs.

Reaching "manual crafting graduation" within 20–40 minutes stabilises subsequent progress significantly. Community FAQs outline where players commonly jam, but most early bottlenecks stem from needed construction items missing from inventory. A mall is unglamorous yet tremendously effective at maintaining momentum.

FAQ - Factorio Community Wiki

Factorio Community Wiki

wikiwiki.jp

Starting Small: Basic Mall Layout

The word "mall" evokes massive production complexes. Early on, that's overkill. Start with one assembler. The goal isn't ratio perfection but consistent supply before depletion. Small biases don't matter if "we run out before we make more" becomes "we make more before we run out."

Setup is simple: place assemblers where iron plates and gears are accessible, pipe finished goods to chests. Begin with one belt assembler, one inserter assembler, one pole assembler, stretching horizontally as needed. I prioritise straight-line extensibility over final form, since you'll add items as shortages appear rather than planning comprehensively upfront.

Long inserters add layout flexibility. Reaching two tiles away lets you straddle one belt, offsetting chests and gaining breathing room. Early malls are cramped; this single upgrade eases configuration significantly. Think of it as practical rather than ornamental.

Furnaces follow the same logic. Automating stone furnaces eliminates expansion halt when you want more smelting. A yellow belt needs 48 stone furnaces to fully supply (versus 24 steel furnaces later), but you needn't hit that immediately—just ensure furnaces exist when you want to expand.

Supply and Inventory Management

Once a mall operates, managing overproduction becomes important. Construction items are convenient but can starve your main production if unchecked. Chest slot limits solve this elegantly. Capping finished goods at a number makes machines stop once full, restarting when demand returns. This stabilises operations considerably.

Inventory targets feel intuitive: 1–2 belt stacks, 1 inserter stack, and modest amounts of poles, furnaces, and assemblers ("enough for next expansion"). The goal is "not empty when needed," not vault hoarding. Early over-stockpiling drains resources from research and smelting.

Ammunition works identically. Gun turrets need no power, accept manual or inserter supply, and work reliably with trickle ammunition feeding. Even before serious defence, adding ammo to the mall's output eases resupply worries.

Inserter behaviour matters slightly. They grab items and, with capacity bonuses, sometimes overfetch, starving sibling lines. Early simple malls dodge this, but single-item-per-direction flows stay cleanest. Malls update over time—swapping stone furnaces for steel furnaces, adding inserter varieties as needs evolve. The strength lies in iteration without major rework. Prioritise eliminating manual crafting waits; perfect efficiency comes later.

3. Keep Red and Green Science Flowing Continuously

Stabilising Red Science

Here, uninterrupted research itself becomes the factory's heartbeat. Red automated science seems simple but often runs into trouble—yet factories keeping red flowing are visibly healthy. I personally target continuous red arrival at labs as my stability baseline.

Red science stability hinges on short supply chains over complex optimisation. Gears and copper plates flowing smoothly into bottles, bottles flowing into labs—this alone cuts research gaps significantly. Using the small-mall mindset, build a thin, dedicated red science line. Reaching continuous red and green supply within 30–60 minutes unlocks options rapidly.

Early on, one lab running uninterrupted beats multiple labs starving intermittently. Labs consume science packs, progressing research. Multiplying labs without sufficient supply leaves empty research stations and wasted space. Thin but continuous beats abundant but interrupted. Once red flows reliably, subsequent upgrades like belt capacity and power improvements research through, and bottleneck solutions emerge from research itself. Red and green flowing creates that critical turning point where research starts pulling your factory forward.

Stabilising Green Science

Green logistics science unlocks major upgrades. With red alone, factory frames stay skeletal; choosing next steps is hard. Green enables belt and power research, vastly expanding solutions. Continuous green flow is essential precisely because it multiplies your degrees of freedom.

Green complexities emerge: components multiply. Copper wire → electronic circuits shortages especially cascade. A useful reference is the ratio copper wire : circuits = 3:2, standard from the community. Slightly front-loading copper wire prevents circuit stalls crushing green science entirely. Memorising exact theory-crafting isn't necessary; knowing this ratio prevents one of the most common early stalls.

When assembling green science, I isolate electronic circuits in a small section. Separating what limits production helps troubleshoot—is copper wire short? Iron plates? Or are we just over-drawing from this subsection? Circuits are circuit-stable, everything stabilises. And since yellow belts flow 15 items/second, early red-and-green scale rarely hits transport limits; composition and distribution matter far more than raw capacity.

Troubleshooting Research Stalls

When research halts, causes split between material shortage and power shortage. Conflating them hamstrings diagnosis. Distinguishing prevents chasing shadows.

First, check lab status. If science packs wait to arrive, materials or transport is the issue. Red arriving but no green? Green line is the problem. Neither arriving? Trace backwards to the chain's start—iron, copper, gears, or circuits. One link always breaks first. Labs aren't the problem; they're a factory health monitor. Tracing back finds the blockage.

Alternatively, if labs and assemblers are unpowered, suspect the power grid. Research expansion often happens alongside production expansion. Boom in research infrastructure without matching power boost causes predictable failure. Boilers produce 1.8MW; engines consume 900kW at baseline. When production scales but power infrastructure stalls, looks like material shortage, actually power shortage.

The diagnostic flow is simple: science packs not arriving → material problem. Equipment dark and stopped → power problem. Mastering this distinction eliminates random-order machine placement. Research-flowing factories are those that quickly pinpoint why they stalled—not those with shiny infrastructure.

4. Watch Pollution and Build Minimal Defence Lines in Parallel

Reading the Pollution Map and Threat Direction

Once research and production activate, pollution spread becomes a parallel concern. Factorio factories emit pollution; pollution reaching enemy nests triggers raids. Danger lies not in current enemies but in directions where pollution soon reaches. Ignoring defence, then panicking mid-raid, destroys mining operations and locks production for recovery. Instead, watching pollution early and fortifying likely attack directions prevents the worst cascades.

I learned this when the first raid annihilated my mining, halting iron production almost entirely. The harsh realisation: choosing defensive direction matters far more than raw unit count. Viewing pollution displays makes threat directions crystal clear. Rather than surrounding everything, defend the likely attack vectors first.

Community FAQ resources (like https://wikiwiki.jp/factorio/FAQ) document beginner pitfalls comprehensively. Paralleling these references accelerates identifying specific failure modes.

Minimal Turret Lines and Ammunition Supply

Early defence requires walls, gun turrets, and ammunition supply—three elements suffice for early-raid resilience. Gun turrets need no power, making them reliable even when your grid wobbles. You only supply bullets.

Placement logic is straightforward: fortify where pollution threatens, wall in front, turrets behind. Rather than full enclosure, create short lines blocking threat vectors. Narrow, concentrated defence beats spread-thin walls. Once full-perimeter fortification begins, ammunition supply fragments, complicating resupply. Early strategy: defend fewer points better.

Hand ammunition resupply works initially. Simply stocking each turret with bullets reduces constant trips. When raids intensify, transition to belt delivery and inserter resupply. Place ammunition belts behind turret rows, using standard inserters for feed. This simple setup sustains early raids.

For spaced turrets, long-handed inserters reach two tiles, straddling one belt between wall and turrets. This flexibility avoids cramming walls, turrets, and supply tightly, improving maintenance. Small tricks enable loose, maintainable early defence.

Leveraging Terrain

Defence needn't rely purely on construction. Lakes and forests serve as obstacle benefits. Lakes are impassable; connecting their ends creates gateposts. Defending a narrow chokepoint beats a broad front. Forests slow enemies and absorb pollution; forests aren't permanent but gain time. Early factories benefit from siting themselves with lake or forest at their back, reducing the perimeter to defend.

I initially wasted effort fortifying every direction equally. Reality: when terrain does half the work, reallocate turrets to weaker points. Placing main production near water and forest, then concentrating turrets on open approaches, dramatically strengthens the same defences. Early-game thinking should be "narrow and thick," not "broad and thin."

5. Plan Broadly; Establish a Main Bus or Organised Trunk Line

The 4-Belt + 2-Tile Gap Logic

From here, graduation occurs from "connect wherever space allows" to pre-deciding your factory backbone. The main bus pattern—bundling primary materials into trunk lines flowing one direction, branching off as needed—transforms factory visibility. When every addition chases gaps, failures cascade. But fixing trunk lines first makes "what do I expand next?" straightforward instead of baffling. The shift from spaghetti to clarity is dramatic.

The standard width: four parallel belts with 2-tile gaps between groups. Those gaps aren't decoration. They become walking paths, underground belt insertion points, and room for future cross-runs. Squeezed-tight layouts look space-efficient initially but demand full reconstruction on modest expansion. The 2-tile buffer, especially early, pays constant dividends.

Community wisdom and official resources widely cover this (see Transport belt wiki: https://wiki.factorio.com/Transport_belt). Detailed main-bus examples appear across community guides. Internal site links will eventually replace external references as our guide library expands.

Start With Just Iron and Copper on 2 Belts Each

"Main bus" conjures images of enormous factories with dozens of parallel belts. Early-game needs far less. Two iron plates, two copper plates create substantial order. What matters isn't lane count but designing for expandability. Starting with four lanes, you later add to the same direction without rework.

Forcing a full final-form main bus upfront overcomplicates and delays progress. Early output is modest—few miners, few furnaces—so beginning with just iron and copper trunks, then branching gears, circuits, ammunition, and research sideways, feels natural. When demand grows, add belt pairs in the open slots. Clean, simple.

Rest assured: early-game factories were made to rebuild. Frequently, I stabilise small production, then horizontally expand the same footprint while maintaining direction. Factorio's sequence treats early factories as launching pads for later ones, not permanent infrastructure. Releasing perfectionism from initial design unlocks progress.

Space Planning for Trains and Oil Fields

When building trunk lines, overlooking one element cripples future flexibility: reserved expansion space. Early reliance on belts eventually gives way to trains for ore input, refinery chaining, smelter scaling. Without surrounding margin, you can't fit stations, pipes, or power increases.

I personally eye 2–3x current footprint to position infrastructure. This buys insurance, not immediate fullness. Cramming smelting right against the factory means rebuilding everything to double furnaces later. Opposite: keeping one factory side for production and the other for future—malls, trains, oil—grants tremendous agility. Reserving space costs nothing now but prevents reconstruction costs later.

Future scaling becomes a placement puzzle rather than demolition project. Narrow main bus with room flanking lets you add train stations, pipe refinery chains, and power expansion without sacrificing research or existing production. I spent excessive time originally "avoiding waste," only to discover reserved emptiness would have saved more time than the small space cost.

Comparing Early Strategies

Three broad early paths exist: hand-crafting-centric (fastest initial rise, uncomfortable later), small-mall-first (moderate ramp, rising comfort), and early main-bus or trunk-line (slower setup, strong later stability). Hand-crafting leads earliest but feels perpetually interruptible. Main bus is slowest initially but becomes the template for the next phase. Malls sit in between.

For beginners especially, the biggest difference is whether bottleneck causes become obvious. Spaghetti layout works until research, ammo, and parts fight for the same corridors. Then finding shortages becomes reading a puzzle box. Main-bus layouts unify material flow, making diagnoses intuitive: iron short? Copper thin? Branch over-drawing? Answers surface because flow direction is locked. Fixed diagnosis order is powerful for learning.

You needn't perfect a main bus from day one. The key idea—consolidating primary materials into a few parallel lines—delivers the benefit. Even casual 4-belt tidy layouts beat pure spaghetti for early clarity. Transition toward rigorous main bus gradually as you grow. Somewhere between spaghetti and precision template, most learners find comfort; from there, main bus becomes natural.

Common Failures and Mitigations

Power Shortage: Recognising and Responding

The most-overlooked early failure is power deficit. Research, furnaces, miners all appear active, so it reads as "slightly slow." What actually happens: nights pass, or new furnace rows connect, and the whole factory slugs. Not visible stalls—invisible slowness everywhere. Spotting this early avoids weeks of chasing phantom production problems.

I initially pictured blackouts as complete shutdown. Reality: inserters sluggishly pass goods, handoffs gap, belt flows destabilise, and everything decelerates in lock-step. The solution was predictably simple: check generation first. Do supply curves hug demand? Are equipment utilisation rates climbing? Do warnings flash? If yes to any, power comes before production rework. Lean into simplicity: suspect power, confirm power, boost power.

Steam power gets obvious once the ratio sticks. 1:20:40 is your expandable unit. Boilers run 1.8MW each; engines run 900kW each. When you front-load a unit or two as factories expand, you dodge the "suddenly everything staggers" moment.

Fixing Misdirected Inserters and Throughput Jams

After power, the next-most-common stop is misplaced or mis-aimed inserters. Inserters route short-distance, but aim direction is everything. Input backwards, output forwards reversed—the line halts. Wrong target choice stops an assembler outright. Seeing inserter arrows correctly oriented solves many gremlins instantly.

Output jamming is particularly easy to miss. Assemblers stop when full—not starved. Checking output visibility (yank a belt temporarily) reveals if the machine is bottleneck-blocked or ingredient-short.

Combat methods are direct: ensure output lanes have space and cap chest receipts to avoid choking. Supply caps expose when downstream limits or underfeeding arrive. Input sources unseen let composition drift; single dedicated source paths prevent overloading.

Assembler internal jam is frequent beginner confusion. Output full, no throughput. The secret diagnostic: yank output, let the machine work, watch its inventory. Stuffed? Output problem. Empty? Input problem. Simple.

Late Optimisations to Ignore Now

Another typical beginner trap is premature final-form optimisation. Oil refinery perfect balance, module-and-beacon efficiency builds, throughput compression—these beckon temptingly. They're not your bottleneck. Fixing power, supply, and output jams alone propels you far. These flashy upgrades return pennies compared to foundation-building.

Beacons are a poster example. Costing 480kW each, early power nets can't bear them. The return feels attractive but demands infrastructure you lack. Beacon-based designs belong in mid-game or beyond, once power and raw supply surplus exist. Initial factories benefit more from straightforward designs.

Oil refining similarly doesn't require perfect proportion early. Petrol branches multiply mid-game; over-planning now wastes cycles. Research chains branch petroleum, and your factory scales into it naturally. Early demand is modest; finish research, build simple input, and iterate once scale demands sophistication. Official wikis and community guides consistently show early failure isn't complexity misunderstanding—it's basic pipeline collapse.

UPS optimisation (frames-per-second management) is utterly irrelevant here. Large factories hit compute limits; small ones don't. Worrying about it before scaling genuinely is premature. Build freely; if you reach thousands of entities across a continent, revisit this. Unlikely within your first hours.

What makes early factories sing is not "optimal design" but readability and causality. When your factory stops, can you see why? Does tracing backward point to the culprit clearly? Factories where yes is always answer to both beat "correctly proportioned but unreadable" factories. Foundation-building and clarity-of-failure are your compounding investments; optimise later.

Building and Design's Next Phase (External References)

Below lie helpful resources to reference after completing this guide. As our site's coverage expands, we'll replace external links with internal equivalents.

• Power production foundations (official wiki) — https://wiki.factorio.com/Power_production
• Belt and transport basics (official wiki) — https://wiki.factorio.com/Transport_belt
• Pollution and enemy behaviour (official wiki) — https://wiki.factorio.com/Pollution, https://wiki.factorio.com/Enemy
• Research and laboratories (official wiki) — https://wiki.factorio.com/Technology, https://wiki.factorio.com/Laboratory
• Rocket components (official wiki) — https://wiki.factorio.com/Rocket_part

Summary

Stabilising the early game means building a factory skeleton that doesn't stop, not pursuing perfect layouts. Boost power, install a basic mall, keep red-and-green science flowing, add minimum defence, and thread your trunk lines. This sequence eliminates manual crafting waits, blackout chaos, and constant uncertainty. Research flows forward, and discomfort drops dramatically.

Next Steps Checklist

• Verify power generation isn't bottlenecking
• Add a small mall to eliminate manual crafting delays
• Get red and green science into continuous production
• Check the pollution map and decide minimum defence positioning
• Begin laying trunk lines while preserving expansion space