Satisfactory: Alternate Recipe Tier List

Recipes are alphabetized within each section for easier searching. You are welcome to comment if you believe I made an error in my judgement and a certain recipe is better or worse than mentioned here.

Items in this tier should be redeemed at the earliest opportunity, as they are foundational recipes that will vastly boost your production. They should never be rerolled.

• Caterium Wire – An incredible recipe that will vastly increase the amount of Wire you can produce, which has many important uses. This is one of the main reasons to find and tap Caterium as quickly as possible.
• Silicon High-Speed Connector – Once you get this, using the default recipe is pointless. Silica is incredibly cheap and easy to make.
• Dark Matter Trap – Effectively halves the SAM needed to make Dark Matter Crystals with no downsides besides using a bit more electricity.
• Diluted Fuel – Drastically boosts the fuel you can make from a given Crude Oil node. This is one of the best sources of power in the game, only beaten by Rocket Fuel, so it is a must-have.
• Diluted Packaged Fuel – Essentially the same as Diluted Fuel with extra steps. You can get it a fair bit earlier.
• Heavy Oil Residue – Allows for the oil-efficient creation of Diluted Fuel and numerous other recipes. May be one of the best recipes in the game.
• Molded Steel Pipe – A way to make even more of one of the best items in the game just by adding some Limestone? Yes please!
• Nitro Rocket Fuel – One of the best power-generation methods, it shines when combined with Diluted Fuel and Heavy Oil Residue. This is an immediate must.
• Plastic AI Limiter – Plastic is way less of a pain than Copper Sheets for this…
• Plutonium Fuel Unit – A must if you’re doing nuclear power, as Pressure Conversion Cubes are way easier to make somewhere else and ship. It’s only not S-tier because nuclear power is debatably useful in and of itself.
• Pure Aluminum Ingot – Not technically a must, if you have Quartz lying around. But still incredibly useful and powerful.
• Recycled Plastic/Rubber – These truly shine when combined with Diluted Fuel, and when you have both of them at once. After the initial production, you can create a loop of Plastic and Rubber, drastically intensifying production.
• Sloppy Alumina – There are virtually no downsides to this, as the Silica produced is usually dead weight anyway.
• Uranium Fuel Unit – Practically a requirement when doing nuclear power, due to its higher output for the exact same Uranium Cells.

Items in this tier are rarely ever a bad idea to choose. They are likely to be immediately beneficial to you in various ways.

• Automated Speed Wiring – An excellent recipe in terms of conserving resources, but it is hindered by the requirement of adding an additional Manufacturer to your assembly line.
• Basic Iron Ingot – With how common Limestone is, this is an excellent option that is unlocked early and will not need to be retooled later, and is strictly better than the default recipe. Foundries can fit easily in any sort of factory. A great example of “boring but practical”.
• Copper Alloy Ingot – Given how common Iron is, and how many Copper Ingots you will eventually need, this is an all-around excellent recipe.
• Crystal Computer – Cutting out the sheer amount of wire makes this a highly useful upgrade for Computer production. It’s also much easier to Somersloop, since it only uses an Assembler.
• Encased Industrial Pipe – Steel Pipe is much easier to make, making this a significant boost. That it uses comparatively less Concrete is just an additional bonus.
• Fine Concrete – With how simple and easy it is to make Silica, this is an underrated recipe that can go toe-to-toe with Wet Concrete and even come out on top.
• Heat Exchanger – Quite good, given it substitutes two annoying-to-make parts with two easy-to-make ones, and has a nice output boost to boot.
• Heavy Encased Frame – A fairly excellent pure upgrade. Nothing bad to say about it really, Concrete is massively easier to make than Screws.
• Infused Uranium Cell – A must-have recipe if you’re making nuclear fuel, it drastically lowers the needed Uranium. It’s sad to swap from a cool-looking green Blender to ugly Manufacturer, but, oh well.
• Molded Beam – A great recipe, especially when used alongside Fine/Wet Concrete – just watch out, because it consumes Steel Ingots like nobody’s business.
• OC Supercomputer – This is very dependent on whether you have gotten the alt recipes for the previous parts, but it can potentially make creating Supercomputers significantly more efficient and easier to Somersloop.
• Oil-Based Diamonds – Sure, they may be less efficient than Petroleum Diamonds when push comes to shove, but they’re just so easy to set up. Overclock your Oil Extractors to max, and you’re unlikely to run out of Crude anytime soon, especially when using Diluted Fuel.
• Plastic Smart Plating – Anything that lowers the Rotors you need is great in my book.
• Polyester Fabric – Largely needed to make unlimited gas filters.
• Pure Caterium Ingot – Great in theory, but hindered by its low output and need for large refineries/water extractors.
• Pure Copper Ingot – See above.
• Pure Iron Ingot – See above.
• Pure Quartz Crystal – See above.
• Quickwire Cable – Significantly more resource efficient than its counterpart, Insulated Cable.
• Radio Control System – It may seem more complex than Radio Connection Unit on the surface, but requires significantly fewer buildings for its input parts, making it the clear winner here.
• Rigor Motor – All told, a good recipe if you don’t mind making even more Crystal Oscillators.
• Silicon Circuit Board – The best of the alternate Circuit Board recipes due to how easy it is to make Silica.
• Solid Steel Ingot – An excellent and easy to implement replacement to normal Steel Ingot production.
• Steamed Copper Sheet – Excellent in most ways, besides the annoyance of requiring a refinery.
• Steel Rotor – The best Rotor manufacturing method, bar none.
• Steeled Frame – The best Modular Frame manufacturing method.
• Stitched Iron Plate – The best Reinforced Iron Plate manufacturing method, due to Caterium Wire.
• Turbo Blend Fuel – The best means of making Turbofuel, although it is not as convenient as Nitro Rocket Fuel in making Rocket Fuel.
• Turbo Diamonds – While annoyingly complex, it is still the most efficient method to make large-scale Diamonds. The packaged Turbofuel can potentially pull double duty making Turbo Rifle Ammo.
• Turbo Pressure Motor – The best Turbo Motor manufacturing method.
• Wet Concrete – The most convenient concrete making method, it lets you crank out tons of Concrete with only water nearby.

Items in this tier are broadly good for general use, and there is rarely a downside to them. However, they are also usually only small upgrades on the default, or require other recipes to be good.

• Bolted Frame – Requires at least Cast Screws to be any good, but is strictly better when you do have them. It’s good, but not blow-you-away incredible.
• Cast Screws – Amazing recipe early on, but its utility decreases fairly quickly, since phasing out screws where possible is generally a good idea.
• Caterium Circuit Board – A solid improvement on the default recipe, but a bit of a Quickwire hog.
• Caterium Computer – While a fairly marginal improvement on the default recipe, it’s still a definite improvement.
• Coated Iron Plate – A solid recipe that lowers iron needed with relatively minimal plastic investment. But the ease of obtaining Iron means that even that tiny amount of Plastic may be a waste.
• Copper Rotor – A respectable upgrade, it works better with Cast/Steel Screws.
• Electromagnetic Connection Rod – Requires Silicon High-Speed Connector, and preferably Silicon Circuit Board, to be good, but is quite powerful once you have those.
• Iron Alloy Ingot – While an improvement on the default, Iron is so common that spending Copper to augment your iron may often be unnecessary.
• Leached Caterium Ingot – An underrated recipe compared to Pure ingots. However, it takes away Sulfur that could be used for power generation, so its usage should depend on the free Sulfur available.
• Leached Copper Ingot – See above.
• Leached Iron Ingot – See above.
• Petroleum Diamonds – More efficient than Oil-Based Diamonds, but more of a pain to set up. It can run on the output from your Plastic and Rubber production, so there’s that.
• Radio Connection Unit – The amount of High-Speed Connectors required definitely hurt this recipe, though it’s still better than the default one.
• Turbo Electric Motor – Firmly in the “good but not great” section.

Items in this tier are heavily situational, but may see benefits in specific circumstances.

• Adhered Iron Plate – While still better than the default recipe in terms of resource usage, diverting rubber for such a specific purpose may be annoying as late as you unlock it. Rubber is also needed in large quantities for more advanced recipes, so using it for something this simple is a bit wasteful.
• Aluminum Beam – You will usually be using your aluminum ingots for more useful things. Retooling your factory at this stage is also annoying.
• Aluminum Rod – See above.
• Cheap Silica – You usually get so much quartz that having to mix it with Limestone is unnecessary effort. At the same time, there’s little downside to it if you have extra Limestone.
• Cloudy Diamonds – They are an upgrade on the standard recipe, but still need huge amounts of materials. Their lower yield is also problematic.
• Coated Cable – An odd recipe, as inserting a refinery and pipes to carry Heavy Oil Residue into your standard factory layout is likely to be awkward.
• Coated Iron Canister – May have a use if you really need packages, but have no access to Crude Oil. But, these situations are likely few and far between, if they exist at all.
• Coke Steel Ingot – Can crank out insane amounts of steel ingots, but requires sticking an extra Refinery somewhere, which nobody likes.
• Cooling Device – Motors are far harder to make than Rubber, so I honestly don’t really consider this an improvement, but it does use far less Nitrogen Gas, which can be useful if you are otherwise using it.
• Dark Matter Crystallization – While nearly useless for normal purposes, it can be handy for absorbing excess Dark Matter and disposing of it.
• Dark-Ion Fuel – Its boost compared to the default is marginal. Its main advantage is how good it is to Somersloop, but using Somersloops for fuel production is a bit of a waste of their power.
• Distilled Silica – Outright requires Quartz Purification to work. Still situationally useful, as you will often need both Quartz Crystal and Silica. But, if the Quartz Crystal ever backs up, the Silica will stop being produced as well. Not great.
• Electric Motor – Control Rods are annoying to make, making the usefulness of this recipe somewhat limited.
• Electrode Aluminum Scrap – Coal is common enough that this recipe’s necessity is questionable.
• Electrode Circuit Board – One word: yawn. The oil can be used for more useful things.
• Flexible Framework – Uses a bit too much Rubber to be that great, and I balk at the idea of adding even more Manufacturers.
• Heat-Fused Frame – Given you need fuel to make it, I was never a fan of this one at all.
• Insulated Cable – Rather lackluster compared to Quickwire Cable. I’d avoid unless necessary.
• Iron Pipe – Coal is common enough that this is rarely that incredible.
• Iron Wire – Low output hinders it greatly compared to Caterium Wire, requiring mass amounts of Constructors.
• Polymer Resin – Heavily situational.
• Quartz Purification – See above.
• Steel Cast Plate – Lags behind Coated Iron Plate in terms of output. A bit mediocre.
• Steel Rod – You can replace Iron Rods in most recipes that use them, making this dubiously useful by the time you unlock it.
• Steel Screws – See above.
• Turbo Heavy Fuel – A tad bit better than the normal Turbofuel recipe, but that is not saying much and it’s still of limited usefulness.

Items in this tier are generally pointless outside of just messing around or massively situational circumstances.

• Alclad Casing – This lowers the amount of bauxite used for Aluminum Casing, replacing it with copper. This is usually unnecessary, as you will be likelier to run out of copper than you will bauxite.
• Automated Miner – Setting this up with a dimensional depot means you will never have to worry about Automated Miners again, but, given how rarely one puts down Miners, this is a pure indulgence, especially to waste a dimensional depot on. You can just spend a minute crafting Automated Miners en masse, upload them, and have the same effect.
• Classic Battery – There is no real reason to use Batteries in version 1.0 and later – they are eclipsed by Rocket Fuel.
• Compacted Coal – Pretty bad in most ways – it’s almost always better to just crank up the amount of coal you use instead. Turbofuel is also not worth using over Diluted Fuel, so even in those circumstances it’s unnecessary.
• Compacted Steel Ingot – Its hilariously low yield makes it rarely ever worth using.
• Fine Black Powder – You could use it alongside a Nitro Rocket Fuel plant for fun, but it’s rather unnecessary.
• Fused Quartz Crystal – Quite mediocre, it only saves a very slight amount of Quartz and is hardly worth diverting Coal to.
• Fused Quickwire – Rarely needed, given how few uses Caterium has compared to Copper.
• Fused Wire – See above.
• Heavy Flexible Frame – Substitute the easy to make Steel Pipe and Concrete with Rubber and Screws? I’ll pass…
• Instant Scrap – Uses Sulfuric Acid unlike the normal recipe, so I can’t see this almost ever being worth it.
• Quickwire Stator – It uses up way more Caterium Ingots than combining the normal Stator recipe with Caterium Wire. Avoid it if at all possible, it’s a dud.
• Rubber Concrete – Wet Concrete makes this recipe nearly irrelevant. If you have tons of Rubber you aren’t using, it’s a bit better.
• Steel Canister – Seems like a bit of a waste of steel.
• Super-State Computer – This is a rather odd duck, needing Batteries – the sheer complexity involved in providing materials for it makes it highly situational at best.
• Tempered Caterium Ingot – Just a worse Pure Caterium Ingot. There is rarely a point to using it.
• Tempered Copper Ingot – See above.
• Turbofuel – Rarely ever worth using over Diluted Fuel. The best you can say about it is that it can make Turbo Rifle Ammo.

Items in this tier are completely pointless. I wouldn’t recommend ever redeeming them at all!

• Biocoal – Sure, let me use a limited resource to make an unlimited resource! 🤪
• Charcoal – See above.
• Fertile Uranium – Lowers the amount of Uranium Waste you need for the same amount of fuel. This is essentially never necessary, since you always want to maximize the amount of Uranium Waste that gets processed.
• Instant Plutonium Cell – See above.

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