[Top 10] Satisfactory Best Alternate Recipes (Ranked)
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An Explorer speeding across the Rocky Desert.
While exploring the vast alien landscape of Satisfactory, you’ll often come across Crash Sites. These FICSIT Freighters, which look like small escape pods, generally host two challenges: one outside, like enemies or radiation; and one inside, like feeding the Crash Site materials or power. As a reward, you’re given a hard drive, which can be researched in the MAM to unlock Alternate Recipes, new ways to craft the items you can already make.
When opening up a freshly-researched hard drive, you get a choice between three different Alternate Recipes. Many of these recipes aren’t even worth considering once they appear, but there are a select few that are so much better you would be crazy not to pick them. Some of these Alternate Recipes reduce the amount of materials and infrastructure needed to craft more complex items, sending productivity and optimization through the roof.
10. Fine Concrete
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A Concrete Constructor working away through the night.
Once you gain access to quartz, you quickly find that silica is a very cheap resource. It only takes a few raw quartz to make a ton of silica (conversion of 3 to 5). Plus, once you get access to bauxite mining and refining, where silica is a byproduct, you’ll be absolutely swimming in the stuff. With a little less limestone and a bit of silica, you can use your overflow to make more concrete faster.
With 15 less limestone and 7.5 more silica per minute, you can nearly double your concrete per minute output (from 15 to 25). This means you can get much further with the limestone you’re already mining and use up some of the quartz you likely already have just laying around, or being pumped into the AWESOME Sink.
Why Fine Concrete is a great recipe:
Uses silica, a common surplus resource
Requires less limestone than normal concrete
Produces concrete more quickly
Fine Concrete Stats:
Uses 30 limestone/min and 7.5 silica/min
Original 45 limestone/min
Produces 25 concrete/min
Original 15 concrete/min
9. Coated Iron Plate
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An Iron Smelter backed up from too much ore going in.
Plastic is a common and important byproduct of the oil refining process. If any part of your power infrastructure comes from oil, you’ll definitely have a decent plastic production. If you could combine it with your iron production, you could end up with more basic iron materials than you can count.
The Coated Iron Plate is an Alternate Recipe that uses a few more iron ingots and a bit of plastic for an ungodly number of iron plates. For less than double the iron, you can almost quadruple your plate output using something you probably already make plenty of.
Why Coated Iron Plate is a great recipe:
Uses plastic, a common surplus resource
Produces far more iron plates
Uses fewer iron ingots per plate
Coated Iron Plate Stats:
Uses 50 iron ingots/min and 10 plastic/min
Original uses 30 iron ingots/min
Produces 75 iron plates/min
Original produces 20 iron plates
8. Caterium Circuit Board
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A Caterium Miner overlooking a lush forest.
Copper sheets are one of the more difficult items to automate at the capacity you need. Quickwire is also something you should be making quite a lot of. Rather than divert that extra caterium towards storage or AWESOME Sink, you could use it to make circuit boards.
Caterium Circuit Boards use less than half as much plastic as the normal recipe, plus the amount of quickwire you need is a drop in the bucket compared to what you’re probably already making. To top it all off, it produces more circuit boards per minute than the normal recipe.
Why Caterium Circuit Board is a great recipe:
Cuts copper from the recipe
Uses quickwire, which is produced quickly and easily
Uses less plastic
Produces circuit boards faster
Caterium Circuit Board Stats:
Uses 12.5 plastic/min and 37.5 quickwire/min
Original uses 30 plastic/min and 15 copper sheet/min
Produces 8.8 circuit boards/min
Original produces 7.5 circuit boards/min
7. Plastic Smart Plating
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Smart Plating headed into the massive Space Elevator.
As your Space Elevator needs grow, you’ll want a faster way to produce some of the more basic components of the higher-tier requirements. The simplest of these is Smart Plating, but the normal recipe only produces a couple every minute. If you don’t want to have to wait dozens of hours doing nothing but wait (or if you’re like my friend and I, playing hide and seek in our factories), you need to upgrade your Smart Plating output.
The Plastic Smart Plating more than doubles the amount of Smart Plating you make. With just a little more of the iron you’re already using and a bit of plastic, you’ll be dramatically scaling up your production. Space elevator parts also make a crazy high number of points in the Awesome Sink, so once you’re done with the phase, you could keep the machine running straight into the Sink for a huge reward.
Why Plastic Smart Plating is a great recipe:
Uses only a few more rotors and reinforced iron plates
Uses a small amount of plastic
More than doubles smart plating production
Plastic Smart Plating Stats:
Uses 2.5 rotors/min, 2.5 reinforced iron plates/min, and 7.5 plastic/min
Original uses 2 rotors/min and 2.5 reinforced iron plates/min
Produces 5 smart plating/min
Original produces 2 smart plating/min
6. Caterium Computer
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Caterium being mined and taken from a Rocky Desert cliffside.
Too often in the middle and later game your biggest limitation becomes Computers. Whether that’s because of your limited plastic, your copper, your circuit boards, there’s always some issue. It would be so much better to cut some of these steps out entirely and make a simpler, cheaper computer with your quickwire.
The Caterium Computer uses rubber instead of plastic, which is great for diversifying your crude oil byproducts. It also uses quickwire, which you likely make a large amount of already. If you combine this with the Caterium Circuit Boards above, you have a much more space and power efficient computer production line.
Why Caterium Computer is a great recipe:
Uses less plastic in production
Uses only a few more circuit boards
Uses rubber, so you’re incentivized to produce both rubber and plastic
Produces more computers
Caterium Computer Stats:
Uses 26.3 circuit boards/min, 105 quickwire/min, and 45 rubber/min
Original uses 25 circuit boards/min, 22.5 cable/min, 45 plastic/min, and 130 screws/min
Produces 3.8 computers/min
Original produces 2.5 computers/min
5. Recycled Plastic and Recycled Rubber
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Rubber and Plastic being conveyed across a river to be turned into each other.
Sometimes you may need more rubber than plastic or more plastic than rubber for a new production line. If you’ve made the mistake of prioritizing one crude oil byproduct over the other, this is a great way to make up for it and produce something more useful for the moment.
This recipe isn’t intended to produce you any more of the resources, but its use is much more practical than the rest of the list. They produce twice as much as you put in, giving a 1-to-2 resource match on plastic-to-rubber or rubber-to-plastic. They also cost some fuel, but if you already make it, this can be a quick and simple way to double your resource production, or change your current production temporarily in a pinch.
Why the Recyclables are great recipes:
Return your investment of resources is doubled
Helpful at any progress point in the game
Uses additional fuel, which you likely already make plenty of
Recycled Plastic and Recycled Rubber Stats:
Recycled Plastic uses 30 rubber/min and 30 fuel/min
Produces 60 plastic/min
Recycled Rubber uses 30 plastic/min and 30 fuel/min
Produces 60 rubber/min
4. Caterium Wire
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Caterium being turned into wire.
In another attempt to cut copper out of your assembly line entirely, Caterium Wire is a way to make wire both more cheaply and more efficiently. If you produce a lot of caterium, which isn’t particularly difficult compared to copper, you’ll want to pick this Alternate Recipe up.
Caterium Wire uses just as many caterium ingots as the default copper wire, but it produces four times as much. This is a must for anyone looking for maximum efficiency in the production of your higher technologies.
Why Caterium Wire is a great recipe:
Uses the same number of resources as the default wire
Produces four times more wire than copper
Makes production of more complicated resources much more efficient later
Caterium Wire Stats:
Uses 15 caterium ingots/min
Original uses 15 copper ingots/min
Produces 120 wire/min
Original produces 30 wire/min
3. Cast Screw
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Immediate screw production, not needing the in-between step of rods.
If you’re looking to cut down on power usage at a low level, Cast Screws are always a great option. They make screws at the same ratio, but they cut out the need to make the iron ingots into rods, so it drops a whole machine from the process. This saves on space and power.
Cast Screws use iron a bit faster, but they produce screws a bit faster, too. In practice, though, they make the exact same amount of product, and you can always underclock it to match your original resource usage. They’re good for making a more efficient factory and for leveling up screw production later.
Why Cast Screw is a great recipe:
Uses only a little more iron
Produces screws faster
Saves on space and power in your factory by eliminating a third of the screw process
Cast Screw Stats:
Uses 12.5 iron ingots/min
Original uses 10 iron rods/min
Produces 50 screws/min
Original produces 40 screws/min
Doesn’t require making iron ingots into iron rods first
Original does require this step
2. Super-State Supercomputer
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Uranium being lifted out of a dark, dank cave.
Once you start to get much further into the game, you’ll have a lot of nuclear power infrastructure at your grasp. Some of these later parts, like batteries and electromagnetic control rods can lack a lot of use outside of Phase 4. The original supercomputer recipe uses AI limiters and high-speed connectors, which are often more difficult to produce in the quantity you need.
The Super-State Supercomputer takes advantage of the later-game items to create a simpler Supercomputer recipe. It takes infrastructure you may already be using that has the chance to be upgraded and uses its parts to make a more efficient Supercomputer production line. This is a perfect late-game upgrade.
Why Super-State Supercomputer is a great recipe:
Uses things you’ll already be making in the late game
Cuts out high-speed connectors entirely
Only uses AI limiters in electromagnetic control rod production
Produces supercomputers a bit faster
Super-State Supercomputer Stats:
Uses 3.6 computers/min, 2.4 electromagnetic control rods/min, 24 batteries/min, and 54 wire/min
Original uses 3.8 computers/min, 3.8 AI limiters/min, 5.6 high-speed connectors, and 52.5 plastic/min
Produces 2.4 supercomputers/min
Original produces 1.9 supercomputers/min
1. Pure Aluminum Ingot
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Bauxite being mined and transported out of a deep jungle.
Once you’ve reached Aluminum in Satisfactory, you’re going to want to make it as efficient as possible. It currently marks the very end of new content to unlock, and will likely become more necessary after the 1.0 release, so you’ll be at the point that everything needs to be running as smoothly as possible. If you want to make Mk5 conveyor belts as fast as you can, you’ll need an amazing Aluminum production line.
Pure Aluminum Ingots are Aluminum Ingots made without silica, meaning the silica that comes as a byproduct of the bauxite refinement process can be used somewhere else (like in the Fine Concrete recipe). This makes the production process faster, more space efficient, and more fuel efficient, alongside freeing up some resources. That’s why the Pure Aluminum Ingot Alternate Recipe is the best in the game.
Why Pure Aluminum Ingot is a great recipe:
Frees up a lot of silica
Uses a smelter instead of a foundry
Smelters are significantly cheaper
Makes aluminum production smoother and more efficient
Pure Aluminum Ingot Stats:
Uses 60 aluminum scrap/min
Original uses 90 aluminum scrap/min and 75 silica/min
When Ryder isn't holed up in their room with all the blinds drawn playing Nintendo games like a goblin, they're in a different room with all the blinds drawn playing D&D with their goblin-y friends.
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