If you are looking for another open world adventure game with a bit of factory building, then Satisfactory is the game for you. Not only can you pick your starting location for your bases’ setup, you also need to work towards building equipment to help power up your factory and produce necessary items for survival. During the earlier stages of the game, your main requirements will be to gather as much coal to power up your factories.
Since you need to work on collecting all the resources and machines to manufacture coal, you might have a hard time trying to compile them at your base. In this guide we will see how to set up a coal generator and farm coal efficiently in Satisfactory.
How To Unlock Coal Generators In Satisfactory
Coal Generators get unlocked at Tier 3. Before you can unlock the coal generator, you need the Space Elevator unlocked and placed at your base. The Space Elevator recipe gets unlocked after you upgrade your HUB Tier 0 – Upgrade 6. You can check out our guide on how to get the Automated Wiring in Satisfactory, as we have included a small section on how you can unlock and craft the Space Elevator.
Once you have the Space Elevator, start depositing the required items to upgrade it in Phases. Each time you complete a delivery, you unlock the next phase.
How To Build Coal Generators In Satisfactory
You can find the Coal Generators in the build menu > Power tab. To craft the Coal Generator, you require the following items.
- 20x Reinforced Iron Plate
- 10x Rotor
- 30x Cable
How To Get Reinforced Iron Plate
You need 6x Iron Plates and 12x Screws to get 1x Reinforced Iron Plate. You can get Iron Plates by placing 3x Iron Ingots in the Constructor. Screws can be obtained by taking 1x Iron Rod into the Constructor to get 4x Screws. You can get the recipe for Reinforced Iron Plate at Tier 0 – HUB Upgrade 3, and by taking the above materials to the Assembler you can get 1x Reinforced Iron Plate
How To Get Rotor
For the Rotor, take 5x Iron Rod and 25x Screws to the Assembler to get one Rotor. You can get 1x Iron Rod by placing 1x Iron Ingot at the Constructor. Getting screws is mentioned above. You can unlock the Roto recipe at Tier 2 – Part Assembly
How To Get Cable
Take 2x Wire to the Constructor to get Cable. You can get Wire by placing 1x Copper Ingot at the Constructor to get 2x Wire. The recipe for cable unlocks at Tier 0 – HUB Upgrade 2
Where To Place Coal Generators In Satisfactory
Before building your coal generator, you need to find a good source of water nearby. Producing coal requires a lot of water, so having a water source close to the coal generator will help in the long run. To pump water into the Coal Generator, you require Water Extractors. The recipe for Water Extractors unlocks at Tier 3 – Coal Power and requires 20x Copper Sheet, 10x Reinforced Iron Plate, and 10x Rotor to craft it. If you are not underclocking the Coal Generator, then at 100% clock speed, the Coal Generator will consume 45 m3 Water/min
Next, you need to find a way to transport Coal to the Coal Generator to produce fuel. By building a few conveyor belts that lead from a Coal Mine, you can easily get coal to the Generator. Of course, if the Coal nodes are nearby, then that makes your work a lot easier.
Coal Generator Setup
- Start off by building a foundation over any water source you like. Place a Biomass Burner first, followed by a Water Extractor. The Biomass Burner will help power up the Water Extractor temporarily.
- Next, find a coal node nearby and map out how you will place your conveyor belt to transport coal. According to that, place your Coal Generator adjacent to the Water Extractor and the conveyor belt.
- Attach the Water Extractor pipes to the generator along with the conveyor belt. Later on, as the generator starts producing power, you can connect the Water Extractor to the Coal Generator and remove the Biomass Burner.
Pro-Tip: If you plan on using Coal Generators in the long run and want to place multiple Coal Generators, then you can switch out the conveyor belts to something more flexible like Pipe Junctions, Conveyor Lifts, and Conveyor Splitters
How To Efficiently Use Coal Generators In Satisfactory
As mentioned above, the Coal Generator will consume 45 m3 Water/min at 100% max clocking speed. The number of Coal Generators to Water Extractors ratio can be 3 Water Extractors for 8 Coal Generators. This only applies if the Pipelines Mk.1 are evenly spaced out or separated for the Water Extractor to efficiently supply water to the generators, since these pipelines can only hold and supply water up to 120 m³/min.
You can upgrade the pipeline to Pipelines Mk.2 which increases the capacity to 600 m3/min.. This can connect 5 Water Extractors and 13 Coal Generators to a single Pipeline Mk.2.
Alternatively, you can underclock the Water Extractor to 75%, giving water supply to two Coal Generators at a time. This will help keep track of your power supply during early gameplay. You can use the following equation to calculate how much electricity and water at certain clocking capacity will be used to power up 8 Coal Generators
- 3x Water Extractors at 100% (3*20 = 60 MW)
- 4x Water Extractors at 75% (4*12.6 = 50.4 MW)
That’s all there is to know about the Coal Generator in Satisfactory. If you like this guide you can check out our other guides like How To Make Automated Wiring In Satisfactory and How To Tame Lizard Doggo In Satisfactory
