How do I know how big to go?

[outer raft]

I feel I have a grasp on a lot of the technical aspects of the game, and I love making the most efficient builds I can (eg oil cracking ratios being perfect) but I can’t quite get one thing to click. How do you know how much of a thing to make? Sounds stupid but right now I’ve just set up oil in a play through, I’ll need more production later assumedly but for now, how do I know what to do with it? I could build 1000x assemblers for plastic or 10, I have no idea how much I need. I know the common consensus is “make 10x what you think you need” but do people just put down 10 assemblers for a thing then scale if it’s not enough?

[tranquil goblet]

Best thing you can do is leave room to easily expand if you need to

If you can setup your factory where you can add to anything that has demand you will be smooth sailing

[outer raft]

Yeah ok, so I currently try and make everything tile-able so I can slap down another chunk if needed, but just putting down X number of machines to start and expanding as needed is a reasonable way to do things?

[tranquil goblet]

Yeah eventually you will learn gradually

Not everything needs to be on a belt

Like engine units u could prob go without ever putting them on a belt

[dusty mantle]

i generally only make what i intend to consume
if i don't use it, then all the time i put into putting down those extra assemblers is wasted, so it's better to only put down what i will use, and then later expand when i need more

[silent oxide]

the issue with that kind of design ist that when you need to expand, you need to expand everything all at once

[tranquil goblet]

You can also build from the science assembler backwards and do the math for the ratios for a certain spm that u want

[outer raft]

Yeah I’ve seen that and I originally wanted to do that but I think I’m not quite there yet