A way to build one factory as a scattered crew — different timezones, different lives, no set schedule. Not a job. A mission board that turns "someone should do coal power" into "here's the mission, here's the crew, grab it when you're free." Fun first. Slow, organic. No deadlines, no headcount targets.
The whole system is one repeating cycle. It runs without anyone being in charge of everyone — the board holds the state, crews self-organize, the factory advances.
The factory needs something ("coal power online"). It becomes a mission on the board.
Anyone browses open missions and claims one. Small enough for 1–3 people.
Claimers form a micro-crew & pick their own time in the mission's channel. No org chart.
They build it whenever their timezones overlap. Post progress. Ask for inputs from other roles.
Mission closes, unlocks the next need. Screenshot to the showcase. Loop repeats.
The heart of it: a divide-and-conquer job board sitting on top of Discord. Browse what needs doing, claim a slot, self-schedule with whoever else claimed it. Here's what it looks like in our current world — we're about to unlock coal power:
We just researched coal generators. We need a coal-fired power block feeding the grid so we stop babysitting biomass. Perfect small-crew mission: someone on coal, someone on water, someone to wire the grid.
And the rest of the board — a mix of statuses so people always find something at their level:
Three families of role. Resource roles (own an input — the coordination engine), function roles (own a system that cuts across resources), and floating roles (help anywhere). Nobody's locked in — this is a starting menu to riff on, and people can wear two hats in a small crew.
Iron, Copper, Limestone, Coal, Caterium, etc. — one owner per resource. You mine, smelt, and ship your material to whoever needs it. The classic "you own iron, steel needs you" engine.
Oil, Water, Nitrogen, and their refined chains. Pipes behave differently than belts, so fluids often want a dedicated brain. Everything mid-late game routes through here.
Owns the grid. Biomass → coal → fuel → nuclear as we progress. Keeps the lights on so nobody trips the whole factory. The coal-power mission is this role's first big moment.
Owns the main bus, trains, truck routes, drones. The connective tissue between everyone's factories. Standardizes belt lanes so builds plug in cleanly.
Visits finished factories and makes them better — balancers, clock tuning, ratios, cleanup. Only for people happy to wait for others to finish. The patient perfectionist role.
Owns the plan & look — site layout, where things go, the aesthetic, foundations. Turns "a pile of factories" into a place. Keeps the megaproject coherent.
Finds nodes, hard drives, slugs, and safe paths. Feeds the board with "here's the next oil, here's a power slug." Great first role for a new player — low stakes, high value.
Runs the mission board itself — writes up needs, keeps statuses honest, nudges stale missions, welcomes new folks and points them at a beginner mission. The "dungeon master."
No dates. Each stage is a capability we've unlocked, which changes what missions exist and which roles matter. The game's own tech tree is the pacing — we advance when we advance.
Biomass power, hand-fed. Missions are tiny: "smelt iron," "screws line," "scout the area." Everyone wears many hats. Goal is rhythm and first contact, not scale. ← roughly where we are.
First real division of labor: Power role is born, Coal + Water become meaningful. The coal-power mission is the first true multi-role crew job. Board gets its first "recruiting a crew of 3" listing.
Logistics/Rail role matters. Factories stop being islands. Missions start referencing "tap the bus at lane 4." Optimization role gets real work cleaning up Stage-Spark spaghetti.
Fluids Guild spins up. Plastics/rubber force cross-guild coordination. Missions get bigger and more interdependent — the board's dependency links start mattering.
If we've outgrown one world, a second world opens (maybe a different region for far-flung folks). Each world runs its own board under one community. Same loop, more factories.
Your question: a webpage, or built into Discord? Both work. Here's the honest trade — and a recommendation to start light and grow into the web version only if we need it.
Start in Discord (forum channel + light bot). It's async-native, it's where everyone already is, and it proves the mission-board idea with almost no plumbing. Graduate to a webpage (this exact aesthetic) as a beautiful read-only "front window" — live board + megaproject map — once we have enough missions that a glanceable view actually helps and gives us something gorgeous to recruit with. The webpage becomes the trophy case; Discord stays the workshop.
Do people self-claim missions freely, or does the Quartermaster assign to balance load? (Lean self-claim for fun, QM only nudges.)
Cap crews at 3? Bigger feels like a party but hits the server player-cap and gets chaotic. Small crews = more parallel missions.
Hard "you ONLY touch your resource" (your friend's rule) or soft "you own it but can pitch in"? Hard = more coordination + more friction. Soft = more forgiving for a casual, async crew.
Tag each person's rough timezone on the board so crews form around overlapping hours? Maybe missions get a "best window" the crew sets.
Who writes them — anyone can propose a mission, or only QM? And how small is too small? (A mission should be a satisfying evening, not a chore.)
Purely the fun + a showcase post? Or light flair — a "mission complete" role badge, a name on the megaproject plaque? Keep it non-grindy.
Not vibes — pulled from real multiplayer guides, performance docs, and community-building writeups. Three findings that shape how we play (full notes in research/community-research.md):
The real reason groups self-host isn't player count — it's that production is time-based and never stops. With auto-pause off, the factory runs 24/7. You log off, others build, you wake to full containers. That's our best recruiting line — and we already host it.
Hard truth: vehicles are effectively unusable for non-host players (they warp/get kicked). Trains are far better. So shared logistics = a belt bus + trains, and Logistics missions avoid truck/tractor routes. Build production near nodes to cut long belt highways (they're the #1 lag source).
Community advice is unanimous: events turn usernames into a community — but most events are ghost towns because they need everyone online at once. Our people can't sync (timezones, PS5/UK, kids, jobs). The async mission board is the fix: shared stakes without "be online at 8pm." Start with ONE good sprint, not a flooded calendar.
PS5/Xbox launched but have no PC cross-play and a 4-player cap. If someone's on console, tell them kindly up front they can't join our PC server — better than false hope. Steam + Epic on PC play fine together.
The unlock that turns our two weaknesses (player cap + can't-all-be-online) into the format itself. A Satisfactory save is just a portable file — so we can snapshot the world at any stage, hand identical copies to different crews, let everyone build the same mission on their own time, then compare and vote a winner.
Keep a named save at each stage (Coal, Logistics, Fluids…). It's our backup cadence — just kept & labeled.
Copy a checkpoint. Every crew gets the identical starting world for a challenge.
Same mission, same seed ("best steel plant from Coal"). Each crew builds on their fork whenever they're free.
Compare throughput / footprint / power / looks. Community votes a winner. Or keep them all as an exhibit.
Winner becomes the new main world — or the winning crew rebuilds their design in it. (Pick one model.)
The forks don't have to run on our server. We hand out the checkpoint .sav; people build on their
own machine (solo or their own listen server) and submit the result save back. That means unlimited parallel builds,
zero extra server cost, fully async, and it sidesteps the 8–16 player ceiling entirely. It's also the "show your
skills" mechanic — grounded in a real file flow instead of a vibe. And a spare checkpoint is the perfect newcomer
sandbox: practice on an early save without touching the main world.
You can't merge two Satisfactory saves. So "canonize" = either the winning fork becomes the main world, or the winning crew rebuilds their design in the main world. Decide which.
How do we pick a winner without it getting sweaty? Community vote? Agreed metrics (parts/min, power, footprint)? Category awards (most efficient / prettiest / most cursed)? Keep it fun.
Build-offs as the occasional "big event," with the normal mission board as the everyday. One build-off per stage?
The missing on-ramp. New players don't get dumped into the main factory — they arrive as Settlers, a small cohort taken through orientation by a Guide. Westworld-style: you enter a crafted world with someone who shows you the ropes before you're loose. It turns "I joined the Discord" into "I own a resource and I'm contributing."
The settler pipeline, end to end:
New player joins the Discord from LFG. Tagged Settler. Sees a friendly "here's how this works."
Grouped into a small wave (5–6). Waits for the next Guide session — or jumps a solo tutorial fork meanwhile.
Guide runs them through basics on the orientation world. Low stakes, high welcome. Questions encouraged.
Settler picks (or is voted) a resource/function role that fits them. Becomes a full Pioneer.
Joins the main world with a first beginner-friendly mission waiting. Now they belong.
What makes Guiding feel good, not like unpaid support? A respected badge/role, first dibs on build-offs, a "mentored N settlers" wall? Keep it honor-based.
For the impatient / off-hours settler: a self-serve tutorial fork + a checklist so they can start before a Guide is free. Async-friendly.
Is there a small "you're a Pioneer now" moment? A first mission completed, a role claimed, a welcome in #announcements? Rituals make people stay.