World

"You’re on an uncharted alien planet, so try to be careful, don’t go alone if you don’t have to, and use protection! Who knows what kind of organisms have made this place their home? Or who knows what awesome treasures you’ll find?"

- Caterina Parks's assistant Steve

Satisfactory takes place on a single world (or "map"). The map is hand-crafted and features no procedural generation. The land mass is 30 km2 (or 5.4 km x 5.4 km).

There are multiple biomes present in the world including deserts, forests, lakes, grass fields, mountains and caves. The landscape cannot be deformed or changed in any way, nor terraformed. There is occasional rainfall in some parts the world and a Day/Night cycle, and the fog thickness can change throughout the day. Although some machines visually emit smoke or smog, there is no concept of pollution. The world also contains creatures for the pioneer to encounter, several of which are hostile.

The playable world (in-game referred to as "your FICSIT designated sector") is a part of a planet called MASSAGE-2(A-B)b in the binary star system of Akycha.

Starting areas
The player can choose one of four locations to start in: the Grass Fields, Rocky Desert, Northern Forest or Dune Desert.

Grass Fields
Ideal for first-time pioneers

The first viable building location FICSIT had found, standing out because of its open and relatively flat fields. Considering the distances between mining locations, building outposts and/or large transportation lines may be necessary eventually.
 * Terrain flatness:★★★★★
 * Biomass: ★★★☆☆
 * Resource amount: ★★★☆☆
 * Resource diversity: ★★★☆☆

Rocky Desert
Suitable for first-time pioneers

The textbook example of a FICSIT-approved building location, with balanced resources, space, and distances. Additionally, it is very close to the sea, making water an easy commodity.
 * Terrain flatness:★★★★☆
 * Biomass: ★★★☆☆
 * Resource amount: ★★★☆☆
 * Resource diversity: ★★★★☆

Northern Forest
Good for more experienced pioneers

A lush building location with many height differences and a few open areas, challenging conventional building and planning methods. Despite these challenges, it caught our eye due to the richness of its resources.
 * Terrain flatness:★☆☆☆☆
 * Biomass: ★★★★★
 * Resource amount: ★★★★☆
 * Resource diversity: ★★★★★

Dune Desert
Recommended for advanced pioneers

Initially considered too risky, further investigation has convinced us that this area is viable for building with its large, open spaces and plentiful mining locations. Foliage and water locations are rare and contained, making initial power set-ups challenging.
 * Terrain flatness:★★★★☆
 * Biomass: ★★☆☆☆
 * Resource amount: ★★★★★
 * Resource diversity: ★★☆☆☆

Biome list
According to the Map that appeared in one of the Developer's Highlights and other resources, there are 21 named biomes, 4 of which are the starting areas: Grid size is exactly 1.024 x 1.024 km (128 x 128 foundations). Grid numbering starts with X:0, Y:0 from the south-west corner.

There used to be two separate biomes that have become parts of other biomes: Savanna → Rocky Desert and No Man's Land → Grass Fields.

An upcoming update might remove the Paradise Island located at the southwest from the world.

Caves
The Satisfactory world is filled with more than 52 caves. The 5 largest and most important caves are listed below. Stingers are common and appear in nearly every cave.

Void

 * The void refers to any area that is not covered by natural terrain beneath.
 * If the pioneer reaches the bottom surface of the void, i.e. by falling into it, their health will start to decrease at 5HP/sec, and, after reaching a certain Z-value, dying instantly.
 * The world is surrounded by a combination of the water body and the void.
 * There are several void openings in the world.
 * The bottom surface of the entire world consists of the void. It can be observed if the pioneer happens to 'clip' through the terrain or by navigating below the world through the edges.
 * Two of the common methods to navigate around the void are flying with the Jetpack and by building Foundations.

Mountains
There are a lot of tall mountains in the game. The highest point is located at the North of Rocky Desert. It is a rock pillar, standing 488 meters high above sea level, or Z:470m. One of the four uranium nodes, this one being impure, is on the very top.

Sea

 * There are 2 seas in the world; One bordering the North and West sides of the map, and one on the East side. Both sea levels are set at Z:-18, as such 18 meters above sea level will be referred to as '0 meter' high.
 * There is a small void in the North East where the North sea visually flows into the void with a waterfall, however the entire area is swimmable and Water Extractors can be placed there.
 * NOTE WELL: The swimmable area transitions suddenly to void with no visual indications. Care is advised.

Traversal
Regardless of where you are in the world and what parts of it are loaded, your factories and vehicles will continue to run.

Players are discouraged from exploring off the edges of the map by a lack of resources and collectibles. If a player continues out of pure curiosity, they will go out-of-bounds, and begin taking about 5 HP per second in damage. Unlike the poison gas, the out-of-bounds damage can be blocked by piloting a vehicle (which will then take the damage instead). The out-of-bounds damage can also be blocked by traveling in a Hyper Tube. Buildings can be constructed as normal in the out-of-bounds zone. The border at the East side of the map can cause instant death. (See below)

World size

 * The world size is roughly 5.4 km x 5.4 km as mentioned officially. However, this refers to the land mass of the "island", or the playable world. The actual world size, including the void and the sea, is 7.972 km x 6.8 km.
 * This translates into 996.5 x 850 foundations.
 * Pioneers take damage beyond Z:-244 m (underground) and Z:1997 m (sky), measured on the foundation the pioneer is standing on.
 * It is not measured whether the z-axis border is at a uniform height.
 * Pioneers can further build out 100 meters beyond the death border while staying within the border. Buildings are not be damaged by this border, but vehicles (that can be damaged) are.
 * The theoretical build-able area is 47.112 km and volume is 105.578 km.
 * On the x-y plane, it takes at least 736127 Foundations to cover up the entire build-able area.
 * The tallest factory building in-game is the Particle Accelerator with 32 meters high, and the slimmest foundation is 1 meter high. This means at least a 68-floor factory can be built, each housing at least a Particle Accelerator (the 68'th floor will have the top of the building slightly above the sky's safe zone).
 * The tallest building of any category in the game is the The HUB which has a height that goes to the skybox. If The HUB is covered by foundations above, its freighter will clip though it during launching and landing animations.
 * The 'death border' is not a cuboid. On the x-y plane, it is polygon shaped: a square with two triangles removed from the SE and SW corners. The triangle removed from the SE is larger.
 * The border along the East side can cause instant death, while the remaining edges only reduce the pioneer's health at 5 HP/sec. When standing near a vertex of the map border, the damage rate is doubled as the pioneer receives the damage from 2 map borders at the same time.
 * Surrounding the damage border (marked blue) is the instant death border which is located at some distance beyond that, it is located at all sides including the z-border.
 * The areas east of the Swamp biome, north of the Rocky Desert, and around the Islands Biome are ideal locations for building large structures over water due to the large water area without the world border being close to land.

Day and night cycle
One day on Massage-2(A-B)b lasts for 60 real-world minutes, the "daytime" is 45 minutes long and the "nighttime" is 15 minutes long with 30 seconds of complete darkness during each transition, due to both stars being below the horizon. Both stars (Massage-2A, a yellow main sequence star and Massage-2B, a bluish-white dwarf) rise roughly in the North-West and set in the South-East. There are also several other planets that can be seen hovering in the sky.

* Note: On low graphics settings, the light angle can suddenly jump to the other side of the sky. This is probably a bug.

As the stars move, the shadow of the Space Elevator sweeps around the world, no matter how far the land is from the Space Elevator.

Gravity

 * The world's gravitational acceleration is measured to be about 11.85 m/s² (slightly stronger than Earth's).
 * Despite the stronger gravity, pioneers can jump higher and farther in the game than real-life humans.
 * When falling from a height, pioneers quickly reach the terminal velocity which is 40 m/s (downward).
 * Most creatures, except Stingers, can receive fall damage due to gravity.

Tips

 * The selection of a starting zone does not limit the scope of a pioneer's exploration and expansion. A pioneer can both explore and expand their factories and transportation systems into all the biomes available in the new game selection screen.

Trivia

 * Internally, the x, y and z coordinates are measured in centimetres (cm).
 * The large mountain, visible in the backdrop to the west-southwest, is an accurate resemblance of the real Mount Matterhorn.
 * There will be no snow/arctic biome,          and no seasonal winter changes that lead to snow.
 * The name of the ringed planet added in the Update 6 skybox improvements is "Rebecca"

History

 * Patch Closed Alpha 4: Northern Forest starting area introduced.
 * Patch Closed Alpha 2.1: Grass Fields is again unlocked.
 * Patch Closed Alpha 2: Rocky Desert starting area introduced. Grass Fields locked.
 * Patch 2018-10-11: Grass Fields starting area and Southern Forest introduced.