Satisfactoryhas more than a few vehicles on offer, and most of them are going to make your life measurably easier. While most do take some time to unlock, they’re well-worth the investment and are more or less necessary in making an efficient and functioning factory.
That said, not all vehicles are created equal. Most of them are built to fulfill a certain purpose, and at their highest level, there are a few different vehicles you’ll probably find yourself using. But early on, you’ll be unlocking some that more or less get upgraded versions of themselves, over time.
6Factory Cart
The Factory Cart is definitely a limited-use vehicle, but for the function that it’s meant to fulfill, it does its job well. It’s a little thing, with minimal inventory space and an inability to drive properly on uneven ground without losing most, if not all, control.
But, it’s not really meant for all that. The Factory Cart is there to get you from one end of your artificially-constructed factory to the other, on even surfaces and through tight spaces. And at this job, the Factory Cart excels. It’s one of those vehicles you’ll grow attached to over time without realizing it, like a friend.
5Tractor
The Tractor is one of the earliest vehicles you can unlock in the game, and while it’s eventually outpaced by the ones you’ll get later, it’s going to be useful while you’ve got it. It doesn’t have a huge inventory, but especiallyin the early going, it will be more than enough for your needs.
Overall, the Tractor is cheap and reliable. It can’t do all the things that some of the other vehicles can, but it does what it does consistently. More difficult terrain isn’t too much of a problem, and it gets from point A to point B eventually. If you’re not in a rush, you’ll vibe with the Tractor pretty well.
4Truck
The Truck is essentially a straight upgrade from the Tractor in every department. It’s got a much larger inventory and is similarly all-terrain, though its bigger size, especially with the bigger wheels, enables it to have an even easier time on some of the more difficult-to-traverse areas.
That’s not to say that the Truck outpaces everything else, just that it’s a great middle-of-the-road option once you’ve got it unlocked. There’s no real reason to go back to the Tractor, but there are also better vehicles as we will see in a minute.
3Explorer
The Explorer is the best for the job at its namesake: exploring. It’s the most fun vehicle to scoot around in, with some good speed but also some good all-terrain capabilities. It’s going to get you around your world with style, allowing you to scout out resource nodes that you’re desperately in need of, and set up those more permanent transportation routes back and forth.
The Explorer does have a limited capacity for hauling, but is unsurprisingly outpaced by the Truck in that regard. You are not going to unlock this until you’ve got some time in, but once you’ve got it, you will be zooming back and forth across your world in no time.
2Drone
The last two vehicles on this list are both the best at what they do in regards to a certain function; the Drone is rated where it is simply because it’s not going to be doing quite as much, quite as consistently, as the next vehicle. That being said, this is the best choice for hauling smaller amounts of hard-to-get resources acrossabsolutely any terrain.
It truly does not matter what the Drone has to trek across, because it’s flying over the ground and not on top of it. It can pass a mountain as easily as a lake, and anything in between. It doesn’t have a particularly high inventory size, but it can be trusted with those things that need to be taken good care of.
1Train
The Train outpaces all other ground vehicles in terms of carrying capacity and consistency, as well as power efficiency. Because of the nature of a train, it’s the least maneuverable and takes more setup than anything else. But once you’ve got the track laid out, you do not need to worry about this thing whatsoever.
The Train also has an utterly outrageous carrying capacity. It’s going to take a lot of resources to set up, and more the further away it’s got to go, but once it is set up, you’ll be capable of reaping big rewards from its stops along the way. For connecting distant resource nodes and smaller factories into the bigger one, there’s no better choice than the train.
