In other factory simulators, logistics are managed via push, meaning that every time a source has goods, it wants to get rid of them via any means possible. This means conveyor belts in games, and as soon as they’re attached to the source, they begin to move.

In MegaFactory, logistics are managed via the pull system, or “call orders.” This means that sources keep their goods until a downstream sink or process step calls them. All buildings (warehouses, smelters, factories, refineries, research labs, fabricators) provide calls orders. In the case of warehouses, by default they demand everything, regardless of what maglev is attached or what resource they have access to.

In the case of a forge making steel, it will always call for iron and another metal. If it sees these resources via a maglev, it will call it to output steel until its internal inventory is full. Once it hits this limit, if nothing is calling the steel to reduce this internal capacity, it will quit working, and display a double chevron symbol.


This allows you to manage the high number of produced goods with less maglevs, rather than one maglev per good. In a game like MegaFactory, with 60 produced goods (not including byproducts), coming from 23 raw materials, this kind of call management is needed.

One of the reasons you might experience a resource jam on a maglev line that is servicing multiple goods is because you changed the output of a production building (like factory, prefab, or research lab). Cancelling the production removes the call order, and any goods already on the way will stop at the next intersection or building they encounter, creating a jam. Instead of cancelling, use the "Produce only one output, then stop production" button. This allows the call order to be fulfilled, prevents the undesired one from being issued, and now you can select what you want to produce next.

The "Continuous flow of goods" button improves efficiency of your smelters and factories, but you have to be careful with any producer that requires 2 or more inputs. When I say 2 or more inputs, I mean the “and” case, unlike an iron smelter which can take pyrite or magnetite or hematite. The only way I know of (at this point) to make this work for multiple input goods is to have separate lines for each resource.

For example, a refinery producing high explosives will need three maglevs, one filtered to only permit water ice, one to only permit ammonia ice, and the other to permit hydrocarbons or sulfur. So far, this is the only situation I found where filtering via maglev is needed.

Since the game is still in early access, it will crash and there is nothing more infuriating than having to rebuild your factory when something that isn’t your fault goes wrong. This makes it much easier to not lose progress, and you won’t rage while you work through the early access kinks.

There are two problems that you’ll need to overcome in MegaFactory Titan. Making money, and generating enough power to run your factory. Trash is an option in the game to help with both, of course at the cost of pollution, which isn’t too serious at the moment unless you’re running off of solar panels. Select a nearby neighbor, like Titan First Colony, and offer to take their garbage off their hands. Then, build a maglev to your trash warehouse and downstream extruders for processing into burnable garbage. Every shipment of trash will give you a little money, and you now have a fuel source.

Keep an eye out for trash incinerators as early game trade rewards so you can start processing it for power, even if you don’t have the technology researched. While I can’t confirm this, I think the more missions (and as a result, buildings) you provide your neighbors, the more trash they will output.

Some missions will require you to give electricity to a neighboring faction, but once the mission is over you’ll continue giving power and receive money in exchange. This allows any excess electricity you have to generate a profit, while still keeping your factory running.

First, don't kill the scrapper or pirate bases once you find them. They'll show up as large grey squares on the map if you explore far enough (or tail a scrapper back home). Destroying their base will only result in them coming back eventually in a new location, probably opposite your defenses. Instead, buy up land next to them (buying their land effectively destroys them) and then set up turrets to destroy the expedition they send.



If you have a killing field or corridor set up to manage pirates and scrappers which I recommend, you’ll notice a large amount of scrap on the ground where they fall. If they’re within a certain range of each other, the truck or cargo drone will continue to pick up trophies until it’s either full or collected them all. While scrapper units will pick up the wire and squatter trophies, make sure they drop it off at a warehouse first, and then have a cargo unit delivers the trophy to the feds.

Junctions cause slowdowns for two reasons: change in goods direction, incurring a speed penalty, and waiting for other goods to pass before jumping onto the new maglev. The more junctions you have, the slower your receivers will get goods, and that’s just lost efficiency. But making a singular maglev for each individual resource to its downstream receivers is also lost efficiency, and will cost a lot of maglev repair, not to mention the huge footprint.

Sorting houses allow you to either combine or split resources near a source or sink with minimal speed change, thereby avoiding the speed losses at a junction. In addition, they have their own storage buffer which allow you to syphon off gummed up resources or miscalculated calls via the warehouse overflow function.

Few points of caution:
1. While they help with speed reduction of junctions, they have physical limits. Four maglevs pushing resources into a sorting house with only two outgoing maglevs will jam.
2. Sorting houses cannot be used in series (only one can be in between a resource's source and sink).

You’ll notice if the first maglev you place is at the ground level, every future maglev passing over it will be elevated. This change in elevation incurs a change in velocity, thus slowing down your goods. It is important to make sure the ground level maglev is running your hot or high demand items, like hydrocarbons or ice, and relegate the elevated maglevs for intermediate or final products.

Destroying a ground level maglev should automatically drop the overhead maglev to ground elevation (if there are no neighboring maglevs).

If you're like me, at some point you're going to be limited by the volume of hydrocarbons getting to your warehouses and downstream refineries (ie high explosives).

1. Make sure the maglevs for hydrocarbons are travelling on the ground level
2. Use multiple parallel lines to get hydrocarbons to their needed location
3. Use accelerator maglevs
4. Have multiple sources for hydrocarbons (clusters of lake extractors and ground extractors)