Satisfactory Transport Guide: Conveyor Belts, Vehicles, Trains, and Hypertubes

As your factory expands, the distances between different sections grow as well. That’s also because you won’t find every resource everywhere, so you’ll need to decide how to transport them to a central location. Both your own mobility and the movement of your harvested and manufactured materials are central topics in Satisfactory. Naturally, the game offers many ways to integrate transport into your builds. Over time, you can expand, tweak, or even completely change your options. The more milestones you unlock, the better the features you gain access to.

Satisfactory Conveyor Belts: Optimize resource transport and production lines

Conveyor belts will be familiar to every Satisfactory player. You unlock them practically at the very start, and they’ll remain one of your most reliable building elements all the way to the end. They let you move resources from one place to another along predefined paths you set yourself. This allows you to connect different machines and create automated production lines. Essentially, you can run belts straight from the source—usually an ore—through to the output of a specific material.

As you progress, you unlock improved versions of conveyor belts. These not only move more items per minute but are also handy for your own movement. You can run on belts to get from A to B faster. That makes them doubly useful.

There are also many add-ons for belts to make your factory even more efficient:

• Lifts: Move materials between different levels.
• Stackable Poles: Stack multiple belts vertically.
• Wall Mount: Attach belts to foundations.
• Ceiling Mount: Run belts along the ceiling.

Conveyor belts are recommended if you want to specialize in one thing and perfect it. They offer just about every essential function you need for transport. They also scale well and can be expanded with various features, which is extremely practical.

You should avoid belts if, for example, your PC is too weak to render all items. Or you might simply find it too boring to use belts everywhere. After all, Satisfactory offers several other ways to transport materials—and yourself.

Satisfactory Vehicles: Program routes and automate transport

Your second option is vehicles, which you can drive yourself and also use to transport resources. There are several interesting cars and trucks in Satisfactory, each with its own use case. By Tier 3, when you unlock trucks, you should start experimenting with them, because you can automate the whole process (Satisfactory Tier 3 Guide: Coal Power, Truck Transport, and Steel Production) .

When using vehicles for transport, always weigh their efficiency. Almost all of them consume fuel, which you have to supply. However, it doesn’t matter which fuel you use. You can start with biofuel and later switch to advanced fuels, up to radioactive fuel rods.

In general, trucks and tractors are best for transporting materials, while the Cyber Wagon, Explorer, and Factory Cart are more suited to your personal travel. With Truck Stations, you can assign routes to most vehicles and have them run automatically. At the stations, they can load and unload and refuel at the same time.

Drones are a special case and an advanced option for transporting resources over long distances. They also require their own port for takeoff and landing.

Satisfactory Trains: Rail transport, freight stations, and signals

You unlock trains and rail systems at Tier 6. From then on, you can cover the map with your own rail network and travel very long distances quickly and efficiently. Trains are highly customizable and scale well. You start with a station and an electric locomotive that can pull freight cars. The maximum train speed is 120 km/h.

Each car can carry up to 32 item slots or 1600 m³ of fluid. Naturally, you can use multiple cars. Most players recommend attaching three to four cars to a locomotive. The more you haul, the slower the train gets. Power consumption also depends on speed and load, ranging from 25 MW at minimal use up to around 440 MW with, for example, four cars.

Using the map and your freight stations, you can define routes and have trains run automatically. That usually becomes necessary later in the game. You can also work with signals and stops to make routes more complex.

Satisfactory player movement: Hypertubes, Jetpack, and more

Finally, let’s look at how you can move yourself around the map faster. You can use all the options above, but some mechanics are designed specifically for the player.

• Zipline: Slide along power lines.
• Blade Runners: Run faster, jump higher, and take less fall damage.
• Jetpack: Aerial freedom; requires fuel.
• Hoverpack: A better kind of jetpack that draws power from nearby power poles.
• Hypertubes: Tube systems you can glide through. Can also be used as a launch cannon.
• Jump Pads: Jump between different levels.
• Elevator: Best for vertical factories to reach different floors.

Conclusion on Satisfactory transport: Move resources—and yourself—efficiently

In Satisfactory, it’s important to integrate transport options effectively into your factories. From classic conveyor belts to various vehicles and trains, you can let your creativity run wild. And there are plenty of ways to make your own movement much more pleasant, too.

Rent your own Satisfactory server from us and try some of these options together with your friends. Everyone can focus on the mode of transport they like best. In the end, you can link them together and build the perfect factory!