If any of these are wrong or if you have new tips to add, put it in the comments and I'll keep it updated. You can find a helpful version of these tips[oldgrizzledgamers.com] with screenshots here.

Belts
1) Belts use power regardless of where they are. Watch your total when placing a new line – you can pop a fuse and turn everything off which is a clicking nightmare to turn back on.

2) 2M belts (cost 5, power 3) are more efficient than 2x1M belts (cost 6, power 4 together)

3) You have to use an elevated belt to feed bullets into the shaker

Free Cam
4) The default view is a pain. If you’re desperate for something top-down, click the freecam icon at the bottom right, and use mouse + middle button to adjust

Lvl 2 Manufacturing
5) To get lvl 2 sewing, heating or cooling just place two lvl 1 machines, there is no upgrade. Bullets for example need to be heated to 2 (2 x heating machine) and then cooled back down to 0 (2 x cooling machine)


Elevated Belts for Stacking
6) Use elevated belts to neatly drop product on top of each other instead of pushing things off. Combine it with #7 below to jam a lot of product through one line.

Streamline finishers
7) Put no-time machines (like sewing) that are common to multiple products just before the boxing machine. Pants and vests both finish with 2 x sewing machine (they still worked even if the product is on top of each other).

Dispensers can dispense anything
8) Not just raw material. This lets you get rid of extra mid-production item. It also becomes extremely convenient when combined with….

The Recycling Bin is Great
9) Anything dropped in the bin is returned to inventory. Where it can be dispensed on the other side of the factory with a dispenser. You don’t have to make sprawling lines, you can consolidate production of common components in a corner of your factory.

One End Spot
10) You will invariably have boxes pile up when you’re busy somewhere else. It’s a lot easier to vacuum from just one finisher, and you don’t run into the problem of re-filling your storage with just one item which makes it hard to fill orders and clear out space.

Splitters, Dispensers & Mergers
11) You don’t have to use both lanes of the merging machine. You can combine the items earlier on one belt and just feed that in if you need the space.

12) Items that require only a single plastic fitting (gloves & backpacks) should use a splitter to match production. One plastic dispenser->heat->former->split->one end in each merging unit. Splitters let you start with two double camo glove lines without upgrading power.

13) Use enough dispensers to match your merging machine.

• Gloves : 1 x Fabric, 1 x Fitting (so 2 fabric and 1 plastic dispenser with a split match)
  
• Backpack: 3 x Fabric, 1 x Fitting (so 6 fabric and 1 plastic dispenser with a split match)
  
• Boots: 2 x Fabric, 2 x Fitting (so 2 fabric and 1 plastic dispenser match)
  
• Vest: 3 x Fabric, 2 x Fitting (so 3 fabric and 1 plastic dispenser match)

Jack up on day 1
14) Research is a straight percentage of your current funds. There’s no penalty to researching faster. Increase it dramatically so you can start researching after the first day. Adjust it as your funds drop so you get enough for the next project each day.

Teching up
15) Research the rest of the technologies you’ll need to actually produce a new item before unlocking it (ie apparel needs utilities->power and zipper machine at a minimum).

Long Road to Bullets
16) While you’re sorting out your new combat apparel lines, keep the research up. There are a lot of research project before you get bullets and you don’t want to finish apparel and have to just research for a week.

Research Order
17) I hate rebuilding so I like to research:

• The splitter ASAP so I can build the glove lines the way they’ll stay forever.
  
• Advanced belts so I can build smaller
  
• Utilities, followed by power as the initial double glove lines will max you out
  
• Zipper machines in preparation for apparel
  
• Then combat apparel. While I’m building the new lines I start prepping for bullets
  
• Cooling machine
  
• Shaker
  
• 13 Bullet technologies
  
• License Last

Don’t Research until ready
18) The moment you research something new, contracts will shift to include the new items, killing your flow of pure apparel contracts. Don’t research until you’re ready, maybe even build the lines first.

Collect all orders
19) It’s not hard to fulfill all orders, just keep collecting every one that matches what you produce.