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Satisfactoryfeatures a lot of resourcesthat players need to craft. Usually, players need to start the automation process for the production of these resources as soon as possible, but sometimes it’s not that important to start producing a resource right away.
Compacted Coalis one such resource, something that isn’t necessarily the most important thing to craft, but can be quite useful if used correctly. It is a type of fuel that can power coal generators, but is it worth your time and effort to automate its production?
How to Unlock Compacted Coal
Required Milestone: Tier 3 - Coal Power
Compacted Coal cannot be found as areward in the normal milestone rewards; it’s actually a MAM reward. The MAM is a building that many players neglect at the start, causing them to miss out on a lot of potential gains. It is essentially a research station that lets them unlock new items and equipment recipes,such as the Blade Runners.
Compacted Coal is a third tier reward in the Sulfur research tree, only requiring two other nodes to be unlocked before it can be unlocked as well. Technically, you don’t need tounlock a lot of milestonesbefore you can get this resource. If the player finds x10 Sulfur on their own, they can unlock the first node of the research tree, giving them the ability to scan sulfur much faster than normal. This will let them get more sulfur easily for the next two tiers.
To unlock the entire tree until Compacted Coal, players will need the following resources:
Hard drives can be found scattered around the world at crash sites. These sites have drop pods that require the player to fulfill a requirement before getting access to a hard drive. SinceSatisfactoryhas a handcrafted map rather than a procedurally generated one, the location of these crash sites are fixed, and can be found consistently no matter who’s looking for them. They’re quite abundant in almost all biomes, so players can get them easily if they explore a little.
How to Craft Compacted Coal in Satisfactory
Fusion: Coal and Sulfur
The recipe for Compacted Coal is fairly simple. You need to have access to both sulfur and coal to make it. The basic recipe for it calls forx5 Coal, andx5 Sulfurto producex5 Compacted Coalin the Assembler. However, Compacted Coal is also produced as a byproduct when producing Ionized Fuel and Rocket Fuel, though that’s much later in the game.
The difficulty in crafting Compacted Coal is the scarcity of Sulfur deposits around the map. It’s one of the rarest ore nodes in the game, right behind Uranium. If you manage to find one early on, it’s definitely worth starting mining it as soon as possible. There are a few nodes spread aroundeach of the starting biomes, though they’re most abundant around the Northern Forest.
Automating the production of Compacted Coal is quite simple once you have access to both resources. Hook up the output from the mining rigs to a few assemblers, andconnect their outputto a storage container.
Is Compacted Coal Worth It?
A Niche Product for Overachievers
Compacted Coal is a pretty niche resource that many people won’t even unlock during their playthrough. It doesn’t have a lot of uses, but it is quite useful if you get its production up and running. It can be used as an alternatefuel source for Coal Generation Plants, and it is much more efficient than normal coal.
Normally, they use up to 15 coals each minute. However, they only consume around 7 Compacted Coal per minute, while maintaining the same energy output. This makes Compacted Coal doubly as efficient compared to normal coal.
Additionally, Compacted Coal can be used in alternate recipes, combining with Heavy Oil Residue or fuel to make Turbofuel, a great fuel source for your jetpack. It can also be used to replace coal in the recipe for black powder, increasing the total amount of black powder you can produce.
